Problem Machine

I think also in terms of systemic effect there does tend to be a bit of difference in the way it's received. Like, sexism presented as one dude's weird exploitation aesthetic is I think less seductively normalizing than when it's presented as just how you make a video game targeted at adults. I don't know if there's any actual data comparing the effects of those approaches, but it seems intuitive to me that that would be the case anyway.

Part of this is that, as I mentioned before, available evidence seems to suggest that these videos being out there increase sales, and thus there is already a profit motive for developers, so asking for a cut on top of that is double-dipping. Part of what complicates the issue is that the awareness boosting effect of these videos is likely diminished for something like Nintendo properties, where awareness is already high, but Nintendo also doesn't need the money from youtube views. Depends a lot on the Youtuber I imagine. Northernlion has explicitly said before that he'd be fine with it, though I doubt I'd be able to find the video since I think it was in one of like a million Isaac videos. Others seem to be ludicrously protective, like the dipshits who came after Errant Signal for using a bit of gameplay footage to illustrate a point.

Oh interesting, I'd seen that thread but hadn't considered it in context of Let's Plays

I... no, my point was to say that it was too complex an issue to really do justice to here without massively derailing the thread. I didn't even really state any arguments, just what they might be about. I'm sorry you didn't find my, um, summary, convincing.

Man I super want to get into the original intent of copyright and western society's counterproductive and neurotic ownership culture and the fact that every human work ever is built to some degree on the work of others, but that would derail this even more than it's already derailed. Maybe someone should make a topic or something, but I don't think it will be me. I believe almost all of the arguments forwarded thus far are premised on a system and culture that is at this point deeply broken, and are to some degree unresolvable on that basis.

Northernlion's usually who I watch as well, and he's straight-up stopped covering Nintendo games because he doesn't think they're worth the risk any more, since Nintendo has been extremely squirrelly and inconsistent about how they treat youtube coverage. Though big names on youtube sometimes do end up abusing devs, that's overwhelmingly in the case of small indie devs who don't have the clout to fight back, most of whom actually like being covered generally just not the exploitative specifics. On a larger scale, it's absurd to claim that even someone as famous as PewdiePie has the name recognition of Nintendo or Electronic Arts. This isn't a matter of youtube vs game dev, it's a matter of big guys vs little guys and the various exploitative tactics used by the big guys, whether they're big youtube guys or big game dev guys, against the little guys.

The issue with the Nintendo thing wasn't them taking some of the money from ad revenue, it was with them taking all of the money from ad revenue, and when people didn't like that trying to strongarm them into an unrealistically restrictive partner program. edit: Also, you're phrasing this like a zero sum game, like youtubers are costing game companies money, when the opposite is frequently the case, especially with indie games -- Edmund McMillen and Derek Yu both credit the phenomenon with at least part of the success of Isaac and Spelunky respectively. If this model, as it is, is beneficial to both parties, then why should anyone be double dipping -- either on the dev end, by trying to take more ad revenue, or on the youtuber end, by trying to extort costs for coverage (as has happened as well)?

Obviously the stuff in the article is super gross and unethical, but jumping from there to 'therefore no youtuber ever has a right to complain over having their ad revenue pulled' is a ridiculous jump. Also I kind of feel like fuck anyone for telling other people their job is easy/fun and therefore should pay peanuts. I would think as an artist you'd have heard enough of that garbage to last a lifetime without paying it forward.

I guess I should just drop it because it's super off topic but, ugh. I think people should get paid for their work where possible, and there are youtube channels that have more than 10k and less than a million subscribers. The 'popular' gaming youtubers are like 20 guys, compared to hundreds of people who just scrape by or supplement their day job income. Implying that anyone who isn't Pewdie successful therefore deserves to fail because invisible hand of the market is just super gross to me.

Okay fuck everyone who writes or talks about games then I guess.

Um, I don't think many youtubers get massive behind-the-scenes kickbacks. Most of them need ad revenue to pay rent, at least if they're trying to do it as a full-time gig.

Finally got around to playing this. I'm definitely on team twins, though the Keyser Soze theory certainly has its appeal. As has been pointed out, they're not necessarily mutually exclusive anyway. If we accept that both sisters exist, that still doesn't necessarily mean that the rest of Eve's story is true, especially since apparently Hannah is gone, in one way or another, and cannot corroborate it. It's entirely possible she killed both Simon and Hannah, the latter either before or during the course of the interviews, and then staged the evidence in such a way that it looked like Hannah had run away. As Badfinger says, there does seem to be an awfully high mortality rate around her, and she has way more motive to resent/envy Hannah than Hannah's supposed envy of her way with boys. Also, it seems like admin_random is actually completely necessary to fill the database, since there's a whole string of lie detector clips which are just yes or no, and if you search on either of those you get way more than 15 results.

Agh that's fucked, people should have some sympathy. This kind of belief, like the initial assault, is something that was done to her, that she is a victim of, along with many other people.

I wrote some stuff about the generational divide between earnestness and cynicism I've noticed in cartoons.

I agree with this, though I might not have 5 years ago or so! More likely I would have just avoided thinking about it and gone into some kinda freeze peach dodge as has become so so familiar by now. It's a super hard thing to do that though, especially working within the boundaries of a piece itself. Working outside those boundaries, making a statement as an artist or whatever, is likely to just be not seen at all by a lot of people who need to hear the message. It's actually a really tricky problem; realizing that it's one of those that can probably never be perfectly solved has been necessary for my sanity. I may have accidentally overstated my case if that's what was inferred. What I mean is that there's a line between there being social consequences for what one feels and thinks and for what one does, and art lies right along that line in a very tricky way. So, while I don't think in many cases it takes the place of doing 'dark things', and would actually find that implication kind of offensive as an artist, I do think it becomes an important performative statement that "this is the shit that's in me, and I know it's gross shit but it's part of me". Being unable to make that statement safely implies a certain kind of 'thought crime', where there are consequences based on ideas and feelings rather than action -- but again, art and speech straddles that line between feelings and action, so still tricky. One thing that certainly should be brought up, though, is that it's totally possible to create 'dark art' without sharing it, and the act and methodology of sharing form a big part of the overall statement. Creation and publishing should be regarded as separate acts, and the impact on an audience you address in your first point is perhaps more strongly affected by the act of sharing than the work itself.

So re: the whole transgressive art thing, I feel like the biggest reason it's important to have stuff like that out there is that if it becomes excessively stigmatized it sends the message that having transgressive feelings is as bad as the actual transgressive act. If the social consequences of admitting that you feel a certain way or have a certain urge are identical to the consequences of acting on that urge, we no longer have any real incentive to avoid acting on those destructive urges. If you tell someone that they're already bad or evil for having certain thoughts, they have no reason to avoid taking action upon those thoughts other than, hopefully, an innate moral compass which supersedes those lessons. I dunno I'm kinda sleepy at the moment and not sure I'm making sense. I've made a bunch of fucked up art in my day, and the above reasoning is why I still feel that it was (mostly) an ethically sound thing to do. That might just be rationalization though. Never can tell for sure. I guess my point is, yeah gross art can reinforce existing societal biases towards gross behavior, but also a stigma towards gross art pre-pathologizes the gross impulses which exist in all of us to one degree or another. I feel like the important thing is mostly to build a consensus on what's gross and why, in which case stuff like the intellectual idolization of R Crumb's work, and not the work itself, is probably the main issue. edit: I should also mention that I think something like The Binding of Isaac has a lot of value beyond just being weird and transgressive too. It loads so much symbolic imagery around a vague but intentional narrative that, whether by happenstance or intent (I suspect some of each), some genuinely interesting ideas emerge.

I can definitely feel why it would rile you, but also as someone who doesn't make friends of any sort easily I also sympathize with the problem. I think maybe it's just generally good to try to push oneself out of ones comfort zone, which as a natural consequence would entail meeting people of different backgrounds, but saying that kind of makes me a hypocrite because I totally don't do that.

I believe he has mentioned that that is the case?

I think a lot of people are scared of making that fuckup and being judged to be a bad person. I think it's also a legit criticism of a lot of leftist rhetoric that a bunch of people will jump to that 'bad person' label fairly readily, so that's not even really an unfounded fear. People want that hard dividing line so they can know they're definitely in the clear: Unfortunately, this is not a problem amenable to clear cut lines like that. It really is just something you gotta try your best at with the expectation that sometimes you're going to mess up, and hope that people are understanding when that happens.

Um that was like my first post in this discussion. Do you have me confused with someone else? Oh well the eagle is getting ominous. I'm sorry. I thought it might be a public good to try to set some boundaries of discourse but maybe it's a discussion to be had another time in a different way.

Dude I'm just saying you should maybe try to look a bit more closely at the assumptions and attitudes you're bringing into a conversation and how that relates to the attitude of the feedback you get. And apparently saying that makes me 'worse than a gamergater', which I dunno doesn't that kind of prove my point that you're taking everything in the worst way possible here? It's not that I'm ignoring what you're writing, it's that I don't think it 100% connects with the problems of discourse we're having here and it's becoming more of an ad-hoc reasoning to excuse what's going on rather than an examination of how this communication can be improved. I mean if this conversation isn't going the way you want it to, let's figure out why that is, okay?

I hope it's clear how when you post talking about those leftists who are obviously unreasonable and cite a belief which many here believe is entirely reasonable, then get angry and defensive when that's explained to you, it's hard to see this discussion as being in entirely good faith.

Summer's great. For most of the first season I was wondering why it wasn't Rick and Summer, but it's best when Morty and Summer are both there.

I've been watching Rick and Morty as well (just finished first season). I think it's a good and funny show, but also kinda feel like it's something I'll mostly forget about once I'm done watching. The characters are written in such a cynical and kind of artificial way that I don't think I'll ever really connect with them.