Vainamoinen

The new assassin's creed has Karl Marx, and a halfway glowing femfreq review, yup. No idea what and why political extremists are going bonkers over the ideals of communism, really. At my former university, you could buy "Karl Marx University" hoodies for funsies. Then again, the guy was born in that town. I wonder if I can still get one of these. edit: Nope. Still, the tidbit remains. And they're still pushing it after all those years. Gotta love those guys. http://asta-trier.de/

Oh please do nitpick. All I'm hearing these days is what a stellar job Double Fine has done, and I just fail to see it. A bit of skillful criticism may be needed, and you definitely have that skill. Excited to see the Dottse in motion though. No videos are coming forth.

Several things have happened during the last ten days. Of course, Canada's new prime minister speaking out against gamergate, and for feminism, was noted by the movement. I hear they have already dug deep into his past and drawn a lot of conspiracy charts with red arrows in Windows Paint. The other thing that's happened was the cancellation of one panel at SXSW in Austin, five months before the actual panel. Though not gamergate related in principle, it did aim to discuss harassment in games culture. "Too many threats", festival organizers note. It seems we can't talk about harassment because it accumulates too much harassment. Of course, what gamergate supporters do at the time is to count the articles tying gamergate to these threats... in order to prove collusion, of course. I'm a bit sick of this reaction. Gamergate is still the name people have given themselves as a pride bow of ongoing harassing activism, now they're trying to disavow that the direct and visible outgrowth of their hate culture is part and parcel of it. We have a very similar problem in Germany right now, only that it's not ethics in journalism but citizens concerned about fugitives.

And that's still a comparatively muted blue/brown composition with a red dot. To get as colorful as that Star Wars poster... I'd rather look for Struzan's posters for clear cut comedy. (hint: Jim Henson loved Struzan's work)

If the movie is halfway worth its salt, we will see a whole lot of fan art posters that will beat the 'official' one hands down. It's kind of what I'm looking forward to... traditional artists more or less in Struzan's footsteps, like e.g. Mark Raats. And, of course, there's still the hope that Struzan did a poster that didn't make it to official status (like e.g. for Hellboy, Hellboy II, Pan's Labyrinth, Cowboys & Aliens, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, etc.)

I'm a torn on the quality of Struzan's six main Star Wars posters (VI-VI SE, I - III). The special edition triptych with its central vanishing point in "The Empire Strikes Back", that's just awesome. Really big love for those, and I disagree in that I really think he did care. No love lost for the prequel trilogy posters, however! In "The Art of Drew Struzan", the artist chronicles how Lucasfilm suits dictated, controlled and – for the last movie – even digitally rearranged elements of his finished art, leaving his composition shot. It's bitter stuff to swallow, really, although his worst anecdote is of course reserved for the Crystal Skull... ...I can imagine that something like this happened again and Drew quit right back into retirement. I laboriously managed to be a teen by the end of the 80s, and of course the real appreciation set in much, much later than that. For most of my child- and early adulthood, my rooms were plastered with Struzan posters although I didn't even know the artist's name: I liked the movie in the first place (had a Back to the Future III Struzan poster on my door, thin paper, multiple folds, from some pop magazine, probably from 1991 to 1997). However, that at least is testament to the fact that Drew managed to convey what the movie was about.

The color scheme of Disney's artist is particularly abysmal. It's essentially four rather intense patches of color, three large red, blue and orange patches and one green hideous counterpoint that no one needed in the first place. I know of no Struzan poster that misfires similarly. Struzan is known for intense color, but all within a fairly limited gamut; in the New Hope SE poster above, the only intense color is e.g. orange, while the blues are fairly muted (of course, this poster's color range is particularly limited, and there are posters of his where local color determines a far broader color range). Other posters of his even have a monochrome feel to them (often orange, which e.g. looms through his Indy work). As to brushwork, arghh. That Disney thing is of course made digitally, so I can't even begin to compare. Struzan draws, paints and airbrushes on gessoed ground. The visible brushstrokes on his art are unrelated to the application of color. These strokes are the very first step of the painting, before even the preliminary drawing is applied to the illustration board. I would definitely have preferred if they just went with another artist, a digital one or whatever. At least I would have preferred that over what we have now. An individual style – like Olly Moss'! – would have been so infinitely much better than this disgrace of a botched hommage. There's a reason no one tells us the name of that "artist".

While I disagree, this doesn't offend me in particular. After all, I'm not looking for Struzan stuff because of Star Wars... I'm looking for Star Wars stuff because of Struzan. I can't say that I'm a particular fan of the floating faces montage, but there are ways to do it and ways that fail. The new official Star Wars VII poster is an interesting collection of failures in that respect, while a lot of Struzan posters get things visibly right. It's obvious that this poster was meant as an hommage to Struzan, but it's an hommage by someone who doesn't understand the artist he's referencing. It's really hard to make a hitlist of personal favorites among Drew's works, but while there probably wouldn't be a Star Wars poster among them, iterations of the floating face theme could certainly be in there.

Strongly disagreed. That up there is just one big ugly unreadable central cluster of far too many figures that hardly leaves a square inch of room to breathe. Just for comparison, take the number of pictorial elements from the first SE poster. That is probably not the greatest composition ever, but at least it's a composition.

It's a piece of shit, and I couldn't be more disappointed. It's the worst Star Wars poster I've ever seen. It's also the official poster, it seems. We were being hyped for a real Drew Struzan poster, naturally featuring his art and eye for composition, not for a fucking suit made overcrowded Photoshop disaster. I admit: I was probably looking forward to a new Struzan Star Wars poster more than the actual movie, so this ist just... nope™. Please god, don't let this be true. Drew's just running late! C'mon!!

I'm buying at DRM free launch... any price. If they continue with the games they presently put out, it certainly is. To be absolutely honest, I sometimes get the impression these days that GOG refuses great indie games on their platform ("The Beginner's Guide", "Dex Enhanced Edition") and publishes a lot of crap instead ("Shantae Risky's Revenge") just so they will sell more Witcher 3 DLC to their customers. Ah well, the independence of the independents. BTW, because no one has posted it yet: Ian Danskin talks about interesting new mechanics in adventure games that are coming up... and mentions Firewatch, immediately.

No probs. Just be picky and don't use Origin, Uplay and Steam. Hello.

I know of a case where it's been very similar. That's devastating news indeed.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/gamergaters-are-targeting-people-who-were-victims-of-the-patreon-hack Short version: douche canoe used Patreon leak to harass and threaten Randi's hundreds of patreon supporters by mass emailing/ JAQing off the most innocent questions; handing them the fairest Breitbart links you could possibly think of; proclaiming tearfully that he mayyyyy have to contact their employers because he's an ethical journalist and somesuch. He's posting his victories (i.e. the people allegedly coerced into stopping their support to Randi Harper) to his blog. A number of regular KiA frequenters somehow managed to consider this to be the clear cut harassment that it is, so douche "I obviously don't intend to damage our movement" canoe isn't left with a lot of friends at the time. Positive side effect: I think Randi Harper's patreon has gone up at least 10% i.e. two milestones these last days.

Derek Smart chose a really interesting name for the people who are not swallowing his and the Escapist's 'investigation' into Star Citizen. It is... wait for it... White Knights. Not kidding. Call Smart any names you like (and I certainly will) but he knows how to summon the gamergate crowd to his cause, that's for certain.

Alllll right, so when's it REALLY coming out for PC?

"Cyberviolence" report thankfully pulled by UN: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/united-nations-apologizes-for-fault-ridden-cyberviolence-report

Derek Smart's latest blog post is brilliant. Using an excessive amount of laughable strawmen... ...Smart basically confirms the central accusation made towards him in this whole disaster: That he went from door to door to desperately peddle his sources to anyone willing to run with the story. Smart claims no prior contact to Fogarty. Which is unnecessary to peddle his sources to the Escapist, of course. And some Fogarty tweets sounded a lot like those sources were handed down to her 'as credible'. I honestly can't link to that entire blog entry though. The ridiculous punctuation alone would kill you.

Self-awareness.

For some reason, Keefer has decided to risk a lawsuit from CIG. A slight update to the original article, not in Keefer's tone, but rather sullen Fogarty rhetoric, informs us that the Escapist will not take down the article. I want to read that email! Well, maybe I will because CIG is in a publishing mood. The article remains in its previous form, as if nothing at all was wrong with it. The personal attacks on Gardiner and Roberts, still in there. All the litigable accusations of racism or misappropriation of company funds, still in there. All the stuff to which none of their sources could have said anything sensible, especially the financial status of the company, still in there. All the statements from the highly questionable source with the "Cloud Imperium Games ID with the name blacked out", still in there. All the statements that sound copied directly from glassdoor, right there. The Escapist still searches and interviews sources that corroborate allegations – instead of occasionally, y'know, invalidate them. Which is good journalistic practice of course, to just fill a barrel with allegations which no one even could invalidate because none of the sources speaks with any authority to the topics at hand. It seems like CIG won't direct their lawsuit at what they call "the kid", but rather at Keefer himself. Which is OK, no need to ruin Fogarty's life. She was hired for rabble rousing, and she went at it with exactly the kind of naïvety her employer asked of her. Yesterday, she rode twitter for a fall, especially concerning the mysterious ID card, which she may or may not have ever seen in person. It doesn't help that she deleted some of her tweets in the meantime. This whole fiasco might be the warning shot she so desperately needs.

https://popehat.com/2015/10/04/in-space-no-one-can-hear-you-threaten-lawsuits/ In this rather amusing evaluation of the Escapist situation, Ken White comes to the conclusion that CIG should have kept their mouths firmly shut before bringing in the lawyers.

"WLITI"??

A post from the Escapist forums that I just HAVE to show y'all. (Bonus: Read the first letter of every new line)

I get behind Deadpan's reasoning. Take, for example, Jim Sterling and his constant rambling about Konami (which I like). It's not exactly founded on journalist principles, it's often hearsay from former 'disgruntled' employees and Sterling probably doesn't ask Konami for comment before publication. So that's fairly similar to what the Escapist did, and we will probably all agree that Sterling doesn't get a free pass just because he's "a youtuber". And let's not forget that before the Escapist imbibed the mud from gamergate's ethics barrel bottom, the least ethical video game publication on the net seemed to always be kotaku. At least that's how it appeared to me. However, the ethics breaches pile up in this particular case. Hiring gamergaters with the sole qualification of being a gamergater is certofuckainly among them, but let's not go there for a moment. There is definitely collusion on the side of the disgruntled ex-employees. I'd say there's pretty solid reason to investigate collusion between Fogarty and Smart. I'd also say there's solid reason for Roberts to assume that Fogarty pesters him from an anonymous twitter account in parallel to her official Escapist efforts. The article repeats the vilest possible accusations, including especially racist hiring and other highly illegal proceedings (e.g. generous private use of company funds – something probably only Roberts would know), giving CIG hours to react, then misplacing an email that CIG had explicitly announced. Solid reason for CIG to assume that Fogarty deals with 'hot potato' info peddled to several publications. And the glassdoor reviews conveniently created days before the publication of the article... sorry, that IS a coordinated effort in any case, and needs to be investigated. No kotaku can match this level of corruption. The agenda here is not the truth, but reputation and therewith financial damage to CIG. If a court of law can actually find out the truth behind those Fogarty articles, Roberts should definitely sue.

It's going to be an interesting Monday.