Chris

Everything about this seems ridiculous to me: - The claims of "free" or "free to play" games, which just means every game will have at least a demo, which in turn means it's not an open marketplace and devs are going to have to deal with some kind of certification process anyway, which seems like the kind of thing you go to an open marketplace to avoid. Or alternatively, it's like the iOS app store, where staff just take stuff down out of the blue because it doesn't conform to the rules. The "free" thing seems really muddled and nonsensical. - The notion that with almost nothing to show for themselves, they're going to design, manufacture, and bring this thing to market in under 9 months, never having shipped a hardware platform (and an entire network infrastructure, apparently??) as a company before. - The game footage they were showing on the screen is clearly leagues away from what this thing will actually be able to output. Obviously they never claimed those games were running on this console (especially since I doubt anything is running on this console currently) but I think it's pretty misleading to fill your teaser video with footage of games that your system almost certainly won't have the horsepower to run, while talking about how much you love consoles and implying those are the games you love and thus want to facilitate. - There are already a goddamn million platforms for developers to potentially support: PC, Mac, browser, iOS, Android (the kind with touch screens, meaning developers will still have to do new UI and gameplay development to port between mobile Android and OUYA), Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U, whatever else. My point isn't that most developers are actually supporting all of those simultaneously; it's that even with userbases already in the millions (for each of those platforms), established brands, capable hardware, and well-established online infrastructure, it's still INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT for an independent developer to reach a large audience on any one of them. Let's say this Kickstarter campaign manages to make it all the way up to $10 million by the end. Based on its current stats, that's 74,000 systems ordered (once you discount the proportional number of backers who don't pledge enough fro the system). Maybe that's just the tip of the iceberg and the thing ends up being a runaway sales miracle, but it's hard for me to see that as a starting point that's really going to open up a new massive audience of people--especially since I imagine most of those early adopters are people who already own multiple other gaming platforms. Sure, they'll be excited to buy stuff at launch, but are lots of developers going to want to invest the time and money into developer for a relatively small userbase that could just as easily be playing their games on other platforms they own? - "Mojang has committed that Minecraft (and their other games) will be on OUYA -- but only if we prove that we can make a great product (that’s our job) AND enough people want their games (that’s your job). Show them with your numbers that you want Minecraft on OUYA!" Translation: "Mojang hasn't committed to anything except that they'll consider it." That kind of doublespeak rubs me the wrong way. Edit: God, I just saw their survey of what games people want. This shit is unbelievable. it says, "We've come up with a TOP 20 GAME SUGGESTIONS list. We're putting it in your hands once again: tell us which games you want to see on OUYA!" What exactly are they putting in our hands? The ability to have an opinion? They call it a suggestions list, then immediately imply it's somehow more than that. Same as with the Minecraft stuff; they butt up the fairly muted reality against the vague meaningless hype so as to associate themselves with much more legitimate enterprises and brands. Just look at this list of the most popular suggestions: Battletoads (Tradewest), Mass Effect (EA), Torchlight (Runic), Call of Duty (Activision), Assassin's Creed (Ubisoft), Skyrim (Bethesda), Need for Speed (EA), Grand Theft Auto (Rockstar), Timesplitter (Eidos), Terraria (Re-Logic), Limbo (Playdead), Final Fantasy (Square), Minecraft (Mojang), FIFA (EA), Fez (Polytron), Battlefield (EA), League of Legends (Riot), Bastion (Supergiant), Super Meat Boy (Team Meat), Dungeon Defenders (Trendy) More than half of those are massive brands from huge companies, and they're almost all games that are massively demanding on hardware; they would need entirely new games developed to have even the remotest chance of shipping for this platform. If these are the most popular games requested, people are clearly being misled about what this system is capable of and what the company is capable of. Now, maybe that's the fault of the backers in question, and they should be using some more common sense. (Although Ouya is clearly responsible as well, by actively stoking these flames with its own official surveys.) Regardless, this is potentially millions of dollars from many people who I imagine fundamentally misunderstand what this thing is and will be. I do not think that is a good foundation on which to build a platform.

Ruinationcast will come when the new site's launch is imminent, which realistically is still probably a month or two away. We didn't want to keep pushing the real podcast back for that stuff so we're just decoupling them.

Man that is gross.

Back when I still actually played a bunch of adventure games, I played Runaway and it was one of the least enjoyable game experiences I can remember having. I played all the way through and I don't know why. I thought it was really, really poor.

Although they are creating some of that weirdness for themselves by offering the possibility of only half of the ads going away, or whatever. However it works out though it'll be for the entire year so it's at least predictable once the KS is over.

I think what they're doing is great, but I don't think Kickstarter is really the place for it. I don't think anyone objects to the notion of people paying to support creative work they like--I sure don't. I wish there was more of that in the world. And I don't think anyone is suggesting that this amount of money won't be used for legitimate purposes. The thing is, they're ALREADY paying all these people, with money they already know how to earn. They are neither kickstarting a new business, nor are they attempting to save a failing one. They are simple changing business models for an already-successful, already-funded business with more than a dozen full-time employees. That to me seems like something they should be doing through infrastructure that they license or build (since they can clearly afford to), rather than through Kickstarter. Just as a brief aside, this isn't entirely accurate. Some of our Kickstarter rewards are in fact ads on the podcast. We've never really publicly stated an intention to run no advertising anywhere on Idle Thumbs. We've never had banner ads on the site, and our current plan for the site doesn't include banner ads, but I don't want to give the impression we're hardline about that stuff, because if it ever changes, I don't want people to think we're hypocrites.

People saying "Well I don't get offended by words!" seems pretty much meaningless to me. If you don't belong to a group that has been traditionally--or is still--venemously targeted with those words, then yes of course it's pretty easy for you personally not to get offended by them. One of the most important parts of living in a modern complex multicultural society is the ability to have empathy for other groups and people who aren't you and aren't like you, who may not have the luxury to be able to easily cast aside instinctual reactions to hurtful speech. I mean even aside from getting into the real nuances of any of this stuff, saying "Well it's fine for me so I don't see why it should bother anyone else" just comes off as an incredibly shaky platform on which to build ANY opinion, whether it's related to language or anything else in the world.

This will be addressed in the other way; when we've set up our new site, the podcast will be hosted here and there will be a really straightforward page for the show and for each individual episode. We know it's kind of fractured right now and it's not ideal yet.

The main thing that annoyed me about that scene was that there was no option in the dialogue to

Also, I'm trying to quit using the term "painful" to describe situations I would prefer not to experience, because of the risk of offending SM practitioners by implying that pain is undesirable.

I was talking about all sports games. I wasn't passing judgment on any of them as games. I'm saying they tend to be considered in a different category to non-sports games, regardless of merits.

If there were one person, it would probably be Jon Shafer, not Sid Meier!

Hello new folks!

Regardless of how 2K's agreement with Amazon works, it clearly isn't a publisher-wide markdown, because the game is still full-price on Steam and 2K's own site.

What makes you think it was the publisher's decision? Amazon is only marking down the downloadable version; if demand for the game was very low on Amazon (regardless of how well it is or isn't selling through other outlets), maybe this is just what Amazon felt was necessary.

I haven't played this, but that's the prevailing opinion I've heard as well. It doesn't really bode well for the dev team, because as far as I'm aware the story was pretty much written by writers on the publishing side of things.

Oh man, that image just brought back a flood of memories.

Yeah, I think Civilization is better seen as a (very very very rough) simulation of how human society at large progresses, rather than how individual nations and governments progress.

Oh okay, that's what I had originally thought. Cool!

Sean has played a bunch of Civ IV and definitely at least mentioned it in the episode. He's also recently been playing non-expansion Civ V.

Cost to the consumer is one thing because that's affected by a lot of other factors, but purely on the service provider side, the hardware is still a lot cheaper than it would otherwise be because they don't need a discrete machine for each user. The company is also buying in volume. Similarly, colocation is cheaper than running a server yourself.

Indeed--I intended to back and edit my post or add a new one acknowledging your statements to that effect, then I forgot.

For my current game of Civ V: Gods & Kings, I set the world size as big as it can be, and the time scale as long as it can be, and it's been a pretty relaxing experience. The massive world and slow pace makes it feel like there's plenty of room, both geographically and temporally, for me to play at my own pace and in my own style, which is very non-militaristic and leisurely. I don't really play Civ to win, I just play it for the simulational aspects, and I feel that's supported well in Civ V.

If your argument is substantial, you shouldn't need to be this dismissive of any potential disagreement.

The criticism most of you levy against Civ 5 is something that I recognize but don't really think has to be seen explicitly as a criticism; Civ V is simply about different things than other Civ games are. I don't subscribe to the notion that each game in the series needs to capture the same dynamics--Civ IV still exists, after all. I too have been playing Civ since the first game (Civ 1 was probably the game that really got me into gaming in a big way, and I suspect I've still played it more than any other game in the series), but to me, Civ V is simply a game that is more about capturing a national character from the start, and working within the constraints that implies. I don't think that's inherently a bad thing. It's just a different game.