ThunderPeel2001

Hard to believe we're only 57 days away from owning Brutal Legend!!! Here's a countdown

I love how they are essentially very realistic (people are just people), but they exist in a slightly skewed world... which is kind of like being able to look at the world through someone else's eyes. It's a world I wouldn't mind inhabiting!

Well Red Lynx say that the 360 version is more "refined" than the PC version. If it's really that much better I should check it out... although I wasn't a fan of the PC version, really

I've responded calmly to everything you've said and given you my answers... Why are you getting so tetchy?

Your analogy is totally flawed. A business is a construct designed with a purpose... we are not. Plus you just totally ignored what I wrote... you got annoyed with me for doing that do you before. You've indeed said it many many many times, so could please give me an example of a business that has been around for longer than 10 years that has a primary function that is NOT to make money.

Well my flippant point was that it's essentially a game that I already own... (Trials 2: Special Edition), and which anyone (with a PC) can own for $9.99, so what's the big deal.

Stop trying to be all peaceable and reasonable... damn you.

Lol Well he funded Eraserhead and Inland Empire (interestingly enough) out of his own pocket. (Very brave and I respect him for it!) Blue Velvet was made by DEG, which again, is far far faaaaar away from "artsy fartsy". I never said you had no idea what you were talking about, it's just the example you made touched a nerve. You should see things from my point of view: I had about five people all attacking me! At least you only had me

No, I didn't say "less money", I said he'd have to go back to his day job. As in "game over". The end of the business. Finito. With that in mind, please think about my example. As I've said before (any maybe it was lost), I'm not advocating greed. I'm not saying that Mr X has to go for the "more money" option (if there was one, which there isn't in this scenario) because the "business" demands it. He's free to run the company however he wants to his own personal principals (something I've also said before). But! That must come to an end if his own personal principals stop the company from making money... because a business cannot survive without money. It's the ONE thing it cannot survive without. So ALL business decisions HAVE to factor in money, if you don't then you will go out of business fast. You're now changing your argument so that you're saying the "sole" function of a company need not be money. That's less extreme than what you were suggesting earlier when you said, "companies want to do a lot of things, but making money is not the only one, and in some cases it is not even the primary one". A business cannot survive without money. Period. The idea that a business could exist that doesn't value money is absurd. But if you're going to talk about "sole" goals, then fine, sure, a business can have many different goals, but the function , its purpose, is always to make money. (Otherwise you wouldn't need to start a business.) Double Fine's goals are to create and sell quality software. The function of Double Fine, as a business, is to make money (at least enough to pay the bills) in order to allow the goals to be realised. I think we can agree on that, can't we? But the business needs money to survive. Without it everyone would lose their jobs. As horrible and base as it may sound, it's the most important factor in a business's life... but that doesn't necessarily reflect the ideals of the people running that business.

So what's different? You make it sound like it's a whole new game, instead of essentially a sequel to a PC game...?

I don't even know what your point is anymore, Chris. Are you trying to say that there are exceptions now? Of course there are. But this discussion started because you were "disgusted" at the idea that a business's sole function was to make money. Of course! -- I'm not even sure what we're talking about here... Let's stop talking about Chris as an example now, anyway, because it's kind of gone on too long and he's a real person. Let's say Mr. X. Mr. X, as a person who runs a company, has to make business decisions. Decisions for the business... If his decisions kill the business (ie. loses it too much money) then he's killed the business and it's back to his day job. Would you consider him "evil" to make a decision that meant he kept to keep his company, even if he didn't want to do it in his heart? (Like say, firing someone he loved working with.) The business necessitated that action, even though Mr. X loved having them around. So Mr. X's desires are not as important as the business's needs, even though Mr. X is making the decision. So you agree that money is a prerequisite then? Ie. Something that's more important to the business?

Wow. I can't believe you're trying to explain to me what an "angel investor" is. That's truly outstanding. You seriously have no fucking idea what you're talking about. Maybe you should start with the word "invest" and try work your way from there. Money is the businesses primary goal, love of comics is Chris's primary motivation. Chris != business.

Ok! I give up! I'm wrong! People often give money to movie directors, just because they like their films. It happens all the time and I'm a complete jaded and cynical idiot to think otherwise. Likewise businesses are NOT all about making money. They often just like making the world a better place and, hey, if they just happen to earn some mulah along the way, then groovy baby. Also businesses whose primary focus is NOT about making money exist and thrive everywhere. I'm a hardened, jaded and cynical, and what I have to say has nothing to do with own personal experiences, nor my movie-making friends' experiences. I just made it up to annoy you all. My humblest apologies. I would like to address several inconsequential issues that will bug me if I don't: When did I "ignore" that fact, exactly? I made it clear that Chris's motivations were his love of comics, not money. I know this because I've had the opportunity to talk to him about it, and he genuinely is that cool of a guy. Also, they don't release "niche crap". I can't even begin to explain what's so incredibly wrong with this sentence. It's like going, "but WHY has Judy got two oranges, and WHY did someone give her another one? Who cares that she's got three oranges, I need to know the whole situation!". FYI, my hypothetical comic was 300 pages long. Also, thanks for explaining why Gilliam made Brothers Grimm. Fuck me, this quote made me angry. It's the height of obnoxious ignorance. I happen to be reasonably well connected with Lynch, although I've never met him personally. Please explain more of this intimate knowledge you have of how his films are funded through "artsy farsty" channels. (Hint: StudioCanal is not an "artsy fartsy" channel, it's a fucking huge French distribution company.) (Here's another hint: Lynch's movies do VERY well in France.) I'm eager to learn more, though.

Favourite Anderson movie for me is Rushmore... I think it's the most well-rounded, but I love all his films (although Bottle Rocket the least ).

Yeah, the Potter thing is weird. I'm sure I read quote from Warners saying "Gilliam was never actually considered for Potter"... but then I couldn't find it. Then I found a quote from Gilliam talking about after the meeting... So I think you were right afterall -- he was considered! Still, they obviously took him quite seriously as director... they did have a meeting with him. I doubt they'd be given the opportunity to invest in movies like "Meet the Fockers" (studio film) and, if they were, I'm sure they'd be asked for a LOT more money. According to the documentary on the Tideland DVD, getting the money together for the movie was "agony". Nope. He only put his name on it/"executive produced" it. I found an interview where he said "Keith Griffiths got the money together from a variety of sources". (Linky)

So, the Weinsteins paid him to direct The Brothers Grimm because they cared more about the final product than the money they'd make. The Weinsteins...! That's absurd. I'm not saying that there aren't patrons of arts who will fund an artist they like, but to say that people who INVEST money in a movie are not looking for a RETURN...? Okaaay... It's interesting to note that Gilliam has never invested his OWN money in a movie... (He actually fell out with Arnon Milchan when he discovered that some of his own money was being used to fund pre-production on Munchaussen.) With that in mind, do you really believe that there are people who say to him, "Go on, Mr. Gilliam, here's some money to make one of your wonderful movies... Oh, and don't worry about paying me back!". Edit: I guess I was wrong, here they are!

We weren't talking about Molyneux... We were discussing businesses in general (read what I quoted from Chris). You haven't read what Chris has been saying, have you? Again, please look at what was quoted. There are two conversations going on here: One about the idea that a business can have a higher concern than money and another one about what Molyneux meant.

Terry Gilliam is only one aspect of "his" movies! An excellent script, having big stars, etc., even the theme of the movie could make you think it could make money. Likewise Gilliam is seldom to blame for poor box-office returns... Brazil and Munchaussen did well for the amount of money that was spent on promoting them (the average per-print return in 1989 was $9,000 -- Munchaussen made $66,000 per-print(!), but there were only 120 made by Columbia!). Likewise many people felt sympathy with Gilliam regarding the final cut of Brazil. The reason Munchassen went over-budget was because Thomas Schuley was an imbecile (not because of "expensive sets"). The Fisher King and 12 Monkeys both did very well. Gilliam created a fantastic adaptation of Fear and Loathing, but nobody wanted to watch an adaptation of Fear and Loathing. The Weinsteins paid Gilliam to make The Brothers Grimm for them (Gilliam didn't even like the script -- god knows why he did it) and it didn't do great (not that it bombed). None of that is because of Gilliam... he did his job perfectly. Are you actually trying to argue that, if you worked for Paramount and you greenlit three movies that all bombed, you wouldn't be out of the job?

I loved that movie... (I'm a bit of a Wes Ansderson fan )

Then you would guess wrong! Just go and read "Battle for Brazil" or "Losing the Light: The Munchaussen Saga" (which is what I'm reading now), or watch The Hamster Factor or Lost in La Mancha. The financiers work for a company... If they make movies that lose money, they lose their jobs.

So, let me run your theories through my reality-o-meter: Independent comic book company (let's say Top Shelf Comix, run by the lovely Chris Staros). Chris decides to quit his job and run his own company with his friend. They're THE most ethically minded, "for the sake of art", generally cool people you'd ever like to meet. I send them a comic I want them to release and amazingly Chris loves it and wants to see it in print. He, personally, is driven by a love of comics, not money. Now, he does some projections and, based on my (lack-of) fame, his experience, market factors, etc, he discovers that if they print over 1000 copies of my comic they're unlikely to make their money back. What should he do? He LOVES comics. He LOVES art. He thinks everyone should be able to read my comic and is behind it 100%. He's not "unethical" or "evil" or anything. Should he print 2000 copies because that's what he believes in? Let's say he does: He spends $5000 dollars printing and distributing 2000 copies. (Each issue cost $2.50 to print, package and distribute.) He sells them for $3 dollars each (making a tiny .50c profit on every copy), but he only sells 1000 (as he predicted). He's just LOST $2,000. Basically, if my comic hadn't come along, he could have just flushed $2,000 down the toilet and gotten the same result... Of course, at least he got to publish a comic he really believed in. But if he did that for every comic then his company would soon go bankrupt. So making money, even for this ultimately ethical, uber-nice person, HAS to be his PRIMARY concern. Even if he's just breaking even and making enough to live on, financial considerations still have to be the MOST important aspect to making a business decision, otherwise, over a long enough period, he WILL go out of business. Let's not make this personal, shall we. I think I've addressed this issue above. To answer your question, I, personally, do not really care about money... I'm certainly not driven by it. I live a very chaste lifestyle and, like most people, would only like money in order to make my life easier. The decisions made by the company directors are where your talk of ethics come into play. The focus of any company is to make money, even if it's just to sustain itself, but the ENDS to which a company goes to do this is dictated by the greed of the people who run it: Should we run a legitimate enterprise based on our own principals? Should we try to take care of our customers, staff and environment? Or should we smuggle prostitutes out of Asia? Hmmm, that truly is an amazing string of failures. I guess there's no definitive source to go for sales figures, but I'm pretty sure Black & White sold well enough for somebody to think it would be worth making a sequel. I guess this is where we'll just have to disagree. I see "creatively risky" and "financially risky" as two very separate things, even in Molyneux's speech. I've no idea what Molyneux's deal with Microsoft is... He used to have to start from scratch each time, before he sold Lionhead to MS in 2006, at least. God knows how it works now, though. I wonder if Lionhead are free to pursue other distribution channels if MS doesn't like a game they want to make? Hmmm. It must suck if they can't do that (and I can't imagine MS would let them :-/ ). I think Molyneux's point was that it was just easier to de-risk the idea from a financial point of view, rather than trying to capture the imaginations of money-men (do they even have an imagination to capture?). I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

It's too "creatively risky" for me... (I have absolutely no idea how you play it). Nice music though

Yeah, I think you kind of went of the rails a bit with that one :-/ ;P

I think it's quite an extreme statement to say that about any author...

I'm sure we have can have a calm debate about this. I totally understand where you're coming from... I used to say the same things until I started running my own company. I'm not an evil businessman and neither are the folks at Double Fine, but the goal of any business is to make money. HOW you go about that is where your ethical ideas come in, and how the decisions of the people who run the company come in, but that doesn't change the very purpose of the company itself. Perhaps some of the folks who work at smaller companies (and are closer to the business decisions) would like to agree/disagree? Well this part of our conversation is not actually directly related to making video games... You accused me of being "so jaded" as to the nature of companies in general, so I gave you some examples. Kind of sucks you ignored them "Non-profit businesses" is an oxymoron, I think you mean charities. I wouldn't consider "vanity companies" -- whatever the hell they are -- to be businesses either. The only exception would be a state-subsidised businesses (like my country's National Health Service), but they're obviously very different to a normal company. I absolutely do think that things like that can help, definitely. Why wouldn't I? I'm not sure why you think Molyneux has had an "amazing number" of failures, though. I can only name one: The Movies. I suppose that is amazing, in it's own way...? I fucking hate homogenised games, TV, movies, whatever. Please don't think I'm advocating that... but I also don't think that's what Molyneux was advocating either -- in fact I think he was saying the same thing as you! Essentially: "Just convince the investors and try and make something successful so you can keep making games". Absolutely, no arguments here. But as I've said, I don't think that Molyneux was talking about removing the "creative risk", just the financial one for the investors. He used an extremely "creatively risky" TV show (Dexter) as an example of this... Are you kidding me?! I fucking LOVE Terry Gilliam. FYI when he's editing his movies he pieces together a scene or two and then grabs anyone he can to watch it. He then gauges their reaction and re-edits/moves on accordingly. He also uses the feedback from test screenings -- but he hates the idea that such feedback might be used by someone else to impose their restrictions on a film. He's also said that he needs his producers to tell him "we can't do this". I HATE the fact that the movie industry has become SO risk-adverse at the moment that they're only producing blockbuster, homogenised garbage at the moment. As Gilliam said: The current system has killed off medium-sized movies, and I certainly hope that changes soon! (I think we need a series of blockbuster sized flops -- that would be awesome!) Also, FWIW, Gilliam has to go through the same process as Molyneux when he wants to make a film: He has to present his artistic vision in a way that those who will fund it, will want to fund it.