syntheticgerbil

I think before this recent comment, Ebert had said before that does not count because the end product is still not art. Which I guess to him, art means something that's has a statement or is moving. I don't know why it has to mean that, because I just figure it encompassed all sorts of human creation whether it was worthwhile or not. I still more agree with Rodi on whether the term is even useful, but had it not been used to easily to draw lines in the sand, I would be okay with it. Thinking back to the cave paintings, I wonder if a caveman who drew better than the other guys ever stood up and gloated about his drawing of a buffalo was art while the other guy's wasn't. I personally think art should be more about communicating your idea sufficiently so it that it doesn't become some kind of obscure self indulgent thing, but that's just me and I doubt more than 1 in 10 people would even agree with me on that. I also see what Kingzjester is saying about getting rid of the word pretentious in reference to art. It's extremely common to throw that around now for whatever reason and I'm guilty myself. I think it usually gets used when someone's artwork comes off as intensely hard to understand and obscure, but like Kingzjester sort of said, they should just communicate it better, since it seems like just name calling something pretentious doesn't really help the artist get better or the outsider understand any more. Buh, I guess I just mean to say, I don't understand why something isn't art whether it's unsuccessful or not. When we eat bad food, it may be hilarious to yell, "THIS IS NOT FOOD! WHAT IS THIS SUBSTANCE?!," but we all know it's still food even if it's soylent green.

Haha, well Ruth's not as bad as Doris, so maybe... Are these bonus levels unlocked through doing certain things within the game, much like A Boy and His Blob (which also double the game's length strangely enough) or are they a separate downloadable add-on?

Haha, wow, even your apology manages to be more insulting. Again, I'm glad you could guide me on how to use the internet properly, now how about shutting the fuck up? That's a large conclusion to take from that. Why should I have to give credit to them by default? If anything I would think the industry would be a lot better if instead of having behemoths like Activision, EA, and Take Two being the gatekeepers to pretty much which games get published and which games don't. I don't necessarily think their existence and the amount of money they invest in certain projects means great games necessarily come from that model. If anything, I think more great games get stifled from ever being made because there are only a few companies really running the place and major retailers. I'm hoping the more we move to digital downloads, the less big publisher take overs will matter. I don't even know why this is coming up now. Because I thought it was an issue of me recognizing the subsidiaries as EA themselves. But now apparently I need to respect this company for simply having a lot of money and sometimes making good investments with it.

Hi Anthony Lau! So long and thanks for all the viruses!

I feel like the art style is good in some parts and is uncohesive or clashes in other parts, but I think I'm interested in playing this game just because I'm a sucker for the platformer-adventure-solver type game. (Really sorry I have a polar opposite of your opinion again, Murdoc. I feel bad about it at this point. I'm not intentionally trying to run around disagreeing with you, I swear!) I'm interested in your opinion after you finish it, el meurte (or anyone else as well).

I just wish I could buy two for a fair price at home, where I'm still using a chunky CRT monitor.

Herp derp, thanks. I'm glad you could point that out for me. I already said I was wrong, earlier on. I worded the original post bad simply taking a stupid dig at EA. Didn't know there were so many EA fans around here now. I did concede to both EA Montreal and EA Redwood Shores which I looked up myself. Again, top notch reading skills you've got. Marek and Remo took fault with me not including the subsidiaries either way. So now it's about that, parent and child relationships and whether extensions define the parent. But I already know it'll go nowhere. Try again next time, maybe you can even try to have something useful to say to boot.

I guess you could say "includes," but I'd probably say "owns."

Er, except I'm still not counting all of the companies they own. Also, I said they don't really make games. Really being the operative word. As in, they aren't really someone you go to to say, "MAN, EA SURE IS A GREAT DEVELOPER." I did say earlier I do realize they make games themselves somewhere buried in all the companies they bought out, but I guess you didn't read that part because you'd rather boil everything I have to say down into you hilarious comment that adds absolutely nothing worth discussing.

I don't see how that was a blanket statement. I said, "Well since I'm actually not interested in any games developed by EA owned studios (besides Westwood before they were bought out), I don't really consider it much at all either way." I'd say that's still pretty accurate to how I feel. They've always done much better at publishing than developing. I'm just not interested in anything I actually saw on the lists of games developed by them or their owned subsidaries (Bioware included if you're curious).

Yeah, that's true. His reply to Ron Gilbert was that Pirates of the Caribbean isn't art either. I don't see a review for Pirates 1 on his site, but he does not call the sequel art in his review. I think he has to explicitly use the word.

That's not why. Currently, going through Marek's list, I see almost all of these companies just happen to make games that don't interest me. I don't boycott EA. Dante's Inferno is pretty idiotic, but whatever. I don't know where you got that I don't buy EA published games, because I have bought many games they have published over the years, brand new even for the most part. Many Dynamix games were released by EA before Sierra bought them out (I have also never considered members of Dynamix to be Sierra employees). Hardly any games I own or have been interested in have been internally developed by EA or by a studio they own. I could probably dig at least one up somewhere I'm sure. Sure I don't endorse oversized business or repeated buy outs and I long for much stronger antitrust laws in the US, but it's not going to solve anything if I refuse to buy games EA publishes even if they are by developers or designers I love.

Why's that? The rights to the music and recordings is owned by Sony. They pay for the studio time, the producer and engineer's salary as well as the marketing and manufacturing. ...through buying out companies that were making games before EA put down their dollars. Well since I'm actually not interested in any games developed by EA owned studios (besides Westwood before they were bought out), I don't really consider it much at all either way. I DO consider them some sort of bastardization of what they once were. Either way, one studio owned by EA is most likely not going to have the same production methods or be homogeneous to one of the other 40 studios EA owns. If I came upon had a lot of money and I bought out EA tomorrow and changed all the names of the companies to GerbilBastard Industries or some sort of merger with that name, would you guys say I make a ton of games, then? The only way I could really see their takeovers as more "legitimate" would be if they liquidated every studio they bought out and had them join in teams on some main central studio industry, no subsidiaries needed. It seems silly to throw some of their buyouts a bone and let them keep parts of their company identity but to still assume in the end they are EA. I would bet you two still refer to Pixar as making Pixar movies, not Disney, even though they are in separate studios it's all the mouse's money right now, right?

I have this set up at work. It helps when you have to use multiple art programs at once and you can also have some sort of reference on display if needed (of course you could always just print it out too). Also some of these Adobe programs have so many god damn windows inside of them that you almost need another screen now.

Oh man, that still makes me so angry. I always felt so spiteful towards the rich kids at my school whose parents paid for their apartment or housing as well as all of their food and fun so they never had to work any shifts at all while trying to finish college. In the meantime I was struggling with shitty part time jobs (that always got pushed up to full time because I'm such a pussy who can't say no to working my days off or later than normal) and had major problems having enough time just to finish my work and get by with a B in most classes. It kind of led into a split where the working kids hung out with eachother while the kids who had all the new gadgets and still haven't worked a day stayed with their own group. The bright side is that each group seemed to have an equal amount of people who almost purposefully pissed away their education.

I'm with Rodi, I wouldn't mind the term "art" being retired as well. I'd also get rid of "graphic novel," but that's just me. Certainly the beautiful cave paintings Ebert cites as so elegant and well crafted probably weren't done with the higher thought of them as art. They could have just enjoyed drawing pictures for all we know (if they weren't serving some sort of major communication purpose). But with his, "video game players READ?" comment, now it just seems like Ebert's intentionally trolling, so I think people should give up writing long heart felt responses to his opinion.

Yes! It's at least nice it's available even if it's for a small fee. I'm a sucker for the little Telltale goodies packages. I probably won't ever be used to it even though it's already been happening a lot the past couple of years. Soda and water bottles use less plastic. Every bill would be better as an e-statement. Everyone uses recycled paper where they didn't before. Glass is becoming taboo. This is all good, for sure, but again my problem is none of these cost saving measures trickle down to the consumer. I guess on the bright side, for those that like to buy complete games with the box and manual have one less thing to worry about. Yeah that actually sounds like a great idea. They could knock a buck off their $59.99 game to $58.99 and then put a sticker saying why and maybe a small blurb on the back about their steps to help the environment. Basically what they said in the press release. Couldn't hurt? It'd make them look better.

Yes because I think those studios are still their own studios whether EA used divide and conquer tactics to take them over or not. It would be inaccurate to compare each development house to another for instance because even though they are all under the same EA brand, they wouldn't be making similar games. I don't think it's fair to act like they really are out to make games. They are foremost in the business of "owning a bunch of shit." It's the American way. It would be like saying Sony BMG makes music, when they really don't. They are just a large entity that owns a fourth or more of all of the major music labels out there. Sure they have a producing crew that finds pretty teenage faces and write for them, makes their backing tracks, and auto-tunes them, but they also own a lot of artists who were artists with or without the label. The artists wouldn't usually be branded as SONY. People don't run around saying SONY makes some great music they have some great music developers (besides the stock holders and upper management I would suppose). So basically I'm saying big business entities that attempt to own everything can go shovel a ton of dicks down their throat, because I don't think they count as legitimate makers of anything just for the sake of grabbing everything they could wrap their money hands around. So yeah, you're right they do make games the way Disney makes games, but I'm not going to recognize the studios they own as anything more than who they were before they were bought out.

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Yes I will agree with the latter.

Is that him caught with his pants down? The only thing that I can think of that might say it's him is the compliments he gives about how interesting Japanese culture is since he has said a few similar things in reviews of anime he likes. But of course, this could still be anyone. I briefly played Cosmology of Kyoto in middle school and was even sort of scared. I should probably give it a better shot one day since I know many people rate it well. I hear it's also extremely rare and expensive.

Ergh, I guess I should have expected this. They aren't *really* a dedicated developer, so that's why I said they don't "really" make them. I do realize somewhere out there EA must have a dedicated EA employee that is making a dedicated EA game with his business card saying "EA GAME DEVELOPER." That list you sent, without clicking on all of the items, are just mostly studios they bought out and renamed or they are smaller publishing branches of EA. They aren't really in the habit of setting up studios themselves as EA GAME MAKING STUDIOS and then working away on something. I'm sure one of their subsidiaries that they developed from the ground up in the 80s does this somewhere but I looked around a while back and couldn't say I solidly found anything that regularly made games from then until now. EDIT: Okay, I was wrong, found one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EA_Montreal And it gives out my reasoning: And go figure, they make games I don't give a shit about. Even their biggest one, according to Wikipedia, EA Canada was once Distinctive Software until they were bought out. EDIT AGAIN: Looking through the list more, the actual list of EA developed games from studios they didn't buy out to chose from is confined to EA Montreal and Visceral Games (formerly EA Redwood Shores). So, I guess you could lump in the games from the other 40+ studios they bought out over the past 25 years all as EA made games but then by that standard you could make any argument about EA's game quality ever with that amount of different developers and studios under one hat.

I only buy games developers/designers/directors I really like already so that I don't buy games at random or by reviews the way I used to do in middle school. Only problem is depending on who you are following, you might add largely to the games you have to play. I have a lot of games, more than most people, just because of an aversion to emulators and need to track down old console and PC games, but there are also a lot of rules I make for myself to keep it at bay. I also generally avoid games that I hear take over 25 hours to finish. I can give leeway to some games that require OCD type completion that I feel compelled to do so, but games where just finishing the main storyline takes over 60 hours is a no go for me. The shorter the play time, the better in my opinion. I also avoid designers that typically make games that take this long to finish. I'm not saying my rules are really that logical to anyone but me, but I think it all has to do with setting yourself some major boundaries that only encompass games you know you'll enjoy and make those your must-haves, then branch out and allow yourself some leeway to try games that you think you'd be interested in. The thing that just sucks about only buying games that you really want when you have the time to play them is just what a short shelf life everything has now. I guess that's not a problem if you only play digital downloads. Also, since you seem to be interested in trying out indie games, you could just skip to blind buys more with those than the more expensive titles by bigger companies. They will usually cost less if anything at all, take less time to finish, and lead you to a better variety of games, so it would be low risk and low cost.

Well, EA doesn't really make games, so he's wrong anyway.