JonCole

Oh god, Jordan Owen, one of the crazy YouTube guys who is running that dumb Patreon, wrote some published erotic fiction - http://www.amazon.com/Eros-Empire-Jordan-Owen/dp/1593933762 NSFW but hilarious:

Someone else on Twitter was saying something about how identifying as a "gamer" is kinda weird. People don't really do that with other entertainment media, like a "TVer" or "Movier". I guess it is something that some hobbyists do, like a woodworker or something but it doesn't really seem particularly appropriate to begin with as a self-identification. I think this is part of the problem when people take umbrage with that ESA study saying that women are a bigger demographic than adolescent men. True or not, I imagine that part of where that increase lies is women are becoming somewhat more comfortable self-identifying as gamers, but that doesn't mean they weren't playing games all along. Delineating a group as "gamers" can only exclude the masses of people who also play games but don't fit whatever definition you choose for that term.

One of the pieces of "evidence" against Zoe actually being doxxed was that the number that people were spreading around for her dad was linked to an auto shop that was closed. As though that meant that he for sure was not getting harassed. That's what amounts to evidence nowadays.

Russia is straight up invading Ukraine - http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/28/world/europe/ukraine-crisis/index.html Ugh. This month. Fuck everything.

So, that image I posted last night got retweeted by some significant Twitter feminists and it's actually kinda just going around now. I've never had any response to anything I did on Twitter quite like that. My favorite thing about the whole experience is the number of people who simply can't support EA for any reason. I kinda put the link to Origin on that image to be cute, because man are people determined to not like anything made by that company.

I deleted my Facebook account along with my now wife a few years ago, but I remade mine because it is really the only means of communication for particular members of my family and some long-distance friends I really like. I still haven't gone back and refriended the hundreds of high school "friends" I previously had because man was that a drag last time around.

Open world games where you can make yourself do stuff that doesn't "matter" in a story sense are obviously great candidates, I spent hundreds of hours playing Elder Scrolls/Fallout games while listening to podcasts. Gotta discover all those map locations!

If you want to talk about the nebulous turn of phrase "invested in its success", should we not allow reviewers to review sequels of games that they reviewed? Because undoubtedly someone who played Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 would then be invested in the success of Mass Effect 3, particularly if they carried a save from game to game. I honestly find this example no different from the Patreon example. Who's to say that money is any more or less of an "investment" than time for any particular person? If you're some rich asshole that reviews games (just pretend this person exists, lolol) wouldn't your $5 "investment" per month to contribute to a game's development be effectively pocket change "investment"? What if that rich reviewer (lolol) spent hundreds of hours on the prior games, which if you value that dude's time would amount of literally thousands of dollars worth of "investment"?

I don't usually make images like this, does this look okay? Imgur link - http://imgur.com/GW1VbyF

It's not all cats. In fact, Hello Kitty (non-cat) has a cat pet (actually a cat).

Hello Kitty is not a cat - http://laist.com/2014/08/27/sanrios_shocking_reveal_hello_kitty.php

I have no idea what to make of that. I wonder if it's even legal. Is this just a weird way to valuate the company?

In the case of the podcast stuff - yeah, you said exactly what I'd say. In the case of the Kickstarters - there's something more explicit and more exchange-y about that instance. In the case of the contest thing, there is no guarantee that anyone will get anything in exchange for their work. As you said, a ton of crowd sourced content for free with a wink that says, "we might give you what you want!". In the case of Kickstarter, it's much more clear. If you "want to be a part of this", you can pay to do so and we'll use your content for sure and you'll get the mystical unicorn that is "exposure". Or really, your payment is a feeling when you actually contributed to something you love. And, this is not the case with this Dreamfall situation, but there are many contests of this nature where you forfeit your ownership of your content when it's submitted to the contest. Again, that's not just a ton of crowd sourced content free, but they still hold all of your cards whether they decide to acknowledge your contribution as the "winner" or not.

"I don't want to be in a relationship" is a pretty empty statement, I mean saying that kind of stuff to you means she's already in a relationship with you whether she likes it or not. It's just a matter of figuring out if it's going to be a casual relationship or a "serious" relationship.

It's not a risk, the art is devalued because literally nobody is being paid for art they create and work they performed. I dunno, I think it's fine to make a mistake in good faith and apologize for it. Good intentions don't mean you have a blank check to unintentionally exploit people.

Huh, almost like what I was saying was wrong in the Feminism thread re: TFYC. As it turns out, giving people "exposure" is total bullshit.

Yeah, but I'm buying most of my console games digitally at full retail or with slight discounts anyways (granted, I don't buy a ton vs PC where I'm always seeking discounts), so even if they weren't as reactive in price as Steam I'd probably still be okay. I dunno, with that stuff my money was not really where my mouth was.

This seems like a silly thing to say at this point, but I seriously would have been more interested in the Xbox One if they didn't 180 on anything at all. DRM, go for it. Kinect mandatory, sure. Indie self-publishing, great! Family share, perfect. I guess hindsight is 20-20, but man is the Xbox One a boring heap of tech as it is. After all of this, they're #2 and PS4 is lead platform for third-parties. Was it worth it? I honestly can't believe they could have been worse off than they are now.

Re: Watch Dogs ending

Road Not Taken is super weird. I feel like the actual puzzling is really well conceived, logical, and challenging, but man everything surrounding it is oblique and seemingly half-finished. I kinda just wish it was a pure puzzle game like Triple Town without all the stuff in between.

God, Kevin Dent. Can some real, ethical journalists get on discrediting that human waste? Every once in a while a particularly controversial case of him swinging his dick around gets out, but then is quickly swept under the rug and he's treated all buddy-buddy by seemingly every journo and dev on Twitter.

How is this relevant in any way? TFYC are openly trying to hold a contest where people are to be rewarded so "guaranteeing to bring success" should be part of that reward, not a halfhearted revenue share thing for a single participant. The Rebel Jam is going to actually be a game jam where people are just trying to make games. The outcome of a game jam is not fully produced games ready to sell. It's experience, portfolio building, networking, etc. No promises made, from what I can tell.

Turns out 4Chan doesn't even need to create a sexualized, tasteless character for TFYC, their followers will still abuse her nonetheless (this was unwarranted, in response to a mocking #IStandWithJonTron tweet of mine) -

People are tweeting #IStandWithJonTron to show support for him. Also to mock him. I'm using the hashtag for the latter! Yayaya hashtags ^__^

I decided to just go ahead and buy this. I really liked that article the creator put up on Gamasutra, felt like they could use another sale. I've played about an hour so far and I'm liking it. The art style is nice and can create some real beautiful landscapes, but the level of fidelity also means that during certain times of day or during certain weather events like fog or rain it's really hard to see. Luckily the survival elements thus far have been really mild, so sleeping to progress the game clock and then quickly foraging for food to kill the very hungry status from sleeping is no big deal at all. I've got a couple of story pickups so far and there aren't very many things to glean from them. It's kind of like if someone in the real world wrote a journal entry and then gave it to a stranger with no context. I'm curious to see if this stuff will actually end up generating some kind of tangible narrative or if it's just going to be a broad experience with little tastes of story littered throughout.