Jake

Idle Thumbs 229: Sneaking for Carl

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On the subject of cats' obsessions with bedding and fabrics, my friend had to throw out a deep-pile bathmat because his two cats gradually escalated from curiosity to interest to fixation to, uh... a seemingly sexual relationship with it. At its worst, he found himself having difficulty getting out of the shower because both cats refused to move off of the drool- and fur-covered mat, even at peril of being dripped and stepped upon.

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Soma = my goty.

I love thinking about the existential themes that Soma brings to the table. I love them because I love thinking about them and putting myself in a weird alt-state and having that dread upon me.

 

It might well be mine, as well, for the same reason!

 

Re: all the GOTY discussion, I actually enjoy some of it each year, and hate some of it. I have a lot of fun "championing" certain games (and often being the only one on staff who liked something "that" much, like with Alien last year, or even played something, like with my #2 and #3 games, DKC and Eidolon), since it's an excuse for me to gush about things I found special/interesting/exciting.

 

I'll be the first to admit I get very excited about the things I like, so, GOTY time is a fun outlet for that.

 

The part I hate - having to pretend coworkers' crappy, terrible "safe" choices are valid. I am a total child.

 

And to Patrick R's point about GOTY stuff being marketing, specifically

"they know waaaaaaay less people have played Undertale than MGS V or Mario Maker or whatever else, so it'll get way less clicks and garner way less ad-revenue-generating debate, in the comments section and elsewhere."

 

yes and no, as well! So much of this job is how to market the material so it gets read/watched. Someone else pointing out that clickbait is basically a dead term makes sense now - everything is clickbait, and it has to be, because it your site isn't growing, advertisers will turn away and you will die a sad death. It depresses me how often I see (redacted game X I find boring as hell) in our top posts. 

 

But I genuinely think that people vote honestly in these award things - I think a lot of game journalists at bigger sites simply share a lot of the same tastes. I tend to be into the weirdest stuff compared to the rest of my coworkers, and I know for sure I haven't even touched the smallest/weirdest most niche stuff out there yet.

 

Finally, yes, Undertale is wonderful.

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I just bought undertale today and an really looking forward to playing it when i get home. I think i was sold since i saw the screenshot about the cactus (the most tsundere of plants). 

 

 

On the goty subject, I have been thinking about gotys recently, and I came to the conclusion that i really dislike the notion of site-wide goty awards. I think stuff like people's individual favorite games is awesome, its really fun and interesting to read/listen to someone describe why one game is their favorite. But, site wide goty picks (I'm most familiar with Giant Bomb's, which is also fascinating because they make the deliberation process transparent) are much less interesting. Invariably, they end up being some safe, popular pick, since people need to agree. I don't think there is much value in saying "Our site thinks game X was the best game this year", especially for a site with a set of diverse opinions and games played. All of that is lost, in exchange for putting a gold star on a game.

 

To be clear, I don't think that big AAA easy picks are chosen as goty picks for cynical reasons as much as I think they are the compromises when people with a diverse set of opinions and experiences try to pick a single game. And I'm sure there are people for whom those safe picks are their favorite, that's totally legitimate. I just wish that, instead of going for that kind of award, sites would instead choose something that most people probably haven't played or heard of, and choose to highlight that instead.

 

Nobody that is reading a goty list is going to be surprised to see MGSV and decide to play it for that reason, but if the pick were something like Undertale, or SOMA, or even more known but not as widely played titles, like Splatoon even, I would find it a lot more appealing.

 

That said, I am not arguing against doing them, more articulating my own dislike of the concept. 

 

e: as a follow to that, as much as I often dislike the arguing and such, i am kind of looking forward to giant bomb's goty deliberations this year, just to hear what Austin has to say, as his is definitely the most interesting voice on the site.

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his is long, rambly, and I had to walk away for a couple of hours and came back mid thought. I'm asking how we get to a place where we praise and criticize mechanically superior games with aesthetic issues in the same way we do for games that are mechanically flawed. How do we recognizes MGS for its technical excellence without allowing it to walk away scot free at the end of the year? Should I care?

 

Video games are largely about interaction. Presentation is important but interaction is the vehicle by which we experience them. If they were hands off they'd be animated movies.  MGS has been criticized on the same level as more mechanically flawed games but it gets a pass because it's enjoyable to play. Unless the presentation is particularly egregious then the average person will make concessions to continue experiencing the thing they're largely enjoying, problematic or not.

 

We change things by talking about it, calling out poor examples and praising good ones. Developers adapt to their environment and the younger generation that grew up in this environment will end up developing games in their own image so the best you can do is promote a positive one. 

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The Oscar/awards comparison to GOTYs is interesting. When I first heard of GOTYs I had thought they were a small set of awards. Maybe that was true at the time but now there's so many. Any decent AAA game is essentially guaranteed to pick one up somewhere. It doesn't feel like a special prestige at all, just a way to score points you can quote on the steam page. I'd be more interested if the sheer volume if it highlighted a range of games, but alternatively I'd like a small selection of games where it seemed like the GOTY meant more than the way things are now.

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While I also dislike the concept of a GOTY list compiled by and "agreed" upon by multiple people, I don't think I necessarily agree with the idea that many sites will pick a AAA game like MGS because it's the "safe" thing (although I'm sure it's being done like that somewhere, it's a big internet).  Most AAA games are going to have pretty broad appeal by design.  They might have some kind of unusual concept or gimmick which will set it apart from it's peers, but they're also going to be less extreme in that respect than the lesser known games.  When you get a group of people together to try and come up with what they collectively consider the best game of the year, I don't think it's all that surprising that the picks are going to be the games that everyone can agree is good.  A game like SOMA or Undertale might very well be amazing and end up on a lot of personal GOTY lists but because it's more of a niche appeal it means some people are going to swing the other way harder than they will with something that's more middle ground like a AAA game.

 

All of this is exactly the reason I dislike most non-personal GOTY lists.  Unless I know at least a little bit about the personality of the list maker a GOTY list doesn't have much meaning to me.  By it's nature, a site GOTY list is going to lack that individual personality and instead going to be a tendency.  That doesn't interest me unless you have one of two scenarios.  Either everyone has exactly the same tastes which is basically the same as having only one person anyway, or you have many different tastes and yet they all completely absolutely 100% agree on a GOTY in which case you've managed to transcend some boundaries in an impressive way and now I'm interested.

 

I've also never written for any kind of game site or attempted to compile a GOTY list myself so I'm probably full of shit.

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Speaking of GOTY

 

http://2013.goty.cx/

ONCE A YEAR the hosts of Idle Thumbs set out with the goal of commemorating, on this website, the games which left an indelible mark on our brain. Most often, we fail. But some years, like 2011 and 2008 before it, we achieve our goal. This is one of those years.

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Just an aside comment on this - I think "click-bait" is starting to lose meaning.

 

I think calling out a writer for making you want to read their work is like saying "those game developers just want to make money!"

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I think calling out a writer for making you want to read their work is like saying "those game developers just want to make money!"

Yeah. I mean there is something to be said of sensationalizing the non-sensational but people have destroyed any and all meaning of the phrase.

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First, I want to say that I loved this episode, as usual. But, I have to admit I found it very frustrating that you had a thoughtful discussion about how absurd conventions regarding spoilers prevent critical discourse about gaming . . . and then you went on to obey those absurd conventions by having Nick not talk about the endgame of MGS5 critically because of spoilers!

 

I'm begging you: Please let Nick talk more about the ending to MGS5 in a future podcast! As someone who agrees with you that spoiler conventions limit critical discourse in an absurd way, and as someone who also needs to throw away my gamer card because I'm not going to be putting in the 50 hours to beat MGS5 any time soon, I would love to hear what Nick had to say but couldn't/didn't.

 

Keep up the great work!

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Yeah I too would love a discussion on the game I'll never bother playing. Hide behind a warning or whatever to keep the people who care safe, I'd like to be spoiled.

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I agree, do a warning with a spoiler siren for 5 seconds then rip into it. I thought you were going for a long form joke/gag when you said you weren't going to spoil anything AFTER clearly pointing out why no spoiler discussions are dumb.

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In this specific case nick did record a spoilers discussion and then we all felt it was almost literally a retread but with a few specific details so we left it out. Jokes on everyone, I guess.

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I don't care about GOTY, but I love the Giant Bomb awards discussion podcasts they put out. It's less important to me who gets number one and more about hearing people argue for the games they love.

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Since I'm not often aware if a game was released the same year (or decade) and since I barely ever do a day one purchase, GOTY never registers with me at all. It's just such a meaningless thing.

 

I have an internal list of about 20 games that were the best games of all time for me, but I'll be damned if I can rattle them off the top of my head or in any sort of order.

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Mostly I appreciate the GOTY lists as reminders about what all games came out this year that I never got around to playing.  Generally useful as a list of shit to buy next year when its on sale. 

 

I also like seeing people really gush about the games they like, which we generally don't get enough of I think (and I recognize that I'm someone who trends towards talking about my negatives on a game, so I'm part of the problem). 

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Mostly I appreciate the GOTY lists as reminders about what all games came out this year that I never got around to playing.  Generally useful as a list of shit to buy next year when its on sale. 

 

Yes, this is why I like GOTYs too. There tends to be a lot of games released in the first half of the year that make me think "that looks interesting" and that I've already forgotten about in 2 months. GOTYs solve that problem somewhat.

The rankings and who "wins" are largely irrelevant to me.

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Mostly I appreciate the GOTY lists as reminders about what all games came out this year that I never got around to playing.  Generally useful as a list of shit to buy next year when its on sale. 

 

I also like seeing people really gush about the games they like, which we generally don't get enough of I think (and I recognize that I'm someone who trends towards talking about my negatives on a game, so I'm part of the problem). 

 

This idea in particular is why the Giant Bomb GOTY discussions are great.  Not only do they have an amusing set of categories, those categories and the subsequent debates do a good job of reminding me about things that happened during the year and why a game may or may not be worth checking out to me.  I don't like reading reviews generally.  I'd much rather hear someone talk for a few minutes about why they liked a game and then hearing an opposing counterpoint.  A discussion almost always works way better for me than a speech.

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I wouldn't have guessed it but Mario Maker streams are good entertainment for kids. Aside from streamers who curse a lot. But my roomies' two year old has a pretty nifty impression of Mario's jump sound from SMW down.

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I also thought SOMA was in space, but also also, I think I had conflated it with Routine, the one that had the teaser with the floppy disks floating around a space station. 

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SOMA is also the name of the SF neighborhood where I work, and every time I see references to the game I'm a little bit confused at first.

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SOMA is also the name of the SF neighborhood where I work, and every time I see references to the game I'm a little bit confused at first.

The first thought SOMA evokes for me is Brave New World. I haven't played the game. Is it supposed to be referencing that at all?

 

Soma is apparently also a chain of stores that sell ladies undergarments in this region, according to Google.

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