Jake

GDC! Idle Thumbs Conf Grenade: A Fish Called Xtreme

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On a completly different note: can anyone explain to me in what way Bioshock is hardly a game as Chris put it ?

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I demand retort for every phrase, Ossk. If I don't get them within half an hour I'm coming to France to get them. WITH A GUB.

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Don't you ever feel uncomfortable if you get substantial returns for practically nothing? What about getting paid for a bad thing you did?

Because to feel guilt, you need to feel bad about it, that's the first step, it would only reinforce that feeling for sure but you need to feel it first. If you're just having fun and killing people with no consequences, you can't really be serious about saying that the designers intended to make you feel guilty by rewarding you for doing something that you SHOULD feel bad about... Too much fly raping involved there.

So why aren't we taking this route?

We are not taking this route because it was there as a logical failure of taking an example, that is what you would say of course, that is what everyone would say to someone who is as dumb as shit and who asks if what you do works, but that's good for a kid, an adult would ask the question "then why" if he's really curious about it. This answer is here for you to pick it in the example shown, because if I gave you two options "GFY" and "I'll explain" you would've say that there is another way.

In fact there are two options to pick from: explain or dismiss.

This is a job for teachers.

This is a egocentric attitude that leads people nowhere, if you only explain yourself or justify yourself only to those above you, you won't get very far, because you second you will lack even an atom of critical thinking, you're just fucked. Because you are your only source of questioning, and many a creative process includes being awake at 4 in the morning which is quite a lucidity lacking time to be working.

Whereas if people know that they can come and ask you, rethinking and rephrasing your work can lead you to places you never could've thought of.

And it does depend on where you place yourself on the knowledge scale, if you think too highly of yourself, you just won't ever justify anything or take any criticism for your work... That's a sad spot to be into my friend you can trust me on that...

I think that's perfectly valid when someone wanders in from the street and starts asking stupid questions.

To dismiss the question? Just because someone is not qualified? No it's not valid of course it's not... Because you base yourself on a completely relativistic point of view philosophically speaking: what if you don't know that this person is the best architect in the world, you will have considered his question foolish when in fact it was very à propos.

Ebert's our client now? Oh fuck, I hope I didn't upset him.

Funny thing is, the clients (the people who buy games) have been convinced long ago. It's only the people who don't actually have anything to do with the project who keep butting in.

You're an architect. I claim your work is trash because making building can't be art. Do you feel enriched?

Not by the question, but by the creative and thinking process that makes me go through the whole reconstruction of why is architecture art, why is art important ? What is art ?

It might depend on the person but just thinking about these questions gives me a fucking erection, how can you not be excited about answering things and learning things you thought you knew but did not ?

What if the line was "architecture can't be art because people live in it, they will never have the point of view that you thought they would have and their interaction with the building makes you surrender your art piece to the public who lives in it" ?

Obviously ad hominem arguments are terrible and all... But no one has time to take every child (like Ebert!) seriously and go through every piece of minutiae to make sure all issues have been exhausted. I am currently no-one's dad, and unwilling to serve that function.

See previous posts. The player of a Video game does not have the power to wrestle authorial control away from the designer. (The illusion of this power is what makes games what they are)

so I'll quote myself:

That's what I said to a friend last time, because from an authorial point of view, as a game designer I can't help but think that way. He however, states that interactivity is what makes games unique in the sense that even if the authors know the milestones, they cannot predict with a 100% chance that a player is not going to go backwards or kill innocents; and even though you have encoded a restricted number of behaviors, the number of times I as a player interact with them, cross them, mess with them and what I take from them is not under your control, you can only predict so much... And beyond that limit is where the game lives. Kind of like a baby

There is part of what you want it to be, and part of what he will grow up to be. (shitty metaphor spotted)

It might be ONLY the power that was given to you, and thus a limited one but you still have power, and it's no illusion.

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What if the line was "architecture can't be art because people live in it, they will never have the point of view that you thought they would have and their interaction with the building makes you surrender your art piece to the public who lives in it" ?

Well, if that was the line I'd sure would know what to answer but I guess it does not interest anyone on earth but me to make parallels between architecture and video games... :getmecoat

Ebert's our client now? Oh fuck, I hope I didn't upset him.

Funny thing is, the clients (the people who buy games) have been convinced long ago. It's only the people who don't actually have anything to do with the project who keep butting in.

Because I fear threatened by your GUB whatever that is, I'll answer that part also:

Because games are built on an bigger scale: people are paying a little part of the process: I've been working on a few little games for brands completely unrelated to gaming and I can tell you, if you make one of these where the client can be identify because they ordered the game, you do have to answer to them. So your remark concerns the large scale distribution model, not the media of gaming particularly.

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And I will triple post to apologize to everybody for typing in shitloads of text out of my ass and making this thread about an awesome episode look like a warzone... I guess it's the Killzone 2 of threads.

Sorry :blink:

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If I design a delicate structure, calculating its strength carefully, and have you questioning its durability without having any expertise on the matter at all, it is not me who's the douchebag for not teaching you architecture to understand the whole matter, it's you who is the douchebag for thinking you know better than people who've spent years studying something.

Totally agree. I'd be a douchebag for saying your building's going to fall over, Ebert's a douche for saying games cannot be art, the pope is a douche for say saying condom use aggravates the spread of AIDS. I think we're agreed though that that doesn't make the arguments necessarily false.

I think it is fair to dismiss arguments for practical reasons, such as when there are hoards of creationists all spewing the same arguments over and over, but this is one dude. If we dismiss him it's not because we can't practically respond it's because we can't be bothered.

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…the pope is a douche for say saying condom use aggravates the spread of AIDS. I think we're agreed though that that doesn't make the arguments necessarily false.

That is hurting me in my inside of myself...

I think it is fair to dismiss arguments for practical reasons, such as when there are hoards of creationists all spewing the same arguments over and over, but this is one dude. If we dismiss him it's not because we can't practically respond it's because we can't be bothered.

Why would we not respond to creationists ? Because they won't listen to the answer. Simple as that, because we already answered their questions a thousand times and they just would not listen, not because they are creationists. But as you present them with the fallacies like "A book says it is true so the book must be true" they just won't comprehend or even try to. You can teach anything as long as one is willing to learn. If the only purpose of a question is to be asked and asked again until you get slapped in the face, just don't ask it twice...

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You touched on a point there OssK that I was going to bring up:

No game will ever pass the Ebert test, because Ebert would dismiss any possible game you could bring him. He has made up his mind, and I doubt very much that anything could budge him. Thus there is no longer any dialogue between Ebert and the Video game medium.

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Incredibly bad-ass having my e-mail read out :P

I was walking along the street outside my house and my email started to get read out, I stopped and listened to make sure. I probably looked like an absoloute fuck face standing beside a road grinning like a fucking moron but nvm.

P.S sweet as fuck

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same issues here, not allowed to watch that movie, only Germany and France

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Thanks Lama, that was really interesting.

Chris Crawford is a really interesting guy with interesting ideas but he constantly rubs everyone up the wrong way. I feel kind of sorry for him, but he brings it on himself.

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