The Business Side of Video (Space) Games EXCLUSIVELY ON IDLE THUMBS

[Zeusthecat]

Okay, one more:

I can't wait for this new Sonic game.

(sorry for the shitty Paint patchwork)

[Merus]

I am honour bound to support Amy Rose getting an actual personality, but yeah Sonic Cycle in full effect.

[SecretAsianMan]

Flappy Bird is a weird, crazy story to me right now.  First everyone complained that it had sprites ripped off of Mario and that the game sucked yet was making $50,000 a day.  Now they're complaining that the game's creator is taking it down, despite the fact that they hate the game and think it sucks.  He's been getting a lot of death threats and whatnot on Twitter, which by now is a standard internet response to anything and is a depressing enough thought by itself.  I can't say I blame him for not being able to take it anymore.  Hopefully it'll blow over quickly and the internet can find some other thing to pointlessly rage on and destroy.

[Twig]

It really is nuts.

 

But also this is maybe my favorite tweet in a long while

i really wanna kill you but nevermind @dongatory

[shammack]

Wow, that Kotaku article is garbage.

[kaputt]

Flappy Bird is a weird, crazy story to me right now.  First everyone complained that it had sprites ripped off of Mario and that the game sucked yet was making $50,000 a day.  Now they're complaining that the game's creator is taking it down, despite the fact that they hate the game and think it sucks.  He's been getting a lot of death threats and whatnot on Twitter, which by now is a standard internet response to anything and is a depressing enough thought by itself.  I can't say I blame him for not being able to take it anymore.  Hopefully it'll blow over quickly and the internet can find some other thing to pointlessly rage on and destroy.

 

This is unbelievable and tragically funny.

 

It's crazy how banalised death threats became, what's going on with these people? 

[Bjorn]

I'm still rather wondering if there wasn't some translation issue or misunderstanding regarding that $50,000 a day quote from advertising.  That's like an unfathomable amount of advertising money, even for an incredibly popular game/app. 

[Frenetic Pony]

Flappy Bird is a weird, crazy story to me right now.  First everyone complained that it had sprites ripped off of Mario and that the game sucked yet was making $50,000 a day.  Now they're complaining that the game's creator is taking it down, despite the fact that they hate the game and think it sucks.  He's been getting a lot of death threats and whatnot on Twitter, which by now is a standard internet response to anything and is a depressing enough thought by itself.  I can't say I blame him for not being able to take it anymore.  Hopefully it'll blow over quickly and the internet can find some other thing to pointlessly rage on and destroy.

 

The thing I've learned about the internet is never to conflate the opinions "it" spouses. Remember, the internet is not one thing, it is over a billion people with differing opinions. One group will have contrary opinions to the other.

 

Also, at a penny a day per person you would need only 5 million players a day. Not unfathomable at all.

[SecretAsianMan]

The thing I've learned about the internet is never to conflate the opinions "it" spouses. Remember, the internet is not one thing, it is over a billion people with differing opinions. One group will have contrary opinions to the other.

 

 

Oh I know in my head there is no single voice to the internet, but it's hard not to be discouraged and depressed that things like this happen with increasing frequency.  Honestly, if it weren't for bastions like Idle Thumbs I'd have given it up long ago.

 

A side thing that was pointed out by JP Lebreton regarding the death threat tweets.

[Merus]

Hell, I would have thought that Mike Krahulik would have disproved John Gabriel's Great Internet Fuckwad Theory. Anonymity is not necessary, lack of consequences is.

[Gormongous]

Hell, I would have thought that Mike Krahulik would have disproved John Gabriel's Great Internet Fuckwad Theory. Anonymity is not necessary, lack of consequences is.

 

Weirdly, it also doesn't seem to require an audience, if the reports of many who've experienced the Internet Hate Machine are true. For every tweeted death threat there are half a dozen sent by email.

[Professor Video Games]

There may be millions or billions of different people on the Internet, but there's often a weird group think that emerges from the communities that exist on it (which is a whole topic on its own really). I saw a tweet from Jake yesterday that I thought was pretty accurate https://twitter.com/ja2ke/statuses/432589043688153088

[Merus]

I think that's true of most things, though: many, if not most, arguments are rationalisations of a gut reaction. 

[Ben X]

Well, despite the internet not being a billion-strong hive-mind, it managed to scare off the free game with death threats, thereby leaving room for an F2P clone that charges 69c per three lives:

 

http://www.vg247.com/2014/02/10/flappy-bird-clones-run-riot-on-app-store-following-games-withdrawal-from-marketplace

 

WELL DONE, INTERNET

[SecretAsianMan]

Kotaku sorta apologized for their article

[Twig]

Well, despite the internet not being a billion-strong hive-mind, it managed to scare off the free game with death threats, thereby leaving room for an F2P clone that charges 69c per three lives:

 

http://www.vg247.com/2014/02/10/flappy-bird-clones-run-riot-on-app-store-following-games-withdrawal-from-marketplace

 

WELL DONE, INTERNET

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh fucking hell man

[Dewar]

I don't get why he wouldn't just delete his twitter account and move on rather than deleting the game wholesale.

[Twig]

The internet finds a way.

- Jeff Goldblum

[darthbator]

I honestly don't understand why creators engage the internet audience at all...

 

This is a pretty good article on creators and internet engagement. I largely agree with the ideas therein. I used to be on twitter, now I'm not. It's really not a productive or positive thing. I can certainly understand the draw. Who wouldn't want to interact with people enjoying their work? Receive their feedback, their support, their adoration, perhaps the mutual respect of your peers whom you've never met otherwise! I do however think it's extremely naive to think people are not going to say complete horrible things to you. I'm not exactly a famous or polarizing figure but I'm no stranger to people telling me to eat the contents of the under side of my sink for reasons I'll never understand. 

 

The only thing that I really think can be done is to foster smaller communities like this one where people are generally positive and supportive. I don't think it's realistic to think that there is going to be some kind of sea change on the internet and twitter is just going to become some giant idle thumbs forum. That's why I'm here. Communities like this tend to not have the crazy social problems places like twitter has. Honestly I think a lot of it is about recognition. in smaller communities it's easier to be recognized without having to resort to being an extreme character. I think people find it hard to standout in places like twitter and reddit and end up lashing out horribly in order to just feel like someone is paying attention. I know I have behaved like that on the internet before....

[Twig]

I think this is a much better article on creators and internet engagement.

 

It's easy to say "don't do it", but some people don't want to be a silent enigmatic creator. Some people like engaging. You don't, clearly, but that doesn't mean Dong Nguyen shouldn't.

[darthbator]

I don't actually think that interaction with the audience on a mass scale brings me anything. Pretty much anytime I even think about that I'm looking to appease my ego. I want to know people like what I make and by extension (somehow?) like me. I just prefer to steer clear from the entire mess. Even at it's best what it's offering me tantamount to masturbation. 

[Twig]

I  really dislike the idea that developers should be shutting themselves off from communicating with the internet. Even ignoring the ever-touted possible benefits of open development and all that jazz, I like to communicate with people. I think I'm lucky to have a thick enough skin to handle any vitriol tossed in my direction, should I ever become internet-faux-famous. Or, at least, I think it's thick enough! I dunno. It's not just about vindication for me. Well, not entirely. I'm sure I like that, too. But mostly I just like to engage with people, and talk with them.

[Ben X]

iwantaclone.tumblr.com

 

Gross.

[Entriech]

Pursuant to that, I just read an article on Polygon about why the Kentucky Route Zero devs have been so quiet since releasing Act 2.

 

http://www.polygon.com/2014/2/11/5400646/why-kentucky-route-zeros-creators-have-been-so-quiet

 

Essentially they call out all the negative attention they received for missing their planned dates as being distracting to them, and that their development process doesn't track well to meeting deadlines, so they've decided to go quiet instead.

[darthbator]

I  really dislike the idea that developers should be shutting themselves off from communicating with the internet. Even ignoring the ever-touted possible benefits of open development and all that jazz, I like to communicate with people. I think I'm lucky to have a thick enough skin to handle any vitriol tossed in my direction, should I ever become internet-faux-famous. Or, at least, I think it's thick enough! I dunno. It's not just about vindication for me. Well, not entirely. I'm sure I like that, too. But mostly I just like to engage with people, and talk with them.

 

Yeah I actually do agree with you. But context is king. There's a big difference between engaging with individuals and he screaming frothing mass that is current twitter/reddit. Statistics alone assure there are actual mentally ill people engauging with yo once you breach a certain volume. The context of the conversation on those sites it just... Not conducive to anything positive and in lots of ways I think that's a numbers thing.