tegan

I Had a Random Thought (About Video Games)

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I sent in $10 as a pay-what-you want for DQ (which is fabulous and worth playing, see my thoughts in the Twine thread).  I agree that backing the Patreon is the best, but I honestly haven't been able to bring myself to back anyone through Patreon yet.  There are many worthy people I could back, and I can't afford to back them all, so I back none.  Which is shitty too.

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My favourite thing about the Zoe Quinn thing is that by far the biggest cry of "journalism ethics!" has come from TotalBiscuit, who also unabashedly accepts payment from publishers to cover their games. And also is kind of a jackass.

 

Maybe I'm paranoid, or just fatalistic, but who really believes there's anything left of journalism ethics? You can't tell me you watch the 6 o'clock news and believe that none of that is influenced by the TV channel, cable provider, and their sponsors. By popular journalism's nature it's a system designed to present things in the most extreme light in order to get more clicks/views/subscribers/ratings.

 

Also, they really are watching you, you have no privacy left, but, if they were out to get you, you'd already be in jail.

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I really think the most ironic thing about all of this is that Ferguson and Gaza are going on right now and perfectly encapsulate how much of a pipedream video game journalism ethics are versus actual, real-world important journalism ethics. If we can't get regular media to properly report on Israel's genocide and the protests in front of CNN's building, focusing on small-time video game stuff is just absolutely ludicrous.

 

Excuse my slight breach of "Idle Banter" into this thread with that.

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I caught a second shiny Pokémon while training my previous shiny Pokémon! Time to update the chart!

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I was well on the way to beating my second Dominions 4 campaign as Middle-Ages Jotunheim when the "Necromancer's Lair" story event went off the rails (because my province patrols killed the eponymous necromancer the first turn he appeared, which apparently glitches the event chain) and the game wouldn't stop spawning skeletons and plagues in my heartland. I got it mostly under control, if by "under control" you can understand to mean a permanent army of supply-free units camping the affected provinces, but what should have been my bread basket was a dustbowl and I had half the income and twice the borders that I'd otherwise have had. It wasn't an unwinnable game, but it was tedious and dumb, so whatever.

 

I guess I know why story events are off by default in the game options... I just hope this doesn't kill my interest in ever playing again.

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Instead of buying Depression Quest, consider backing her on Patreon - http://www.patreon.com/zoe

 

Strikes me as a more lasting show of support. Up to you either way.

 

I agree that backing the Patreon is the best, but I honestly haven't been able to bring myself to back anyone through Patreon yet.  There are many worthy people I could back, and I can't afford to back them all, so I back none.  Which is shitty too.

 

I had a rather bad reaction when I saw that website. Looks exactly like charity, and if I had enough cash to donate to more than one charity, I'd much rather hand my money over to feed starving people, or help build wells in Africa rather than give free money to a middle class video game developer who's currently experiencing some serious problems. I also know I'd never put myself up on a website like Patreon because the idea of people I don't know giving me a wage without a promise of work creeps me out. 

I think I'll just buy her product for a decent price. Seems like a good way to support her without affecting my conscience. 

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You only do get paid by Patreon when you publish content though right?

I remember seeing quite a few writers having their "wage" be described as $/article or something like that,

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Yeah, the model of Patreon is supposed to be supporting artists that distribute their work freely. It obviously has an image problem though because I've seen people comparing it to charity or 'handouts' a few times.

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Oh, I was assuming you meant that even though you understood the model of it, it felt like charity. I guess I'll explain it, just in case anyone doesn't fully understand.

 

Basically, creators who make content that they release freely to the public (comics, articles, youtube videos) can set up a patreon account where their fans can optionally offer the creator an amount of money for each update. It can either be per release (ie every video/article/comic page) or per week/month, and you can also set a cap, to prevent you paying too much if there's suddenly a glut of updates you hadn't expected.

 

There are rewards, like in a kickstarter, so that usually the creator can offer something in return, such as behind the scenes content, work in progress sketches or access to funder only streams. Obviously it varies by creator but the intent is that these are to be additional incentives, not locking off the content to the fans who don't pay any money.

 

There are also cumulative goals, where the creator says that "if in total I'm earning X amount per update, I can do Y." Those are usually for things where they can add more to their work if they can afford it, by getting new equipment or being able to invest time into a side project.

 

I personally like it a lot, because even though it does have the rewards, I feel like unlike crowdfunding stuff this is trying to put the emphasis back on the idea that you're not buying something with this transaction, the point is supposed to be offering support to creators and the rewards you get are not the main point.

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Honestly, that's not a terrible idea if you like everything someone creates. I just saw a big fat "$X per month" and I reacted instantly. Still don't think it's for me: supporting everything someone does seems a bit over the top, but it's less objectionable now.

I reacted hastily.

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The hasty reaction clearly isn't all on you as its a recurring feeling people have voiced.

Though for the record, it's not always about discrete separate things, someone could be getting money for every week they spend updating their webcomic or every video they do in a series they're making. And there's no real obligation, as far as I know you can pull out whenever you want.

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For how much mouse controls get talked up as being good there are an awful lot of PC games with bad mouse input. I truly wish I didn't notice because I'm so tired of trying to tweak it or find workarounds. Just started Bulletstorm for example, and there's no sensitivity scaling with you aim down sights, so the effective sensitivity becomes crazy high (if the rad/mm is fixed and you lower the FoV the pixel/mm becomes much higher). Luckily it's fixable, but how did they not notice that? Like every other game it defaults to vsync on as well, which adds so much mouse lag you notice it even just clicking in the menus. Like I said, I wish I weren't so picky because it seems that devs very rarely are.

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It's weird, there are some games that just come off as lazy PC ports without even having played them on PC and Bulletstorm definitely struck me as one. Maybe it's just controller-centric design layouts or something. Honestly, most console-first shooters really aren't very good with m+k.

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They're still better than with a controller, though!

 

 

neyayeneyherrr first post on new page neyeyreyrnyehrhh

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It's so weird that when it comes to shooters, consoles have better left-hand movement controls and PCs have better right-hand aiming controls.

 

You would think someone would have combined those in a more elegant manner by now.

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It's so weird that when it comes to shooters, consoles have better left-hand movement controls and PCs have better right-hand aiming controls.

 

You would think someone would have combined those in a more elegant manner by now.

 

Isn't that what your fancy Razer things are for? I mean, they're not full on analog sticks but they approximate them right?

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This is from the feminist thread, but I wanted to put my response here because I'm eccentric or something.
 
 

There's an Anti-Anita Sarkeesian documentary that some scam artists are trying to make through Patreon funding. All they need is $15,000 per month for an indeterminate amount of time. Gogogo 4Chan!

 

I hope this inspires all the guys making elaborate diagrams with tons of big red arrows and screenshots from 4Chan to band together and make a Glenn Beck-style $10/month network dedicated to their anti-female conspiracy veiled as a pursuit of truth.

 

What a relief. Now I have an action to offer those who feel that the social  justice-warriors have silenced their voice. I can just be like "Stop reading the infiltrated media outlets and donate to these guys."

 

I'm hoping that some like-minded individuals will create an official list of games that are not games. I would enjoy reading it, especially if it includes the reasons that they are not games. 

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Isn't that what your fancy Razer things are for? I mean, they're not full on analog sticks but they approximate them right?

 

They do, and I like them a lot. Just the same, I wish they were true analog sticks and designed more like a controller than a keyboard. I played Saints Row 3 and 4 by holding an Xbox controller with my left hand and aiming with the mouse in my right.

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They do, and I like them a lot. Just the same, I wish they were true analog sticks and designed more like a controller than a keyboard. I played Saints Row 3 and 4 by holding an Xbox controller with my left hand and aiming with the mouse in my right.

 

That is insane and I had no idea it was a thing. Some games disable m&k when you use a mouse, but I didn't even consider the possibility of using m&controller when it's not disabled. Interesting.

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I used to do a similar thing as Teg when playing older emulated NES/SNES games.  Before the Xbox existed I tried a couple of PC controllers.  The d-pad and analog sticks on most older PC controllers are terrible and I hated using a keyboard for the face button inputs so I used a combination of the two.  I'd use the keyboard with my left hand for the d-pad and the controller in my right for the buttons.  It was really awkward but still better than using either the keyboard or controller alone.

 

In terms of more modern stuff, I'm totally comfortable with WASD but will concede that it does make for some goofy movement in games that have more than one speed.

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I'm hoping that some like-minded individuals will create an official list of games that are not games. I would enjoy reading it, especially if it includes the reasons that they are not games. 

 

This is a super interesting question! I was at Nine Worlds Geekfest last weekend, and Jack de Quidt of The Tall Trees was on a panel discussion what was and wasn't a game. The usual suspects were mooted - Gone Home, Proteus and so on, and de Quidt asked what would need to be added to Gone Home to make it a game in the eyes of those who maintain that it isn't. How about adding a collection mechanic - where you could, say, pick up VHS cassette tapes hidden around the house and get a score at the end of the game? That mechanic existed in The Path - does that mean that The Path was more of a game than Gone Home, even though the mechanic was put there to satirize pointless collection mechanics? And if so would it be enough actually to make it a game - that is, would just adding that mechanic to a "not a game" make it a game? 

 

Or is it not about what needs to be added, but about what needs to be taken away? If you take away the female protagonist, does that make it more like a game? How about the LGBT themes? Would a game with the same basic (shudder) gameplay, but which was a

ghost story or a serial killer story

be accepted as a game? Or, pushing it out yet further, would it be thought of as a game by the people who insist it is not a game if the studio had had a different gender mix, or if it had been shown at the PAX Indie Megabooth in 2013?

 

I've actually gone beyond his hypotheticals there, but I think it's an interesting train of thought to follow. The question of what is or is not a game seems to go a long way beyond game design.

 

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My family got me one of those razer thingies for Father's Day this year, a keypad with like 16 keys and an analog stick.  I ended up having them return it after a week or so.  I appreciated the thought, but ultimately it wasn't something I could use.  The biggest thing was the analog stick, it was significantly worse than any stick on any controller I've ever used.  It also sat at a weird angle.

 

Maybe there are better ones out there, but my first experience with one didn't impress me.

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"What is game" is truly the eternal question.

 

I don't really see the value in defining what is and isn't a game, does it really affect how we view "games" or games? I guess it would be more valuable to people who seek to exclude games like Gone Home from the "game" category and feel cheated spending money on that stuff. Aside from that value judgment, is there kind of substantive reason to pan out that definition?

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