Chris

Idle Thumbs 164: The Seed of a Sneeze

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It's always felt to me that the Star Citizen discussions are basically a fascination at what it is and what it's been doing, without commenting on the gameplay at all. I mean, the game is a pretty unique phenomena. I love hearing about it but also know I will never touch that game because of the financial barrier.

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Oh yeah, since Sean brought it up, it's totally agonizing to me every time I hear someone respond with, "interesting" or, "that's interesting." The thing is, especially in the podcast world, almost everyone does this. But I had a similar problem with a terrible art director who had no business being one where the negative response to something was, "interesting" as a way to shrug off any conversation and never return to it.

 

However, it was incredibly confusing because that was his default response to pretty much everything in life. I heard it hundreds of times a day and I just wanted to call him out on it. I feel like it's a phrase everyone says these days as a way to sound smart or to appear as a thinking man but as a word not in the context of a sentence, it is utterly meaningless. Gah.

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Oh yeah, since Sean brought it up, it's totally agonizing to me every time I hear someone respond with, "interesting" or, "that's interesting." The thing is, especially in the podcast world, almost everyone does this. But I had a similar problem with a terrible art director who had no business being one where the negative response to something was, "interesting" as a way to shrug off any conversation and never return to it.

 

However, it was incredibly confusing because that was his default response to pretty much everything in life. I heard it hundreds of times a day and I just wanted to call him out on it. I feel like it's a phrase everyone says these days as a way to sound smart or to appear as a thinking man but as a word not in the context of a sentence, it is utterly meaningless. Gah.

This might just be me showing my outsider or old-guy ignorance, but it kind of reminds me why I stopped using Twitter.

 

Twitter, from my brief use of it, is mainly this wheel of promotion and cross promotion. You're either excitedly promoting yourself, or excitedly promoting someone else's thing through a retweet or some other form of half-conversation. This is done in the hopes that the guy you're saying nice things about, will also say nice things about you, and keep the promotion wheel rolling.

 

This reminds me a bit of showbiz promotion. If you're an actor, director, or whatever, and you're in a movie that's good, or not good, you always, always, say nice things about it, and the people you work with. Hollywood runs on people saying nice things about each other, because you really need this network of goodwill and cross promotion to keep your career rolling.

 

It seems the same way with comedians as well (something else I followed on Twitter). There's a lot of crosstalk going on, of comics retweeting and responding to each others' things, and it's amusing enough, but it also bears this sense of "you support my current line, I'll support yours, and we'll both benefit through more followers."

 

Nothing wrong with any of that on the outset, but in my use case, it just made Twitter this worthless puzzling thing that led Google to shut down Reader.

 

At any rate, though, you're going to be involved with a movie that isn't good, a game that isn't good, a line of humor that sours, or work on a project you're not enthusiastic about. But you still have to keep up the positive energy to make the most out of it, because enthusiasm means more clicks or sales, more followers, more money, more momentum for your career, and most importantly, the network of industry contacts you need to maintain. And anyway, what if this thing that you're not so hot on, turns out to be the thing? You don't want to be the guy who said it was not so hot.

 

So a sub-language sort of develops that lets you say something vaguely positive-sounding about something, without throwing your whole heart into it, minimizing risk and maximizing return on your language.

 

It's not a bad game, in fact, it's really quite interesting. The theme is a bit problematic, sure, but it gives at least a modicum of visceral involvement. Will it detract from the longevity of the product? Only time will tell.

 

Say, that's an interesting post there, doctorfrog.

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I just found it completely unhelpful for creating, but as a diplomacy tool I suppose it's fine. The best people I've worked under are completely specific in what they require and what they are thinking instead of just pulling out a stock phrase that covers bases.

 

Alternatively, another term I hate is, "Try taking it further." Also meaningless.

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I feel like the majority of our discussion of the game has been about this component of it! I don't think anyone could listen to the last few episodes or Thumbs and not come to the conclusion that we find the Star Citizen economy incredibly strange.

 

I mean if this was any other kickstarter game that wasn't set in space with ships, noone would take it seriously. 

 

An FPS game where you were sold guns or ammo, a racing game where they sold cars with maybe life time track memberships. Or sold you extra sets of tires or fuel.

 

MMOs that sell lifetime anything have so far been a bad deal for those that bought in.

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This might just be me showing my outsider or old-guy ignorance, but it kind of reminds me why I stopped using Twitter.

 

Twitter, from my brief use of it, is mainly this wheel of promotion and cross promotion. You're either excitedly promoting yourself, or excitedly promoting someone else's thing through a retweet or some other form of half-conversation. This is done in the hopes that the guy you're saying nice things about, will also say nice things about you, and keep the promotion wheel rolling.

 

Nothing wrong with any of that on the outset, but in my use case, it just made Twitter this worthless puzzling thing that led Google to shut down Reader.

 

Wow, yeah, that's not how I use Twitter at all. I think, as a celebrity, you're kind of obligated to play nice, but I mostly use it as a way to put a dumb thought up. It's a little like IRC in that regard, to me, except more entertaining because it's not in real-time.

 

Also I think Google shut down Reader because they didn't know what they were doing with it and wanted to force everyone onto Google+.

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I mean if this was any other kickstarter game that wasn't set in space with ships, noone would take it seriously.

An FPS game where you were sold guns or ammo, a racing game where they sold cars with maybe life time track memberships. Or sold you extra sets of tires or fuel.

MMOs that sell lifetime anything have so far been a bad deal for those that bought in.

At this point I don't think anyone really knows what the model is actually going to be when the game launches. I've heard some people say they aren't going to keep sell real-money items post-launch. I just have no idea. It's hard to have as firm an opinion about it as about a game that already exists in an essentially final state.

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I can't help but think that all of this stuff leading up to the actual game launch is going to make the game so completely and utterly baffling for new players that eventually the game will just be like Martha's Vinyard in space, with the mega-rich flying around in their space yachts tipping their space hats at each other.

 

I also think that a downside to our new world of slowly squeezed-out content (alphas and betas and on and on) means that it becomes very hard to get a toe-hold into the game because it's hard to judge when a game is complete enough to deserve your amount of money. I'm someone who really doesn't get a thrill out of alpha/beta releases personally, and so if I were to want to get into a Star Citizen, right now it's not worth 30 - 40 dollars (look, a virtual ship! Simplistic but pretty dogfighting with bots!). It potentially will be in the future, but when will that be? I think that this does benefit the developer (potentially?), but it makes the casual consumer pretty confused. 

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I can't help but think that all of this stuff leading up to the actual game launch is going to make the game so completely and utterly baffling for new players that eventually the game will just be like Martha's Vinyard in space, with the mega-rich flying around in their space yachts tipping their space hats at each other.

 

I also think that a downside to our new world of slowly squeezed-out content (alphas and betas and on and on) means that it becomes very hard to get a toe-hold into the game because it's hard to judge when a game is complete enough to deserve your amount of money. I'm someone who really doesn't get a thrill out of alpha/beta releases personally, and so if I were to want to get into a Star Citizen, right now it's not worth 30 - 40 dollars (look, a virtual ship! Simplistic but pretty dogfighting with bots!). It potentially will be in the future, but when will that be? I think that this does benefit the developer (potentially?), but it makes the casual consumer pretty confused. 

 

I haven't ended up playing any of the big name alpha/beta/early access games, not even Minecraft, even though I've found the story behind them to often be fascinating.  But in my brain, they kind of stop being a game and they become a story that I'm watching unfold and I decide that the story behind the game is more interesting than the game itself ever could be. 

 

I don't think mine is a normal reaction, but I do think it's the kind of thing that can develop around these games for people who might otherwise be fans or customers. 

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At this point I don't think anyone really knows what the model is actually going to be when the game launches. I've heard some people say they aren't going to keep sell real-money items post-launch. I just have no idea. It's hard to have as firm an opinion about it as about a game that already exists in an essentially final state.

 

To be fair, he is right that there have been several MMO games that have sold in-game real estate or unique items during the pre-release phase to build buzz and cash, all of which ended up crashing and burning because it's hard enough to balance a complex in-game economy without people who have paid to opt out of its most important money- and time-sinks.

 

Really, I'm not surprised to hear that Chris Roberts regrets lifetime insurance. His only real choices are to gut it with massive waiting periods or make all insurance trivial, because otherwise I don't know. Can you imagine how the roads would look if there were people who had unlimited full-coverage insurance driving on them? It's going to be a bizarre game no matter what, and I kind of agree with a more pessimistic version of Jake's prediction that it'll take a miracle for it all to work together well.

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At 1:31:30, Sean inadvertently stumbles upon the true setting of Capsule, with Hideo Kojima being assaulted from every side by the reality that his inappropriate video game narratives have human emotional consequences. Spoiler alert! 

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Glad to see the classic team back together, bar Jake :P

 

Also, when was Danielle called Junior Mints? Why? I didn't even realise Junior Mints was a real thing until I saw Danielle's profile pic.

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Anyway, I went back as far as 2008 for the Joystiq podcast and it's pretty boring and embarassing. I almost can't believe it's the same Justin McElroy. He is incredibly not funny, comes off as ignorant, jokes are obvious and not funny, calls people stupid for having a differing opinion, and just generally being obnoxious and having poor podcast etiquette where he just regularly leaves for 10 minute periods and constantly eats and chews throughout the episodes. Some reader mail brought up his rudeness and he was just all, "Deal with it! I'm hungry!" I guess there's hope for everyone after hearing that nonsense. Inspiring!

 

In an interview or podcast of a more serious nature that I've heard with Justin, he talked really openly and frankly about his issues with anxiety growing up and how coping with them successfully is a sort of recent thing (I can't find the link right now which is frustrating), so I imagine that being the loudest crudest jokester in the room was an early way of dealing with that - yeah this is armchair psychology and probably not fair to Justin who is a true mensch, but I know that was my go-to mode when I was younger and figuring out how to be successful in social situations.

 

I'm also reminded of something Zack from VGHD said a few episodes ago where he admitted he really didn't want to hear any podcasts of himself from five years ago because he's positive that he would've been saying things that made him sound like an enormous asshole. It's nuts how noticeable people changing and evolving can be when a couple hours of their lives each week are just out on the internet. You can do the same thing with Scoops (not Hot Scoops, who has always had perfect opinions I'm sure). 

 

Justin's so great and funny now and my first exposure to him was actually one of Giant Bomb's E3 or PAX clusterfucks just before Polygon launched for real and he kept shouting POLYGON DOT COM IT'S REAL and I couldn't stop laughing every time.

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It's terrifying to listen to old Idle Thumbs. We used to recommend starting at the start, and I would never ever recommend that now.

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Mistakes don't invalidate the good stuff! I fully understand not wanting people to hear you say things you wish you didn't say, but the fact that there was growth is what everyone wants, right? People considering what they've said/done, and try to improve where they think they should. Wanting things to be fully formed and correct doesn't respect the hard work and learning that it takes to get there.

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The old Joystiq podcast with Justin, Ludwig and Chris is what got me into listening to gaming podcasts, and I remember them as being some of my favorite podcasts ever.  Of course that was years ago, and trying to listen to them now might feel radically different.  At the time they were new, they didn't stand out to me as being terrible though.

 

That said, I had to stop listening to The Besties from Polygon because of how obnoxious I ended up thinking one of the hosts was.  It might be that 6 years ago I would have thought that schtick was hilarious, and a little bit older me just doesn't have the tolerance for it. 

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I wish the Besties would just be a general gaming podcast. Or, that they would do a separate case from the Besties that was that. I just want to hear Justin talk about things going on in the industry and what he's been playing, without having to try and fit in into a high concept template.

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It's terrifying to listen to old Idle Thumbs. We used to recommend starting at the start, and I would never ever recommend that now.

 

To be fair I think most people in their 20s (maybe actually most people(???)) would be terrified if they had the opportunity to hear themselves from 5 -6 years ago. I know this is absolutely the case for me, I just didn't have the chance to speak into a microphone and put myself on the internet back then. 

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A regular podcast just talking about gaming and the industry is pretty much the top thing I want from Polygon. 

 

 

To be fair I think most people in their 20s (maybe actually most people(???)) would be terrified if they had the opportunity to hear themselves from 5 -6 years ago. I know this is absolutely the case for me, I just didn't have the chance to speak into a microphone and put myself on the internet back then. 

 

I don't think it's just hearing it, just seeing your old work can do that.  I wrote professionally for the latter half of my 20s, and I've been pretty horrified when I've run across some of that work.  I don't even remember writing some pieces, but I see my byline, so I'm pretty sure it was me that hammered out that drivel somehow. 

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Yeah, good podcasts are like fine wine and tend to improve with age. That being said, I do recommend people that enjoy 3MA listen to the early episodes. The tone is much more anarchic, the sound quality is often spotty at best, but man a lot of those episodes are really entertaining, and feature some pretty epic rants.

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