Jake

IDLE THUMBS 200

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I agree with y'all about the use of inappropriate themes to match cool mechanics. It can feel bad and almost exploitative. Although on the other hand, I'm not sure I want to require designers to only make games about things they've experienced. Like any representation, it can be done respectfully and thoughtfully, I suppose.

 

I give this episode six thumbs up.

:tup:  :tup:  :tup:  :tup:  :tup:  :tup:

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On the subject of King's Quest and what it means and whatnot, I don't know much about the new upcoming game, but the original King's Quest was about the King sending you, one of his knights to reclaim 3 stolen treasures of the kingdom.  Which, upon your return, he makes you the King and then promptly dies.

 

And one of the treasures was held by a dragon.  So I'm curious if maybe the new game isn't some kind of retelling of the first King's Quest game.

 

The thing I always liked most about that game was how the manual for it actually had this really long(for a game manual) story that described, like, the entire life of the King and how he kept fucking up and losing each of the kingdom's treasures.  And how, in the end, he basically has to turn to you to fix his mistakes.

 

He's quite the tragic character, this titular King of King's Quest.

 

 

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If Cabel and the other folks from Panic technically oversee the employees of Campo Santo, including Chris, does that make them a Lord's managers?

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The uncle in A Story About My Uncle does indeed have a crazy cyber-glove. He's an eccentric inventor, and he made the glove, some jet boots, and the portal machine that transports you to the planet/dimension/reality where the game takes place.

 

I had fun with the game. My only real complaint is that although a decent number of the grapple paths seemed to be designed around a Bionic-Commando-style swinging ability, the actual grappling mechanics the game uses are "pull yourself directly to the grapple point, I sure hope you have enough momentum and air control to somehow mush your way around that thing you're about to hit, oh no, you hit it, now you fall into infinity and have to start over at the last checkpoint."

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1) Congrats on 200 episodes of my favorite show! Even in those lean years I would check the site like once every other week to see if there was a podblast (which there occasionally was). I'm a little disappointed the name isn't The Superb Show! 

 

2) Man, I love some Steve on the cast. 

 

3) Great instrumental theme. I'm always surprised there's never been a Chris Remo record, seems like there are a lot of good ideas. 

 

4) Notch. I don't think it's possible to really comprehend what your life would look like if you came into 1.5 Billion dollars. A supply  that you practically couldn't deplete short of trying to corner the art market on some major works. It has to have a distortion field that wrecks whatever your perception of responsibility looks like. 

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Congratulations on the big 200 everyone!

 

Really enjoyed the new theme. It immediately reminded me of the Sandbox track from Transistor, which probably had my favourite music from last years crop of games.

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At about 32 minutes, Nick says that because Notch made Minecraft he should be basically immune to criticism about his vane opulent consumerism.  I don't want to jump on Nick for that (okay I do, but I won't).  Instead, I just want to point out the perniciousness of that idea.

 

I also think that the idea of hyper-wealthy people being honored for their charity donations is pretty problematic.  Take the most famous case of Andrew Carnegie who was one of the most violently exploitative capitalists in American history.  Today we celebrate him for giving some of his wealth to self-honorific charities and foundations.  Yet, his and his peer's labor exploitation create a permanent lower-class whose needs can never be solved by his charity.  The same process is occuring now.  You can read about the autrocious labor conditions and wages given to workers at microsoft's contract factories or read about how the rare metals needed for their consumer products fuel conflicts.  Yet we celebrate Bill Gates as a humanitarian.  In my opinion, the super wealthy shouldn't be honored for giving to charity, we should consider it the very least they can do to recompense for the exploitative system that they are benefitting from.

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I think this is all complicated by the fact that Notch is a dude that very clearly wasn't trying to strike it rich, he just wanted to make a cool game that ended up being lightning in a bottle. I'm like really reluctant to start scrutinizing how someone that falls into wealth almost by accident spends their money compared to say like a really rich guy that works in finance where you know that person just straight up wants to make a ton of money. That's the perspective I gather from someone saying (and also I think it was Steve, not Nick???), this person just made a game a lot of people care about, maybe it doesn't make a ton of sense to have this sneering attitude about what he does after he is super wealthy.

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From where I sit, the important thing is that Notch doesn't have a "I got your money, fuck you!" attitude. What he does in his early retirement is his business.

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Got a real

vibe from that opening theme.

 

Thank you! That's what was digging at my brain.

 

From where I sit, the important thing is that Notch doesn't have a "I got your money, fuck you!" attitude. What he does in his early retirement is his business.

 

I mean, I feel like rich people have some responsibility to give back something. Even if he was just selling a product, it's not like it was made and sold in a total vacuum, so I feel uncomfortable with him just retiring to his mansion to practice DJing for the rest of his life, whether or not he's a dick about it.

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Amazing milestone ep, Thumbs! I really enjoyed listening to all 6 of you even if you had to resort to the dreaded Skype.

(and also I think it was Steve, not Nick???)

Yeah.

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Congratulations on 200 episodes! I was highly satisfied with this episode's amount of Danielle-Toad. Will listen again next week. Also robo-Chris should have sung the theme song.

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One day this show is going to just start with Danielle doing the Toad "OKAY!" and then IMMEDIATELY go to the theme and I will LOSE IT.

 

(oh yeah and congrats on 200 episodes!)

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I think this is all complicated by the fact that Notch is a dude that very clearly wasn't trying to strike it rich, he just wanted to make a cool game that ended up being lightning in a bottle. I'm like really reluctant to start scrutinizing how someone that falls into wealth almost by accident spends their money compared to say like a really rich guy that works in finance where you know that person just straight up wants to make a ton of money. That's the perspective I gather from someone saying (and also I think it was Steve, not Nick???), this person just made a game a lot of people care about, maybe it doesn't make a ton of sense to have this sneering attitude about what he does after he is super wealthy.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the storyline goes: notch sees infiniminer, notch decides to make his own version of infiniminer, notch works really hard to make minecraft, minecraft makes a lot of money for notch, etc etc. Notch did not set out to make a bunch of money, and notch ends up working very hard, and makes a lot of money.

 

So. The questions that I have (some are big, unanswerable questions):

 

- did notch work hard? (yes) 

- is minecraft a net positive or net negative for humans on the planet? (like, when it comes to apple, or microsoft, and the usage of rare earth elements and exploitative labor, that's pretty bad, and does put a significant dent in the way in which these companies have shaped the modern world technologically)

- did notch work hard enough to deserve billions of dollars (?)

- does minecraft deserve to be the game that made billions of dollars (?)

 

Steve talked about how it's the defining game for a generation of people younger than him / the Idle Thumbs crew. And that's certainly true. Is that a good thing? I guess the defenders of Minecraft say that it's open ended, and essentially the video game version of Lego for kids. This is an intriguing point. Is it true? I've seen a sea of research that indicates that Minecraft has had positive impacts on kids lives, but I wonder about the detrimental effects as well. 

 

All this is in service of: if Notch has done the world a public good, and worked hard, and now has over a billion dollars, he can do what he wants with it. If he's just The Person who managed to do the thing that was about to be done anyway, by someone, does he deserve to have billions of dollars for that?

 

There are people working very hard, on very important things, around the world. People who over the course of their lives will never make a sum total of money even approaching a billion dollars. Like, I work pretty hard. If I work for something like twenty thousand years and save all of my money, I'd have a cool billion dollars. 

 

When I read about the things that notch has done with his money, it's upsetting, because I am on the spectrum of people who believe that even given Minecraft's importance on the world's stage, even given the work and time notch devoted to it, it's not worth giving a human being billions of dollars. Maybe this makes me a spoilsport. I just wonder about people who have a lot of money, because the lottery's going to be won by someone, right? 

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For my part, I once traded ten of my dollars for a minecraft and remain satisfied with the exchange.

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I am only 5 minutes into this episode but I need to tell you that after Steve said "I don't usually talk to people about how to break into things", I made the "houses" joke at the exact same time you did and it made me really happy.

 

And maybe means 200 episodes of Idle Thumbs has done something to my brain.

 

But whatever. Bring it. My brain is better this way.

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I am only 5 minutes into this episode but I need to tell you that after Steve said "I don't usually talk to people about how to break into things", I made the "houses" joke at the exact same time you did and it made me really happy.

And maybe means 200 episodes of Idle Thumbs has done something to my brain.

But whatever. Bring it. My brain is better this way.

Pretty sure it was Nick subtly indicating his burglary advocacy.

Steve is fine with anyone HACKING into things.

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200 episodes in and the Thumbs are still being confused for each other!

 

Oh, I forgot to mention earlier that the new theme sounded great! It sounded space-exploration themed to me, probably because it's mysterious while still being positive and upbeat. It would fit well over an opening credits sequence, for sure. I'm interested to hear how the vocals shift that. Also, I'm sure the vocals will be cool, but, when I heard the theme, I thought Chris had decided to drop the vocals and melody knowing that the reader would add them back in mentally. That just added to the ambiguity for me as I tried to fit my memories of the melody into this new arrangement and wondered about timing and if notes would have to change to fit parts that seemed to be slightly different. It was a cool musical journey* for me, even if it was entirely unintentional.   :P

 

*Idle Thumbs: A Cool Musical Journey

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I mean, I feel like rich people have some responsibility to give back something. Even if he was just selling a product, it's not like it was made and sold in a total vacuum, so I feel uncomfortable with him just retiring to his mansion to practice DJing for the rest of his life, whether or not he's a dick about it.

As an American citizen caught up in the class warfare going on, to me, it's enough that Notch isn't working or lobbying to make the wealthy wealthier. Plus, his profit sharing with Mojang was unbelievably generous (I remember a story about it a couple / few years ago, vaguely).

 

Cynical of me, I know. And yeah he should take up a charity or two, but he has time to decide.

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As an American citizen caught up in the class warfare going on, to me, it's enough that Notch isn't working or lobbying to make the wealthy wealthier. Plus, his profit sharing with Mojang was unbelievably generous (I remember a story about it a couple / few years ago, vaguely).

 

Cynical of me, I know. And yeah he should take up a charity or two, but he has time to decide.

 

Oh, totally. To double down on your cynicism, after a decade or so of throwing parties and buying things, he'll probably be bored enough that running a charity will be a nice change of pace. That's kind of how it seemed with Bill Gates.

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