tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178178746146487446.post6732053705885443494..comments2022-10-23T05:48:37.333-07:00Comments on \\...........//: The Talk of MagiciansLiz Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15083999308545721370noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178178746146487446.post-40883652412485753302013-08-07T11:53:39.421-07:002013-08-07T11:53:39.421-07:00re: dys4ia et al's inherit "unmarketabili...re: dys4ia et al's inherit "unmarketability" and how we should see that as a strength instead of a weakness. yes yes yes. that seems like the real discussion worth having here and I agree with you 100%.Kevinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15587811785622457794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178178746146487446.post-76022200084440583962013-08-07T11:15:21.138-07:002013-08-07T11:15:21.138-07:00Yessssssssss.Yessssssssss.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10011693413900664658noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178178746146487446.post-54706800676161473492013-08-07T10:41:44.484-07:002013-08-07T10:41:44.484-07:00The point is, I think programmers can handle a lit...The point is, I think programmers can handle a little antagonism. SV-style practices are America's do-no-wrong golden boy right now. Even though plenty of that comes from mediocre or non-programmers who can throw around the right buzzwords, every programmer and IT worker in the Western world right now basks at least a little in that glow. Even as far away as I am today in Berlin, I see signs of the same bullshit startup culture forming. I say this as a programmer, who has worked inside and outside of the Bay Area. Programming will not save the world, and programmers and those who manage them need absolutely constant reminders of that right now.<br /><br />I don't want to speak for Liz, but I don't think she called Braid "shallow, manipulative entertainment" (viz, one game can't be "waves"). But the attitude its production embodies, which is the same attitude Gage and Blow are pushing, is also the attitude that creates and justifies that wave. See Blaine Allen Brown's comment about The Witness above, for example - whether it's because of marketability or a "purely artistic" obsession with an unattainable perfection, Blow's comments about that game show him falling into bullshit of the same genus, if not the same exact form, as today's AAA titles. (And really, I don't think the two reasons are very different.)<br /><br />The challenge needs to be to the root ideas about marketability and production and art under capitalism, not about how to change games to thrive within their existing constraints. Most of the games I consider most important - dys4ia, as a common example - simply cannot. There is no way to "tweak the graphics" to make a game about HRT commercially acceptable. Pointing out that Corrypt can be "just barely" changed to find that level of commercial acceptance, and say "well that's not *so* bad", is also to show a willingness to throw brilliant games that can't do that under the bus.Joehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06699530139867770551noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178178746146487446.post-61225461247591036012013-08-07T10:05:41.135-07:002013-08-07T10:05:41.135-07:00I live in San Francisco, so I'm reminded daily...I live in San Francisco, so I'm reminded daily of gross examples of tech culture's overreach—looming company buses with tinted windows shuttling people making $150K a year to create things of questionable value between gentrified neighborhoods. A general slavish worship of the free market. A population of mostly straight white males where the bell curve's tails are VERY distant. This isn't mainstream America, obviously, though. I'd love to hear your thoughts specifically about tech culture and mainstream discourse.<br /><br />I was just complaining that some of Liz's language felt a bit antagonistic towards programmers. And I don't think Braid is "shallow, manipulative entertainment" for having spent a year or two in polish mode.Kevinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15587811785622457794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178178746146487446.post-78130188004989890072013-08-07T08:58:24.402-07:002013-08-07T08:58:24.402-07:00I tweeted this to Michael Brough when I first foun...I tweeted this to Michael Brough when I first found out about Corrypt. I wanted him to charge for a PC version. Just buzz that this game from an unknown (to me) developer was an interesting puzzler would have been enough to get me to pay $5 on PC. Now that I've played his game I will easily pay any reasonable amount for his next game (depending on scale). I wouldn't expect to pay less than $10 and certainly wouldn't question $20 for this size game, because now I'm a Michael Brough fan. I believe that is part of what Jon Blow meant by building an audience and sometimes that means having your first thing be cheaper.<br /><br />I also think that indies overvalue the mobile market. Everyone has a computer. Some people have smartphones and a smaller amount of people feel like playing games on them and an even _smaller_ amount are willing/able to pay for those games. For a game like Corrypt that isn't seriously enhanced by the mobile nature of the iPhone, it makes more sense to target your audience availability to "roughly anyone," which translates to "people with computers and money." You can release on iPhone too, but I feel like that devalues the game like JB sort of implied (people are only willing to pay so much for an iPhone game. $3 is a lot on iPhone, $5 is practically free on PC).<br /><br />As for the graphics and sound, I think Corrypt is already perfect. And in this way, I believe Blow to be wrong, both theoretically and in practice. Braid was an amazing game with beautiful art and sound, and it's part of what introduced me to the world of indie games. However, Jon Blow has spent an incredible amount of time on The Witness, and every blog post I see refers to graphics. I trust him to deliver an amazing experience, but I can't help feeling like he's wasting his time on too much art because he believes that will sell the game. Minecraft graphics are simple and yet still beautifully deliver the mechanics (and made a ton of money). Why spend so much time on advanced foliage graphics? I could be wrong so I'll let the game be the answer.<br /><br />But Corrypt is perfect. It's beautiful, detailed, and evokes the right emotion; but it's also the appropriate scale for an indie to make and _actually release_ himself. It's fine to take your time creating something great, but people playing your game is the true value of the art.Blaine Allen Brownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17041345435587852524noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178178746146487446.post-45587656853785883012013-08-07T01:21:48.535-07:002013-08-07T01:21:48.535-07:00"Calling Blow's reach for whatever platon..."Calling Blow's reach for whatever platonic-ideals are floating around his head "sinister" and "odd" seems unnecessarily harsh."<br /><br />At the same time, I think the core message of Braid is that this kind of search for Platonic ideals easily - maybe even necessarily - becomes sinister and odd. And I think this is what Liz is alluding to when she says Braid "tries and fails to be critical of this from within". That specific crit of Braid appears to have been ignored by most people reading / commenting, though.<br /><br />I also think if you don't notice the (very-well-defined and straight up sociopathic, not "aspie" (ugh)) "tech culture" taking over all mainstream discourse in incredibly disgusting ways, you're probably just not looking very hard.Joehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06699530139867770551noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178178746146487446.post-76361642010632414162013-08-07T01:07:43.091-07:002013-08-07T01:07:43.091-07:00Zach, your comments here (and some of Jon Blow'...Zach, your comments here (and some of Jon Blow's on Twitter) continue to push a really dangerous idea of success, where it's the inevitable result of good, hard work.<br /><br />For example, you say "if you understand them you can shape them however you want: famous, recluse, rich", as if once you understand them, being rich is merely choice. Or the way you're so certain everything will "be fine." Similarly, Blow's described his advice as "ways not to be poor" and said the advice "consequently [makes] hundreds of thousands of (currency)". But it's very easy to find older and longer-working game designers making as brilliant games where "the way the world works" is so stacked against them and their voice they will never find success without first changing the world.<br /><br />Your statements, and Blow's, are not probabilistic or contingent. You are offering them with the blind certainty of someone who has made a lot of money. But that outcome is not inevitable, no matter how good the work is. And some creators are necessarily doing work so far out of the band of what could be commercially successful there's literally no way to get rich from it, no matter how much they "connect with people."Joehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06699530139867770551noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178178746146487446.post-67731008638997939052013-08-07T00:02:01.224-07:002013-08-07T00:02:01.224-07:00I really enjoyed this, the post and the conversati...I really enjoyed this, the post and the conversation. Thank you.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06377069453885107750noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178178746146487446.post-37745686585736738992013-08-06T15:44:01.187-07:002013-08-06T15:44:01.187-07:00As a massive fan of Michael Brough I'd like to...As a massive fan of Michael Brough I'd like to give my underpriced 2c. For me, as an enthusiast amateur game designer, one injustice for which I can make a palpable difference is the fact that people like Michael Brough and Anna Anthropy are not in the 'fuck you' money category of wealth from their games and insights into game design. It is heart wrenching to see @auntiepixelante tweets that involve trying to make the rent every month. A large part of this tragedy is that the production and sale process of games is really good at anointing the new hotness every couple of weeks which at the moment largely plays on people's nostalgia (Gunpoint, Rogue Legacy), and then is terrible at turning outsider art into money if you don't hit the jackpot. (I'm ignoring Kickstarter for the moment because with a very few exceptions (FTL) it has yet to prove it is capable of getting people to actually make games.)<br /><br />Zach talks about alternative revenue streams like grants, sponsorship and so on; but these don't exist for games in the scale and spectrum that can even support a few stellar talents in a way that lets them continue to work unfettered by worrying about basic income.<br /><br />I'm also wary about Zach's statement about connecting to people. With apologies to Michael Brough for using Corrypt as an example, this game simply wouldn't work if the block pulling puzzles at the start weren't hard enough to make it a real accomplishment to get to the second half of the game. But they're hard enough that about half the reviewers (as opposed to critics) writing about this game clearly haven't made it beyond the block pulling stage of the game.<br /><br />There are games worth making which can only be played with a minimal level of ludic literacy which means that they won't connect with a wider audience. I jokingly tweeted asking 'Is Michael Brough gaming's Velvet Underground' to try to capture the fact that in many ways he is (unintentionally) a game designer's game designer and it is entirely (and depressingly) possible his corpus of work will never capture the imagination of enough people outside of that field.<br /><br />And Kevin, no offense, but I hope Michael Brough and Anna Anthropy reject 'our precious indie scene' and everything that statement stands for.Andrew Doullhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11099404183952971291noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178178746146487446.post-65509845216007727502013-08-06T15:34:05.587-07:002013-08-06T15:34:05.587-07:00Well written and thought-provoking stuff. Corrypt ...Well written and thought-provoking stuff. Corrypt definitely exploded my brain a little bit in that way only games can. And I agree that more polish isn't always a positive thing—I can think of some of my favorite albums whose superficial "flaws" are part of their appeal.<br /><br />But I take a little bit of offense at your sweeping generalizations about "highly calculated programmers" and the "excitement that veils something much more sinister - the odd obsession with an unobtainable systemic perfection, often fueled by unrelated emotional pain or longing fostered by society."<br /><br />Calling Blow's reach for whatever platonic-ideals are floating around his head "sinister" and "odd" seems unnecessarily harsh. Yes, independent game creators may be dominated by white male programmers. But can we welcome Brough's unpolished (indiepunk?) aesthetic without using value judgements about what essentially boils down to neurodiversity? I'm just asking.<br /><br />Sounding the alarm that we shouldn't let some ill-defined "tech culture" infect our precious indie scene with a sometimes slightly aspie take on game design is an oddly exclusionary move for someone attempting to defend a minority position like Brough's...<br /><br />I think they were trying to help :p And artists do need to make more money. But talking about Corrypt can only help artists with different takes be more successful, so I do hope you keep on doing it.Kevinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15587811785622457794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178178746146487446.post-76600598973501571312013-08-06T14:38:11.000-07:002013-08-06T14:38:11.000-07:002/2 - (edited because I accidentally double posted...2/2 - (edited because I accidentally double posted a paragraph. whoops!)<br /><br />And learning how to connect with people doesn't mean being obsessed with fame or being ultra rich, it means being realistic about how the world works and finding a way that fits with the way you work.<br /><br />And I think, from what i've read that Michael has written, that he is interested in this as well. I suspect strongly that he wants his beautiful work to reach a wide audience. Whenever I've suggested "business strategies" to him or other indies, its not a takedown of his work, nor is it a prescribed guarantee of success (if it was that easy to get rich selling your stuff for 1$ everyone would be rich). What I suggest is the methods of interrogating your own work that worked for me. All the things I thought about to connect the work I was making to the people who I thought would be interested in it.<br /><br />The hardest thing in the world is to find success without sacrificing your principles, so go in knowing it'll be painful, but thats what makes it so special, thats why so few people find it — it's a risky thing to attempt. But like all risky things, the trick is working on it: talking about success, thinking about how other people found it, thinking about what you care about and how that meshes up with how the world operates. The only way that we can make this hill less steep is by working together, and learning from each-other, even from the people you don't agree with. Business strategies are like game mechanics in that if you clone them you get a shitty version that doesn't really work, but if you understand them you can shape them however you want: famous, recluse, rich, sustainable, fans, culture, whatever. <br /><br />Judging by his writing I'm pretty sure that Michael, like many of us, wants to have more people engage with his work, and he'd also like it to be a little more sustainable, theres nothing twisted or wrong about that.By Zach Gagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06252938114365848718noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178178746146487446.post-76042217510968341502013-08-06T14:36:22.034-07:002013-08-06T14:36:22.034-07:00It seems like my reply is too long for your charac...It seems like my reply is too long for your character count, so I'm going to post this as 2 comments. Here goes!<br /><br />1/2 - <br /><br />I have to admit i am a little bit surprised to name-dropped here.<br />I think it's possible that you are misreading the intentions of the comments greg and I offered, and perhaps jon's as well, although I am nowhere near familiar enough with him to really back that up.<br /><br />I love corrypt, and I honestly don't think Michael should change anything about it. I'd guess that Greg agrees. I agree that if Michael changed the graphics on corrypt and had a better business model (whatever that means) he'd probably make more money, but that doesn't mean he should go ahead and do that. I have my share of failed-to-make-money-because-of-aesthetic-choices-i-made games that I'm ultra proud of too (Bit Pilot would be one of them). I also have a horde of new media art and sculptural work that never makes any money and yet is somewhat respected and has shown.<br /><br />I promise I'm the last person to ever preach to someone about how they should be making money and bending over to the mass market.<br /><br />I do though feel that sustainability is important in life, and that no matter how you choose to be an artist there are affordances that you have to put up with. If you decide to forgo money entirely and instead opt to marry rich you're indebted to your partner, if you go for grants you're indebted to the government, if you get a sponsor you're indebted to them. If you get a side-job you have to spend your time doing that, and if you try to figure out how to expand your audience to a sustainable size you're indebted to them. If you make no money, you're indebted to the government. There's no true freedom in opportunity to make art, and there's no way to disentangle our output from money and viability. Money is a huge component of our lives and even if we could remove it from our art entirely our experience would probably seem extremely foreign to most of the world who has to deal with it.<br /><br />I think part of being an artist for a living is coming to terms with what it means to do something 'for a living'. To really do this means coming to terms with money and what it takes to be free to express myself the way I want to. That meant for years working to figure out where my interests converged with a mainstream public. I put out a lot of games that were about shapes and colors and simplicity that leads to depth. Every game I've ever made has been a personal exploration to find something beautiful or fascinating and then figure out how to show it to others to engage their curiosity and give us something to talk about. And those years were definitely frustrating. I remember lamenting about how unfair it was that I was making games that people loved but yet I couldn't make money to survive. And lots of people, many of the people that tell Michael that he'll be fine, told me that I would be fine, that eventually I would make something that worked… And I did, SpellTower was a staggering success for me. <br /><br />But the lesson I learned was subtle and I guess it doesn't translate clearly on the short-intonationless-twitter that we all rely on. SpellTower didn't do well because I crumbled to the pressures of Mainstream. It did well because I got better at communicating what I love to an audience that shares my interests. When people told me I would make money and would be successful I don't think they were telling me that just because they thought my work was good. I think they told me that because they could see that I was driven to connect with people in that way. (I'm not saying I have this ability or not, or it's noble or not, its just how it is, and how I think people were thinking of me). They saw that I wanted to be able to tell thousands of people about the things that I was interested in, not just a few hundred.By Zach Gagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06252938114365848718noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178178746146487446.post-78022800257974011262013-08-06T10:20:39.466-07:002013-08-06T10:20:39.466-07:00I get into a lot of arguments with people over the...I get into a lot of arguments with people over the price war. Like, "hey, lower prices means HUGE SALES because eventually you hit a point where people will buy literally anything regardless of whether or not they give a shit about it."<br /><br />But, like, for people whose sales are honestly not primarily limited by the asking price—i.e. anybody with an unusual style or relatively poor access to "eyeballs"—this is just lost money. If you could sell on average 100 copies of something a month for $20 a copy, you could probably live! Not well, but you could make it work. You, and most people, don't see the benefits of that market scaling, though, and now you're stuck dealing with lower expected price points.<br /><br />It fucking blows me away that LITERALLY the first successful indies of the post-shareware generation poisoned the entire market by tanking prices way below what anyone else could compete with through deep sales and bundle discounts, just trying to squeeze that last drop of money so they'd get enough to not have to work again for 51 years instead of just 50 years.<br /><br />Thanks, jerks. :(Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10011693413900664658noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178178746146487446.post-79999985327385384062013-08-06T07:14:47.268-07:002013-08-06T07:14:47.268-07:00re pricing: the first thing i released on ios was ...re pricing: the first thing i released on ios was Glitch Tank (which is a longer & better game than Corrypt), i arbitrarily priced it at $2, and nobody bought it (not literally nobody but near enough, it was something like 100 sales in four months, which is just absurd for that game). and the response i got from some more financially successful game developers was "well what do you expect, should have been a dollar". i am now pretty certain that this was awful advice, jerks, and so i agree with that part of what Blow etc. were saying. but at the time i was still trying it out, i figured i make enough games that it didn't hurt to experiment. going to ask for more next time.<br /><br />what you make both reflects who you are and determines who you are: a warning for those who would transform themselves to serve the marketBroghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14185464573529387638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6178178746146487446.post-19607312665172792852013-08-06T05:35:23.110-07:002013-08-06T05:35:23.110-07:00Very nicely written, and it's great to see pra...Very nicely written, and it's great to see praise for Michael's excellent work. I've always found it depressing that it's never the game part of games that gets praised - it's the art or the sound or the story. They can support a game of course, but they are not the game itself. Michael Brough's works are always stunningly beautiful as games.<br /><br />You should maybe check out more from the roguelike scene if you're interested in design over form. Lots of interesting stuff happening there :)Darren Greyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00792164422274663420noreply@blogger.com