2013-08-02 It's going bubonic

[Spidrift]

So he's a more sadistic chauvinistic M. Bay, but with a gore fetish instead of an explosion one.

Or perhaps he really is good at what he does, on his own terms. Quentin Tarantino has his serious fans, after all.

[Odd Man Out]

So, if this new design happens, will one of her costumes involve a Paddington Bear Hat?

[SKJAM!]

The background could be used for the villain of the game, or this is the planet that Chamellia comes to and has to rescue everyone by bringing hope, joy and a large wardrobe.

I think Tristan is mostly sore at this point that his big moment has been taken away--this was his big chance to be the up front guy discussing his creative vision. And like many artists, he would have dismissed the upset fans as a vocal minority that would totally love the game once they saw how brilliant it was. Now no one will remember him, and the game design will be a more collaborative thing. It might sell like hotcakes, but he won't get the credit.

[Mackus]

Fuck Tristan and fuck "his" opus. Making games is his job, if he doesn't like what his employer or his customers expect of his work, he can do his opus in spare time.
Just because he has "artistic vision", doesn't mean he's entitled to someone shoveling money at his project.

[Bloody Vikings]

You know, I just lost a bet over this strip. I thought for sure that someone would point out that the bubonic plague is bacteriological, not viral by now.

[Spidrift]

It's a fairly feeble metaphor all round, frankly. But if the boss just wants something that people will think means "scarily infectious", it'll have to do. There really isn't anything that's more viral than viral, and picking an exceptionally infectious virus would undermine the effect, 'cause very infectious viruses are generally the least scary. "It's gone common cold on us!"

"It's gone pneumonic" might just have kept the bio-geeks happy while carrying a kick, I guess.

[Bloody Vikings]

Ah, but I was predicting the behaviour of internet users, not Smoky McLurk, CEO. It seemed just the sort of tangential minutia that spurs on months-long topic highjacking. ;)

[Reifan00]

As an MBA, I have three things to say:


2. I'm always amused when executives are portrayed as the bad guy for wanting the company's product to make a profit. Game studios typically aren't NPO's. There are plenty of things that too many executives do that DOES merit villain status: treating employees like animals, conning people out of money, etc. So the repeated focus on "profit = evil" baffles me.

I don't really consider profit evil, but the way a some games companies go about it (especially treating customers as theives right off the bat, stuffing a game full of post release DLC that boosts their income while claiming the amount of money they get is so little that used games are as bad as piracy, ordering a game be altered to have more mass appeal and/or support free to play style microtransactions even though your paying full price for it up front, expecting customers to pay for their mistakes and lack of self control, knowingly releasing an online only title that doesn't even need online, and their servers aren't ready to support it so day one players can't even play the game they played for) are pretty awful and damaging to themselves and gaming as a whole.

[crimzontearz]

You know, I just lost a bet over this strip. I thought for sure that someone would point out that the bubonic plague is bacteriological, not viral by now.

it matters not, while we know it is bacteriological with the way the English language works viral could also refer to the term virulent

OK it's a stretch but....


also, the publishers are not evil, and dlc is not evil (unless it was made with the initial game budget and then ripped out to be sold later, that is not illegal but it is definitely unethical).

the problem is when publishers decide that telemetry data > good idea

of course developers do the same when they begin thinking that they know what people should like better than the people themselves (look at bioware and ME3....look at the recent mad Max, look infamous 2, look at FO3 and so on)

[Mutant for Hire]

A better term is 'it's going pandemic'.

[Bloody Vikings]

And would be amusingly more true to the actual root of the word.

[Don Alexander]

You know, I just lost a bet over this strip. I thought for sure that someone would point out that the bubonic plague is bacteriological, not viral by now.

I'm sorry.

I know that, and was actually thinking of pointing it out in my post last page, then refrained from doing so since my last sentence was more to the point that the boss was not being utterly stupid...

[TJgalon]

I wonder if this is a joke towards the new Tomb Raider game, lol.

[Cortez]

One could say that the whole reboot was pandering for profit. Making everything darker and edgier and more violent because that's the only thing execs think will sell. "Look at that game, it sold millions of copies because it's mature, violent, and gritty. Why we can sell millions too if we make one of our already established characters like that! Who cares if the character and games before were lighthearted fare that had a significant female fan base. Girls don't play games anymore, it's all about the Call of Duty, Madden playing bro-gamer."

you could, but i wouldn't. the fact that tristan there is objecting to tampering with his 'opus' indicates that he actually cares about the project on something other than a monetary level. whether we like tristan's sense of aesthetics or his social politics is irrelevant to the fact that dr. claw is taking control of the project away from it's artist.

But i would. His artistic vision is sexist and completely alienates the female fans in favor of the lowest common denominator.That is pandering and it showed that Tristan is a misogynist.

['J']

it may be sexist and alienate people, but that doesn't make his vision any less artistic. if he's making the game he wants to make, then it's not pandering. that still doesn't make it good, mind you.