Death of a Know-It-All

[Dhatz]

i believe this article was a way to express unsettlement with having everyone rating games in numbers. Also they seem to forget that games should be about gameplay and immersivity, so graphics shouldn't count. And nobody explains why he gave the score and what/whom is it for.
it's Ockham's razor too far

 

[matsugawa]

... the real difference is merely for anyone to say "Ok, you have sufficient proof and/or argument to prove me wrong, therefore you are right". Most people, I've found, just close their ears off and may even result to insulting you.

Thank You!

I've been having that problem with the OP on another forum. He believes that piracy is all right, but when others and I have told him otherwise, without foul language or personal attacks, and even giving examples (including a few court cases), he shouts "Troll!" and declares us "Illogical" or "Retarded." I'm no legal authority, but if you were in court (as pirates have been known to end up) pleading that case with those statements as your defense, you'd probably be held in contempt and forced to hear the verdict over CCTV.

It's like in English class, it doesn't matter if you agree or disagree, what determines your grade is how you support your opinion. You have to express your opinion responsibly, and be prepared to field any criticism that may come your way. Worst case scenario: you might have to concede that you're not in the right. And really, what huge loss is that? Whose self-esteem is completely shattered by the revelation that they don't know how to manage traffic patterns? What level of cognitive dissonance can make someone look at the gun on their table and ask, "Well, looks like my last meal is a bullet."?

 

[AgentChunk]

Well you said it your self, it's your job to voice your opinion. It all comes down to what kind of man you want to be: you could be the type that keeps their mouth shut like a good little boy, or you could be a loud mouth challenging these all sorts of things even if your wrong. We really need more of the latter other wise people could get away with anything. Also I'm not saying that's going to make you the most popular but that comes with any opinion you make. People will disagree.

 

[AceDiamond]

The problem is mostly that people, as a rule, generally do not like to be told they are wrong, or be made out to look like they know less about something than they thought, even if they're shown otherwise. This often leads to ad-hominem attacks in an attempt to regain credibility (which explains the GOP and Fox News), and on the Internet that unfortunately tends to work. Even if it doesn't, people can always pull some strings to get the "offending" person banned. I've seen that happen on other boards where mods are so unwilling to admit they were incorrect that they outright banned users, thus "winning" the argument. It's all very silly, but unfortunately we all fall prey to it.

 

[Geoffrey42]

If making an argument, prefacing everything with wishy-washy "I think that..." makes you sound weak. The classic "more people believe you if you state an opinion as fact" rule which I find prevalent among males that I know, and less common among women, but pervasive on the internet (maybe because there are no girls on the internet).

I'm all for recognizing that your opponent MAY have a good point, and that I may be wrong, but the one thing to watch out for is the Fox-style of "Fair and Balanced", meaning, providing equal time to opposing viewpoints, no matter how a**-backwards one of the viewpoints may be. You'll always be in a stronger position if you start off assuming that your opponent might be a sane, reasonable person, with a perspective/background which is offering them a better vantage on the subject than you may have, but there's no need to stay in that position once they start telling you that the entire universe is made out of yarn. Or spaghetti. Or string. Or whatever. Nutjobs.

 

[LTK_70]

snip

Sean, for you, a link. [http://xkcd.com/277/]

Damn, you beat me to it.

On topic: I have found myself guilty of doing this more than I like to admit. In an argument where one person (alright, sometimes it's me) acts on arbitrary knowledge and clouded reason, it always goes down the drain. When two people engage in this kind of argument it descends into an infinite downward spiral. That's why I ask myself one question every time I plan on making myself heard in an argument: What do I really know? In a lot of cases, the answer is: Nothing. I don't know enough about this particular subject to form an educated opinion and defend it with honour. So therefore I don't. It saves me from looking like a complete ass a lot of times. That's why I like philosophic discussions over all the other kinds: In that situation everyone knows as little as everyone else.

 

[randommaster]

snip

Sean, for you, a link. [http://xkcd.com/277/]

Damn, you beat me to it.

On topic: I have found myself guilty of doing this more than I like to admit. In an argument where one person (alright, sometimes it's me) acts on arbitrary knowledge and clouded reason, it always goes down the drain. When two people engage in this kind of argument it descends into an infinite downward spiral. That's why I ask myself one question every time I plan on making myself heard in an argument: What do I really know? In a lot of cases, the answer is: Nothing. I don't know enough about this particular subject to form an educated opinion and defend it with honour. So therefore I don't. It saves me from looking like a complete ass a lot of times. That's why I like philosophic discussions over all the other kinds: In that situation everyone knows as little as everyone else.

If you haven't read Happyness and Sarcasm, check out that second link, it's pretty awesome.

I actually have an example where the planners were idiots. About two miles from my house is an intersection that was built a few years ago. To turn left, you have to wait for a light to specifically tell you that you can turn. The only problem was that it only turned green every other cycle, so there would be oncoming waiting at a red light while you also waited at a red light. Normally this is when you would turn, but you had to wait because the light was red. Just to prove they made a mistake, however, the turn lane had two sets of traffic lights. This meant that they miscalculated the size of the road.

They recently fixed this, though, so no more griping for me.

 

[WlknCntrdiction]

If you're smart you should already know that you don't know everything. Which is why I have my standard set of opinions, I'll give my opinion when it's called for and argue my point(not in a "you're wrong, I'm right" kind of way though)but if you don't want to take my opinion aboard then I don't care, it's called an opinion for a reason, you have yours, I have mine, it's when others force theirs on me(like the religious nuts that I have to deal with all too often on a daily basis)that I'll tell you to go fuck yourself. You don't respect my opinion, I'll happily take pleasure in not respecting yours

 

[Swaki]

i surounded by inferior people all day, and this isnt fiction, im surrounded by people who thinks im a smartass for using words whit more than three sylapils, so im used to having my opinion meaning more than everyone elses.

but when i join the internet i see the ugly face of people thinking the same thing so i always tone it down a bit, online and in death we are all equal.

 

[Woem]

I absolutely agree with your sentiment. One thing that can help is for people to check their sources [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.128113]. Don't believe anything you read on the internet. Check the original sources. It happens so much when you come across an article that it's already based on an article about a blog post about an article about an interview. If you want to state your opinion, base it upon the original interview and not upon the article you first read.

 

[ccesarano]

This world would be a nicer place, maybe not better, but definitely nicer, if people didn't have to be proven wrong to accept the fact that they might be. The only problem is that you are more likely to remember what you think is true, so things that go against your beliefs and opinions are likely to be ignored or forgotten quickly.

On the contrary, I think that someone should indeed need to be proven wrong. There are too many folks out there with a silver tongue that manage to fool people into believing that it is, in fact, their opinion that is correct.

Of course, there are merely some things that aren't necessarily about fact, but I'll argue to death as if they are. When I was at College one of my roommates loved to irritate me by insulting the quality of the Halo franchise, but he only did it because when the two of us first met I was able to argue why (the first two) Halo games were actually well designed titles with an interesting setting and Half-Life 2 wasn't better, just a different sort of game looking to accomplish a different style.

He still lives by Valve and Gabe Newall and such, praising Half-Life in all of its glory, but because I believe in my assessments of Halo as a well designed game I was basically capable of "proving" him wrong.

My friend from back home that says Fable 2 "sucks", though, he's impossible for me to argue with. He won't insult or anything, but no matter how much reasoning you provide (which is all an argument on subjective things can rely on), he'll still in the end say "but it still sucks".

Ah, another point: people should be able to admit when they like something bad. The One is not really a good film by any means, but I still love it. Similarly, I enjoyed Turok for the good ideas it brought to the table, but overall it wasn't a very good game because it also made too many mistakes or was simply bland. The WORST part about opinions is people cannot accept that what they like is complete drek, and then hide behind "everyone is entitled to their opinion".

It's the worst cop-out ever.

So, first we have Erin telling us all that our video game ideas suck and we shouldn't discuss them and now we have you telling us we shouldn't speculate on who will win the console war, when/if there will be a price drop, what new consoles/games will be like, what the future of games could/should be, how the global recession may affect the market, whether there will be a shift to cheaper Indie games, whether mainstream support for end-user modding (with Halo 3 Forge and Little Big Planet) will eventually put creative control in the hands of consumers and make it harder for developers to push their own content - especially, pay-through-the-nose DLC.

Thanks. You've now left us nothing to talk about except the weather.

You're missing the point, though it is of no surprise considering your tone.

The article can be summed up as "I have matured today, grown up a bit, and realized that I don't always know what I'm talking about!". It's not about assuming nobody is incorrect, it's about assuming you know more than everyone else.

Having a conversation is absolutely fine if both people are not assuming they know more than the other. In fact, these are the sorts of conversations that are the best, because in the end EVERYONE is enlightened a bit more.

A good example from my own life (I have way too many of these derailings) is from a few months ago, when TMNT: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled was dropped from $15 to $10. I had made the remark "if only Capcom could do that with MvC2", and it pissed a friend of mine off. I had felt that there is no way a port of a game that is near 10 years old is worth the $15, that it can't possibly be that expensive to port a game from the Dreamcast to 360 and that Capcom is just money-hogging a game they know will sell tons.

The conversation became heated, I lost a friend, and afterwards another friend came in really late to the discussion with an interview with a Capcom developer that stated just how much some of the Capcom ports have cost them. Turns out $15 is actually a reasonable enough price.

I recently spoke about a better method of getting creative game ideas in the industry in that same article from Erin, but even then I'm making all kinds of assumptions that I actually know something about the industry. "If I were in charge it would be different and better!".

What Sean's article is about is being able to accept that you can't say something like that, and having animosity towards another person under the assumption that you would do a better job is childish. After all, I don't have all the experience in the games industry or the overall numbers to see where a lot of this money goes.

I'm beginning to wonder if you don't have your mind made up before reading some of these articles, though. You seem to be aggressive for no reason but paint it with proper spelling just to set yourself apart.

 

[randommaster]

snip

Opinions are one thing, but requiring proof that something is or isn't true can cause people to be unnecessarily stubborn and refuse to change. Being willing to believe you are wrong doesn't mean you'll believe anything anybody tells you, or even that you'll accept any well-reasoned arguement. It means that you won't blindly ignore new ideas and opinions simply because they are not yours or not wiely accepted.

This is most evident in science, at least when you're practicing good science. What you believe to be true is based off of the data from experiments, but if someone comes and presents new data that contradicts yours, then you have to be willing to test this new idea. Practical science is more complicated with needing to verify results and whatnot, but that's how it's generally supposed to work. It's not doubting your knowledge, just questioning its absoluteness.

 

[DeathQuaker]

A good article, expressing a wisdom that I fail to bear in mind all too often (but have been trying to do better about lately).

 

[Uncompetative]

So, first we have Erin telling us all that our video game ideas suck and we shouldn't discuss them and now we have you telling us we shouldn't speculate on who will win the console war, when/if there will be a price drop, what new consoles/games will be like, what the future of games could/should be, how the global recession may affect the market, whether there will be a shift to cheaper Indie games, whether mainstream support for end-user modding (with Halo 3 Forge and Little Big Planet) will eventually put creative control in the hands of consumers and make it harder for developers to push their own content - especially, pay-through-the-nose DLC.

Thanks. You've now left us nothing to talk about except the weather.

I recently spoke about a better method of getting creative game ideas in the industry in that same article from Erin, but even then I'm making all kinds of assumptions that I actually know something about the industry. "If I were in charge it would be different and better!".

What Sean's article is about is being able to accept that you can't say something like that, and having animosity towards another person under the assumption that you would do a better job is childish. After all, I don't have all the experience in the games industry or the overall numbers to see where a lot of this money goes.

I want to hear your opinions on how you would change the Video games industry if you were in charge. I am interested in ideas, not in who has them. To me, neither Sean or Erin have any greater authority than you or me. Actually, I feel they may have less by dint of themselves claiming false authority and implying that we proles down here in the forums shouldn't talk about anything that isn't our job. That is idiocy.

The Escapist is a web-magazine that captures its traffic on the basis of Zero Punctuation and keeps it with interesting, relatively cordial, community-driven threads. Let's all do as Sean and Erin say and stop coming. Stop looking at the ads. Kill the site...

Case in point:

There is a casual comfort with declaratory statements that imply both authority and experience, often where none exists. As gamers whose only credentials are as consumers, we dissect the economies of gaming as though we were Milton Friedman. We analyze sales data as though we were Sam Walton. We judge art as though we spoke with the voice of reasonable critical analysis.

Here Sean makes fun of our 'little' opinions and "inflated" egos.

Yes, debates are polarised, but that makes them concise. Just look at politicians. They don't discuss facts, but throw factoids about as they spin statistics misrepresenting what their opponent's position is really about, but they can get caught out and the real discourse then moves forward. It is also more interesting to watch.

By the way Halo rox, but only the first one.

 

[Geoffrey42]

*snip*

...

Could you provide a link to the thread which apparently caused your undergarments to become so convoluted?

Either something happened some other time, and I'm unaware of it, or you are severely overreacting. I even took your first post as sarcasm, but your continued vitriol makes me question that initial diagnosis.

On politicians: IF ONLY being caught out on their outright lies or fabrications actually made said fabrications go away (see: "Death Panels"), politics would indeed be a lot cleaner. The polarization of debates in the political space, which magnifies differences, and minimizes commonalities, is part of why nothing ever gets accomplished: people are so busy fighting over an inch, they miss out on the rest of the mile. They miss the forest for the trees.

 

[Uncompetative]

*snip*

...

Could you provide a link to the thread which apparently caused your undergarments to become so convoluted?

Either something happened some other time, and I'm unaware of it, or you are severely overreacting. I even took your first post as sarcasm, but your continued vitriol makes me question that initial diagnosis.

On politicians: IF ONLY being caught out on their outright lies or fabrications actually made said fabrications go away (see: "Death Panels"), politics would indeed be a lot cleaner. The polarization of debates in the political space, which magnifies differences, and minimizes commonalities, is part of why nothing ever gets accomplished: people are so busy fighting over an inch, they miss out on the rest of the mile. They miss the forest for the trees.

Here is my main response as it got fleshed out:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.146453?page=3#3353490

This was in the provocatively titled: Why your game idea sucks thread, by Erin Hoffman:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_221/6582-Why-Your-Game-Idea-Sucks

Sean Sands wrote: Death of a Know-It-All, as I suppose an autobiographical coming-of-age/wisdom (but I really don't know why I should care to know details of his life...) with what seemed to me to be a hidden agenda in common with Erin to affect the discourse of the forums on the Escapist and in the subtlest way possible to tell all the wannabe game designers and market trend predictors to STFU.

He wrote one good paragraph, but failed to capitalise on it - in my opinion:

Unless otherwise proved wrong by a credible source - and the requirements for credentials are not easily attained - I simply assumed that whatever factoid, opinion, comment or anecdote I cared to espouse was so well reasoned as to be at least functionally true, if not empirically. I realize, of course, that this is its own special kind of conceit, but I don't imagine it's a particularly uncommon brand.

Now, I grayed-out that text because I shouldn't have to write it. It is superfluous. Surely, it is self-evident that everything in this post is my opinion (or an opinion that I agree with; unless obvious, exaggerated, sarcasm). However, I feel that Sean would have us all qualify every three word post with IMHO, or somesuch. This would bog down the forum. What he should have gone on to say from that passage I quoted is that he welcomes failure as it leads to knowledge. Sometimes I have learnt things from people who would never have taught me because they want to score a point in an argument and/or embarrass me.

I remember being at a party and saying "Oh I like this song... Mr. Fahrenheit"

Only it isn't called that. I now know, that it is "Don't Stop Me Now" and I'm not likely to forget that.

Admittedly, I was a bit of a know-it-all back then with a Superiority Complex, but I am a lot older and wiser now. However, in my wisdom I recognise that young people (like I used to be) should be allowed to make asses of themselves and talk about stuff that they scarcely know a damn thing about. Anyway, what does anyone know... they interviewed Alan Greenspan recently (who is blamed by many for the Global Recession) and he revealed that he was wrong in his assumptions about market-driven economies. He thought that the banks would act responsibly to keep themselves afloat, they didn't. Massive deregulation coupled to globalisation had not been a good idea for robustness and security of world finances. Now this guy was respected by everyone, but a few lone dissenting voices - voices who were vilified for their contrarian perspectives: "What the hell do they know about the economy?"

I want to hear everyone's opinions on everything in these forums and resent Erin squashing the dreams of wannabe game designers (which are half-baked, impractical and woefully unfinanced) and Sean telling us to stop speculating when the next console price drop/hike will be (on the grounds that we are not proper trends analysts working on Wall Street).

I have written elsewhere that I'd like to see more wannabe game designers actually discuss control schemes, gameplay mechanics, genre-blending, alternatives to grinding in RPGs, the convergence of social networking and MMOs, procedural generation, emergent narratives from systems of AI NPCs which strive to thematically cohere and games that determine through trial-and-error the personality of the player and what kind of game/difficulty it should be (and the morality of the missions you encounter that are actually contrived on-the-fly), but no one wants to get technical here. They all go on about their story being better than some published game as if this quality alone would be enough to automatically guarantee success even if they were doing it themselves with all the money and support they could desire.

It isn't, strictly speaking, that their game idea sucks... but that they have a Story.

They would have a lot more fun turning it into a screenplay, or maybe a podcast.

IMHO

 

[Geoffrey42]

*snip*

Barring a ret-con on the authors part, I never found any reference to "tea-bagging" in the original article, let alone a basis for your anger. "Why Your Game Idea Sucks", as the hyperbolic title of an article, seems sufficient for drawing people in, but that you took away as its message that Ms. Hoffman is so deeply invested in the goings-on of the Escapist Forums as to write an article with the goal of silencing creative "what-if"s indicates to me that you are deeply deluded. IMHO. That you refer to it as the title of a "thread" further indicates to me that you have no idea of its greater context.

If I had to summarize my takeaway in as few words as possible, it might go something like this: Odds are, yours is not a "million dollar idea", as almost none are. The inherent value of a game is in the blood, sweat, and money poured into its development, of which the idea is merely a seed, not even recognizable by the time it is a full-grown plant. A synopsis of: "You guys are idiots, so shut up, and quit ranting at the dark in a sparsely populated corner of the internet" never crossed my mind.

Further implying that Mr. Sands is somehow colluding with Ms. Hoffman in an attempt to silence the forum-goers through a thematically-unrelated article nearly a week later... delusions of grandeur come to mind. Meaning, I think you're crazy to assign so much importance to what forum-goers babble about as to think that the staff care enough to try and regulate it beyond maintaining a base level of decorum.

Fact: I've already stated why, IMHO, I don't think anyone bothers to go around differentiating facts from opinions in their discourse. Opinion: the point of this article is to recognize and engage with the fallibility of one's own opinions, instead of perpetually acting on a "prove me wrong" basis. Actively test your own opinions, because you might be wrong.

Opinion: It is fundamentally silly to point to someone you believe to be wrong, admitting that they were wrong, as proof that they were wrong. If they weren't a trustworthy source to start with, trusting them now that they agree with you merely eliminates the critical discourse that benefited both parties to start with (re: Alan Greenspan). Economics is sufficiently complex that Alan Greenspan may again appear correct 20 years from now, and the constant stream of people contrary to the mainstream will always provide a reservoir of analysts for 24h News Networks to pull from whenever something unexpected happens, allowing them to say "I told you so" and sell some books, and inevitably set us down the next avenue to failure. (As the old saying about broken clocks goes, and as the inverse of my comment before, that person being right about one thing does not somehow inevitably make them omni-correct.)

I asked before for a reference to whatever torqed your long-johns, and you pointed me further down the chain, but even now, my only conclusion is that you walked into that conversation angry about something else. I'm more than happy to chase the rabbit further down the hole, mind you, but I now count two threads full of unnecessary bitterness on your part. Are you late, are you late, for a very important date? Do tell.

Aside:
I hate others for rubbernecking, and I always try to steel myself to the temptation, but 9 times out of 10, I find myself glancing at the wreckage, then snapping back to my own business, hoping I'm not about to cause another accident. It certainly would be grand if that voyeuristic streak weren't there, and I know I should just keep on moving, and ignore the disaster in front of me, but sometimes, man, sometimes, I just can't help myself.

 

[Uncompetative]

I never found any reference to "tea-bagging" in the original article, let alone a basis for your anger.

It is in the title:

Why your game idea sucks.

Where "sucks" can have one of the following meanings:

1. Sucks balls

2. Sucks ass

3. Sucks lemons

I picked option #1 so I could make the joke about tea-bagging.

Economics is sufficiently complex that Alan Greenspan may again appear correct 20 years from now

I really don't understand why you said this, when he admitted he was wrong in his former, long-held, assumption. His opinion has changed and I respect him for accepting his mistaken advice has damaged the world economy.

Who is being harmed by these half-baked ideas? Erin and Sean should stop bleating and just get themselves better email filters.

 

[Geoffrey42]

I never found any reference to "tea-bagging" in the original article, let alone a basis for your anger.

It is in the title:

Why your game idea sucks.

Where "sucks" can have one of the following meanings:

1. Sucks balls

2. Sucks ass

3. Sucks lemons

I picked option #1 so I could make the joke about tea-bagging.

How about option E, a Jar of Almonds? Or better yet, D: To be disgustingly disagreeable or offensive. While just about anyone can riff a tangent off of the unintended connotations or denotations of a given word, the glorious thing about language is that a given term, combined with context, typically points to a single meaning, unless intended to be a double entendre. Basing your attack off of someone's usage of "sucks" to, essential, berate someone for their foul-mouth, when the only connection is a term which is at least 3 logical steps from the original sentence, is insane. Based on your prior post, I could just as easily imply that you are in favor of young people engaging in genetic modification to the end of becoming a donkey, and it would be just as ridiculous to do so. BTW, shame on you for being in favor of human-donkey genetic manipulation. Shame. I'd think we'd all have learned the lesson that Pinocchio tried to teach us so long ago.

Economics is sufficiently complex that Alan Greenspan may again appear correct 20 years from now

I really don't understand why you said this, when he admitted he was wrong in his former, long-held, assumption. His opinion has changed and I respect him for accepting his mistaken advice has damaged the world economy.

Who is being harmed by these half-baked ideas? Erin and Sean should stop bleating and just get themselves better email filters.

My point was that while you're indicating that someone respected has become vilified, and people that were vilified are now respected for their previously vilified economic points of view, Alan Greenspan changing his mind does not somehow prove anything about the quality of the previously vilified. They may feel justified now, but give it a few months/years/decades, they may also become vilified again. The guy who you thought was wrong before, who now agrees with you, cannot be used as evidence that the guy was wrong before. It was all opinion to start with.

No one is harmed by "these half-baked ideas" any more than anyone is harmed by the two articles that you are so angry over. Especially since they're unrelated. Ms Hoffman never said to stop being creative, and Mr Sands never said to stop speculating; both are outrageous twistings of their articles. Perhaps it is you who should untwist your panties, and get over it.

I think I've paid a sufficient toll, I'm going to go on across the bridge now, thankyouverymuch.

EDIT: Thought better of something...

 

[Uncompetative]

Alan Greenspan changing his mind does not somehow prove anything about the quality of the previously vilified.

That wasn't my point. My point was that he, like me, could be brave enough to admit his mistakes as that way knowledge lies.

Now, I'm tired of listening to your braying.