Main difference people should keep in mind is when AAA developers pull shit they're usually making money, when an indy does they're likely going broke.
Not to excuse these actions, but at the end of the day they're not going to have a big impact on anything.
Did anyone think of Cobra (GI Joe)? Cobra studios could be a an attempt by Cobra commander to take over the world through video games. Man that sounds stupid.
Well, from that Steam screenshot, someone on Steam certainly thought that.
But anyway, it's spelled Kobra Studios, with a K.
Kobra was a Mortal Kombat: Deception character.
Which leads me to bring up this (a good metaphor for Kobra Studios, I think):
Jim, TB, and other being negative about a game is good publicity. Dev's attempting to censor people is actually the only thing worse than them talking about how bad their game is. Censorship is the silence that kills them.
All in all an enjoyable and informative show, Jim, but I have to take issue with one thing:
Worse than EA and the like?
You see, I recognize that the behavior of some of these "indies" has been pretty bad. Even to the point of "poisoning the pond", in some cases, reducing the overall feelings of community goodwill and sense of artistic integrity that independent game makers in some segments enjoy.
But I can't help but feel that such anomalies are, in fact, anomalous, that any loss of faith will be temporary so long as other independents keep up their end, and that things like trying to censor negative comments and criticism ultimately only go on to prove that such tactics don't work (in part because of journalists and critics such as yourself and Total Biscuit, good fellows), in some instances even having a positive effect by providing a negative example.
Meanwhile, the major AAA players are enjoying a certain ability to claim their nefarious actions are "industry standard" by virtue of their presence being a major piece of said industry. When a company like EA punches microtransactions into everything and throws their pollution out onto de Interwebs, big players get the message that that's the new normal and smaller players see a modicum of financial success in such soul-sucking and rush to imitate.
(Before anyone rushes in to defend EA: while I'm not fond, they're only one player, and there are certainly others that have also displayed crappy behavior, "standardized" that behavior, and seen others try to imitate it.)
However ill-advised a group like Kobra Studio's actions may have been, in the end, they mostly harm Kobra Studio. Even if a bigger company's actions are somewhat less repulsive, one has to consider the ripple effects on the medium and imitators within the market.
Would be a very short list unless you added a "out of business" category
Anyways now that Steam has opened the floodgates everyone with one of these "game creator" software packages thinks they can strike it big and cash in a couple of millions by half assing a demo level and selling it as early access.
And then get their knickers in a twist when they are called out on.
So i wholeheartedly agree with Jim in this episode... it makes all indie devs look bad and it should also be noted that PR disasters like this will also bar any doors in the indusrty for you in the future.
So indie devs.. think twice before deciding to be a douche...
You're being a bit vague. Did this person complain about not being able to advertise, or did they just advertise?
Also, if they protested the rule by braking it and advertising anyway, then they knew the risks, and got what was coming to them.
Shhhhhhhhhh. (There's a hidden meaning in my post)
Anyway. I am being vague I'll clarify.
The "person" is me (it wasn't a youtube channel though.)
A while back there was a thread about our thoughts on an internet show called RWBY. and I posted a link to a really long review that I wrote about it instead of re typing or copy pasting 10 or so pages of content.
and I got moderatored for "advertizing" even though what I linked to was completely relevant to the thread topic.
I've seen entire threads where the OP is "Go to this link and read the article"
So why is posting an external link only against the rules if I wrote the thing I'm linking to?
(Also if I didn't mention that it was "my review" I was linking to I never would have been found out.
and I also don't really like that "Our content creators are above the law" was added to the Escapist CoC
So when I see Jim making yet another video that condemns the very policy that the Escapist practices I get a little miffed.
Of course I'm not allowed to say any of this, which is why I saw being so vague in the first place. sorry for the confusion.
I agree that it is some real shit when indie dev's do this, but let's not try to pretend that they're worse than the AAA companies. The only reason why they don't do that stuff, and they normally do to a great degree at their own forums, is because they're big enough to ignore it.
You don't get calls from big companies because you're nothing to do them, and they don't care one lick about their product.
This whole highlighting and whining about games that are obviously so terrible that no one in their right mind would buy them, is fun and all, but I'd much rather see something along the lines of 'top 10 indie games nobody knows of', because as it is he's just beating a dead horse.
Jim, TB, and other being negative about a game is good publicity. Dev's attempting to censor people is actually the only thing worse than them talking about how bad their game is. Censorship is the silence that kills them.
Your the one failing to look to the source. Oscar Wilde based much of his career upon lampooning those he disliked and found objectionable... can you name a single one of them. I can't; but the message is what has persisted. I will probably forget Kobra studios tomorrow and not recall them again until I am browsing steam and see a familiar screen shot or a familiar name on the page... and then I will make a face and move on. No more and no less.
Also, Silence has yet to end a single dispicable human practise of any sort I can think of and is simply a pathetic and futile responce to anyone activly abusing others.
You're being a bit vague. Did this person complain about not being able to advertise, or did they just advertise?
Also, if they protested the rule by braking it and advertising anyway, then they knew the risks, and got what was coming to them.
Shhhhhhhhhh. (There's a hidden meaning in my post)
The "person" is me (it wasn't a youtube channel though.)
A while back there was a thread about our thoughts on an internet show called RWBY. and I posted a link to a really long review that I wrote about it instead of re typing or copy pasting 10 or so pages of content.
and I got moderatored for "advertizing" even though what I linked to was completely relevant to the thread topic.
I've seen entire threads where the OP is "Go to this link and read the article"
So why is posting an external link only against the rules if I wrote the thing I'm linking to?
(Also if I didn't mention that it was "my review" I was linking to I never would have been found out.
and I also don't really like that "Our content creators are above the law" was added to the Escapist CoC
So when I see Jim making yet another video that condemns the very policy that the Escapist practices I get a little miffed.
Of course I'm not allowed to say any of this, which is why I saw being so vague in the first place.
Thank you for being clearer. Also, I don't think you've said anything that would lead to moderation at this time.
Anyway, to the grievance that you posted a relevant video of your opinion on a topic, I'd ask if your video is monetized. If so, again, that's why people can't be aloud to post their work on the Escapist without offering payment, or getting permission.
If you're video's aren't monetized, I'm sure that would help your case should you appeal the moderation. The advice I got from a mod was to always appeal.
As for Jim, like I said, because he works here, not just making content, but also as the reviews editor, he gets to advertise his work. It's a job perk.
Jim is following the Escapist's rules. That's why he couldn't show his last Movie defence force on the escapist and had to put it up on his youtube channel (it was for Mallrats if you're interested).
I didn't see anything about content creators being above the law in the CoC.
It isn't censorship to demand payment or to have people ask for permission to post things on a site you own and maintain.
There are ways you can get around this and stick to the rules. You could have written the gist of your video in a post and say that if anyone wanted to see the whole of it, they could ask you for a link through a private message. I don't believe that would be against the rules.
What is it about these devs that can't take the criticism to heart and improve their shitty product? I mean, if most of the people that try your game say it's shit, then as a smart person you could at least have a little quiet moment for yourself and think "Well, I guess we could've done some things a bit differently".
Instead of running around with your fingers stuck to your ears yelling "Lalalalala can't hear yooouuuu" and as in this case, hurling yourself down a flight of stairs; just to escape from the reality of your game being badly executed.
If you demand money for your product, your product should be worth the money it costs and criticism is the only way to see it for what it is, instead of foolish naivety.
Well, I just sat down and watched all of Jim's Greenlight trailer comments, and honestly I think his points are valid, especially when you consider his longer standing point that STEAM is being flooded with garbage due to Greenlight, where there are no real standards or quality control. Some of these games seemed like fair efforts for low budget indie games, I actually found say "Blackbay Asylum" to be kind of cool looking, others were almost painful to watch, and seemed like they were quick cash grabs, or people aiming to attract the "Let's Play" crowd.
Indie has actually become something of a big deal right now, as Indie developers are making decent chunks of change, and of course becoming E-famous, with fame and attention being a worthwhile pursuit for some people in of itself. As a result it's not surprising that your seeing a backlash when critics are calling them on it, especially seeing as Indie developers can't generally buy positive press to try and counter it the way big companies are accused of doing so.
What sort of galls me about the censorship attempts after looking at what Jim is doing, is that Jim isn't really doing much but making a few snarky comments and pointing out the obvious, most of these trailers kind of speak for themselves. Jim himself on video says a few times that there is literally nothing more he can say to disgrace a game more than what it's showing you.
I think the problem is that we've simply gotten to a point where the indie "movement" is full of "follow the leader" garbage that is burying the sincere efforts. When it comes to a lot of these games, it literally seems that the developer figures "well, I'll make an indie horror game in a week or two, claim it's not finished, and hope I get some sales if youtube commenters like it". A big part of what irks me about this in particular when it comes to the horror genere was that it was starting to recover a bit due to the efforts of the indie scene, but now it seems like people piling onto the attention train are going to kill it again.
That said, I think Jim needs to tone down the faux-arrogance in his internet persona when involved in personal conflicts like this to an extent. To be fair, even when justified, this kind of grandstanding about being powerful and untouchable is exactly what the AAA industry tries to do to people all the time. Like it or not the process being used on Jim exists in part to give the little guy a chance to fight back against the big guy in this limited arena, even if it's being mis-used. Given that Jim will likely win here due to the safeguards/appeal process in the system, I think he should let the results speak for themselves, and try and be a little more classy about it.
Over all, I am hoping that Jim's combined efforts here might wind up having a positive effect on STEAM's Greenlight system and cause them to put some better effort into quality control. My basic attitude is that when STEAM can't be bothered to even look at the trailers and descriptive text for the games they are allowing to enter their marketplace (or potentially enter their marketplace) there is a problem. For example one indie horror game called "The House" that actually made release involved text like "win the evil" in the trailer, and the description for the game itself was pretty terrible to boot. IMO English not being a dev's first language is not an excuse when they are supposed to be selling a product in English on an English marketplace... above and beyond other issues with the game itself and the simple fact that I don't think this kind of problem (which is constant) is always the result of lingual translation.
Wow the "Hydrophobia" devs harassed people for a bad review? Hydrophobia was a pretty poor game in my opinion, specially since the developers trumpeted it so hard. The fact that the developers seem to be a bunch of assholes only makes it worse in my estimations. What a shitty game that was.
Youtube needs a system by which it can have repercussions for people filing a false copyright strike. The system as it stands has lead to people unable to fight claims potentially having their accounts closed.
I know right... but that's our legal system unfortunately.
when humans see other humans successfully crying wolf in society and getting a big payout, its monkey-see monkey-do. The internet and our society needs a little more 'judge judy' to filter through our cynical false-plaintiff culture.
You're being a bit vague. Did this person complain about not being able to advertise, or did they just advertise?
Also, if they protested the rule by braking it and advertising anyway, then they knew the risks, and got what was coming to them.
Shhhhhhhhhh. (There's a hidden meaning in my post)
The "person" is me (it wasn't a youtube channel though.)
A while back there was a thread about our thoughts on an internet show called RWBY. and I posted a link to a really long review that I wrote about it instead of re typing or copy pasting 10 or so pages of content.
and I got moderatored for "advertizing" even though what I linked to was completely relevant to the thread topic.
I've seen entire threads where the OP is "Go to this link and read the article"
So why is posting an external link only against the rules if I wrote the thing I'm linking to?
(Also if I didn't mention that it was "my review" I was linking to I never would have been found out.
and I also don't really like that "Our content creators are above the law" was added to the Escapist CoC
So when I see Jim making yet another video that condemns the very policy that the Escapist practices I get a little miffed.
Of course I'm not allowed to say any of this, which is why I saw being so vague in the first place.
Thank you for being clearer. Also, I don't think you've said anything that would lead to moderation at this time.
Anyway, to the grievance that you posted a relevant video of your opinion on a topic, I'd ask if your video is monetized. If so, again, that's why people can't be aloud to post their work on the Escapist without offering payment, or getting permission.
If you're video's aren't monetized, I'm sure that would help your case should you appeal the moderation. The advice I got from a mod was to always appeal.
As for Jim, like I said, because he works here, not just making content, but also as the reviews editor, he gets to advertise his work. It's a job perk.
Jim is following the Escapist's rules. That's why he couldn't show his last Movie defence force on the escapist and had to put it up on his youtube channel (it was for Mallrats if you're interested).
I didn't see anything about content creators being above the law in the CoC.
It isn't censorship to demand payment or to have people ask for permission to post things on a site you own and maintain.
There are ways you can get around this and stick to the rules. You could have written the gist of your video in a post and say that if anyone wanted to see the whole of it, they could ask you for a link through a private message. I don't believe that would be against the rules.
It was a text post on a non monetized platform
and I did dispute it and it didn't clear
Regardless of what some of our content creators may say, do or provoke within their videos or articles, this does not give members the ability to act in the same way
"Publicly airing your grievances or mocking and disrespecting either the moderators in their official capacity or the rules will only get you further warnings."
So it's not really about advertizing at all.
(Even though I don't use add block, so techenically every time I load a page they are getting money, so they really shouldn't care what kind of comments I leave. But now I'm just grinding my axe)
Thank you Mr. Sterling for what I found to be a very informative and amusing Jimquisition. Humorously enough it was actually the Gary's Day One Incident affair which made me aware of TotalBiscuit, and subsequently made me follow his work.
Attempted censoring is a bad idea, that'll never work out well for the developer, but it's also a boon for the media personality. As the extra exposure, caused by the drama, will likely draw new viewers.
So not only will you crush them, you'll probably have a larger audience afterwards
Wow the "Hydrophobia" devs harassed people for a bad review? Hydrophobia was a pretty poor game in my opinion, specially since the developers trumpeted it so hard. The fact that the developers seem to be a bunch of assholes only makes it worse in my estimations. What a shitty game that was.
Youtube needs a system by which it can have repercussions for people filing a false copyright strike. The system as it stands has lead to people unable to fight claims potentially having their accounts closed.
I know right... but that's our legal system unfortunately.
when humans see other humans successfully crying wolf in society and getting a big payout, its monkey-see monkey-do. The internet and our society needs a little more 'judge judy' to filter through our cynical false-plaintiff culture.
It's a YouTube systems problem. They need to start threatening legal action against false strikes. Or at least have a penalizing system within youtube, like being unable to make any more claims.
Oh hell Yeah. I know. first things first. Scare some of these false claimers away. Had a friend doing God of War Lets Play's and a Russian music video site was filing claims against him very soon after the content ID system went into effect, but he doesn't monetize so it was dealt with. All the same tho...
I guess i'm just saying, that snakes are always waiting to use the system un-righteously. Its endemic of our society's comfort to sue to make a buck, or sabotage others on petty jealousy and B.S. Institutions don't come out and demonstrate "hey this gavel is a tool for regulating fairness, its not a toy."
It was a text post on a non monetized platform
and I did dispute it and it didn't clear
Regardless of what some of our content creators may say, do or provoke within their videos or articles, this does not give members the ability to act in the same way.
This is the line from the CoC I'm talking about.
There is a line in the CoC
"Publicly airing your grievances or mocking and disrespecting either the moderators in their official capacity or the rules will only get you further warnings."
Which directly opposes another line from the CoC
Constructive criticism is welcomed; negativity for its own sake is not.
See for your self.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.856175-Reminder-When-someone-makes-inflammatory-posts-and-threads
So it's not really about advertizing at all.
(Even though I don't use add block, so techenically every time I load a page they are getting money, so they really shouldn't care what kind of comments I leave. But now I'm just grinding my axe)
Nah, you've been fine so far.
Thank you for giving more information. Also, it is in their best interest to care about our comments.
If you didn't have the video monetized, as I said, I don't think the moderation was needed.
Though, can they tell if it's monetized? Perhaps they didn't know and aired on the side of caution.
As for that part of the CoC, it sounds more like they are saying if the Staff should act up, it doesn't give users an excuse to do the same. For example, if Greg Tito posts a low content post (<-He did, and got mod wrath for it. xD Took it well). That doesn't mean the users can do the same.
It doesn't say the staff can get away with breaking the rules. Just that if they happen to, the users can't follow suit.
To be fair, Best of Steam Greenlight is not criticism. It's comedy. It's pisstaking. I'm not saying that justifies abuse of Youtube's system, but when your content consists of taking the piss out of someone else's work without any constructive analysis, then I feel it would be best to be a bit more mild about potential backlash, kind of like what Retsupurae does with their content (they take it down themselves immediately if the target objects to it).
I disagree. It's comedy, yes, but I have a very distinct critical point with the series overall. The series points out problems with, say, bad framerates in conjunction with camera pans. Yeah it's comical, but I *do* consider it criticism, in the same vein as I would with the kind of way Yahtzee does stuff.
Comedy is the most truthful criticism in my opinion. It tests the idea to its extremes and measures how it holds up to the stress. Also I've always said if one cannot laugh at one's own missteps, then is that kind of life really worth living?
Keep it up Jim, and if people can't handle the criticism with grace, dignity and self-awareness then perhaps they're not cut out to be in a position where they can be criticized.
It was a text post on a non monetized platform
and I did dispute it and it didn't clear
Regardless of what some of our content creators may say, do or provoke within their videos or articles, this does not give members the ability to act in the same way.
This is the line from the CoC I'm talking about.
There is a line in the CoC
"Publicly airing your grievances or mocking and disrespecting either the moderators in their official capacity or the rules will only get you further warnings."
Which directly opposes another line from the CoC
Constructive criticism is welcomed; negativity for its own sake is not.
See for your self.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.856175-Reminder-When-someone-makes-inflammatory-posts-and-threads
So it's not really about advertizing at all.
(Even though I don't use add block, so techenically every time I load a page they are getting money, so they really shouldn't care what kind of comments I leave. But now I'm just grinding my axe)
Nah, you've been fine so far.
Thank you for giving more information. Also, it is in their best interest to care about our comments.
If you didn't have the video monetized, as I said, I don't think the moderation was needed.
Though, can they tell if it's monetized? Perhaps they didn't know and aired on the side of caution.
As for that part of the CoC, it sounds more like they are saying if the Staff should act up, it doesn't give users an excuse to do the same. For example, if Greg Tito posts a low content post (<-He did, and got mod wrath for it. xD Took it well). That doesn't mean the users can do the same.
It doesn't say the staff can get away with breaking the rules. Just that if they happen to, the users can't follow suit.
The thing I linked to wasn't even on a monetizable platform.
I've seen monetized videos linked in threads all the time.
It's just an annoying technicality that I got hit by. and if I had less scruples and said "I agree with this review that was written by someone who definitely wasn't me, you should read it" I wouldn't have been punished
But it's really more about the practice of removing critical posts. I have a lot of complaints with the Code of Conduct and when I PM them to the community manager and they get ignored or brushed off no one's the wiser.
When someone makes a thread about the CoC it gets tons of comments. So they added "publicly airing your grievances is against the rules"
and then Jim comes out with this video and I yell to myself "Hypocrites!"
But then I compose my self a little and try to leave a clever comment.
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