Jimquisition: Corrupt, Censoring, Suicidal Indie Devs

[truckspond]

Great episode as always. I agree that indie devs that try to censor criticism always seem to think that the streisand effect does not apply to them. But in fact it applies to everyone and they always have to learn that the hard way

 

[RicoADF]

Jim decided to take the fourth option: mobilize outrage at the grassroots level in order to expose Kobra's own wrongdoing, and to shame it into backing down.

I'm starting to think Jim's abusing his position with this video, while yes I agree that censorship of criticism of the game isn't right (nor legal) and will back anyone that fights against it, this video wasn't the case. As Carnagath pointed out the videos are literally about laughing at game's trailers on steam greenlight, one could reasonably argue that these videos hurt sales of the games and since their not critiques of the game don't fall under fair use. Add to that the arrogance Jim displayed in the video and I'm actually not in a hurry to grab a pitchfork against Cobra games (or whatever their name is).

 

[Oskuro]

Censorship of valid criticism is bullshit

I find that qualifier troublesome, and have seen it used by several people on this very thread.
What is considered "valid" criticism? What isn't? Because I'm pretty sure that, in all the instances of publisher censorship Jim mentioned, the publishers were (and probably still are) convinced that those criticism where not "valid"


So lets fix it:

Censorship of any criticism is bullshit

You are free to ignore criticism, but you should never be able to censor it.

As Carnagath pointed out the videos are literally about laughing at game's trailers on steam greenlight, one could reasonably argue that these videos hurt sales of the games and since their not critiques of the game don't fall under fair use.

First of all, comedy/parody falls squarely under fair use.

Secondly, as I said above, the devs are free to ignore whatever anyone says, as long as we're not going into misinformation territory.

If Jim had made a video making false claims about the game, then yes, a takedown of the video might be warranted, as that would be libel, and even then, if the video has a clear humorous intent, it would still be protected as parody.


Saavy readers will, of course, recognize this as the thin line many advertisers or political commentators / pundits (among others) usually thread to avoid retaliation for their defamatory comments, so this debate is nothing new in our society.

I just think we can all agree Jim is blatantly humorous in his remarks.

 

[Magmarock]

This was just a very entertaining video but no mention of Phill Fish, which is quite surprising.

 

[LenticularHomicide]

This was just a very entertaining video but no mention of Phill Fish, which is quite surprising.

As I see it, Phil Fish did not aim to censor criticism of his game; he was grudgingly accepting of Let's Plays of his games continuing to be available for viewing, but he believed that LPers ought to pay him a royalty for using his intellectual property. That, I believe, separates him from those developers whose use of copyright seem to be less concerned with the idea of intellectual property rights, and more with using copyright takedowns as a bludgeon to try to stamp out any criticism of their games.

Also, Jim already touched on Phil Fish in one of his Youtube channel's videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPBUULv202A

 

[daxterx2005]

Not going to lie, I liked the toucan Jim.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

fantastic episode jimbo, this kind of shit need to stop, there must be a law agaisnt the mass suicide of game devs

What about take a Jimquisition and highlight 10 indie games that are good that no one is pay attention to?

actually id like something like this, often we hear a lot of shit from terrible indie game, how about bringing some light to some hidden gems?

 

[Nazulu]

The way I see it, triple AAA can be good or bad, nothing extreme (well, it doesn't seem so right now)

And that's so sad. AAA used to be symbol of awesomeness and creative breakthroughs. Now it's a symbol of hype and flashier graphics.

Yep. It's become very corrupt, and I can't find any titles that interest me. Nothing aimed at me at all in fact. And I still find it very strange that all these billion dollar giants are afraid to experiment even a little.

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

actually id like something like this, often we hear a lot of shit from terrible indie game, how about bringing some light to some hidden gems?

To be fair hidden gems don't stay hidden for very long. They are quickly brought to the surface and become popular by sheer word of mouth (power of the internet etc ).

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

actually id like something like this, often we hear a lot of shit from terrible indie game, how about bringing some light to some hidden gems?

To be fair hidden gems don't stay hidden for very long. They are quickly brought to the surface and become popular by sheer word of mouth (power of the internet etc ).

well yeah, to an extend, but there are still some games out there that could use the spotlight, for instance, this game, looks super cool

http://store.steampowered.com/app/248310/?snr=1_7_15__13

is it any good? fucked if i know, its been 1 week since it came out and there are still no reviews on it, and 15 dollars is a bit too much of a gamble for me

 

[NerfedFalcon]

http://store.steampowered.com/app/248310/?snr=1_7_15__13

is it any good? fucked if i know, its been 1 week since it came out and there are still no reviews on it, and 15 dollars is a bit too much of a gamble for me

Goddamn amazing game this. If you ever enjoyed any platformers from the SNES/Megadrive era (Mega Man X, Sonic, Yoshi's Island, etc) then buy it right the heck now.

OT: If anyone hasn't learned this by now, they never will. I feel like this episode was mostly just running in place. I still like your show, and I'm not going to abandon it for one bad episode, but I still just didn't care for it.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

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.

TBH this needs to be done with the legal system too. You shouldn't be allowed to get away with threatening people doing perfectly legal activities, particularly in a system that 1. works off a "guilty until proven innocent" sentiment or 2. costs money to dispute claims, which could destroy innocent but poor parties even if they win the case.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

Censorship of valid criticism is bullshit

I find that qualifier troublesome, and have seen it used by several people on this very thread.
What is considered "valid" criticism? What isn't? Because I'm pretty sure that, in all the instances of publisher censorship Jim mentioned, the publishers were (and probably still are) convinced that those criticism where not "valid"


So lets fix it:

Censorship of any criticism is bullshit

I kinda-sorta disagree. I would argue that if you're not even TRYING to back up your opinion with anything more substantial than "this game is shitty", your opinion isn't required.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

actually id like something like this, often we hear a lot of shit from terrible indie game, how about bringing some light to some hidden gems?

To be fair hidden gems don't stay hidden for very long. They are quickly brought to the surface and become popular by sheer word of mouth (power of the internet etc ).

well yeah, to an extend, but there are still some games out there that could use the spotlight, for instance, this game, looks super cool

http://store.steampowered.com/app/248310/?snr=1_7_15__13

is it any good? fucked if i know, its been 1 week since it came out and there are still no reviews on it, and 15 dollars is a bit too much of a gamble for me

I can't comment on the quality, but where the hell did you get the idea that there are no revies on it? There's only 202 for that game. Unless you meant ones outside of the Steam Store?

 

[FFMaster]

On the other hand, I paused the video when you said "You do not start shit with a media personality" and that really struck me.

Was perfect fine with what he was saying. Even tho i do think on the whole its the game makers choice if videos of the game they make can be monetized for the gain of the person making the video. I still perfectly open to other views as the fair use stuff is a grey area still which really needs clearing up for good or ill.

However "You do not start shit with a media personality", sorry that abusing your position. You are basically say its fine to start shit with anyone else, but be nice and say please and thank you to someone in the media so they will be nice back. This is the bullshit that has caused the score inflation when it comes to gaming reviews making them mostly useless now. This is the rubbish that makes it so that people are less trusting of reviews for bigger games, because people "don't start shit with the media" so they pander to them, and the media pander back with quotes about how "Titanfall was the greatest game" ever and we should "believe the hype" (as an example, and look how that turned out).

Its elitist, its bollocks and it is a bully tactic. You basically just said "your the scrawny kid so i get to kick you in the face cause you did nasty to me", and its perfectly fine cause your a media personality. Rather than talk it out and inform the person why they are wrong in your videos like your normally do, you instead pull out the media personality card as a way to force your point through (because you don't shit with them remember).

Lots of respect lost from me here with that statement, will affect my viewership of both your vid and your new vid you do with yahtzee

 

[Strazdas]

you know the worst thing about this? these developers do not get punished for this at all. they just go create a new studio with new name for almost no cost and continue the cycle. If the devs were legally punishable by law for wrongful claims (btw, all wrongful copyright claims should be, the way its set up now runs contrary to general principles of law) then they would actually learn.

actually id like something like this, often we hear a lot of shit from terrible indie game, how about bringing some light to some hidden gems?

To be fair hidden gems don't stay hidden for very long. They are quickly brought to the surface and become popular by sheer word of mouth (power of the internet etc ).

No.

Popular gens dont stay hidden for long. some games are niche games (nothing wrong with that) and only attract audience of that niche. they could be great, but if that niche is not large enough it may not get to frontpage ect.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/248310/?snr=1_7_15__13

is it any good? fucked if i know, its been 1 week since it came out and there are still no reviews on it, and 15 dollars is a bit too much of a gamble for me

actually 11.5 on humble store right now. steam is hardly ever chepest.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

actually id like something like this, often we hear a lot of shit from terrible indie game, how about bringing some light to some hidden gems?

To be fair hidden gems don't stay hidden for very long. They are quickly brought to the surface and become popular by sheer word of mouth (power of the internet etc ).

well yeah, to an extend, but there are still some games out there that could use the spotlight, for instance, this game, looks super cool

http://store.steampowered.com/app/248310/?snr=1_7_15__13

is it any good? fucked if i know, its been 1 week since it came out and there are still no reviews on it, and 15 dollars is a bit too much of a gamble for me

I can't comment on the quality, but where the hell did you get the idea that there are no revies on it? There's only 202 for that game. Unless you meant ones outside of the Steam Store?

outside the steam store yes

no metascore yet

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/freedom-planet

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

you know the worst thing about this? these developers do not get punished for this at all. they just go create a new studio with new name for almost no cost and continue the cycle. If the devs were legally punishable by law for wrongful claims (btw, all wrongful copyright claims should be, the way its set up now runs contrary to general principles of law) then they would actually learn.

actually id like something like this, often we hear a lot of shit from terrible indie game, how about bringing some light to some hidden gems?

To be fair hidden gems don't stay hidden for very long. They are quickly brought to the surface and become popular by sheer word of mouth (power of the internet etc ).

No.

Popular gens dont stay hidden for long. some games are niche games (nothing wrong with that) and only attract audience of that niche. they could be great, but if that niche is not large enough it may not get to frontpage ect.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/248310/?snr=1_7_15__13

is it any good? fucked if i know, its been 1 week since it came out and there are still no reviews on it, and 15 dollars is a bit too much of a gamble for me

actually 11.5 on humble store right now. steam is hardly ever chepest.

you get the idea, kangaroo likes to be careful with his money, ill usually check some professional reviews about a game, maybe check the steam store for some extra feedback, then buy the game

 

[Kingjackl]

However "You do not start shit with a media personality", sorry that abusing your position. You are basically say its fine to start shit with anyone else, but be nice and say please and thank you to someone in the media so they will be nice back. This is the bullshit that has caused the score inflation when it comes to gaming reviews making them mostly useless now. This is the rubbish that makes it so that people are less trusting of reviews for bigger games, because people "don't start shit with the media" so they pander to them, and the media pander back with quotes about how "Titanfall was the greatest game" ever and we should "believe the hype" (as an example, and look how that turned out).

Its elitist, its bollocks and it is a bully tactic. You basically just said "your the scrawny kid so i get to kick you in the face cause you did nasty to me", and its perfectly fine cause your a media personality. Rather than talk it out and inform the person why they are wrong in your videos like your normally do, you instead pull out the media personality card as a way to force your point through (because you don't shit with them remember).

Lots of respect lost from me here with that statement, will affect my viewership of both your vid and your new vid you do with yahtzee

I wouldn't call it an 'abuse of his position', since the whole incident started when the developers chose to censor Jim's criticism. He wasn't singling them out when he criticised their game on his Youtube channel, since he does it for plenty of other Greenlight devs. The developers chose to react the way they did, and Jim is well within his right to fire back in kind. It's the job of the media to shed light on this sort of thing, and as a rule they do not like censorship. Any journalist worth his salt who has his work censored will fight to expose that shit. Your Titanfall example doesn't make sense, since if the media was abusing it's power over the industry, they wouldn't have to pander to publishers like that.

There have been a few people posting similar comments like this, and I think it's because it's one of the few Jimquisitions where he's kicking down, not up. When Jim slagged off EA, Ubisoft and Microsoft for shitty business practices, everyone was cheering him on. Now he's doing the same to low-budget indie developers and it makes him look like the bad guy. It doesn't seem to matter that what the developer did was genuinely anti-consumer and that they should be called out on it.

If his channel was the only example of this happening, then I would agree that he's abusing power to air a personal grievance. But, given that there have been similar incidents like the TB one, and the game's developers have started censoring criticism on their Steam page, I'd say it's an issue worth discussing. The fact that it's only happening with indies as opposed to triple A publishers is unexpected, but that doesn't mean the indies should be treated any better for it.

 

[Bruce]

Kobra Studios - as incompetent at developing games as they are at fighting GI Joe.