Jimquisition: In the Hall of the Mountain Dew

DewMan001

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Oct 27, 2007
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What's most bullshit about this entire thing is that, well;

I'm Australian, and we get done over with our game prices already. And, thanks to this shameful marketing, I would have to pay $100 for a game that's sponsored by a fucking energy drink!

Now, as mentioned earlier, I am also comfortable with advertising in games if it's done right. The billboards in Prototype advertising DC, whilst a little sketchy, are still understandable. I've been playing Alan Wake, and the advertising in that game, whilst a little obtuse, made sense. It made sense to have the torch made by Energizer and the phone by Verizon because it adds to the reality that the game is trying achieve in the attempt to scare you that much more. But if you're doing this sort of bullshit you better stop or cut the price right down. If Halo 4 is as sponsored as it is, Australians shouldn't have to pay $100 for it. They should pay, at most, $40.
 

seangrafton

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May 2, 2011
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So ya, if/when I ever get a job in the game industry, I'm gonna make a point of just finding a way to get videos like this onto the bosses desk every day. Seriously, this kind of business is just unacceptable.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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Fappy said:
Aw come on! Mountain Dew isn't that bad.

Though, if Jim hates it that much I can't imagine him ever surviving an entire D&D session.
Iactually like Mountain Dew.

Ahh...D&D...Where all my friends called it Orc Piss.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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notfarg said:
So ya, if/when I ever get a job in the game industry, I'm gonna make a point of just finding a way to get videos like this onto the bosses desk every day. Seriously, this kind of business is just unacceptable.
Good chance that'll get you fired. This isn't about them being unaware. It's about them not caring.
 

GTwander

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Mar 26, 2008
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Zachary Amaranth said:
notfarg said:
So ya, if/when I ever get a job in the game industry, I'm gonna make a point of just finding a way to get videos like this onto the bosses desk every day. Seriously, this kind of business is just unacceptable.
Good chance that'll get you fired. This isn't about them being unaware. It's about them not caring.
Pah-hah!
They care a lot, big guy. They care about MONEY.

Show your boss this vid and he'll start conjuring new ways to rape the consumer with a paint-roller.
 

seangrafton

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May 2, 2011
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Zachary Amaranth said:
Good chance that'll get you fired. This isn't about them being unaware. It's about them not caring.
I'm cool with that. Wouldn't want to continue to work at a place that doesn't let it's employees speak towards it's business practices anyway. And it'd be worth it to spread even the tiniest bit of dissent amongst the masses.
 

Darklupus

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Mar 13, 2010
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The question is "How do we know when a game company has indeed mastered the basics, or at least all of them?"
 

DrunkOnEstus

In the name of Harman...
May 11, 2012
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Excellent episode, Jim. You're getting better and better at what you do and it's always incredibly entertaining.

OT: I think it's the consumers who created the illusion that high-budget games were respected by the industry as an art form, deserving of sanctity and intellectual respect. When Call of Duty can make more money than Hollywood movies and are viewed as money-makers, and Hollywood movies already have happy meal tie-ins and toys, this is no surprise. The upper echelons of EA and Activision started as heads of beauty stores, hedge fund financiers and the like. This is just another business to them that you run like any other business. We may become emotionally attached to the experiences, and continue to call them an art form, but to them the AAA titles will just be considered those boxes with the round discs that put their numbers in the black.

I think that's why even relatively "meh" indie titles can be beloved and supported, because we know that they're made with care and passion, because someone or a small group had a statement to make and that the money goes to continuing their dream of doing what they love to do and have a passion for. It's the biggest shame of "auteur" developers losing their connections with publishers like Kojima has with Konami now. It's where someone with a passion and love for the medium can get the high-level funding to create experiences beyond what the indie realm can do.

Oh, and I genuinely had an out-loud laugh at that "Nathan Drake Footlong picture". Please keep screwing around with MS Paint, because its glorious : )
 

Impluse_101

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Jun 25, 2009
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Well, Now we know what liquid to use for our Japanese Liquid Torture. Mountain Dew!
Occasionally even have it be more than a drop and more a long steam into his mouth.
 

ZexionSephiroth

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Apr 7, 2011
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Jim's right, in fact, he's incredibly right.

I don't think any successful game needs to push so much money grabbing out. But sometimes, the money grab is fun to be a part of if you happen to find some part of it that you'll be willing to pay cash for.

...But saying they "need" money is, like Jim said, pathetic...

Still... It makes me wonder. What if there was a game that parodied all the advertising stuff?

Maybe throughout the game, the disgruntled Protagonist will be stopped by some guy and told, "Hey, you mind advertising this stuff for us?" and then... yeah, muses about how big a sword he's going to buy with that money while his companions are sighing and saying "What's wrong with the one you have? It can already kill behemoths in one swing!" to which the protagonist just grins, with a look like a kid on Christmas... possibly staring at some impossibly cool weapon.

...yeah... my mind is weird.
 

TrevHead

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Apr 10, 2011
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Jim hits the nail on the head! It's always the AAAs acting the poor man while the little guys are ofthen the worse off. Thats why I have zero problem buying DLC for more niche games like CAVE shmups.

But what really pisses me off is how much MS and Sony rape smaller devs with QA charges and the gamer picture / avatar racket on 360.

Charging for patching is the worst (MS / Song charging 40k each with Ninty 10k for the wii) since those free patches get used up just after the launch to fix major bugs asap, but minor bugs or the need to have ongoing ballancing patches for cometative games is often ignored, and since many games are multiplatform thats alot of money for a single patch.

Skullgirls is the worst i've seen, been a highly competative fighter it needs constant patches, but because the devs can't afford 80k a pop they keep on delaying it while they try to fix everything in one go, but because of this ppl have stopped playing until the patch is launched. A PC version is planned the one platform where patching is free, but the sickening thing is that most likly the devs won't make use of it because of the need to keep all versions the same.

The game has some upcoming DLC characters, atleast they'll beable to patch the game with no extra cost, but no doubt they'll need another patch after that to ballance them in properlly.

Yeah fuck charging for patches ruining games especially indies
 

Namechangeday

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Aug 13, 2012
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Microsoft is the last company that needs to make more money off the money they're already making. Anyway, I laughed everytime you said "at some point, games need to make money."

Also, Fun Fact: Mountain Dew is one of the most acidic soft drinks out there :)
 

Terrible Opinions

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Sep 11, 2011
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DrunkOnEstus said:
It's the biggest shame of "auteur" developers losing their connections with publishers like Kojima has with Konami now. It's where someone with a passion and love for the medium can get the high-level funding to create experiences beyond what the indie realm can do.
That sort of thing has a nasty habit of backfiring, unfortunately.

John Romero felt that Id Software was holding him back. He founded his own studio, Ion Storm, with the motto "Design is Law", and staffed it with some of the best developers you could find. He would finally be free to make the epic story-driven fantasy-FPS he had always wanted, and John Carmack could suck it down. Except that epic story-driven fantasy-FPS was was an overly-ambitious piece of shit despite its constant delays. While other Ion Storm teams released quality games like Deus Ex and the ill-fated Anachronox, the company folded a few years later.

Denis Dyack had similar beliefs. Though his company, Silicon Knights, had had great success under Nintendo's wing, he believed that they would only truly reach their potential by cutting ties in favour of a more hands-off publisher. Their track record was strong - Legacy of Kain, Eternal Darkness, Twin Snakes - and they attracted many-a-suitor. And then it turned out that with only Dyack at the helm, they couldn't make a game for shit. Product quality plummeted, money got pissed away on dead-end vanity projects, and the company now more closely resembles a rotting deer carcass on the side of an Ontario highway than the heavy-hitter it was only a console generation ago.
 

I.Muir

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Jun 26, 2008
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They won't ever admit that
You know why because some idiots still actually believe it
That's free good publicity from their crowds of mindless drones
 
Apr 24, 2008
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I appreciate Jim's stance.

So...how long do we have before the Kill-Cam is brought to us by the good people at Sprite? What better way to refresh yourself while the barrels smoke and the dust settles?
 

viranimus

Thread killer
Nov 20, 2009
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How dare someone say something so blasphemous, So vile, So supportive of piracy, So hurting the poor developers, WHY wont someone think of the develo...... wait what?, Sterling said it? Why Absolutely Jim you are dead on the money, I have always thought this practice was reprehensible and game companies were being unreasonable looking at us like piggy banks. Thank God for you.


Yip, this thread, it has it.
 

Ashoten

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Aug 29, 2010
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Gearhead mk2 said:
Ashoten said:
This is why I am a PC gamer and Steam is my friend.
Yeah, Steam isn't exactly immune either. But I don't think anyone here is going to listen to my argument. I dared to suggest that Steam wasn't the second coming of Christ, so I'll most likely get burned to a crisp now.
I never buy the hats or any stuff like that. I just really like to abundance of cheap indie games and regular sales they have. No waiting in line at game stop and I don't have to pay full retail if I'm wiling to wait for a game to go on sale.