Polaris/Maker Studio's GAME_JAM controversy

[Ironshroom]

So Polaris, the company that takes care of popular Youtube Let's Players and gamers recently tried to hold a televised (on youtube atleast) game jam for some relatively well known Indie developers and Youtubers, involving people like Zoe Quinn (the maker of Depression Quest),JonTron, Markiplier and Strippin where they would make a game within the time constraints provided. Needless to say, corporate bullshit got involved and a pure shit storm was formed.
You can read Jared Rosen's (Journalist for Indiestatik and contract worker for Polaris) account of the events here (and I recommend you do, it's a very well written article): http://indiestatik.com/2014/03/31/most-expensive-game-jam/
Zoey also posted her thoughts here: http://www.beesgo.biz/reality.html

So what I wanna know is do you think that corporations should ever get involved in the gaming industry after this?
Do you think that the increased budget of an event should ever give total control to people who have no interest in the event other then the profitability of it?

 

[Rellik San]

Corporations getting involved isn't the issue... having a monumental dick from a consulting firm running the show is.

Seriously, I can not express how monumental of a dick that guy is, you could erect a 15,000ft tall solid gold statue of a phallus and name it for him and it would still not be a monumental dick monumental enough to show just how monumental of a dick that guy is.


But in all seriousness... what a dick.


To address your second point, unfortunately it's the way of the world, the fact is if you invest you want to see a return and "good will" doesn't pay wages. What this seems more to be though, given the personalities involved would have seen a return happen in ad revenue alone (AJ, JonTron, Zoe, Davey etc.) The problem is old media types don't see personalities and celebrities and people who are to games what the likes of Lynch is to movies as anything more than; "basement dwelling geekazoids from the planet nerdopia in the loser cluster of the suckstobeyou nebula in the galaxy of dork V." Which aside from me being sure is the title of a Troma Team movie is also just a prime example of old medias increasing irrelevence.

I mean lets face it the most anticipated TV show of the year is a show about dragons, political intrigue and floppy weiners if you told anyone that 10 years ago they'd have laughed at you, a lot of these companies like Pepsi Co. are only interested in "core demographics" of young hip dudes with raditude in spades, the want the snowboarding kids who are onboard with cool tunes of Beybey and KelClar and MiCy and KatPer... and whatever else these people call themselves. It's these middle of the road imaginary peeps that these companies want to aim for... and as much as we may wish we are the controlling media share, it still goes to sports fans, reality TV viewers and wannabe foodies who watch cookery shows but never actually cook from them.

Bringing in a consulting director from that world should have been red flagged as a huge problem, but then again I'm wondering if it was also mandate from Haus of Maus to make the Maker brand more palatable for larger audiences before purchasing them.

 

[Gunner_Guardian]

Wow that one consulting guy sounded like the biggest douche in the world, it's nice to know the youtubers and indies held their ground and didn't give in to their forced drama crap.

Surprised there isn't more of an internet firestorm over this.

 

[Splitzi]

You could tell something was going to happen after they force devs to change/alter their appearance/mannerisms to better show the Mountain Dew brand. These people weren't there for Pepsi, they were there to make games. Maybe they should have let them do what they were good at. Also, apparently they couldn't even buy a decent headset for the LP'ers? How bush league were they over there?

 

[omega 616]

I just skimmed the article but from what I gather it was a "reality" tv show about making games? Correct (since this isn't an actual conversation, I will assume so).

Who thought that would be a good idea? Just from me, my group of friends and roosterteeth ... gamers and reality tv don't do well. Gamers are kind of counter culture, while others are watching Kim Kardashian, we are doing anything but ... we I'd assume most don't even watch tv, we have hulu/netflix or something.

Reality tv isn't reality, it's all about arguments and drama ... this Matti was ironically the odd one out, it was like turning up to a D&D session and wanting NFL on, he came across like a dick 'cos he was trying to impose normal reality tv onto actual reality tv.

These game_jam guys wanted to stick a camera in a corner and record them making a game (ok, not exactly that) and this Matti wanted mud flinging and people storming out etc.

More documentary and less reality tv.

Like I said, just assuming though.

 

[Brownie80]

http://indiestatik.com/2014/03/31/most-expensive-game-jam/

Yeah...I think it's a travesty of what happened. The account above has links to other accounts of this disaster. Basically, some guy tried to make this a reality show, said one to many offensive things, made the entire developer contestants walk out, got fired, put people's jobs in jeopardy, and put Polaris' and Maker Studios' $400,000 price tag on this event get flushed down the toilet. You HAVE to read this article, again, which has links to Adriel Wallick's account of this story, Robin Arnott's account of this story, and Zoe Wright's account, though she is under contract. It is mind-blowing to me how this all went down.

 

[Barbas]

Astonishing that it can all be traced back to the distasteful conduct of a single individual. I'm glad the participating developers were able to get at least some enjoyment out of the event after he left.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

Okay I just read the whole thing, kudos to them for walking out, however...

So they decide to do a reality show, introduce a brand sponsorship, and higher a consultant and tell him "Go look for drama", and then they fire him for doing just that? Yeah this Matti guys a dick, but his job is to be a dick and incite conflict. This is TV Media Schmuck 101.

EDIT: I've now read like 4 different accounts on this, and my God... Look I support the Devs for walking out, but I'm wondering what the hell did they expect it was going to be like? Yeah they're going to make you hold the bottle of Dew the right way, your not just game-jamming your shilling Pepsi products.

It just sounds to me they had a typical reality show experience and completely had a different thought in mind for what it was going to be like.

 

[drednoahl]

Wow that one consulting guy sounded like the biggest douche in the world, it's nice to know the youtubers and indies held their ground and didn't give in to their forced drama crap.

Surprised there isn't more of an internet firestorm over this.

As soon as Disney bought Maker, this is exactly what I expected would happen and maybe after rift got bought out the internet figured that given the opportunity selling out is the way forward right now. If anything I'm more inclined to support the devs who actually create stuff I care about; who cares about a bunch of media leeches? I don't, but a lot of people like maker/polaris etc and trust them so they aren't going to be pissed I guess.

Twenty years or so ago, the front man for a British Tv program about gaming quit the show due sponsors screwing with the format. So I've seen this kind of thing before (that front man did return the season after with sponsorship intact) and back then we had Wayne's World too; warnings to be heeded. Big business and gaming don't mix well imo - gamers are freedom loving and big business is totalitarian; pretty much polar opposite.

I'd have walked after seeing the contract they wanted signing regardless of how much I needed the exposure and to hell with the consequences.

 

[Rellik San]

Wow that one consulting guy sounded like the biggest douche in the world, it's nice to know the youtubers and indies held their ground and didn't give in to their forced drama crap.

Surprised there isn't more of an internet firestorm over this.

Twenty years or so ago, the front man for a British Tv program about gaming quit the show due sponsors screwing with the format.

Here's an interesting fact Dominik Diamond (I'm assuming you're referring to Gamesmaster here), up until the head of channel 4 was replaced, Dom and the producers were in talks of creating 2 shows: A version of Gamesmaster aimed at teenager/20-somethings and a gaming based talk show. Unfortunately the then head of channel 4 didn't think there was a market for this kind of thing.

Which us kind of funny as it seems since the 90's channel 4 has been trying to get gaming coverage on, with shows like Bits (arguably a little misogynistic with 3 attractive female presenters... until you realise the 3 of them wrote it, one of whom now works within the industry, the other is tech culture writer for a prestigious newspaper and the other is big in the sci-fi/horror B-Movie scene as actress, writer and director), then there was channel 4's other attempt Thumb Bandits which took documentary styling and a more article focused approach to games media and lastly most recently Charlie Brookers game thingumy that twitter won.

I guess my point is, not all old media outlets are so blind to the potential of gaming coverage, but in the US... having seen the abomination that was G4TV... yeeeeesh... were I making a show/channel about games, I wouldn't let a US production company within a thousand miles of it.


Captcha: Power Tool... Matti Leshem sure is.

 

[Xeorm]

I just skimmed the article but from what I gather it was a "reality" tv show about making games? Correct (since this isn't an actual conversation, I will assume so).

Who thought that would be a good idea? Just from me, my group of friends and roosterteeth ... gamers and reality tv don't do well. Gamers are kind of counter culture, while others are watching Kim Kardashian, we are doing anything but ... we I'd assume most don't even watch tv, we have hulu/netflix or something.

Reality tv isn't reality, it's all about arguments and drama ... this Matti was ironically the odd one out, it was like turning up to a D&D session and wanting NFL on, he came across like a dick 'cos he was trying to impose normal reality tv onto actual reality tv.

These game_jam guys wanted to stick a camera in a corner and record them making a game (ok, not exactly that) and this Matti wanted mud flinging and people storming out etc.

More documentary and less reality tv.

Like I said, just assuming though.

It wasn't supposed to be a reality show. The heart of it was primarily as something like a documentary, but in planning it meandered into reality tv territory. But even then, it was still fairly workable as what it should have been, but it didn't have major problems until this one man tried to turn it into full reality TV, blowing everything up.

As it is, he did a truly colossally stupid thing, and someone higher up should have certainly fired him quicker. That sorta person needs a higher up to watch his ass, before he does stupid things like he did.

 

[Saetha]

Wait, I'm confused. I haven't finished reading the article (Because goddamn, that's a whopper) but what beef does Zoe Quinn have with JonTron? What?

 

[Jason Rayes]

Wait, I'm confused. I haven't finished reading the article (Because goddamn, that's a whopper) but what beef does Zoe Quinn have with JonTron? What?

Both Zoe and JohTron were at the event. Its two teams, gamers vs devs. JonTron was on the gamer team, Zoe was on the Dev team. Basically a corporate douchebag tries to provoke conflict between them for "drama". You should probably read the article, it does explain it.

 

[Reincarnatedwolfgod]

Is there a TLDR version of what happened.
I don't have to time to read something this long if it's not related to school work.

 

[Idsertian]

Is there a TLDR version of what happened.
I don't have to time to read something this long if it's not related to school work.

tl;dr: Maker and Polaris get a bunch of indie devs and LP'ers together to make games, turn it into a reality show, sponsorship guy starts pushing people's buttons re: women in industry, key people refuse to continue, he gets fired.

That's about the long and short of it.

OT: I read about this earlier today. Was going to make a thread, but got sidetracked. A damn shame, the whole debacle.

I have to wonder what was going through that guy's head at the time that made those comments seem like a good idea. Is it just standard practice in reality TV and he doesn't now how touchy a subject that is in this industry at the moment? Or is he that much of a dick that he knew about it, and decided to try and get a rise out of what he saw as easy targets?

 

[Jason Rayes]

If they take out the BS reality TV part of it and just did a documentary on a game jam, Id watch that. Anyone with an actual interest in indie game development isn't going to tune in for some bizarre "reality" tv competition anyway. That said, without Matti there to douche things up, I think the devs could probably have made it through, uncomfortable as it may have been. Not sure what the target audience would be though

 

[Brownie80]

Okay I just read the whole thing, kudos to them for walking out, however...

So they decide to do a reality show, introduce a brand sponsorship, and higher a consultant and tell him "Go look for drama", and then they fire him for doing just that? Yeah this Matti guys a dick, but his job is to be a dick and incite conflict. This is TV Media Schmuck 101.

EDIT: I've now read like 4 different accounts on this, and my God... Look I support the Devs for walking out, but I'm wondering what the hell did they expect it was going to be like? Yeah they're going to make you hold the bottle of Dew the right way, your not just game-jamming your shilling Pepsi products.

It just sounds to me they had a typical reality show experience and completely had a different thought in mind for what it was going to be like.

Except it wasn't. It wasn't supposed to be a reality show. It was supposed to show how fun it is to make games. But crappy hardware and a host asking offensive questions is just wrong.

 

[Saetha]

Wait, I'm confused. I haven't finished reading the article (Because goddamn, that's a whopper) but what beef does Zoe Quinn have with JonTron? What?

Both Zoe and JohTron were at the event. Its two teams, gamers vs devs. JonTron was on the gamer team, Zoe was on the Dev team. Basically a corporate douchebag tries to provoke conflict between them for "drama". You should probably read the article, it does explain it.

Yeah, but why would they, specifically, have a beef with each other? The article made it out to seem like they have some past history with each other - the writer even said he knew it'd be a bad match as soon as he saw it, and they tried to get Jon to badmouth Zoe, which they didn't do with the other female team leader.

I've read the article entirely now, and I know what the basic set up of the show was, but it talks about Jon and Zoe like they had previously met and already disliked each other, but didn't go into how or why.

 

[Jason Rayes]

I've read the article entirely now, and I know what the basic set up of the show was, but it talks about Jon and Zoe like they had previously met and already disliked each other, but didn't go into how or why.

I'm not entirely sure on this one myself, I wasn't sure if he meant they had a previous grudge or whether he just knows them well enough to know they won't get along. It was a little vague