That Dragon, Grey

[BX3]

That shirt that Grey is wearing is fantastic. Nobody tell me if it's actually real or not. I want to beliiieeeeve.

 

[Barbas]

Uhhhhh...is that, like...stabbing the fourth wall?

 

[Remus]

So, can't make a joke about cancer, but making a joke about cold-blooded murder is legit?

Way to double standard!

Most murders are singular events, one and done. Cancer kills over half a million every year. Hence, murder is easier to joke about.

 

[Areloch]

So, can't make a joke about cancer, but making a joke about cold-blooded murder is legit?

Way to double standard!

Most murders are singular events, one and done. Cancer kills over half a million every year. Hence, murder is easier to joke about.

Well, technically cancer only kills one person at a time.
Just saying - and obviously I was joking with my original comment - that lots of subjects are arbitrarily deigned as taboo to joke about, while other ones that are equally bad or horrific are fine. Just an amusing double standard when it comes to the average sensibilities.

 

[freaper]

If you sell a 2 hour, serious game $15 it has room for jokes. If you actually wanted to send a message you wouldn't be trying to charge that much for it. I do not approve of making a profit off of stuff like this. I had the same issue with The Beginner's Guide. What he did was essentially sell somebody else's work and extreme pain to tell a message.

Spoiler

I would only believe you if The Beginner's Guide was the first game, nay, story you ever encountered.

 

[ExileNZ]

So the real question is, is the comic about how nobody should make jokes about a topic as sensitive as cancer, or is it about how sensitive people are to jokes about it?

Meta...

 

[Czann]

Once again, I seem to be out of the loop. What's this referring to?

Gamers decided to prove every negative stereotype about Gamers true in protest at the game existing.

ALL of them? Every single one?

Wow, these people are horrible and worse than Hitler.

 

[Darth_Payn]

I think if the guy is willing to make a game about the death of his child, there's space for a joke. Unless there is no original joke and this comic is a metajoke.

Grey said "Fun fact: I actually wrote three jokes on the subject, but none of them were really good enough to warrant how edgy the strip would be." on twitter.

So feels like they went with the meta joke since it was the best they had.

I really shouldn't have to read something extra to get a joke in a comic strip.

This comic confirms that Grey is cancer. So Grey is to blame for our recent high-profile losses (viz., Lemmy, David Bowie and Alan Rickman).

However, Cory has now killed Greycancer - so 2016 should start to look up, right?

My God, it all makes sen-[HEADSPLODE!!!]

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Once again, I seem to be out of the loop. What's this referring to?

Gamers decided to prove every negative stereotype about Gamers true in protest at the game existing.

ALL of them? Every single one?

Wow, these people are horrible and worse than Hitler.

Considering they didn't say "all", then "not all", obviously. But yeah, the referenced gamers are going for the asshole high score.

 

[lacktheknack]

Sorry guys, I'm on Team Cory here. He did the right thing.

 

[SteewpidZombie]

Here is the truth about the game.

It is short, not much of a experience, and the only real complaints have been that it gets abit too preachy and religious based near the end.

Now while it might sound bad to bash a game about a child who died of cancer, I must say that it seems somewhat of a cash-grab by the developer. It was made basically KNOWING that people wouldn't dare talk shit about it (due to the touchy subject of cancer and death), and then pricing it at about $20.

So basically I would tell people NOT to buy this unless it was on sale. BECAUSE if the developer had either made a long/detailed product to justify the cost, or decided to donate money from Steam sales (the biggest seller of the game) THEN I would say that the price was justifiable for such a product. Especially when it's obviously playing off of sympathy or 'Feels' from the community for it's sales.

So overall I must say that while the story and content is a kidney shot to your emotions, and deserves to be told. That doesn't mean you should support a developer who made a half-assed product that's cashing in on someone else's tragedy.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

I really want to hear this joke now...

 

[COMaestro]

Here is the truth about the game.

It is short, not much of a experience, and the only real complaints have been that it gets abit too preachy and religious based near the end.

Now while it might sound bad to bash a game about a child who died of cancer, I must say that it seems somewhat of a cash-grab by the developer. It was made basically KNOWING that people wouldn't dare talk shit about it (due to the touchy subject of cancer and death), and then pricing it at about $20.

So basically I would tell people NOT to buy this unless it was on sale. BECAUSE if the developer had either made a long/detailed product to justify the cost, or decided to donate money from Steam sales (the biggest seller of the game) THEN I would say that the price was justifiable for such a product. Especially when it's obviously playing off of sympathy or 'Feels' from the community for it's sales.

So overall I must say that while the story and content is a kidney shot to your emotions, and deserves to be told. That doesn't mean you should support a developer who made a half-assed product that's cashing in on someone else's tragedy.

From the developer's webpage:

"A JOURNEY OF HOPE IN THE SHADOW OF DEATH

An immersive narrative videogame that retells Joel Green?s 4-year fight against cancer through about two hours of poetic, imaginative gameplay that explores faith, hope and love."

It's advertised as being two hours and says that it will explore faith, so I don't see why anyone is surprised at the length of the game or that it gets religious in there.

And considering the parents of the child were fully involved in writing and creating the game (Ryan Green, the father, is the game developer and did some of the cg art for the game), I don't see how you can accuse them of cashing in on their own tragedy.

And don't be hyperbolic. The game sells for $15. If you paid $20, you were ripped off.

 

[Mullahgrrl]

Even Deadpool probably wouldn't have thought about taking the sharp bit of the dialogue bubble and stabbing someone with it.
I was pretty impressed to see that, but all the more curious as to what this dragon / cancer joke was all about lol.

To be fair, Deadpool never really does anything intresting with its premise.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Thanks Obama, why didn't you just hire Cory to kill cancer a few years ago like a normal thinking person?

Because everybody knows that to kill a cancer, you have to shoot it [https://youtu.be/40mHUw9DV4A?t=11m9s].

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

Anyone else thinking that strip was referencing, umm, recent events?

Spoiler

 

[DudeistBelieve]

I loved how Cory expresses no emotion whatsoever, as if spending years working with Grey has left him completely dead inside.

 

[hentropy]

Great Urethra Battler Miku reference, most people just think it's yet another pseudo-pornographic game where a magical girl battles urethra, but it is in fact a grand deconstruction of the various orifice-based first-person RPGs. Grey seems like the kind to get such things.

And uh something something opinions about cancer game.

 

[EndlessSporadic]

If you sell a 2 hour, serious game $15 it has room for jokes. If you actually wanted to send a message you wouldn't be trying to charge that much for it. I do not approve of making a profit off of stuff like this. I had the same issue with The Beginner's Guide. What he did was essentially sell somebody else's work and extreme pain to tell a message.

I'm all for games like these existing - in fact I love these kinds of games. I just don't think you should be charging so much for them, especially when they are more often than not on-rails or visual novels. It gives me the impression you are trying to make a profit from the horrible turn of events instead of trying to share your story.

There's nothing wrong with making a profit from sharing your story. Also The Beginner's Guide is fictional.

I agree there's nothing wrong with making a profit from a story, but when you consider how much is being charged for the amount and type of content we are getting it feels like they want more than to share their story. They are charging the same amount, and in this specific case more, than the expected price set by a large studio that invests an extraordinarily large amount of resources into the game. We are getting less content, the production values are lower, the graphical fidelity is lower, the number of developers is lower, the audio quality is lower, and I'm willing to bet the amount of time that goes into these games are lower as well.

Now we are left with a scenario - all of this stuff is lower, but the expected number of purchases is lower. Does the story make up for the lower amount of everything mentioned before? This is subjective, and I strongly believe it doesn't. When I take into consideration that the creator wanted to tell a story and not make a profit, the game could have been made cheap with the same effect and sold for around $7-$10 USD, yet the two hour game is being sold for $15 USD.

The bottom line of how I feel is that the production value and amount of content of this product is significantly lower than most other games on the market at this price point, and I feel like these people are using "but it's a real sad story" as an excuse to cover for it. I don't buy that, and that is why I feel like something is amiss and feel like they are overcharging.

As for The Beginner's Guide being fictional, there is no evidence on that. There are only rumors and theories. There is nothing to say that this isn't the case, but given there is no good evidence from either side I am more inclined to believe what came straight out of the game.

 

[EyeReaper]

Thanks Obama, why didn't you just hire Cory to kill cancer a few years ago like a normal thinking person?

Because everybody knows that to kill a cancer, you have to shoot it [https://youtu.be/40mHUw9DV4A?t=11m9s].

I thought to kill the Giant enemy Cancer, you had to flip it over, and attack it's weak point for Malignant damage?