This is a bit of an internet road-gawk. I picked it up from John “Naked War” Pickford over at Rllmuk. In short, blog-combine Destructoid review fresh-on-steam platformer Eternity’s Child. Despite its $5 tag, both its reviewers give it an impressive 1/10 review-o-TWACK!
And then one of its creators turns up in the comments thread, has a go at the review, the reviewers and the people he was working with.
Well, the latter part’s a tad unfair. He does include an emoticon, but it strikes me very much like a “Your Mother gives great head ;P” when the other person knows the first person has received great head from the aforementioned mother.
This is that bit in question, where Luc Bernard after a series of posts rolling his eyes at the review, turns his eyes elsewhere…
“and i’m going to take the blame for it, even if I wished Joshua my programmer would of listened to me about how I wanted things done
I was always against gamepad controls
but still a 1/10 is too low, but that’s why I’m going to put up a demo and then let people decide
before everyone goes FUCK YOU FUCK YOU LUC :P
because if you read the review I did my part fine”
There’s lots more. Go to the thread and search for “Luc Bernard” to see what he says. The post is 300 and counting, as the home-turf Destructoid fans lay into Luc’s lines, so just search for his name and see exactly how terribly a developer with a misplaced desire to defend themselves can ruin their reputation. Because, frankly, this being the first we’ve really heard of the game, what else are we going to think other than “Oh yeah – that was the game with the guy who couldn’t stand someone thinking their work was shit”.
A creative’s response to criticism is a tricky one. A few years back I did a presentation to an Indie-Dev conference about how to best manipulate the press, whose notes I published on my blog. When I see things like this, I wonder if there’s room to write an article about basic guerrilla marketting, manipulation of comments threads and similar other nasty stuff. Because when I see a developer piss away all the good will you have from you status as an underground creator just to defend a sense of hurt feelings, it’s openly depressing.
(This is a complete case of doing it wrong. If you’re a name creator – Luc isn’t – you can just about get away with insulting a review source. And even then it takes a really careful hand to turn a fanbase against a critic without appearing to be a complete cunt. As an unknown creator, it’s virtually suicidal. However, when you turn against your fellow creators to avoid blame, even through a half-shield of irony, you are totally doomed. You’re the kid in class blaming their work-mate that their homework isn’t in on time.)
The saddest thing about creating something in the world is that occasionally someone who you don’t think is terribly bright and is demonstratedly wrong has a swing at what you’ve sweated over… and you realise that to actually retaliate would only undermine your position and support theirs. You justify them by entering proper discourse with them.
The main rule of net argument as a public figure: you are not arguing with the people who you’re arguing with. You will never change their mind. You are arguing with the silent horde of lurkers who are watching around the edge of this invisible ring, trying to decide what they think.
If you come across as reasonable, smart and likeable, even if your arguments are full of holes, you’ll probably win in their eyes. If you come across as a bludgeoning fanatic, even if you’re right, the crowd will despise you.
Indie developers, as much as they love their games, need to learn this. Be smarter.
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@Paul:
What Raff said. :)
Also, Minter does mechanisms very well. Try GridRunner++. In term of action it’s amazing (very fast paced, yet you’re always in control) but it also has ingenious mechanisms like “Sheepie Save”.
Space Giraffe I didn’t really like, but that was due to the enemy design. Bulling is a lovely mechanism, very rewarding to bull a tonne of enemies of the web.
Also, I’m a sucker for psyhedelia. :)
This is veering a little off topic, but a few other kept the Minter sub thread going so I wanted to give my $0.02.
I think Jeff Minter needs to be respected for what he’s done in the past. Tempest 2000 for Jaguar was pretty amazing, as was Hoover Boover and Grid Runner.
I have never been on board with his lame Lamma fetish. Since his jaguar stuff I’d say the only thing he’s done that I’ve liked is the visualizer on xbox 360 music player (not as good as win amps…which also has a lama fetish…hmmm).
I felt embarased for Minter after he posted responses to the bad reviews. But i also felt bad for the idiots on Destructoid who were like “who the fuck is this guy? who the fuck does he think he is?” I mean he’s basically like the Eugene Jarvis of the UK. Of course Destructoid readers would then go “Eugene who?” There knowledge does not exxtend farther back than PS2, with the exception of Nintendo franchises and JRPGs.
I’m rambling…I just had those thoughts about Minter that I always wanted to share…seems like a couple of people in this thread might actually know/care/agree/know enough to disagree, so I couldn’t resist.
“I mean he’s basically like the Eugene Jarvis of the UK.”
Many of Minter’s games are Jarvis’s games with whacky graphics and – according to others – minor gameplay updates. If Minter is the UK’s Jarvis, it’s faint praise for the UK?
P.
I guess what I was trying to say is that to many people Jarvis is someone with a respectable body of work. But since a lot of his games were relesaed on UK based micro computers he’s not as well known as someone like say…oh who’s a good example…Al Lowe? Ron Gilbert? in the US…What I was getting at is that he has a predilection for Jarvis style “shooters” and his games have more notoriety in the UK.
See, already this thread is the most interesting back and forth I’ve had in a long time.
As a general rule, videogames fans lack of respect for previous achievements of still-working creators is one of the things which depresses me. Paul McCartney doesn’t get people dismissing his Beatles work. Videogames equivalents do.
KG
It’s not as if you couldn’t take advantages of comments like:
This game sucks and everyone who likes it sucks and it’s as funny as somethings that’s not funny at all.
Sheepie Save, Resume Best and Space Giraffe’s Scoring Save system are some of the best game mechanics to be deployed in arcade shooters I’ve come across.
Sure, there’s definitely elements of Jarvis and Theurer in all his games, I’d be a fool to deny it but in Space Giraffe *alone* there’s 30 years of arcade history wrapped up in there with so much love, passion and enthusiasm for the source material with a massive side order of Jeff himself that I can’t help but love it.
I had a massive head in hands moment when he was sounding off because it’s like watching someone you love, well it was watching someone who’s work you love, take a massive crap in the middle of the floor for all to see but I can understand his frustration. Maybe less time screaming “it’s not Tempest” and more time spent on what it is may have been better, but feck – it’s all history now.
I suppose this goes back to Cliff’s point earlier about having someone inbetween the dev and the press, that’s something Jeff could have done with.
Space Giraffe though, still one of the best games I’ve ever played. Much respect to and for the man for getting something like that out there when so many people just play it safe. There’s nothing like Level 64 anywhere else in the entire spectrum of gaming and that’s a good thing. ‘Twas a beautiful thing to see and the moment that level clicks into place and you realise precisely how to survive is wonderous.
As one of the more active Destructoid community members (#18 on their “leaderboards,” which shows you how much of a life I apparently have), I figure I ought to pipe up with a little damage control.
First of all, yes, the community does have a lot of douchebags. Some of the responses to Luc were a little over-the-top, but I think the community was justified in giving him one big, unified “fuck you.” The man insulted the site’s staff because of their opinions. This seems “fuck you”-worthy, in my book. However, try not to judge the Dtoid community too harshly. We’re just a bunch of goofy fucks. Put on your thick skin, get to know us, and maybe you’ll find we’re not so bad. Sometimes.
And as Jetsetlemming mentioned, Luc had been on the site for a while. Essentially, he showed up, started blogging about the process of making Eternity’s Child, and now he’s whining because he made a bad game. Frankly, I’ve always felt he was just using the site’s community (definitely one of the tightest and most devoted of any gaming site) to advertise his game and get attention, but that’s probably just me being a judgmental dick.
Anyway, I can’t deny that I’m a little bothered by the harsh comments about Destructoid in this comment thread. The staff are wonderful, down-to-earth people, and the community is second to none. We’re just gamers, guys. Why so serious? :) Either way, I also love me some RPS. So, friends? Hug it out?
The art for this looked lovely. Sounds like it’s too bad about the actual game, though.
Sharpless: I’m fascinated by this sort of apologist attitude. Destructoid is an advertising blog which proudly admits to its rank unprofessionalism and ignorance, surrounded by a sycophantic ‘community’ of the sort of people who leave YouTube comments.
It’s awful to think that there might be people out there who use it as their main source of news and opinion for games, never having known anything better. Like Fox News, it’s tarnishing the world in a subtle but persistent way. So yeah, that’s why so serious.