Comments on: The Sunday Papers

By: James T

James T — Tue, 05 May 2009 18:32:36 +0000

There is, of course, an ethical problem in accepting gifts of any kind from devs/publishers. Unfortunately, “BRIBE CONSPIRACY!!!!” talk clouds reasonable discussion of it. Read my link from earlier, Xercies (er, not the Gay Dad one); it’s not like games writing — or any published writing — MUST fall into exactly two Manichean camps of “completely untouched by the industry funding model” and “accepting packets of cash under the table”.

By: Sam

Sam — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:05:51 +0000

Lewis: Well, actually, if a publisher offers you some free grub and it makes you feel highly of them as people, you are likely to, at least subconsciously, transfer some of that good feeling to their games. This isn’t really a controversial concept.
So, it does have a bearing on the marks you will arrive at.
However, this is still very different from bribery, conspiracy or any other kind of malfeasance, as you point out.

By: Ginger Yellow

Ginger Yellow — Tue, 05 May 2009 12:57:29 +0000

The vast majority of my Multiwinia games have been single player (less through choice these days, but still). It’s no different from playing skirmish games against the AI in other RTSes.

By: Lewis

Lewis — Tue, 05 May 2009 11:22:36 +0000

Xercies: the problem is you’re repeatedly ignoring comments from people who actually work within this business. You’re also failing to define your own terms, and then moaning when people misinterpret what you’re saying.

Does a nice meal constitute a bribe? No. It constitutes politeness and friendliness. If a publisher offers me some free grub, I’m sure I’d thank them profusely, and would think very highly of them as people. It has no bearing on what I think of their game, though, and that’s where your assumption is flawed.

People being paid actual cashy money to write a positive review is obviously far more problematic, but it simply doesn’t happen. Exclusive access in exchange for high scores? Yeah, it happens, very rarely. And it’s usually pretty straightforward to see where it’s happened. And as such, it’s exposed. No problems.

Everything you’ve said in this conversation has been heavily loaded with no real justification. You look at the bigger picture with “this conspiracy”? What conspiracy? So yes, maybe it is a bit insulting to suggest someone’s shouting “FOUL” every time someone disagrees with their opinion – but when you say things like that, or “GTA 4 must have got a free ride with its 10/10s because it’s one of the most boring games I’ve ever played” you don’t help your cause.

By: James T

James T — Tue, 05 May 2009 06:02:12 +0000

Costikyan called them “The Talking Heads!” *punches him out*

By: Gap Gen

Gap Gen — Mon, 04 May 2009 17:51:07 +0000

Xercies: You say it is hard to track evidence down, but then you give a list of concrete examples for which it should be possible to track evidence down.

By: Robin

Robin — Mon, 04 May 2009 17:06:20 +0000

Greg Costikyan’s absolutist view that games can’t be artistically valid if they’re commercially exploited is hopelessly adolescent.

Whichever punk band you want to use as an example of that movement’s ideology, we wouldn’t remember them now if they had refused to engage with corporate world to the extent of getting a record deal.

But then has Costikyan made any game this century, or anything you could easily class as a computer game, ever? He’s a refugee from a dead form that has nothing to say about games (by which I, like most people who aren’t aging American dorks trying to hijack the conversation to legitimise their nostalgia for their irrelevant teenage hobbies, mean computer and video games) beyond how terrible everything is. Asking his opinion of the modern world is like asking a deaf, arthritic teddy boy about hip-hop.

(You may now resume bitching about Introversion.)

By: Xocrates

Xocrates — Mon, 04 May 2009 17:01:23 +0000

That’s the thing really, they weren’t targetting the Darwinia Audience, but everyone thought they did.

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 04 May 2009 16:51:40 +0000

Sorry, not MMO I guess, but every preview I read said “Multiplayer Online version of Darwinia”. Yea, ok, sounds like a multiplayer focused version of Darwinia, hence no sale. I just assumed it meant MMO rather than MO RTS.

I still think it mis-targeted the Darwinia audience. I guess if it’d been billed more as a skirmished base Darwinia battles with multiplayer support, maybe I would have looked at it. I never saw any mention of single player support in Multiwinia period. Even the name doesn’t really imply single player was an option (though, reading a wiki entry, I guess it had bots to play against).

By: Xercies

Xercies — Mon, 04 May 2009 16:33:39 +0000

I have to say it isn’t me saying “Oh my god he has a different opinion to me he must be bribed” in fact I find that kind of insulting. I’m not a scores man i don’t say oh my god they got an 8 it was defintily a 5. i just look at things in a different way I look at the bigger conspiracy here. Yes it’s not widespread and yes it’s very hard to track any evidence down, probably because they are very good at hiding what they do. Sometimes it will slip but still people ignore it. It’s not widespread but saying it might not happen and it doesn’t happen is wrong as well. Its many shenanigans, it could be PR guys blackmailing, or bribing a publication which goes down to the writers. It could be the writers called up to there head offices and getting a nice meal for free while they play there games. It could be all these things and they have happened. It’s very murky but like people have said why should we care, we only sometimes pay for games based on reviews.

By: Xocrates

Xocrates — Mon, 04 May 2009 16:14:12 +0000

Hum… Multiwinia is not a MMO.
Also, Multiwinia history is a bit more complicated than that, indeed the game wasn’t supposed to exist in the first place. Multiwinia was created as a necessity (imposed by Microsoft) to add multiplayer for the XBLA release. Since IV decided they didn’t want it to be an half assed add-on, they turned it into a full game. Notably, they considered naming it something completely unrelated to Darwinia (while keeping the graphic style) so as to denote it was supposed to be a completely different game as opposed to a pseudo-sequel (they eventually decided against it as everyone, community included, was calling it Multiwinia before it had been officially announced).

Additionally, if you read those blog entries by Chris Delay, he’ll note he didn’t even want to develop Multiwinia, especially since the Darwinia series had given them countless troubles.

By: aoanla

aoanla — Mon, 04 May 2009 16:13:10 +0000

Chris: Erm. Multiwinia isn’t an MMO. It’s a RTT game with a lot of randomness.