Worth Reading: 09/07/12

To me and my wife (who works two jobs), it’s a week’s worth of food or more. To others, it’s a month’s wages.

Seriously, if $100 is everything you make in a month it's time to find a real job for at least a few years until you can get this game thing off the ground. And if you and your wife are working two jobs and don't have $100 extra at the end of the month you have probably built up a pile of way too many bills. Credit cards are not your friends.

Oh God, the comments section in the blog about Greenlight is a train wreck. Even more so than the average blog comment section. The blog itself was interesting though, if only because it appears I share some political beliefs with that guy and he can articulate them a little better than I probably can.

The article on the Minecraft party thing (which is a messed up thing, obviously) sent me on a massive detour to reading about the pervasiveness of sexual harassment/assault etc. and how men tend not to notice it. So, it's not really about games but thanks to Patrick for giving me something worthwhile to think about on a boring Saturday morning.

Not to downplay a really shitty situation at the Minecraft party, as I think what happened was definitely wrong - but that sort of event very clearly highlights how there will never be REAL equality between men and women. Were the roles reversed and it was a female that asked if her breasts were big enough and put a guys hand on them this would be a non issue and the guy would probably be high fiving his friends about it later. Once again to make it perfectly clear, what happened to the author of that article is in no way ok or justified - it was a shitty thing done by some horny idiot. The point I'm trying to get across is that all these articles about equality in the business world, and how men and women should all be on the same playing field are never taking under consideration that men and women differ very much on many issues. I'm a little tired of reading things like girlfriend mode being an outrage and constant articles about sexism in video games because you will never have the two sexes see eye to eye on all matters - in the end it just ends up being a big waste of time with a ton of unnecessary compromises.

honestly 20$ would probably be enough to keep out most of the "LOL HL3" people. and would be a much lower barrier to actual developers.

To all the supports of the 100$ steam application fee, look at Xbox live indie games. That requires a 90$ annual fee to be able to develop and submit a game and has a community vetting system. None the less, neither of these factors have done anything to reduce the signal to noise ratio on the service. Pay barriers aren't necessarily a bad thing, they work o.k. for something like the Something Awful forums, but -almost- this exact same model, down to the dollar figure has already been tried and has failed miserably. So, not only does Kyratzes have a totally salient point, especially if you take into account developers in countries with...uhhmm.. poor exchange rates, it's also a model that has failed, empirically proven to do so, a promise of higher quality. There are plenty of people out there with bad ideas who happen to have 100$ to burn, likewise there are plenty of people out there who have great ideas and for whom 100$ is a serious hardship.

@Humanity:Is it though? I'm pretty sure I would be weirded out as hell if some woman came up to me and put my hand on her breast or vagina after some small talk. That's just not the way to do things, gender aside.

@Xardolan: You might be weirded out yeah, but you wouldn't feel violated to the point of tears by it.

@Humanity said:

@Xardolan: You might be weirded out yeah, but you wouldn't feel violated to the point of tears by it.

Probs worth realising that in (most) women it would be seen as an attack, in general women live in, at best uncertainty and caution of the world around, they certainly in the main feel inferior and threatened, whether they show it or not. A woman putting my hand on her anything is not threatening to me so its fine, if strange. But how about you imagine a 6'6" bald Bull-Queer covered in tatoos doing the same to you in a dark alley and thats how it can feel to some women. Im not saying 'all', i know some women who would probably like it and get on it (male assailant dependant!) and others who would have laid him out with a right hook. But its no more fair to do it than it would be fair if i walked up and punched you just because i could, it would be upsetting and could really affect you.

I really like the idea of needing a playable demo in order to get into greenlight as a thing, instead of 100$.

@ultra2extreme: Sure I agree with that.

The $100 thing is a super dumb thing to get mad over. It's $100, it goes to charity, and it's not "$100 for a 'maybe'," if anything, it's $100 for unlimited "maybes." It makes your account able to submit games forever.

@Jonas Kyratzes. I do agree that 100.00 us can be a significant amount, but come on. There is never going to be a perfect determinant of intent and desire to produce a game that meets well...some kind of standards. Your wife works 2 jobs.. Now a 100.00 is a weeks worth of groceries, Are you telling me it is the groceries and groceries only being one side of the equation? For this choice of money allocation? REALLY?

You know what really bugs me, if Valve lowered the entrance fee to 5.00 you'd probably hear the same structured argument. The amount can be debated till hell freezes over and that argument is really exactly what would continue. Don't you know that in some countries 1.00 dollar is a day's wages?

If i am torn by anything, it is the use of money as the determinant of intent to make a game of well.. again some sort of standards. But It is the Way of the World, and I'm personally conditioned quite well that you put your money where your mouth is. But a little bit of my psych will always resent this concept. Something may well be very wrong with what Valve is doing, but that reflects more why I have a nice first world life(sort of) and other ppl. struggle to survive. And reflecting on that I do not think Valve is nowhow and in any way geared towards confronting or solving this dilemma. For a start, It is not why Valve exist.

Valve did the best they could, and that $100.00 is even going to charity after some is siphoned off for the inevitable bureaucracy. In terms of The Way of the World, they did try to be humanitarian and reasonable about it. But to me your objection simply has no bottom to it, because the world, for a very primary given/premise/condition, is not based on equality. I wish it was, certain caveats met, but i will leave it there.

@Brodehouse said:

@ultra2extreme I don't want to make a big thing of it (and I'm certainly not justifying that pervert assaulting that lady), but assaults on men are definitely underrepresented, and not sympathized with to the same degree. The running belief is that women are naturally vulnerable, and men _should_ be able to defend themselves, which is obviously packed with its own unfortunate implications. There's also a big belief that any sexual assault is automatically 'worse' than regular physical battery, which I no longer believe. The roommate of my roommate was once attacked randomly in a public park by 7 teenagers, to the point of hospitalization. Absolutely savage, and shouldn't be held as any less horrifying or damaging then if it were a gangrape. But... that's maybe something that'll take some time.

You are very correct sir, being violated can be physical as well, not just sexual, and i think men can be attacked just as badly as women, worse in fact and often are not properly represented or protected. However I think a rape can run a little deeper and i dont think they are 'quite' on a par. While im sure both can and do harm people mentally and leave them lonely, afraid and damaged, I do know many guys who have been set upon by groups and just take it on the chin with no ill effects. I know of 4 women who have been raped and none of them have ever been the same again, something dies in them even when they seem strong, its different.

Jonas Kyratzes is a wise man. I agree.

Doesn't look like anyone else is talking about it in the comments, so I'll go ahead and say it:

Super Puzzle Platformer is completely brilliant. Thank you for the heads up, @patrickklepek.

Quality work as always, hope live show next week means missing out on a worth reading

@sizone said:

To all the supports of the 100$ steam application fee, look at Xbox live indie games. That requires a 90$ annual fee to be able to develop and submit a game and has a community vetting system. None the less, neither of these factors have done anything to reduce the signal to noise ratio on the service. Pay barriers aren't necessarily a bad thing, they work o.k. for something like the Something Awful forums, but -almost- this exact same model, down to the dollar figure has already been tried and has failed miserably. So, not only does Kyratzes have a totally salient point, especially if you take into account developers in countries with...uhhmm.. poor exchange rates, it's also a model that has failed, empirically proven to do so, a promise of higher quality. There are plenty of people out there with bad ideas who happen to have 100$ to burn, likewise there are plenty of people out there who have great ideas and for whom 100$ is a serious hardship.

Let's be real here. As consumers, how many awesome games are we going to not get to play because some kid in the favelas outside Rio or something has made this fantastic game and can't get the money together to submit it to greenlight?

ANYONE in the west can afford that. Guy in the post, if his household has (at least) two jobs and he does not have $100 in disposable income, he's got bigger issues in his life than the greenlight fee. Fucks sake, what is he gonna do if someone takes ill, or the car breaks down and needs repairs, or the machine (I assume he is not making the game on some public computer in the library) he's using to create his game breaks?

Being on Steam is not some inherent right, and Steam does not have to be the ultimate indie game distribution service. If you can't get on there because you can't afford the fee, talk to GoG, get on Desura, get on twitter and gamasutra and promote the fuck out of it and ask for donations, whatever the fuck it takes. If you have the kind of dedication it takes to create a game that's actually worth putting out there, getting a hold of that money is not an issue, at all.

@Nigthguy said:

Am I the only one who spent way too long just staring at that gif?

Nope. I did the same.

I got the PAX Flu and I didn't even go to PAX, I mean FUCK.

Montas? Interesting.....

I remember not fighting the Gentleman monster in Symphonia because I couldn't find it.

that megaman 2 giantbomb needs to be a poster, so i can haves it.

Playing EXO felt like an intense fever dream :\

The people arguing against Steam's $100 fee need to remember one thing: they don't NEED to be on Greenlight. If they really can't afford it, not being on Greenlight won't magically make your game better or worse. Keep working on it, try releasing it on Desura who have a much lower barrier of entry, and keep submitting it through Valve's traditional, free method of application for game listing - that's not going away anytime soon if ever. Greenlight is ONLY an extra way for games to try to get Valve's attention, nothing more.

@Genjai said:

Jonas Kyratzes has a very compelling argument. $100 is nothing to most people in America, but to those outside the US.

As someone who grew up in America and moved to a different country, I see this on a daily basis. $100 takes on a whole different meaning outside the US.

You act like everywhere outside the US is poor. 100 American dollars is a not a lot of money in many other countries. In Japan some games cost that much.

Man, Patrick keeps knocking it out of the park with this feature

@Curufinwe said:

@Genjai said:

Jonas Kyratzes has a very compelling argument. $100 is nothing to most people in America, but to those outside the US.

As someone who grew up in America and moved to a different country, I see this on a daily basis. $100 takes on a whole different meaning outside the US.

You act like everywhere outside the US is poor. 100 American dollars is a not a lot of money in many other countries. In Japan some games cost that much.

In Australia the RRP for a new game on 360 or PS3 is between $99.95 and $109.95. Shopping around or importing will bring this price down... but anyway...

If they don't have a spare $100 how the hell did they afford a PC to make the game with? I mean the sense of entitlement people say gamers have obviously extends to developers. Vale don't have to do shit for you, so charging $100 to consider your game and giving it to a charity is should be considered a entrance fee.

I mean if your game is good you stand to make a lot more than that surely and Valve are the ones that have to do all the sorting through these titles as well a distributing it. The free system was ruined by idiots submitting "LOL HALF-LIFE 3 FULL GAME NO JOKE!!" titles, not by Valve. Seriously, it's $100...

Montas seems very interesting to me.

The people who claim $100 is nothing for an applicant fee for a game on Greenlight are the same pricks who only buy games when they're about $2.49 during the Steam summer sale cause they're 75% off. It's disgusting how entitled and full of shit gamers act.

You want a direct comparison? How many of you if looking for a new job would pay a $100 applicant fee which, because of the way Greenlight is setup, only has about a 2% chance 6-12 months from now of being hired? And if you don't? We'll then for all intents and purposes you are completely self employed (self-distribution/non-Steam distribution services).

It's pathetic when XBox Live Indie Games is a better distribution service than Greenlight. Congrats, Valve.

@TPoppaPuff said:

The people who claim $100 is nothing for an applicant fee for a game on Greenlight are the same pricks who only buy games when they're about $2.49 during the Steam summer sale cause they're 75% off.

What on earth do you base that assumption of?

@takua108 said:

The $100 thing is a super dumb thing to get mad over. It's $100, it goes to charity, and it's not "$100 for a 'maybe'," if anything, it's $100 for unlimited "maybes." It makes your account able to submit games forever.

The requirements to make it are too extreme at $100. It's not "$100 for a 'maybe';" it's $100 for unlimited "when pigs fly"s.

Can somebody please explain to me why $20-25 doesn't create the same barrier for entry that $100 creates? $20 creates virtually the same barrier no troll is going to get over that $100 fee creates, and is not an absurd amount of money for such a paltry chance in hell of any game ending up on Steam (no matter how great the game is, quality in popularity contests like this is practically irrelevent to the chance of winning).

@peritus: Everything Valve, forum posters, and developers have said about Steam summer sales. "$10 is too much for this game of hours of entertainment, but at $2.50 I guess I can buy it." For some damn reason the majority of people on the internet think that:

1. A $100 fee is a gift from Valve to have a 1% of making it on to Steam through no means other than a shitty popularity contest that frankly is hardly based on quality of the game itself.
2. If you don't have $100 to piss away your game is garbage anyway.
3. These same people also defend Phil Fish who refused to pay a relatively paltry $40,000 (or less, as MS said they tried to make a deal with him) to patch his game so it didn't break for many of his paying customers. This is a man who already got all his money, had his financial backers, already earned his fame well before his game was released and subsequent movie money that came from that. This man couldn't do right by his customers who already showed their full support by paying for his game.

@TPoppaPuff said:

@peritus: Everything Valve, forum posters, and developers have said about Steam summer sales. "$10 is too much for this game of hours of entertainment, but at $2.50 I guess I can buy it." For some damn reason the majority of people on the internet think that:

1. A $100 fee is a gift from Valve to have a 1% of making it on to Steam through no means other than a shitty popularity contest that frankly is hardly based on quality of the game itself.
2. If you don't have $100 to piss away your game is garbage anyway.
3. These same people also defend Phil Fish who refused to pay a relatively paltry $40,000 (or less, as MS said they tried to make a deal with him) to patch his game so it didn't break for many of his paying customers. This is a man who already got all his money, had his financial backers, already earned his fame well before his game was released and subsequent movie money that came from that. This man couldn't do right by his customers who already showed their full support by paying for his game.

I think you assume too much, this is all based on the negative post you see on The Internet.

This to me seems like its just being blown way out of proportion.

@peritus said:

I think you assume too much, this is all based on the negative post you see on The Internet.

This to me seems like its just being blown way out of proportion.

It's not an assumption; this is exactly what the majority of the people on the internet think. Are they stupid? yes. I'm not arguing that. And these are simple statements that can not be blown out of proportion. The majority of the gaming community who actively use the internet believes that $100 is perfectly fine if not too cheap, think anybody who can't afford it is a piece of shit, and thinks Phil Fish, who actually has the money needed to fix his shoddy product, can do no wrong, even though he broke people's saves. These are facts. If you put up a poll right now or collected all posts on these subjects over fifty percent would agree. That's what's sad and pathetic.

@TPoppaPuff said:

@peritus said:

I think you assume too much, this is all based on the negative post you see on The Internet.

This to me seems like its just being blown way out of proportion.

It's not an assumption; this is exactly what the majority of the people on the internet think. Are they stupid? yes. I'm not arguing that. And these are simple statements that can not be blown out of proportion. The majority of the gaming community who actively use the internet believes that $100 is perfectly fine if not too cheap, think anybody who can't afford it is a piece of shit, and thinks Phil Fish, who actually has the money needed to fix his shoddy product, can do no wrong, even though he broke people's saves. These are facts. If you put up a poll right now or collected all posts on these subjects over fifty percent would agree. That's what's sad and pathetic.

I simply disagree.

I think there is a degree of entitlement in the argument that Greenlight should be free. It's not as if Steam is the ONLY avenue for PC games sales. I realize it is the biggest downloadable marketplace, but there isn't anything stopping you from selling a game on your website, or burning it to discs and selling it on a street corner (OK, there may be some local laws against that depending on where you live, but you see my point). It isn't as if you can publish music on iTunes for free, there are fees for that (some from iTunes, some from other agencies). So yes, I sympathize with those that can't afford $100 to list a game, that sucks and I hope they can find some way to promote their games, but claiming that Valve is screwing the little guy is a bit ridiculous.

@dropabombonit said:

Quality work as always, hope live show next week means missing out on a worth reading

I'm planning to prep it on Thursday, god willing!

Well, that Minecraft party incident is pretty fucking awful.

@peritus: You disagree with the facts or you disagree it's sad and pathetic?

@TPoppaPuff said:

@peritus: You disagree with the facts or you disagree it's sad and pathetic?

The facts, or i guess the validity thereof.

@peritus: Just look at all the forums and read them on any of those subjects. The majority, just like the majority here that have an opinion one way or another are exactly as I stated them. The majority here that have posted on those subjects say a $100 fee is fine, if you can't afford $100 your game isn't that good anyway, and that it's Microsoft's fault Phil Fish won't patch his game. You don't even have to go very far; look at any of the posts on these subjects on GB.

@TPoppaPuff: I read plenty of it, and i'm seeing alot less of it then you it seems. And remember, this is the internet. Negativity is the only part you see most of the time, because people who are content or happy with something dont feel the urge to voice their opinion so much.

I dont think youre completely wrong, just not completely right either ;)

@peritus: I didn't say there was a definitive number; I just said more than half. Are you seeing less than half of those posts that explicitly stating one way or another or are you looking at those posts versus posts as a whole who don't offer a strong opinion? Cuz "Good article, Patrick!" does not offer an opinion on the subject matter therefore can not be counted one way or another.

I just "played" through around twenty minutes of EXO.

That thing is fantastic! If you've any interest in synesthesia, networks as abstract thoughts, brilliant color, or striking electronica, you have to experience it.

I like Exo, its not bad.

Is that Triple H??

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