sternone

Giant Bomb 2 presents Giant Bombcast 2

You are not alone. The news has wrecked me.

6-8 hours a week, every week, for around 13 years of having these chuckleheads in my life.

This will be hard.

Absolutely gutted. Best wishes to everyone.

I'm on board! Battlenet ID = SternOne#1546

Austin-

I appreciated the piece, and I enjoy the perspective you bring to the site. Not only do I think there is nothing wrong with additional viewpoints such as yours being expressed, I view it as a positive good to help engage people in discussion about interesting and, perhaps, important issues.

That said, and maybe I'm reading more into your piece than I ought to, while you do not outright state that you are in favor of additional or stronger public funding for games/experiences such as those made by Tale of Tales, I assume that is your position. And, at least as to that issue, I have to disagree with you on the merits in a few key areas.

First, while I don't have a concern generally with the notion of public funding of the arts (I think its fine to a degree, but likely would budget less for it than I assume you might), I do think it is inevitable that public funding of art results in particular and specific political viewpoints being expressed to the exclusion of others. Namely, those in charge of disbursing whatever public funding is available will tend to select those projects they deem most worthy, reflecting the viewpoints and preferences of those with such power. If the goal of additional public funding is to create a system by which unpopular, not-politically powerful or non-commercially viable art is funded and thrives, it seems to me that public funding is doomed to failure in this regard. Public funding is subject to the whims of the public, and over time the projects selected for backing will reflect the desires and values of the public at large.

Second, I think with regard to the case of Tale of Tales, this is a duo that did receive public (and private!) funding, and yet could not achieve commercial success. Now, does art require commercial success to have value? Of course not. But to the extent that they wish to continue to create works that reflect their values, it seems to me to be fundamentally flawed for their success/failure to be judged upon the basis of commercial viability. If their creations are truly valuable in some inherent sense, outside of commercial viability, to the world, society, culture, or civilization as a whole, then whether enough people pay for their creations ought to be the least relevant factor in the analysis. If they do not attempt to create things that many people wish to purchase, and by and large actively work in opposition toward such an end, should we be surprised that many people do not wish to purchase such things? Should we be upset, or confused, or frustrated? In my view, we should not. They have achieved their goal.

Third, I think there is a substantial sense of entitlement at play with regard to Tale of Tales farewell post and their subsequent twitter postings. Who is to say that they are the rightful recipients of additional public funding? Why not some other group? Why is their art more valuable than the art of others, and why should we feel angry or upset when this one particular group is no longer the recipient of funding? Why them? Why not someone else?

"Artist" is not generally considered to be a profession one chooses in order to achieve wealth and personal prosperity. Obviously there exceptions, as there are numerous, easily citable instances of extremely wealthy artists. But for the most part, art is an unprofitable calling to which a person is driven, not out of a need for commercial success or critical acclimation, but by love and the need to express one's feelings and thoughts. If we are still arguing that a game can be art, a pair of individuals pouring their hearts into projects that few people understand or find enjoyable and severely lacking in commercial success ought to be Exhibit A in favor of the argument that, well, games are art. And if you want the public at large to fund these things, then it is my perspective that the public will function just as the market does - by those with power selecting winners and losers.

Once again, thanks for the piece Austin.

Given the nightmare that was Watch Dogs on PC and the major issues that uPlay had that basically crippled people's ability to experience that game, I'm surprised that they perceive that this won't hurt their PC sales in a meaningful way. Obviously Ubisoft wants a bigger piece of the pie, and the ability to dominate the experience in the same way that EA wants to with Origin, which I can understand, despite my being completely turned off by it.

Honestly though, I think its a slightly bigger surprise that Activision hasn't yet leveraged the Battle.net client of Blizzard for its own purposes as well.

Not that I want any of this! Steam is popular for very, very good reasons. What this really tells me though is that unless I'm willing to deal with their unique services and whatever issues they may have, console versions of these games are going to be my first option. Luckily, the relative power of the Xbox One and the PS4 compared to modern PCs (as opposed to the relative power of the 360 and the PS3 compared to modern PCs) is pretty good for the time being, so voting with your wallet by ignoring the PC releases entirely and focusing solely on supporting their games on consoles seems both practical and easily achievable without needing to miss out on these games, which seem for the most part to be pretty promising, entirely.

Well said.

Its not meant for everyone, its meant for kids under the age of 7. One more model option meant to serve a different market. If you don't like it, guess what - you don't have to buy it! Its a shocking concept, I know, the idea that a product made by some company may not be designed for every human on the planet.

I think this thing is over. Holy crap @graboids that is awesome. Love the Sears Tower (no I will not call it the Willis Tower) / Statue of Liberty touch.

As a laywer, I think its an interesting question whether or not the use of the likenesses of existing, real firearms would be a fair use or a trademark violation. At first glance, this seems like a pretty straightforward situation - EA likely cannot legally use actual trademarked names and likenesses of existing firearms without acquiring licensing rights from the license holders, as in, the gun manufacturers. The logic is exactly the same as to say, a car in a racing game.

Could EA put real cars in NFS or Burnout and do whatever they want with them (including full crash damage or the like) without reaching a licensing agreement with the car manufacturer? As best I can see it, theres no good, consistent legal argument for allowing a license free depiction of one trademarked name/likeness (guns) and disallowing the other (cars).