Bob's Game is back. Hold on to your hats, Gentlemen.

Hi bob :P

@animasta: Oh you got me good. I've been a member here since Giant Bomb launched just so that one day I can make this post and now it's all been for nothing because of you. Daaaamn yuuu! :P

Wasn't this supposed to be the launch exclusive to some new handheld console at some point?

I've been following the updates to his site for awhile and have found reading it all fascinating, though I only skim through whenever he goes on rants about mind control. At some point it becomes clear he's a lunatic, but a lot of it is just talking about his broken weird life. The post viral stuff about him living in his car gets super depressing, and based on the descriptions he gives I'm pretty sure I could actually find the parking lot he lives in irl because I live in the same general area, which is a scary thought.

Wasn't he working on some affordable mobile game console thing?

Either he's facing some legitimate personal demons that honestly should be given the proper care, or he's been staging an elaborate performance since 2008, in which case, he's not really deserving of much sympathy for trying to con people by faking some sort of mental illness. There are plenty of independent game projects created either by dedicated individuals or teams that are able to succeed or fail on their own merits without the creator behind them resorting to histrionic theatrics as a means for attention. And even if he were to meet his Kickstarter goal, there's absolutely no guarantee that he would make any more progress than he has (or hasn't) made over the past six years. In that sense, the game doesn't matter. If he's putting his apparently fragile mental health on the line for the sake of a Kickstarter, then I don't agree that this is something that he should be doing. And if he's just putting on an act, then I don't believe he's deserving of funding on account of being a sham.

There are plenty of other game projects on Kickstarter that are just as deserving of attention, if not more so. His past notoriety doesn't mean he's in any better position to follow through on his promises than any other indie dev with big dreams.

What is Bob's Game? Is Bob's Game real? Am I real?

@legend: The "yuuu" is a hidden reference to the main character "Yuu", right? Good one Bob :p

People can bag on Kotaku as much as they want(despite Giant Bomb's staff and members giving it some attention back in the day, too), but what really bothers me is whether Kickstarter's staff are in on the joke or just willfully allowing people to invest in a nonsensical project that clearly goes against their rules.

I'm inclined to think much of this is an act from a relatively eccentric person(like, I imagine this is what a Kickstarter from @video_game_king might look like), and I can understand someone wanting to put on such a show. What I don't understand is why anyone at Kickstarter would look at that pitch page and not shut it down. Pitches have been funny and even cooky before, but this is a little extreme.

If I remember correctly, the original story of Bob's Game was basically a viral marketing campaign that didn't pan out. So, is this more or less just a joke pitch? I guess I will sort of understand if it gets canceled the day before the end, but what could be the purpose now? Some kind of mock of crowdfunding?

To me, either Kickstarter's staff are complicit in this weird act or they're incompetently allowing a platform for a nut. Hopefully people don't lose their money on this and some kind of point or entertainment can come out of it.

Reading the kickstarter, I think it's mostly indicative of an individual who has lost perspective on this endeavor thing and can't not commit to the joke, so to speak, that he's seemingly very aware of. On his explanation of how this came to be, the description is rather straightforward and transparent about the bullshit surrounding his previous outing on this whole thing. What this boils down to though is someone who can't let go of an idea that straddled the line and failed. What this should be is a game that reflects the mental place he was at the time and how bullshit it all was but by attempting to keep the joke or whatever alive, it's doing this person no favors.

Is he mentally ill? I doubt it for the reasons people have outlined since it seems like an act and a stunt but I still think after this many years of doing this and clear loss of perspective on it, I would assume a counselor could do this man some good anyway. Indie developers who don't try and shove this unwieldy meta-stunt crap into their development have a hard time of it after 4 years and releasing a game by the end, I can't imagine the issues that accumulated over almost 10 years and having that 2009 stunt bullshit to hang your hat on.

It's a trilogy. The third game is called Legacy of the Void and will be out in a few years.

@cozmicaztaway: Haha, it totally is. I happen to be a fan of Bob if that's not clear already. If you look beyond his antics, he is quite smart and has some innovative ideas. Problem is people assume that everything he writes on his website, no matter how crazy it is, is real which says more about them than him.

@hailinel: He already stated multiple times that this is all a viral campaign to make his game known to more people, and as you can see, it worked and so many people know about the game now. Whether he got the right kind of attention or not though is a different matter. He is just one inexperienced developer working alone, after all, and he did the best he could think of at the time and it seemed to work to some extent so he went with it. Also, everyone seems to forget that the game is called Bob's Game. He made himself the villain of his own game, so he has a role to play. Everything you see on his website is part of his backstory as a villain. He deliberately put all that crazy stuff in there to sell us this idea. You might not like it, but at least you can appreciate how he is giving it his 100% because that's how he envisioned his game to be even if that makes people call him crazy and mentally ill. And to be honest, I've seen weirder game ideas and viral ad campaigns from some game companies. They just don't get as much flak about it as he does because the development and advertising of those games are handled by multiple people. Bob is just one guy making his game, advertising it and publishing it. He is an indie game developer willing to live in a van and work on a game he and many other people are excited about. It's sad how people can't appreciate such passion. The game might not be a guaranteed success, but the story behind it sure is fascinating. I think it has the potential to be a good game and that's all what matters to me in the end when I make my decision to back a Kickstarter.

That would be the best long con ever.

This is some real Synecdoche shit.

This will be my default reaction to basically everything from now on.

It would be interesting to how Bobs 'story' would have played out had he started the game 5 years later. That is, in the industry we currently know which accepts indie games (and especially self publishing opportunities) freely, would Bobs game have had much more success?

@dazbotathertron: He would probably have made a Kickstarter back then and it would have been a much bigger success when a lot more people were still excited about the game. While there are still people excited about it, I'm afraid many forgot it exists at this point. He got more than 300 thousand views on his first trailer when he released it on youtube back then. The views on the newest videos he posted for the Kickstarter are nowhere close to that.

20% funded in three days. Seems to be going pretty good so far.

If it's a viral campaign, than it's a pathetic one meant to portray him as suffering from illness and he's equally pathetic for employing that tactic. Throwing childish tantrums and posting paranoid rantings for the attention it gets is insulting and if his Kickstarter succeeds I have no doubt that it will be money wasted. If he couldn't sell the game on its own merits before and is still pulling the same stunts now, why on Earth should I have any reason to believe that his game is one worth backing? Why on Earth should I even be sympathetic to him if all he's doing is making a mockery of those with legitimate mental health issues?

People have actually given money to this shit. Fucking stupid.

@hailinel: Well he didn't say he has a mental illness. He is just playing the role of a villain and he made that clear on his website and his vlogs on youtube. Would you say the same about a wrestler who pretends to be crazy in front of the camera? He is doing the same thing pretty much, but it's just to promote his game. He couldn't sell the game before because 5 years ago, Kickstarter and crowd-funding weren't as big as they are now. He also had a dream of releasing his game on a Nintendo console. He had to get Nintendo's attention somehow and that was the best way he could come up with. It succeeded to an extent but Nintendo still wouldn't give him the SDK because he wasn't "officially" a developer. Indie devs have so much more opportunities now with things like Kickstarter and Greenlight. It wasn't as easy back then.

There's a difference between a wrestler following a script and what Bob was doing. Bob threw a goddamn internet hissy fit the moment that Nintendo refused his application for an SDK; a refusal that Nintendo had every right to make because he did not meet their minimum standards for becoming a licensed developer. Regardless of whether or not you or Bob agree with what those minimum standards were (they've changed in the years since, to my knowledge), Bob's reaction to the refusal and his follow-up tactics were at best those of a petulant child. Generally, if someone's response to adversity is to throw a public tantrum, and then attempt to milk that tantrum for what publicity it's worth, that does not come across as a ringing endorsement. That is a sign that I should not trust Bob with my money. Especially since, six years later, his approach at PR hasn't changed one bit.

This would be the greatest thing mankind has ever done if that was the case

@hailinel: He didn't throw any fit. He just rearranged the stuff in his room to make it look like he did and he posted a video of himself doing that afterwards. You say it's ok for a wrestler to do something like this because he's following a script. Well, Bob is writing his own script. It's all an act and you can tell if you watch his old vlogs.

It's a very poor script, then. One not meant to entertain, as in pro wrestling, but to manipulate people into siding with him and give him money. His attention-seeking antics are not anything that I'll fall for and I'll do nothing to encourage him.

@hailinel: He didn't do that to get money from people. He didn't even have a donation button back then even though many indie devs had that and were ok with asking people for donations. He had only one goal which was to get people talking about him and his game in order to get Nintendo's attention. He did get their attention but they weren't ready to give the guy a chance to prove himself. I actually believe if he went for Sony or Microsoft at the time, he probably would've gotten an SDK from them and his game would already be out.

Nintendo were, and still are to some extent, just bad to indie developers. Team Meat couldn't release Super Meat Boy on the Wii because of some stupid restrictions Nintendo had, and the same thing happened with Binding of Isaac. It's such a shame he wanted his game on a Nintendo console or he would've had more success publishing it.

Say what you want about the man and how he decided to do certain things, but I think he's passionate, dedicated and pretty talented. I'd say he definitely deserves support and from the demos I played the game is going to be pretty good.

Well, he may not have had a donation button back then, but he certainly does now. And even if he did approach Sony or Microsoft, how willing do you think they'd be to talk to someone that just put on a show of a psychotic breakdown and accusing Nintendo of being part of the Yakuza? (Also, who works on a DS game for four years under the assumption that they can just get an SDK when they're ready for it? Apparently Bob never understood how planning ahead works?)

Does he even understand how to engage in business negotiations or following requirements without putting on an act of delusion to mask apparent business incompetence?

@hailinel: Yeah he has a donation button now for people who can't use Kickstarter and want to back his project, kinda like what Double Fine did with Broken Age. Everyone now knows or should know that it's all an act and if they decide to donate, it's because they support him not because they are "tricked" by him.

I meant he should've approached Sony or Microsoft before he approached Nintendo. He probably wouldn't have had to do that little "breakdown" of his if he did. That whole Yakuza thing is an obvious joke and now he's using it in his game which I think is pretty funny, but hey look at the link below. Just sayin' :P (I'm joking too. Saying this just in case because you guys seem to take things way too seriously).

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/03/the-nintendo-theyve-tried-to-forget-gambling-gangsters-and-love-hotels/

As for the planning ahead part, I guess he believed in Nintendo a little too much back then. They were his childhood heroes in a sense. But then, he was 25 and pretty inexperienced. This is what makes me think he deserves support though. He's pretty passionate and ambitious. I think we can all agree that this is something commendable in a person at least. Even though you might say he wasn't being realistic, many people would've gotten nowhere if they had only "realistic" ambitions. It didn't work out for him which is sad, but now he's giving it another go and he's leaving it to the community to decide whether he deserves another chance or not. I personally think he does.

@legend: The best he would have ever gotten would have been Xbox Live Indie Game support, which especially back then wasn't much. He never had the experience or credentials to be given anything more and wouldn't have gotten very far with Sony or Microsoft otherwise.

You give him far more credit than he deserves. An excess of passion doesn't make up for a lack of common sense.

And like hell I'm reading a Kotaku article on this.

I hope this comes out

"So, I am asking for a small amount of money in order to get a new laptop and to build a "hack van," a cargo van or shuttle van fitted with solar panels, extra batteries, and a bed and workstation inside. It is extremely sustainable, and turns out to be a pretty common practice in Silicon Valley! This way I can continue working on and releasing updates for my game for the foreseeable future, without having to worry about bills or a place to live."

what...?

@rawknro11a: He needs a place to work in so he can finish the game. With $10k he can only afford a van and I think it's amazing that he's willing to live and work in it. He might be able to rent an office for a couple of years if he reaches $20k. An office would be much better of course so I'm hoping he will get this much from the Kickstarter.

Are you Bob? You seem adamant about proving to people that Bob's not crazy.

@believer258: "Date joined: 2008-07-21" Yeah I thought it would be a great idea to join Giant Bomb the day it launched just so I can promote my Kickstarter six years later.

Obviously Bob doesn't care what people say about him or tries to prove them wrong. Everything he did so far, he did for his game. The guy is so dedicated to making his game as he envisioned, I really want to play it and I wish people wouldn't dismiss it just because they think the guy is "crazy" based on a few pics and forum posts with out-of-context quotes from his website. There are demos available on the Kickstarter page. People should play them and see why this game deserves to be funded.

Well if anything the music in his most recent "demo" is fucking sick.

The longest con.

This does not seem like a worthy way to spend my money. I think the guy is nuts and the only joke on the the guys who give him money.

Why am I not surprised this guy is friends with Tim Rogers.

@legend: if you need more proof that this guy is...eccentric (calling someone crazy is kinda mean) then you should totally check out his website... it's amazing...

I think people have said it before but my impression of Bob is that he's a crazy person pretending to be a different kind of crazy than he actually is.

So the guy's trying to develop the game for every system currently available? Is that even possible by himself? I don't know much about coding but I know that IOS and OSX uses Object C while PC uses C++. The guy says he developed in Java so that it would work on Mac, PC, and Linux? Is that even something that can be done?

2008? Happens to be the same year that Bob broke down? Undeniable evidence!

I am just kidding (though I wouldn't be surprised if you were Bob). Have you even visited his Kickstarter page, though? It's pretty insane.

Java works with all three operating systems. Markus "Notch" Persson developed Minecraft in Java and it works on all three OS's.

@believer258: I'm the kind of guy who puts his money where his mouth is. I already backed the project with $60.

http://www.sticktwiddlers.com/2014/04/29/who-is-robert-pelloni-what-is-bobs-game/

Nice article for those who want to know more about the history of this game.