Gold_Skulltulla

Been trying out the new shows and nothing has truly struck a chord yet, but hoping they will get there eventually. For me, I'd love to see more stuff that feels less like just talking about things and more where at least one person is doing something, even if that is just playing a videogame. Borne to Run does this in a baseline way, although the Souls game can be a bit overstreamed at this point. Guilty Treasures is my favorite so far as a nice mix of GB personality, storytelling, and playthrough. I'm optimistic about Dan's show because whatever the worry is about how the premise could get stale or feel forced, I trust Dan's showmanship to keep things interesting. It's a game/challenge in itself, which is part of what has made so much of the shows Dan has worked on over the years so engaging.

For me, the show that already "talks about stuff" is the Bombcast. So, I'm kinda looking for other types of things out of the rest of GB's offering since many of my favorite conversation personalities have left the site now (here's hoping for some great new full-timers!). But they're definitely trying some things, and I say more power to them. Not everything is going to be a home run, especially in what feels like a pilot season of shows.

I was an EGM loyalist. Have every issue from 71 onward until they folded on 236. No coincidence, when they folded, that was pretty much when I started hanging out on Giant Bomb too.

I couldn't land further from Jim Sterling's taste in games, and I'm not a big fan of his criticism. Still, people complaining about how his score has affected a Metacritic rating is so much worse than simply having opinions I disagree with. And outright attacking him is unconscionable, or at least it should be. This stuff happens often enough that it's all too easy to fathom in any given situation.

@unclebenny: I was considering sending this in to the Bombcast...

This is weird. About a week or so ago, Giant Bomb no longer had it's black and white site options available up where they usually are. I hadn't been logged out or anything, but the site switched to white, and I don't know how to switch it back. I'm using Firefox when this is the case, but when I look at the site in Chrome, the color switcher is up next to my avatar in the corner of the page like usual. Any idea what's going on here?

For anyone who had Rodrick in this episode, does his path always involve sneaking into the camp, or is there an option to invite the Whitehills in and ambush/poison them? I had Asher in my playthrough and just assumed Rodrick would have some more diplomatic solutions, though it seems the Whitehills are much more antagonistic if Rodrick survives instead of Asher.

@homelessbird: I mean even public art that has gone through the full funding process has been met with its fair share of backlash and protest, which in turn has had a bit of a chilling effect with regard to public funds used for controversial art. So, public funds alone aren't THE ONE answer of course. I do think it's the government's job to step in and help facilitate provocative art from time to time though, and defend it even if it's not across-the-board popular. But in terms of art that people "buy and keep" you're referring to something like buying a game on Steam, right? Not debating the ownership of a publicly funded artwork, yes?

I haven't played it, but fwiw, I actually did get the impression that Sunset was ToT most commercially viable game to date, so I definitely think that aspect of it came across through marketing and the game's visual style. That the sales didn't come through, yeah, I don't know what to say other than in a hits based industry, not everything hits. It was nice knowing before this that they had more of a safety net to fall back on, and by the number of devs citing inspiration from ToT, they've clearly been a positive force in games. I'm just saddened by the whole thing, both the reality that games like ToT's can't perform well enough to sustain a studio and the ensuing public reaction that expresses such a tremendous misattribution of the purpose of art. Again, not saying people didn't "get" the games or something, just that the points of critique seem born from a mentality that's incongruous with the aspirations of these games.

Enjoyed the write-up, Austin.

Public funding for the arts is a long-standing struggle that only seems to be getting worse (speaking from an American perspective here). Kickstarted arts projects are currently dolling out more money than the NEA, and that's only convincing the public further that NEA funding isn't necessary.

The truth is though, that all art suffers when non-commercial art dries up. The nature of art and play are similar in that they're two things that by definition share no commercially inherent purpose and, I'd argue, actually possess an anti-commercial nature (not impossible to co-opt however). My arts education valued work that is staunchly anti-commercial and anti-institutional where the value of the work is in its artistic strength. This brings up a whole separate issue where artists have to reconcile that the work they make that is artistically successful is most likely not going to earn them a living. This is why most artists like myself have to teach or find some other way of paying rent.

Negative comments about the work Tale of Tales did are depressing, not because people don't like their games (that's fine, everyone has their opinions), but because so often the criteria used to judge them is one that doesn't apply all that well. And perhaps some of that is on ToT for how they've framed their games, but largely I think it's a lack of understanding of how to engage with art and what art actually means and what it's value is beyond commercial success. And without that understanding, I don't know how public funding for that arts, including games, ever gets restored.

Schedule isn't the most consistent right now, but maybe next week would work for me. PSN and Challonge: dansolberg

In general, I like the way UPF goes, which is inconsistent, but typically something I'm half-paying attention to unless something crazy or hilarious is going on (I mostly watch archives, not live). BUT one thing that I quite enjoyed was the idea of one editor (only one) having a game or section of a game they are making their way through week to week. I realize this often gets built out into separate (excellent) features, but following Vinny through Lords of Shadow was really fun to watch. And I know Vinny's not in SF anymore, but I've seen enough Breaking Brads, Metal Gear Scanlons, and Endurance Runs to know that someone else over there could pull it off.