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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   31544 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 7, 2022

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Nothing to say except this is a fairly strong case in favor of generative AI. The smaller a studio needs to be for viability, the lesser is the probability of such shitshows with extra hires, HR, publishers, complex ownership structures, and Gervais-style dynamics.

I'm a fan of games made by artists and writers, even extreme barely playable examples. Mor.Utopia and Turgor are great! Planescape:Torment is rightfully considered a masterpiece, Disco is fantastic. And in general, daring genre experiments with a focus on worldbuilding and narrative, even to some detriment of gameplay, are to be encouraged. I liked Hellblade a lot, Morrowind is of course a work of genius, Perimeter and Vangers are gems of my youth (btw their creator has died a few days ago in Kaliningrad, RIP). We need more of that, and therefore we need artisan studios.

But artists are barely able to function in a friendly collective. People who optimize for business process can run circles around them.

Unfortunately, this sort of problem seems present even for incredibly small projects, even separated from conventional ideological frustrations. The NeosVR Saga had a lot of 'developers', but they overwhelming majority were only not volunteers because they were paid in monopoly money; the real crux was a battle between the two guys at the heart of the project. And I've seen non-game business battles with a half-dozen employees, generally split between the Growth Uber Allies and the internal designers.

It's not even necessarily the business guys running circles around them -- even when they take really simple approaches, or have the right position (after all, 'artist goes so far up their ass you don't have a sellable product before you run out of burn' is a failure mode that happens often!) -- so much that there's a lot of tools each side has for a really phyrric victory, really easily.

their creator has died a few days ago in Kaliningrad, RIP

KranK and his "drugs are shit-stained glasses" metaphor have been the biggest shaper of my attitude towards mind-altering substances. Can't say the same about books, though.

Perimeter and Vangers are gems of my youth (btw their creator has died a few days ago in Kaliningrad, RIP)

Damn. I'll have to play Vangers one day. I saw the MandaloreGaming video and it intrigued me.

Yeah, he got hit by a car, really dumb way to go (when you can get gutted on Sri Lanka after escaping the conscription, or get shelled in Ukraine, I mean).

I know that Perimeter translation is absurdly bad and has butchered the impression for at least one Mottizen. Not sure about Vangers.

I think Perimeter is available on GOG or Zoom, I was interested, but I may have to see if there'll be a fan-translation to fix it. Is it E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy-levels of bad? Vangers looked like it was translated decently.

Legs are ok, you gain brozouf

Damn, Perimeter looks nice!

This seems like a conflict between 1 and 3 other chief creatives, with some additional possibility of fraud being instigated by another person..

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