rolling thread of stuff worth reading on videogames

Pretty into the GI cast these days, although I mostly watch it on youtube. I see it as more of a workplace comedy than a podcast, per se.

the sad thing is that anybody who REALLY knows enough, and can put it together well enough and with interesting enough takes, to justify a podcast, should probably be doing something more lucrative with those skills. i'd love to know what longworth of "you must remember this"'s work week looks like --- does she make enough off of ad reads to justify all the reading the show implies, not to mention the work of writing a proper documentary script? most conversational podcasts would be way better as edited transcripts or just essays, but that's a lot more work and i'm not paying anybody so...

GI?

xpost i don't know her figures but i'd be shocked if you must remember this doesn't make pretty good money. but that's a globally known, hit podcast. you're right that there are easier ways to make a buck. particularly if you're starting from scratch.

yeah I mean I bet she's doing good with it now but it's more like, how do you put that much work into it for so long while building that audience?

Game Informer

https://youtu.be/iZT6JEOC3D8

I am not playing videogames for Presidents Day but watching videos of other people playing videogames.

Blindfolded, that is.

That is what you call irony.

https://retrobitch.wordpress.com/2019/02/12/pac-man-the-untold-story-of-how-we-really-played-the-game/

https://i.imgur.com/fRRY8YT.jpg

Hahah wow, I mean that's a fun read and the pics are beautiful, but she writes it like she's expecting a pulitzer for it.

Reminds me actually, Martin Amis's Invasion of the Space Invaders: An Addict's Guide to Battle Tactics, Big Scores and the Best Machine got republished towards the end of last year and it's so great, definitely worth picking up (if you can stomach buying anything of his these days).

Wonderful, joyous read that.

Thanks KM, good one

“May all your quarters be red ones” lol

“she writes it like she's expecting a pulitzer for it.”
Otm, tho still enjoyable!

Really like the idea behind the pac-man piece, the physical interaction and the real world signs. Like how you see a keyboard with worn WASD keys and you know the owner plays online shooters.

I'd never considered the imbalance of pac-man till now - trying to think of other coin-op games outside the pac-world that were one-handed. Was the atari Star Wars booth a single joystick?

I think it was more of a steering wheel with fire buttons on it?
QBert was one joystick, Marble Madness had one trackball.

oh Frogger as well!

I think it was more of a steering wheel with fire buttons on it?
QBert was one joystick, Marble Madness had one trackball.

― ( X '____' )/ (zappi)

it was a pilot's yoke, anyway you held it with two hands

berzerk had two joysticks, one to move and the other to fire, which i found wonderful

there will be loads of other top-down games that are joystick only. Mr Do for instance. Arkanoid is almost spinner-only?

Back it up bro, Mr Do had a weapon

Berzerk didn't have two joysticks, that was Robotron

i was a little bit confused with this article at first, then quickly realized that it was because i always keep my idle hand close to the gaming hand when playing a one joystick game. wouldn't feel right to have it up on the side of the machine.

TIL that.. I have always confused Robotron with Berzerk!

classic blunder

xp oh yeah wow you're right, I'd completely forgotten he could throw his ball thingy

https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-simcity-inspired-urban-planners-20190305-story.html

jesus fucking christ

A report by the Washington Post found Activision Blizzard has been incentivising employees to give their data to Ovia Health - an organisation that offers a range of family planning and pregnancy tracking services. Companies can pay Ovia Health to access the aggregate data of their workers, which according to The Washington Post runs from "trying-to-conceive months to early motherhood".

The information that can be accessed includes how many workers have faced high-risk pregnancies, have given birth prematurely, the medical questions they researched, and the planned length of their maternity leave.

For each day of use, employees reportedly receive a $1 (£0.76) gift card from Activision Blizzard, and the company in turn gets to view the combined anonymous statistics.

Although Activision Blizzard stresses the program is voluntary, the financial incentive has clearly convinced many soon-to-be mothers to share their data, with one employee explaining the bonus helped provide "diaper and formula money". Activision Blizzard claims the scheme is popular and has saved the company roughly $1200 (£917) per employee in annual medical costs.

Speaking to the Washington Post, Activision Blizzard's lead android vice president of global benefits said the program is part of an attitude shift towards sharing private information with the company. Employees initially raised concerns over privacy when the company introduced Fitbit tracking in 2014, but since then the company has also offered financial incentives for tracking mental health, sleep, diet, autism and cancer - and Ezzard says workers are now more comfortable with sharing their data.

"People's sensitivity has gone from, 'Hey, Activision Blizzard is Big Brother,' to, 'Hey, Activision Blizzard really is bringing me tools that can help me out'," Ezzard said.

His other statements, however, point to the true nature of the program as a cost-saving exercise.

"I want them to have a healthy baby because it's great for our business experience.

"Rather than having a baby who's in the neonatal ICU, where she's not able to focus much on work," he felt the need to add.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-04-11-activision-blizzard-pays-employees-to-share-their-pregnancy-data

Super Bunnyhop did a really good video on unionization in the industry, 43 minutes. Some very unusual games at the end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TSB5YQqDiY

Activision is so evil

https://kotaku.com/over-150-riot-employees-walk-out-to-protest-forced-arbi-1834566198

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2019/03/14/if-video-games-are-todays-rock-and-roll-music-videogamedunkey-might-be-its-lester-bangs/

In which a columnist at the WaPo likens Video Game Dunkey to ... Lester Bangs? Comparison maybe needs to be fleshed out a bit, but sure, why not.

Lester Bangs = Tim Rogers, obviously.

According to SocialBlade, which analyzes social media metrics, the 28-year-old Videogamedunkey might be making up to $1.7 million a year.

some copper-bottomed reporting right there

He does mention Tim Rogers in the piece!

Dude has had over 2 billion views, total, so while I have no idea what he makes each year, he's probably done very well for himself. Just like Lester Bangs.

(Context clues helped, but I had to look up "copper-bottomed.")

dunkey as lester bangs is the most fucked up comparison

I don't even think of dunkey as primarily a critic. He's a comedian.

Every once in a while - and it's been a while, I want to say - he goes critic. But he's usually just funny, even if him being funny sometimes comes off as criticism. Like, his recent ranking of youtube celebrities, it's pretty entertaining, but I haven't really thought too much about his point, though I do sort of suspect there *is* a point.

Was curious about him ranking JonTron so high. Wasn't it only months ago he was against him for his racist turn? Surely JonTron didn't make a swift recovery from bigotry?

Tangentially game related, but I thought there were some interesting points made in this:

https://film.avclub.com/the-dead-eyed-new-lion-king-painfully-illustrates-the-d-1836338813

The crux I think being that in the eyes of many the success of many AAA video games hinges on their specs, how close it looks or plays like "real life," like you've been entertainingly immersed into this convincing or captivating world, even when the game activity itself is relatively mundane (like sweeping or shaving). But how the new "Lion King" essentially underscores that the somewhat related field of computer animation poses a paradox, in that often the "better" it is and the closer it comes to real life the *less* successful it is. Not least because film already documents things that are "real" and the rigorous composition of perfectly rendered CG lions mostly proves fruitless, since the results mimic something we can already see in movies/TV/docs, etc (real lions) while losing the artistry and expressiveness of what something like the original "Lion King" had to offer, despite traditional pen-and-ink (or equivalent) animation being more "primitive."

That's not really what they're describing there, though - the CGI lions are good and convincing as real lions, but because of that, they're bad at musical singing.

The major point being made is “ultra-realism in a game where you are exerting control over/directly influencing the environment enhances the experience; that same ultra-realism in a passive experience that, by its definition, limits the vocabulary needed to generate emotional investment in the experience detracts from the experience.”

Odds are an all-CGI rendering of The Lion King Broadway Muiscal would have much more emotional impact because you would be rendering human faces capable of conveying the emotional beats of the story. As it is, it looks like Fisney put out a tech demo with less soul and heft than Avatar.

IOW it isn’t ultra-realism as much as it is how they chose to use it

ultra realism sucks in games too because you end up with responsive control being held hostage by character animations and the like. you have to find a balance

Ultrarealism also focuses attention on what is not ultrareal, like your weirdass interactions with other characters

I (and everyone) remain curious about Last of Us 2, because that tiny snippet they showed months ago sort of blew everybody's mind in the leaping over the uncanny valley sense. It wasn't so much that it looked "real," it's that they made something that looks "real" also seem relatively playable, per Dan's note about interactivity vs. passively watching something (including cut-scenes). There are other aspects of realism in games (and movies) that go beyond how things look, though. Like the illusion of gravity and the imposition of physics on what is in essence fancy digital drawings.

i don't think games have reached the uncanny valley

No, room to grow! But there are aspects of that Last of Us 2 clip that are pretty uncanny nonetheless.

rad (racer)! ZS alert here:

Experimenting with 'upscaling' old video games with @nvidia's #GauGAN pic.twitter.com/SleyareqFp

— Jonathan Fly 👾 (@jonathanfly) June 28, 2019