9972 réponses à ce sujet

[Nithe]

cinderburster wrote...

EDITING TO ADD: I agree with the above statement.  Video games may be art, but they are art designed with the aim of making money.  The consumer and the consumer's satisfaction are very much a part of the equation.

My OTHER issue with the "art" argument--at least, the majority of the ones that I've seen--is the assumption that art is unchangeable, therefore any critique of it is not only unwelcomed, but something to be ignored and marginalized.

How, exactly, does an artist become better at their craft if they are never given any sort of criticism?

And if critiquing art is inherently bad, why are there people paid to do it professionally?

I think the heart of the issue is that, for a long, long time now, consumers have been expected to be passive, and if they didn't like a product they could just stop buying that brand. No other option was available.

Now with Social Media the individual is empowered and able to connect with like minded others, forming a large and possibly powerful group. This is new, and I think most of the negative reactions are backlash from this.

Modifié par Nithe, 21 mars 2012 - 06:09 .

[Rulycar]

Ahms wrote...

Rulycar wrote...

Okay ... a few musings:

I see the "art" vs "video game" argument bantered about in more than a few articles.

The more I consider the various points of view,
... the more I realize the failure of this ending rests entirely with the publisher.
They commissioned this work,
... did they exercise editorial power?
... Where are the rewrite orders?
... Focus groups?

My conclusion is ...
... Lack of oversight created this inferior product.

"a boy let on the loose is causing his mother shame" - proverb

No damn way. The parent company gives the deadline for development, then the developer has to deliver the goods. EA says, "make it happen," and Bioware starts the project. I'd bet my last dollar that there was actually very little, if at all, micromanagerial involvement in the project and its design.

LOL @ "art" and artistic considerations. That whole argument is a sunken ship. When a soulless corporation owns you, art has no life, no matter what you tell yourself. It's the classic stereotype of the brilliant mad scientist creating his masterful brainchild only to have it twisted by his evil mastermind boss who then perverts and corrupts it beyond the scientist's vision.

My point, lest it get lost, is in regard to "art".
Publishers hold author/artists to account for producing an acceptable work of art.
Had there been appropriate oversight (ex. focus groups) this ending could not have survived review.
The alternative, of course, is to commission a work where the artist is supported in his own personal vision.
ME3 is a product for the masses,
... personal vision might be funded,
... but if it is unfit for the masses,
... it should be rejected by the publisher.

Modifié par Rulycar, 21 mars 2012 - 06:10 .

[Amagoi]

mattynutz wrote...

Interesting tweet from Jessica Merizan:

" thanks! And people who are happy about something rarely discuss it. They just enjoy it :)"

This is total cognitive dissonance. It's just patently false. When people are happy about something they can't shut up about it. Just like when I couldn't shut up about ME after I played 1 & 2 and up until the Cerberus base assault in 3. I talked about it non stop.

They aren't even in reality anymore.

This is true too. Example: When I beat Origins, I sang it's praises up and down and drove my entire group of friends insane with it. It was impossible to hang out with me for three months without me talking about Dragon Age, and forcing you into a conversation about it.

Great times. Eventually, I had broken everyone down into playing it. So yes, I agree completly. If people are REALLY happy with something you created, they're going to be vocal about it. Silence is just that, silence. If you're happy or upset, you break it and voice how you feel. That's what we're doing.

I just personally think Merizan is a super-optimist, trying to interpet things in the best way possible. And good for her, I wish I could be like that.

[Numdenu]

I drew a picture the other day. For the most part, is was pretty badass, but a few parts seemed a little wonky.

So I ran the picture by my friends and got some critique. Then I went back and made the picture even more badass.

Even well-established artists of any medium have room for improvement. If your critiquing audience points out that something doesn't fit with the rest of the work--painting, film, or game--then there is no shame in going back and editing the work so that it fits better, conveys what you want it to convey.

We're learning all our lives. The art courses don't stop once you leave school; they're just free from then on.

[Midarc2nd]

Well, I'm gonna wish a goodnight to my favorite thread and it's varied inhabitants.

Keep it up guys.

[johnbonhamatron]

spacefiddle wrote...

jarrettwold wrote...

Except when his broad generalizations of what a PR strategy includes, are just wrong.  Mischaracterazations of Bioware's intent and how they're handling this are fundamentally incorrect.
...
I've spent quality time in the past reading research papers, books and a variety of other things.  Dissecting failure of companies in customer service.  So far, they're doing everything RIGHT.  They're soliciting feedback, not clamping down on their forums, social networking or even their employees.  
...
I will of course immediately be labeled as a corporate drone, a plant.  Some conspiracy driven thing straight out of the X-Files.  But, I'm not.  After looking at just about everything PR that they're doing, atg is just fundamentally wrong. 

Interesting.

1) You attack someone's broad generalizations with a broad generalization, with no supporting facts or evidence.  You say he has Bioware's intent "fundamentally incorrect."  Do you assert that you have a personal insight into Bioware's intent?  How?  What is it?

2) You present a list of quick qualifications which you load with slanted language - quality times, dissecting failures! - which again have no meat to them.  They are basically "look kid, I'm an expert: trust me."

Even better, atg has explained - and I think many of us are already quite aware - how "listening" is really used to stall for time.  Closing threads left and right is inflammatory; you'd have to be *really* incompetent to respond this way.  No, you take criticism of the response, repeat it, and add "this is doing everything right!" to it.  Very GoodSpeak of you.

3) You immediately deflect any potential criticism with a classic "Of course, if you disagree with me you must be calling me a drone or a plant," and equate any doubt in your dogma as being equivalent to some nutjob X-Files conspiracist.

You're doing everything you accuse atg of doing, except with less content.  You ask us to "examine his statements with a critical eye," but preemptively ridicule critical examination of yourself as being "some conspiracy thing from the X-files."

I call shenanigans.

I'm one of nature's sceptics, and say that you should never trust anyone's word without evidence backing it up. And that's sort of the point, here: everything atg has said is checkable and can be cross-referenced to verify that the guy does actually know of what he speaks.

His insight has definitely helped, no doubt about that, and he did help remind us to keep our heads, 'cos let's face it, I think most of us were, at the very least, a tiny bit raging. Emotions were running high, there, a nice way of putting it.

TL;DR - what spacefiddle said... lol

Also, still holding the line. Thought I'd mention that.

EDIT: To remove the dude I used before atg said he's not a dude... my bad! lol

Modifié par johnbonhamatron, 21 mars 2012 - 06:15 .

[Commander Waha]

Amagoi wrote...

mattynutz wrote...

Interesting tweet from Jessica Merizan:

" thanks! And people who are happy about something rarely discuss it. They just enjoy it :)"

This is total cognitive dissonance. It's just patently false. When people are happy about something they can't shut up about it. Just like when I couldn't shut up about ME after I played 1 & 2 and up until the Cerberus base assault in 3. I talked about it non stop.

They aren't even in reality anymore.

This is true too. Example: When I beat Origins, I sang it's praises up and down and drove my entire group of friends insane with it. It was impossible to hang out with me for three months without me talking about Dragon Age, and forcing you into a conversation about it.

Great times. Eventually, I had broken everyone down into playing it. So yes, I agree completly. If people are REALLY happy with something you created, they're going to be vocal about it. Silence is just that, silence. If you're happy or upset, you break it and voice how you feel. That's what we're doing.

I just personally think Merizan is a super-optimist, trying to interpet things in the best way possible. And good for her, I wish I could be like that.

Hire an upbeat person to do PR for you, and no matter what they say, they're an easily likeable person, which helps detract from the lack of logic in their posts.

[Optimus J]

People are commenting that a radio silence was decreed in Twitter , again.
Along with signs of freebies on PAX to see if it shut up any discontent player there.

Seriously? After the "spring sales" and then the 3 million Brutes...
Weird thing is that the effort in resisting is taking way more energy and resources from then than accepting.

Just SAY THE WORDS.

[Nithe]

@atghunter: Well said.

[cinderburster]

Nithe wrote...

cinderburster wrote...

Snip'd!

I think the heart of the issue is that, for a long, long time now, consumers have been expected to be passive, and if they didn't like a product they could just stop buying that brand. No other option was available.

Now with Social Media the individual is empowered and able to connect with like minded others, forming a large and possibly powerful group. This is new, and I think most of the negative reactions are backlash from this.

I hope you're right.

[Sanctioned Psyker]

 This thread rings reminiscent of the Occupy movement:

At first, you were united and focused.
As time went on, murmurs of idiocy joined the ranks.
Later, your focus wavered - then broke - as lack of results occured.
Now?  People post about their fanart.  

I agree that the endings weren't befitting this series, but you need to move on.

[joshko]

Commander Waha wrote...



I believe we are in a transitional phase as such. Depending on where Bioware and other companies go with this, video games can either be a profitable "we'll sell you what you want" industry like film, or a "we'll sell you what we want" industry like indie films.

Both things have their place, but ME1 and 2 were clearly set up as the former, and all of a sudden we're getting hit with the latter in the last ten minutes of ME3.

I agree that's what my meant by developmental, and I believe it is because of this phase that the ending was not as good and it could have been.
First you have the over all aspect of how to handle video games in general(Is it art? Are the fans entitled? etc.). Then you have to worry about genre and how to properly tell the story and deliver good gameplay with in that genre, and I will say RPGs are probably one of the most difficult video game genres to get right.

[Nithe]

Sanctioned Psyker wrote...

 This thread rings reminiscent of the Occupy movement:

At first, you were united and focused.
As time went on, murmurs of idiocy joined the ranks.
Later, your focus wavered - then broke - as lack of results occured.
Now?  People post about their fanart.  

I agree that the endings weren't befitting this series, but you need to move on.

We'll take it under advisement, thank you.

[Ahms]

Sanctioned Psyker wrote...

 This thread rings reminiscent of the Occupy movement:

At first, you were united and focused.
As time went on, murmurs of idiocy joined the ranks.
Later, your focus wavered - then broke - as lack of results occured.
Now?  People post about their fanart.  

I agree that the endings weren't befitting this series, but you need to move on.

Sounds like defeatist talk.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

[Commander Waha]

Sanctioned Psyker wrote...



I agree that the endings weren't befitting this series, but you need to move on.

This is a forum for discussing this game. The ending is a massive(ly disappointing) part of this game. It will be discussed for a long time to come.

[Utopianus]

spacefiddle wrote...

*snip*
SSV Wes'Philly is holding well, thankee [smilie]../../../images/forum/emoticons/happy.png[/smilie] tho I may have had too many caffinated beverages this evening [smilie]../../../images/forum/emoticons/w00t.png[/smilie].
Noting the twitter feed turning entirely to MP boosterism and "thanks for liking the ending!" this evening.
I
see another mid-week shift to hunkering down at EA: it's middle o' the
work week, people are coming in and going, oh right, we still have all
this crap to deal with and will for a while, and it's making them a
little defensive again.

It's odd, that you can deliberately
filter the news you pay attention to while at the same time convincing
yourself that this must really be the news.  I think it's a temporary
insanity, though, and the illusion of "more people will like the ending
and those 90-10 polls will magically flip!" will soon fade.

Coming from a design profession (architecture), I can fully relate to their current mindset, which is one of denial due to immense emotional investment - they spent countless hours making this to what they think is perfection only for it to be panned. I've had my fair share of working consecutive sleepless days on a project, overlooked a major design flaw and thought I nailed it. Come presentation time, i receive huge amounts of flak and attempt to defend myself, sometimes to utter ridiculous lengths, and more than once received a verbal "shut up and listen!" from the panel of judges. That is the mindset they are in right now, and although we are by no means qualified to be a panel of judges, we can at least hope that our mostly constructive criticism and feedback can let them see the issue in the last 10 minutes and address and remediate said issue.

EDIT: reformatted

Modifié par Utopianus, 21 mars 2012 - 06:20 .

[cinderburster]

Numdenu wrote...

I drew a picture the other day. For the most part, is was pretty badass, but a few parts seemed a little wonky.

So I ran the picture by my friends and got some critique. Then I went back and made the picture even more badass.

Even well-established artists of any medium have room for improvement. If your critiquing audience points out that something doesn't fit with the rest of the work--painting, film, or game--then there is no shame in going back and editing the work so that it fits better, conveys what you want it to convey.

We're learning all our lives. The art courses don't stop once you leave school; they're just free from then on.

Thaaaat's what I was trying to say.  Every artist worth their salt knows the value of good, constructive critique.

[shephard987]

Sanctioned Psyker wrote...

 This thread rings reminiscent of the Occupy movement:

At first, you were united and focused.
As time went on, murmurs of idiocy joined the ranks.
Later, your focus wavered - then broke - as lack of results occured.
Now?  People post about their fanart.  

I agree that the endings weren't befitting this series, but you need to move on.

Your opinion is noted. Believe me, I know how it looks.
But these people are strong willed and will not quit. 
Our resolve is steel. 
While it is within your power to do so, 
we would appreciate it if you didn't try to discourage our members.
Thank you.

Hold the Line

[johnbonhamatron]

Sanctioned Psyker wrote...

 This thread rings reminiscent of the Occupy movement:

At first, you were united and focused.
As time went on, murmurs of idiocy joined the ranks.
Later, your focus wavered - then broke - as lack of results occured.
Now?  People post about their fanart.  

I agree that the endings weren't befitting this series, but you need to move on.

And give up? My honour simply won't let me!

Although... I spot a 40K inspired name, so top stuff, even if I don't agree with you!

So, yeah, still holding the line.

Modifié par johnbonhamatron, 21 mars 2012 - 06:18 .

[Zero.Gee]

Sanctioned Psyker wrote...

 This thread rings reminiscent of the Occupy movement:

At first, you were united and focused.
As time went on, murmurs of idiocy joined the ranks.
Later, your focus wavered - then broke - as lack of results occured.
Now?  People post about their fanart.  

I agree that the endings weren't befitting this series, but you need to move on.

Thanks for the suggestion. I feel my voice is still needed though so I'll stick around longer I think.


HOLD THE LINE

[spacefiddle]

Art.... yes....

Lots of things can be art. Noise can be art. Anything can be art, depending on who you ask. But no matter how high your artistic aspirations, a funny thing happens when you decide, of your own free will, to make a living through that art. When you decide that it's of paramount importance to sell X copies of that art by Y date, or you won't get to make any more art.

Music is art. Is music commercialized? You have indie bands, and you have radio rotation. Are they both art? Can any indie band get itself played on Sirius? Do Top 40 acts hold themselves to the same artistic standards as the Kronos Quartet?

You choose to let go quite a bit of the moral high art horse when you decide to sell it; not just to sell it, but to use it as your primary means of support. I've been a violinist for over 30 years. I've been in bands, done session gigs, toured a little. There's a point where you can be perfectly happy doing whatever the hell you want, and not caring if it sells or not. There's also a point where you can decide that you're going to sell it and make it your primary means of support. The two are frequently not compatible.

Something else happens when you mass-produce and sell art. In your friend's basement, you had fans. Hopefully, you also had supporters. Now, however, with your Articles of Incorporation, and shareholders, and parent companies.... or record labels, and contracts, and In Perpetuity clauses... you no longer have fans. You have customers. Treat them right, and you have loyal customers. Treat them wrong, and you have problems.

You'll note that Industry media *immediately* painted us as "whiners, entitled fans," etc. This is CRUCIAL. This is spin. We are not "fans." We are many, many loyal customers whose trust in this brand helped make it what it is today. We are grateful customers whose trust has been earned by Bioware through superior products and services. And we are potentially dissatisfied customers whose trust is *always* theirs to lose, and always theirs to keep, depending on their actions.

In what other business model is it entirely the customer's fault for not being grateful for what they got? To borrow from one of the better articles, if a thousand patrons eat at my restaurant and go "aigh, wth, this place was always fantastic but today the desert was just awful," do I rant and rave about how my customers are a bunch of schmucks who should shut up and be glad I sold them dessert at all? You wouldn't have a restaurant for long.

Why is this different?

We're not fans. We're customers. The sooner the industry realizes this - and the sooner you stop letting yourselves be labeled as "fans" - the better off we'll all be.

[mebtru]

So i have a question, what do you think about origin/amazon giving a full refund?, are they just giving up? or they are just trying to clean the forums so the people who didn't like the ending wont post again?

[cinderburster]

Sanctioned Psyker wrote...

 This thread rings reminiscent of the Occupy movement:

At first, you were united and focused.
As time went on, murmurs of idiocy joined the ranks.
Later, your focus wavered - then broke - as lack of results occured.
Now?  People post about their fanart.  

I agree that the endings weren't befitting this series, but you need to move on.

I think you missed something in the thread; that comment about fanart was directly related to a discussion about the "are video games art" debate, which is a major sticking point with people saying we're a bunch of whining fanbrats.

Modifié par cinderburster, 21 mars 2012 - 06:19 .

[DuneMuadDib]

mattynutz wrote...

Interesting tweet from Jessica Merizan:

" thanks! And people who are happy about something rarely discuss it. They just enjoy it :)"

This is total cognitive dissonance. It's just patently false. When people are happy about something they can't shut up about it. Just like when I couldn't shut up about ME after I played 1 & 2 and up until the Cerberus base assault in 3. I talked about it non stop.

They aren't even in reality anymore.

Been sitting here for several long minutes thinking out how to respond to her and I'm just at a loss.

[Nadtsat]

Sanctioned Psyker wrote...

 This thread rings reminiscent of the Occupy movement:

At first, you were united and focused.
As time went on, murmurs of idiocy joined the ranks.
Later, your focus wavered - then broke - as lack of results occured.
Now?  People post about their fanart.  

I agree that the endings weren't befitting this series, but you need to move on.

Dear Sanctioned Psyker,

We don't lose anything by standing our ground.
I don't think we'll move on soon.

regards,