3841

Oh ok. I haven’t really looked at academic literature on games but I figure there’s got to be some. Heh.

3842

Yeah, we’ve got Ian Bogost, Jesper Juul, Katie Salen, Eric Zimmerman, Jesse Schell, Jeff Howard, Michael Mateas, and every other academic who’s trying to get a PhD, tenure, or promotion.

Hell, did you know that one of Tom’s Shoot Clubs is in one of my textbooks? It’s a little weird seeing how long it is in a textbook after having read it online so many times.

3843

Oh yeah, Bogost. His company did that Kinkos game. But yeah, I wouldn’t expect teenagers or kids in their early twenties to be excited by that. Heh.

Eventually you’ll give in to apathy. ;)

Edit: But more seriously, they’ll grow into it if they continue to be interested and decide to pursue that route. I wouldn’t fret too much about the state of their interest and just do your best fostering their analytical abilities.

3844

Hey dean,

Just wondering, majority of students who attend your game critical thinking class want to be game journalists or game developers?

3845

Are there numbers on this?

3846

Developers. It’s not really a game journalism course. The approach is as though you’re working in a game company and your boss asks you to take a look at a particular game to see if we can learn anything from it. So I give them lots of indie games to look at, and they start off slagging them. I then have to get them to find the cool mechanic, or idea, or art style that’s worth noting.

And I’m constantly reminding them that no one sets out to make a bad game. So the constant question is, “Why did this developer spend all the time and energy to make this game?”

Purely anecdotal. Maybe Sir Bruce has made up some numbers about it.

3847

Coincidentally, games are very popular with straight white males.

3848

Oh hey, the vitriol got so bad over at The Escapist that they’ve now removed the song from the end of ZP.

You can still see it in the Rebecca Mayes section.

So yeah, the majority of viewers get the subtle nature of Yahtzee’s commentary on game journalism, because apparently anyone who could be perceived to be critical of him gets piled on, even when Yahtzee himself seems to endorse the criticism. Go team white male!

3849

“Why did this developer spend all the time and energy to make this game?”

so they can get paid?

3850

For the free Flash game on Kongregate?

3851

The comments for her video, when I glanced at them, seemed filled with devoted fans telling her it was the best thing ever. It’s internet tribalism, that’s all.

3852

You sure they haven’t been edited?

3853

No, I made the mistake of reading only the first few pages. Her video debuted earlier, I didn’t double check the date… so the earlier comments are from more of her fans.

I’m not about to read through all 600 comments to determine a ratio though. Much of it still amounts to fanboyism or tribalism or whatever you want to call it.

3854

Hahaha. No seriously.

Because those were opinion columns and ZP purports to be reviews. Every week they start with “Zero Punctuation reviews…” Now the general opinion seems to be that they’re not really reviews, they’re some sort of meta-commentary on games journalism and the game industry, but they’re presented as reviews.

Well, he doesn’t purport anything. They are reviews. Are you going to argue they are not?

My point, though, was that they would find something to mimic, and do it for the wrong reasons and to make matters worse do it poorly, in any era of gaming. It’s not a reflection on Yahtzee that they’re doing what many kids across many eras would do. Your student’s sin is certainly an old and oft repeated one.

It’s easy to dismiss my students as ignorant

Yes it is. Maybe I’m putting too much blame on them.

and tell them to go read some Costikyan,

Well, yes, it is easy to go tell them to read some Costikyan. If you want to discuss games writing with them, even if it’s just the critique aspect, how could you not bring up Costikyan (mind you, he isn’t the only person I would bring up)? Or maybe I am confused about what you are after?

but that’s not going to teach them what Yahtzee’s place in the the world of criticism is. I’m certainly not arguing that everything should be sweetness and light. I’m trying to get them to learn to think critically, and that means more than scoring points among people who basically are just like you.

Well, they’re apparently not going to learn what Yahtzee’s place in the world from you either, if all you have is “he’s mean and he’s SWM dominated”.

Yahtzee is very popular with straight white males. Not so popular with others.

Yes, he does considerable damage the sensitivity levels around here.

I have no idea. But if Yahtzee can call something he doesn’t like gay, then why can’t the guy who screws up in your MW2 match be called gay? And if we can call him gay, why can’t we call him a faggot?

Remember, you can’t force-godwinize a thread (it’s a corollary).

Look, he may be a homophobe who is slowly turning into a serial killer. OTOH, and I readily grant that this might be wrong, it seems to me his rhetoric is styled to be a reflection of gamer culture. And it’s not an endorsement of it. A lingering point - best illustrated in the comment about psychonauts mentioned earlier in the thread - in his reviews is that gamers (many of them anyway, too many) are a bunch of hypocrites and douchers. They cry for “new” things but then frequently reject them with little consideration. They lap up dreck like (I think it was Manhunt? He skewered one of those games once). They say they want the medium to be taken seriously but they treat it as if it’s not in their every action.

This isn’t to say that Yahtzee is some sort of super-sayen (power level 156000 lol) critic; he’s not the first person to note these things by a long shot. He’s just doing it in his own little way.

Yeah, I know, slippery slope fallacy and everything, but role models matter.

Not to people who go to GAF.

3855

I think Yahtzee is an occasionally clever and perceptive foul-mouthed son-of-a-bitch who’s laughing all the way to the bank. He writes the way he does because, by god, it’s what folks seem to want to see. How anyone could get misogyny or homophobia out of his stuff, compared to what I see every day in internet gaming culture (outside of these forums) is hard to guess. It’s idiot central out there, people, and he’s just giving them what they want with a helping of occasionally interesting stuff about a game mixed in.

I agree with folks who say Yahtzee probably loves the song. It’s got folks talking about him. They’re fighting in forums, debating the meaning of Zeropunctuation, railing on about the declining quality of games journalism (and, lord, isn’t there more important journalism to be worried about these days?). He’s getting more exposure with no downside that I can see as is this singer who’s trying to impress him by being insulting as he is, less successfully, while at the same time begging for his approval.

It’s a win win. Roll credits.

3856

Um, what?

3857

Ummm… because it’s mightily difficult to end one’s terrible cliched sci-fi story with a “Last man and woman on Earth” scenario unless there’s a man AND A WOMAN present?

Are you being intentionally dense?

3858

Cliff used to say something along those lines in the early years when I was here. People would rag on him in the forums, talk about him on web sites, etc. His response was always the same, “shrug Keep talking about me, you’re making me famous”.

3859

The vitriol is in the thread about the ZP E3 video.

Peacedog, if you’re ever in the Boston area, you are invited to come and speak at my school. I’m sure you will enlighten my students in one 50 minute class more than I can. You, sir, have pulled the scales from my eyes and gotten me to see that my students should be insulted, ridiculed, and laughed at. There lies the way to true learning.

3860

Don’t be a jackass. That’s not what he said, although his contempt for the average College freshman does come through. He was attempting to have a conversation with you:

Well, he doesn’t purport anything. They are reviews. Are you going to argue they are not?

My point, though, was that they would find something to mimic, and do it for the wrong reasons and to make matters worse do it poorly, in any era of gaming. It’s not a reflection on Yahtzee that they’re doing what many kids across many eras would do. Your student’s sin is certainly an old and oft repeated one.

Well, yes, it is easy to go tell them to read some Costikyan. If you want to discuss games writing with them, even if it’s just the critique aspect, how could you not bring up Costikyan (mind you, he isn’t the only person I would bring up)? Or maybe I am confused about what you are after?

Well, they’re apparently not going to learn what Yahtzee’s place in the world from you either, if all you have is “he’s mean and he’s SWM dominated”.

Look, he may be a homophobe who is slowly turning into a serial killer. OTOH, and I readily grant that this might be wrong, it seems to me his rhetoric is styled to be a reflection of gamer culture. And it’s not an endorsement of it. A lingering point - best illustrated in the comment about psychonauts mentioned earlier in the thread - in his reviews is that gamers (many of them anyway, too many) are a bunch of hypocrites and douchers. They cry for “new” things but then frequently reject them with little consideration. They lap up dreck like (I think it was Manhunt? He skewered one of those games once). They say they want the medium to be taken seriously but they treat it as if it’s not in their every action.

This isn’t to say that Yahtzee is some sort of super-sayen (power level 156000 lol) critic; he’s not the first person to note these things by a long shot. He’s just doing it in his own little way.

If you don’t want to engage, fine. But don’t disengage by unfairly characterizing what he said.