[casual_games] slamdance competition

[Jeff Murray]

I know you guys take your games very seriously, but come on ... this is
seriously stretching it. If the only way to make a statement or provoke
thought is to use horrific real-life events and potentially cause people
a lot of grief and pain, then it's time to bury the whole damn
technology! I'll be honest and say 'do you *really* think that
low-budget indie games are anything other than a creative waste of
time?'. I find it hard to believe that a low-budget RPG, MMO or puzzle
game could provoke any serious response from anybody without 'shock
value'. More cinematic titles? Well, let's face it unless you have a
huge budget you're looking at poly-shaped heads or animated characters.
You're not going to make Ghost In the Shell and you're not going to make
something as cinematic as Half Life 2 ... so accept the genre, use it
and stop trying to pretend it's anything more than it *really* is.
No-one is going to change the world with a low-budget RPG whether it has
a shocking subject matter or not. It's still a *game*.

 

Anyhoo ... much as I enjoy reading your essays - in the real world it
comes down to the fact that this game has a horrible, offensive subject
matter along with a name designed to shock. Slamdance pulled it from the
competition because it is more than offensive to do that and have people
sit and play it out. It's got nothing to do with oppressing your
'artform' at all and you guys are just trying to intellectualize it too
much... reading too much into it. If you don't believe that, then try
and find the last *true-story* movie with a shock title like this, that
won awards from a respected organization. Oh what do you say? There
aren't any? What a surprise. Was Natural Born Killers a true story? I
don't think so.

 

It's because of this that I have absolutely no sympathy with the project
or its plight, and find it bewildering that anyone else would.

 

No doubt I'll hear the cheer ;) but I won't be replying to any more on
the subject (no matter how much I might want to!), as we obviously
disagree and the consensus on here says I'm off target, so I'm just
going away now ;)

 

JeffM.

 

 

 

 

 

________________________________

From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org
[mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Allen Varney
Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 1:22 PM
To: casual_games at igda.org
Subject: Re: [casual_games] slamdance competition

 

Jeff Murray wrote:
   (((Nope, to me it doesn't say anything other than 'hey, all us
haxxors can get together and protest against it after I finish doing
chores for my mum'.
   ((('I don't like that others can trivialize my chosen craft so
easily.' - Is that what this is really about? Basement-dwellers feeling
like 'the man' is keeping them down?))) 

   Inasmuch as Jeff Murray evidently thinks only the opinions of the
propertied class matter, I should first mention I own my own large home.

   (((Don't be silly. If enough people won't give up their $19.95, it's
not because of 'the man' it's because of the 'the game'.))) [sic] 

   Slamdance started its Guerrilla Games Festival specifically and
explicitly to highlight ambitious designs that challenge society's
definitions of a "game." Commercial sales have nothing to do with the
issue, though I imagine some may have trouble parsing that idea. 

   (((Games vs movies? I don't remember the last award winning
true-story film about how much fun massacring school kids can be ...
perhaps you can remind me? What a ridiculous argument / detour.)))

   Uh, that would be Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers." 

   (((The idea of 'playing out' a real high school massacre can't be
healthy on any level.)))

   Evidence?

  (((As for 'the jury wanted it in, then decided not to' ... good! I'd
much rather they did *that* than give this kind of crap any awards /
undeserved publicity.))) 
   (((I totally agree with Slamdance, their sponsors, or whoever made
the decision to dump it. Let the 'kiddies out to shock their parents'
protest against it and hope that people out 'there' know that not all
indie games are produced by sociopaths with no conscience.))) 
   (((What I don't understand at all is why this guy is getting support
for his cause. He's made a sick, tasteless statement in the indie game
world and for some stupid reason people are trying to make out that
slamdance are somehow oppressing the dude or that they are some evil
empire out to destroy the fabric of independent gaming - he's the
underdog? Call me traditional, but I like to support causes that deserve
... not some kid's idea of getting some publicity at the cost of other
peoples suffering.))) 

   Murray's snidely expressed assumption is that games are pure
recreation, like a sport, and inherently have no purpose as art or
social commentary. The idea of comparing them to film in that respect is
"ridiculous." This in itself shows the necessity for Slamdance -- or,
now that it has been discredited, some eventual successor -- in the
effort to broaden the permissible range of expression and also broaden
parochial viewpoints. Assuming that's possible. 

  (((Let's face it, art can be pretty much any old crap you have lying
around just as long as you can justify it with an intellectual reasoning
- and it's usually the bad artists that get the most publicity by using
dead things cut in half to pass off as something 'thought provoking' to
the other pseudo intellectuals.))) 

   Drat, I wrote the responses above before I got down to this reply in
the thread. Up to this point I thought I was listening to a rational,
educated person. Five minutes of my life, gone.

-- 
-- Allen Varney
    www.allenvarney.com

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