[casual_games] slamdance competition

[Adultswim Games]

>>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'. 

 

http://www.newsgaming.com/games/index12.htm I found this little web game
provokes a serious response without shock value.  Just because you've
never seen it done doesn't mean it hasn't been done, or can't be.

 

 

 

 

________________________________

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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