Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: The E on March 31, 2014, 03:36:39 pm
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Okay, so this has been brightening up my day today.
A bit of background for those who do not know: In the indie gaming scene, there is a tradition of so-called "game jams", where indie devs come together and knock out a game in a couple of days of caffeine and creativity. It's a pretty social thing, with lots of bonding and networking and stuff, and it's pretty cool.
So, along comes a big youtube video production company, Polaris. They have an idea: Game Jams are fun, and important for the indie scene, and there is a non-zero amount of interest in what's going on behind the scenes of game development, not to mention the personalities in the gaming scene (where the small auteur game maker is a thing). So why not stream such a game jam? Or, even better, make it into a sort of competitive thing presided over by a couple of youtube personalities, like Angry Joe?
Off the production goes. Sponsors are secured, hosts are contracted, contestants ferried in, all that. The show goes on, but soon, the wheels start coming off.
First, the contracts for the contestants were completely bull****, amounting to gag orders and NDAs convering the whole affair, and handing over the specific right of misrepresentation for dramatic purposes to the producers.
To their credit, the devs were far too savvy to fall for this trap, and managed to renegotiate. But that was not the end.
One of the sponsors is Pepsi, and someone took it upon himself to make sure that Pepsi and Mountain Dew product placement is perfectly visible, going so far as to remove ordinary water or coffee from areas where cameras were pointed. Then, during one interview section, that same person goes through the line of teams. The first team is asked "Do you feel that that other team is at a disadvantage because one of them is a woman?". Incredulity. Stunned Silence. Immediate rejection, WTF why are you asking that? To which the only reaction is "We're not getting something usable here", pack up, go to next team, repeat.
And then, after not getting the message that this sort of behaviour does not fly with this crowd, asking the teams with women in them "Do you feel you have an advantage with a woman on your team?".
And that's where the whole production basically stopped, because the devs closed ranks and basically told the producers that no, that **** ain't gonna fly, **** off. And walked off the set.
Seriously, it's a really cool story, and you can get a much better overview here: http://indiestatik.com/2014/03/31/most-expensive-game-jam/
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I concur. It is a really cool story.
(It also led me to find out that one of the developer's of depression quest was on there, and that she has been harassed for putting up that game on Greenlight for... not properly understanding depression? As Depression Quest is the 'game' that taught me a) what depression is and b) that I have it and c) encouraged me to deal with it, this makes me very very angry).
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I think this is probably the best thing has happened to the developer/gaming scene in a long time.
The backlash against the sexist questions was so amazing from every single developer that was posed them, that it made the questioners and everyone with such positions look incredibly idiotic.
EDIT:
The more I read about this the more I'm in awe at the awesomeness of the developers' (and some other crews') reactions.
I'm making a vow to myself to buy the last produced game by every developer involved.
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People in the gaming community not being sexist ****heads? My God! Color me impressed and hopeful. :yes:
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People in the gaming community not being sexist ****heads? My God! Color me impressed and hopeful. :yes:
They might be confusing them for 90% of gamers.
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No, what the interviewer was clearly trying to do was get a soundbite they could use to bait controversy. Fortunately it failed.
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Exactly, they were baiting them to get a big controversy, bank on twitter about it, pull all the crazy commenters on here, both feminists and anti-feminists speaking about it endlessly and enraging each other on every social media, no one in twitter, facebook, tumblr, reddit or whatever would speak of anything else for the next two weeks, all the while these ****ing douchebags winning the spotlight of having "uncovered" sexism right in the middle of indie development.
This could be such a real wound to the indie scene it's not funny. But to these guys, it was just a set up to get a great clickbait. Thankfully, they didn't make any mistake, didn't interview any (random) asshole that could have made their day worth it. Speaks well to the developers, but frankly this was a near miss and these goons deserve all the backlash and so much more.
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This could have gotten messy. Of course you usually don't hear about the many almost-****storms that didn't happen...
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One of the baffling bits about this story for me was that, just last year, we had a very good example of what you can do with the reality show format when the focus is not on making the participants look bad for the greater drama. Penny Arcade's Stripsearch showed that you don't need to amp up drama for the sake of drama, especially if the participants in the show aren't there to be in a reality show, but to do the stuff they love.