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Friday, September 7, 2012
This Week’s Most Popular Posts: September 1st to 7th
September 7th, 2012Top StoryThis Week's Most Popular Posts: September 1st to 7th
Is it Bad to Shutdown My Computer Regularly or Leave It On All the Time?Dear Lifehacker, I've heard it's bad to shut down your computer every night. Is it really better to leave it on all the time? I have a high-end machine and want to take care of it but I don't know the best way to do that. More » Top 10 Tricks for Turning Your Junk Into MoneyIf you're looking to declutter a little bit, there's no better way to do so than selling your junk online. Here are our top 10 tips and tricks for getting the most money possible out of your old, unwanted stuff. More » Why You Should Start Using a VPN (and How to Choose the Best One for Your Needs)You may know what a VPN, or Virtual Private Network, is; you probably don't use one. You really should be using a VPN, and even if you don't think so now, at some point in the future you may consider it as important as your internet connection. More » 1 Million Apple Device IDs Leaked, 12 Million Total StolenOne million Apple UDIDs (Universal Device IDs) were released to the public today, along with Notification Center tokens, device names, and device IDs, and while none of the data is personal information, it can potentially be tied back to device owners, names, and addresses. More » Make Your Computer More Self-Sufficient This WeekendMaintaining your computer, tidying your desktop, and doing a number of other digital chores requires a lot of effort-or at least time-on your part. More » Why Remote Workers Are More (Yes, More) EngagedIf you work from home, you've probably gotten an eye roll or two from your office-bound friends. But as consultant Scott Edinger explains, working from home or in a remote office can lead to increased productivity, more effective communication, and better teamwork. The Best Things to Buy in SeptemberSummer may be slowly drawing to a close, but that doesn't mean September can't still be awesome. Soothe your summer sadness by getting in on great deals this month. More » A Better Way to PracticeWhile it may be true that there are no shortcuts to anywhere worth going, there certainly are ways of needlessly prolonging the journey. We often waste lots of time because nobody ever taught us the most effective and efficient way to practice. More » How to Block Annoying Political Posts on FacebookI'm all for intelligent dialog, but if there's one thing I hate about election season, it's that some of my friends-god love 'em-can become extremely irritating when politics are involved. More » Five Best Audio Editing ApplicationsWhether you need a soundtrack for your film, you're a DJ and need to polish up your sets before sharing them, or you're a musician looking to produce the next big club hit, you need a good audio editor to eliminate noise, convert your files, edit tracks, and output the whole thing. More » Catch a Liar with the This/That TrapPeople fumble around with their words a lot when they're lying. In fact, a liar often adds words so they can truthfully answer questions by obscuring the meaning. More » Add Some Magical Scenery to Your Desktop with These Landscape WallpapersWhen desktop wallpaper first emerged as a computer customization option, landscapes were the photos of choice. Some of them are so stunning that they seem unreal. More »  |
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You Shouldn't Have To Be Middle Class or Rich To Make Video Games
September 7th, 2012Top StoryYou Shouldn't Have To Be Middle Class or Rich To Make Video GamesBy Patricia Hernandez
Many developers have sounded off on this in the last few days. The voice that I've seen that best encapsulates everything wrong with the $100 fee has to be from Jonas Kyratzes. Jonas is a developer veteran that's been making games for the last decade. His most recent creation is The Sea Will Claim Everything, an adventure game with a ton of heart. Over at his blog, he's posted something that walks us through the problem as he sees it. At first, the way Greenlight was initially set up didn't seem right:
Moderation might've helped, but Greenlight didn't have it. Nor did it make sense to have downvotes, since they didn't really serve a purpose—isn't the question "how many people DO want to buy this game?" But nevermind the voting aspect, just about everything about Greenlight wasn't set up very well. It was a nightmare to try to find a game, especially when Greenlight would repeat games you'd already looked at, and the sorting options weren't very good either. Then came the fee, which seems like the worst way to try to mitigate the problems Greenlight was seeing.
$100 may not seem like much money to some. That's great, those for who $100 isn't a big deal are fortunate. But the sad reality is that the indie game scene spans beyond what most major gaming websites cover. Most indie developers I know are starving artists for who $100 dollars is a month's worth of food. And maybe they have a game that could catch the public's attention, but they don't have the money to be considered for that chance. Steam can be a curator for content if it wants, and nobody is entitled to its virtual shelf space. But everyone deserves the chance to at least be considered, no? But in the last few days, some of the responses from people have been highly classist. I've watched critics and developers alike on Twitter making it clear that they couldn't even fathom how it was possible that people couldn't have the money, or find a way to come up with it. It was common to read something along the lines of "maybe you shouldn't be making games if you can't even raise $100 for the submission fee."
Some of us are poor, Jonas goes on to say. But maybe for most of us, that's not something we have to see or deal with most of the time. Gaming is not a cheap hobby, and it's a luxury to have the money to participate in it. And when the developers you hear about tend to be the high profile ones, I'm afraid that cognizance or care about the lower class in this space doesn't exist. So maybe a game is good enough to sell enough on its own to raise the money. But that money then needs to go to actual living costs. The fact that people can be so snide about this is cause for concern, especially with the current state of the economy. The crux of this issue, in a way, doesn't lie with Greenlight—not exactly. It's with who we allow to be legible within a series of gatekeepers who tend to favor a very specific type of developer. One in the right socioeconomic bracket who would be able to afford costs like licenses, development kids and submission fees. Some might go as far as to suggest that it also favors those who make specific types of games (how many puzzle platformers will the indie scene most of us know spew?) For now, Valve says that Greenlight will continue to evolve. Fantastic. But it's not just Greenlight that needs to change. So, too, does the attitude surrounding who should be making games. Some people do it for the love, and so yes, they're going to keep going at it even though they might not make much of any money. So to tell a developer that they might want to reconsider their passion just because they're not rolling in cash is heartbreaking. They deserve to be here just as much as anyone else, and there's no shortage of things trying to keep them out. The One Hundred Dollar Question Jonas Kyratzes  |
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