Our Flappy Dystopia

http://www.mattiebrice.com/our-flappy-dystopia/

by Impossible • 12 years ago

53 16 12 years ago

draq• 12 years ago

I thought the introductory statement is ironical, but, apparently, it is not. I don't think this article resounds well within the HN community since it is a "mainstream space" that is being criticized. However, despite its polemic nature, it is a worthwhile read, a representative neo-Marxist critique, that you won't often find on HN.

vezzy-fnord• 12 years ago

Why aren’t there more minorities writing about minority issues in a time of heightened social justice on sites that pay fair wages? Because someone wants to make money. Why are the weird free games made commonly by minority artists that play a huge role in changing how we think of the medium excluded from news coverage and conference talks? Because someone wants to make money.

There are? In fact, there's more now than ever, especially with the popularity of postmodernism in a large variety of media publications.

Now, I agree with you on "weird free games" that are excluded from mainstream attention. They're not profitable. But then again, being countercultural has never been profitable. What's more: most people don't want to play art games and minimalistic, philosophically motivated indie productions. They want the next multiplayer Call of Duty game. It's a sad reality, but it is what it is.

I have to ask you, however... why are you specifically referring to minority artists? Minority in the sense of intellectual disposition, or in the sense of demographics? If it's the latter, then minority game developers are very rare to begin with. That's not really a fault of institutions not giving them attention.

You also imply that all art games or games developed by minorities deserve attention. This is not the case. I consider myself to be open-minded when it comes to a good art game with a message, but there's tons of underproduced crap that masquerades under the banner of art to make up for its mediocrity.

It doesn’t sound nice when it’s constantly called out, does it? Because it isn’t. There is a price tag to participating in games. The mainstream culture of games development demands you are from a class of people who could go into computer science or digital art training and have enough resources to handle an industry that has a terrible track record with labor issues. The standard success story of someone in the games media is a person who can afford to keep up with the newest products and has the resources to write for free or low-wage for about two years. Important conferences, even when you’re invited to speak, often cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars to attend.

This is all true. Crunch time and low wages are notorious.

The idea of success outside the conventional method of capitalism, which is intersectional in its effects, is met with contempt.

This is obviously true for AAA companies who want to keep their hegemony, but I honestly doubt most people are hostile to unconventional business models for indie games. Quite the contrary, such endeavors are becoming more popular and people are getting more receptive to them. I'd blame contempt on a lack of imagination more than anything.

The conversation of what is and isn’t a game is often, intentionally or not, used to assign value to already established gaming conventions that benefit the established system and marginalize works that do not look like it, and therefore threaten it. Mobile games are often slated as ‘casual’ games, which people in the gaming press and development overall side-eye as a genre of games mostly just looking to grab people’s money.

Except casual games are a legitimate distinction. This also includes their business model. As for people berating hardcores versus casuals, that's largely an in-joke.

Except, well, that’s ALL of AAA games, such as the hype around how much Grand Theft Auto V made despite that it was profiting off of flagrant sexism and racism.

Uh... GTA V may not exactly be the most social justice-friendly game out there, but it portrays the grisly aspects of the real world as they are.

Dong is considered an outsider. Who is he? From Vietnam? Oh, that explains this ‘knock-off’ rhetoric people are using.

It’s because the gaming community set up a success narrative for certain indie, mostly white, mostly men, mostly from English-speaking countries, developers who strive to make smaller games competitive with the big dogs.

And here we go, people... the reason there was a backlash against Flappy Bird was because the developer was Vietnamese! IT WAS ALL RACISM!

Hate to break it to you, but Flappy Bird was a painfully generic and dead simple Helicopter clone with graphics that imitated (not saying stolen from, but imitated) Super Mario Bros. People were mostly baffled at the insane success of such a, quite frankly, stupid game.

Because of social justice activism and outside pressure from a society that sees gaming as grotesque, awareness about how exclusionary games are is at critical mass and the industry is scrambling to answer. It has no fucking clue how to market to and include minority members of their community and in the world at large. So when Farmville, Peggle, Candy Crush Saga, and Flappy Bird appeal to this mysterious audience big budget and scrappy indies can’t seem to tap, it’s foul play.

I can't believe this author is legitimately defending games like Farmville and Candy Crush, which are deliberately designed to be highly addictive, while having a highly grinding gameplay and then carelessly exploiting its players down to the last penny. All this coming from an anti-capitalist, too.

But that's how the gaming industry works. Like any other industry, it exists to make a profit. The gaming community isn't some misogynistic wasteland of sexism and racism. If you can even claim there's one coherent gaming "community", that is. There's plenty of subcultures separated from each other. The main problem with gaming is the immaturity of its audience.

Ultimately, more social justice drivel. Can't have enough of it on HN, I guess.

fennecfoxen• 12 years ago

Now, I agree with you on "weird free games" that are excluded from mainstream attention. They're not profitable. But then again, being countercultural has never been profitable.

However, marketing yourself as countercultural can be very profitable (and may in fact be cultural). See: designer ripped jeans.

Einstalbert• 12 years ago

A very well-written reply. I think you got to the core of the issue: just more ammunition for guns that are used to firing off on the social justice issue several times a day.

herokusaki• 12 years ago

As for people berating hardcores versus casuals, that's largely an in-joke.

I am under the impression that a sizable group of people on the internet regularly gets legitimately angry about any given video game issue. Why would this be different? I remember people being genuinely upset with Nintendo's "betrayal of its fans" with the Wii.

ijk• 12 years ago

The Flappy Bird dev was getting death/suicide threats on Twitter after he announced he was taking it down. https://twitter.com/EliLanger/timelines/432588181611892736

I hope these people aren't the majority, but there are a lot of people who are abusive about games that don't measure up to their definition of a 'game'. It's unfortunate.

chipsy2• 12 years ago

People were mostly baffled at the insane success of such a, quite frankly, stupid game.

So you are saying that you don't like the game and it's undeserving of attention. So then, what game is? Is it the Call of Duty that you claim "they want"? And Flappy Bird is not what "they want" and its success is simply inexplicable and should be written off?

anigbrowl3• 12 years ago

Dong is considered an outsider. Who is he? From Vietnam? Oh, that explains this ‘knock-off’ rhetoric people are using.

Ehh....to the extent people are complaining that it looks like Super Mario, they're complaining about infringement upon a Japanese game, so the xenophobia complaint doesn't really hold up. I thought most people hated Flappy Bird because it was difficult, pointless, and so addictive that they had wasted lots of time on it despite the other two flaws.

chipsy2• 12 years ago

From the article:

A quick google image search of Jonathan Blow’s Braid can not only reveal that the indie darling also uses green pipes, but also uses analogues, very obvious references, to Mario’s enemies, mechanics, and story line.

indie darling

anigbrowl3• 12 years ago

What's your point? Braid is a vasly more ambitious concept, with complex puzzles, unusual-yet-intuitive game mechanics, and very elaborate visual design, as opposed to a quickie game like Flappy Bird.

And again, I don't think anyone hates Flappy Bird because it has green pipes, they hate it mainly because it's addictive without really being satisfying.

unclebucknasty• 12 years ago

Let us coin a new acronym: IAFG - It's A Frickin' Game.

The problem isn't capitalism. The problem is that people are so wrapped up in first-world problems and distractions from anything meaningful that they actually believe something as trivial as Flappy Birds is worthy of expending any emotion whatsoever.

farsttol• 12 years ago

The author makes some important critiques of the video game and video game reporting industries in general, which I readily agree with. Most importantly, the author points out that

how our societies are organized by valuing people and things by their monetary value above all else structures how we talk about games

and

The mainstream culture of games development demands you are from a class of people who could go into computer science or digital art training and have enough resources to handle an industry that has a terrible track record with labor issues.

But the application of these ideas to Flappy Bird and Candy Crush misses the mark. From everyone I've heard from, the backlash against these games stemmed from the fact that they are addictive, dull, and not creative; capitalism was not a significant factor.

increment_i• 12 years ago

Hopefully this flappy birds fiasco is the dumbest thing that hits critical mass this year because I can't imagine anything possibly being dumber.

courtf• 12 years ago

I don't mean to go off topic here, but what is it with postings on HN that have blatant typos in the first sentence? I think this is the third time today I've seen it, and it's starting to make me paranoid. Is this some kind of sick game?

anigbrowl3• 12 years ago

Proofreading is a form of oppression, or so I'm told whenever I venture to critique its absence.

david_otoole• 12 years ago

Yes. This. The real problem with Flappy Bird is that it made money and got attention without being blessed by curator types who think it shouldn't be popular.

If one of the usual indie darlings had made Flappy Bird, it would be hailed as a "brilliant, hardcore, minimalist free-to-play flying game with ingenously-simple touchscreen control, procedurally generated obstacle courses, and 8-bit-styled graphics that recall the glory days of NES."

I also found it really surprising that the author didn't mention Minecraft, which somehow graduated from being an Infiniminer clone to being an original IP you can sue over. Not coincidentally, today there are only "Minecraft clones".

Our Flappy Dystopia

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