#as like ‘studios SHOULD be making games like THESE’
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“She’s really giving throwback oblivious mean girl, it’s kind of amazing.” “Omg her saying she got her husband involved, she is SO that woman.” I would love to tell you that these comments, written this summer about Blake Lively, the lead actor in domestic violence drama It Ends With Us, were posted on Reddit by some anonymous misogynistic troll.
Lively had made what looked like tone-deaf promotional appearances to push her haircare and drinks line alongside the film. It was revealed that she had had a scene rewritten by her husband, actor/director Ryan Reynolds, and that she took control over the final cut, which also featured a song by her best friend, Taylor Swift. Everything from Lively’s conduct to her predilection for florals seemed like fair game, spawning a vast amount of negative discourse and tanking her reputation. But the comments above were texts written by me, made in my most active group chat.
On Saturday, Lively filed a complaint with the California civil rights department against Justin Baldoni, both the film’s director and her male co-lead, producer Jamey Heath, production company Wayfarer Studios and its public relations/crisis management retinue, alleging that they actively sought to harm her reputation to pre-empt any possibility of her going public with an HR complaint she made during the film’s making.
Alleging the violation of physical boundaries, sexual and inappropriate comments and the absence of intimacy coordination, the court filing is an astonishing read. It claims that Heath showed Lively unsolicited footage of his wife giving birth as they filmed a scene where her character does so; that Baldoni’s “best friend” was drafted in to play the obstetrician-gynaecologist in that scene, in which Lively was “nearly nude” in front of dozens of crew; that Baldoni talked to her about non-consensual sexual encounters; that he wept in her trailer over reactions to paparazzi photos from shooting that called her old and unattractive, prompting her to remind him that in those scenes her character had just been abused by her husband, and that she should look authentically distressed, not “hot”.
In January, prior to resuming filming after the Writers Guild of America strike, a meeting was held in which Lively sought to have 30 new set protections implemented. Wayfarer said: “Although our perspective differs in many aspects, ensuring a safe environment for all is paramount, irrespective of differing views. Regarding your outlined requests, we find most of them not only reasonable but also essential for the benefit of all parties involved.” One of those protections was that Lively should not be subject to retaliatory action for speaking out. Instead, her complaint seeks to illustrate that the parties behind the film allegedly engaged PR and crisis management – including a company that has represented Johnny Depp and is partly funded by music mogul Scooter Braun, who bought the masters to Swift’s first six albums – to destroy Lively’s reputation via media and social media manipulation.
“You know we can bury anyone,” crisis management expert Melissa Nathan wrote to PR executive Jennifer Abel, one of thousands of messages subpoenaed by Lively. (Bryan Freedman, a lawyer for Baldoni, called the accusations “categorically false”, saying a crisis manager was brought in due to “multiple demands and threats” allegedly made by Lively.)
In a subsequent message, Nathan told Abel that Baldoni didn’t realise how lucky he was given the allegations they had heard about his on-set conduct: “the whispering in the ear the sexual connotations like Jesus fucking Christ”.
While the film’s stars were told to keep their promotional activities positive and uplifting – “grab your friends, wear your florals and head out to see it,” Lively said in a promotional video – Baldoni, who most of the cast had unfollowed on social media, as fans had noticed, positioned himself as a feminist ally engaged with domestic violence issues. In response to the social media response “really ramping up” in terms of criticism of Lively, Nathan texted Abel: “It’s actually sad because it just shows you have people really want to hate on women.” A “scenario planning” document by Nathan’s firm, TAG PR, said it could “explore planting stories about the weaponisation of feminism and how people in [Lively’s] circle like Taylor Swift have been accused of utilising these tactics to ‘bully’ into getting what they want.” Baldoni told Heath that he “didn’t love” the document because it didn’t leave him feeling sufficiently protected.
“The weaponisation of the ‘weaponisation of feminism’.” That is how a friend in our group chat put it as we pored over the New York Times report that broke the news of Lively’s allegations and the subsequent release of her entire complaint; as we looked back, horrified, on what we had said about her in recent months (entirely in private, I hasten to add). We realised the degree to which a group of supposedly media-literate journalists were potentially manipulated by a confected misogynistic narrative; how persistent and pernicious internalised misogyny can be when another woman doesn’t meet your standards.
Of course, feminism can be weaponised and leveraged for personal gain. The flourishing of pop-cultural feminism a decade ago paved the way for “girlboss” and lean-in “feminism”, which didn’t fight for much more than a woman’s right to act and earn as rapaciously as men; it’s now considered a joke, with even girlboss creator, Sophia Amoruso, distancing herself from it in … interviews to promote her new venture capital firm. These are nuanced conversations about not allowing a fight for equality, respect and safety to be seized for self-gain. But the idea of the Hollywood and PR machines perverting that concept to discredit a woman apparently intent on ensuring the safety of herself and others – on the chaotic set of a film about ending cycles of domestic abuse – is a level of 4D chess that is terrifying in its imperceptibility, effectiveness and potential prevalence.
There is a chilling disconnect in the way the crisis and publicity parties rejoice in their apparent PR victory – “So much mixed messaging It’s actually really funny if you think about it,” Nathan texted Abel – and the covert warfare they allegedly used to manipulate the tabloid media into parroting their narrative. “This went so well I am fucking dying … We have the four majors standing down on HR complaint,” Nathan told Abel. When MailOnline published a piece in August asking “Is Blake Lively set to be CANCELLED?” Abel texted Nathan: “You really outdid yourself with this piece.” These methods are deadly, acutely attuned to how to form and nurture media and social media sentiment against a woman. As Taylor Lorenz writes in her newsletter User Mag, it takes its cues directly from the Gamergate playbook.
How many women has this happened to? How many smear campaigns have seduced our most base and ungenerous instincts into swallowing their line? How many male directors and actors successfully positioned themselves as feminist allies post-#MeToo for cynical reasons? Beyond celebrity narratives, how has this affected how we perceive the women in our own lives? Culturally, we seem to have progressed – rather,regressed – from ostracising figures who act badly to grasping for politically legible ways to take against anyone whose greatest crime might be “seeming a bit annoying”. Is someone “not a girl’s girl”, as you often hear online, or do they just have different values to you? Does their behaviour just feel confrontational and uncomfortable to you because it might reflect your own insecurities?
Lively’s complaint has left my head spinning. What can you really trust? How do we question accepted narratives without descending into tin-hatted conspiracy theory? Why do so many people hate women this much? How much internalised misogyny roils under my own skin every day? I’d like to reach for a cute ending, to say that through assiduous, informed questioning and acute media literacy, cases like Lively’s might, you know, end with us. But the truth is I don’t think we stand a chance.
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I assume it’s bc of the tv show but I’ve seen a couple posts randomly dunking on the last of us but for such dumb reasons. “I want to play lighthearted silly games instead of grimdark ones” “I want to play games that are more inextricable from the video game medium, games that are less cinematic” the good news is that those games exist! the last of us is in fact only two games out of the countless video games out there, so I would recommend not playing them if you don’t want to
#rambles#it’s an irritating example of ‘i don’t like this popular thing so it must be everyone and everything else that’s wrong’#like. it’s so funny I saw a post complaining that games are too dark bc of druckmann’s standard but like#they literally listed other big studio games in the post as counter examples#as like ‘studios SHOULD be making games like THESE’#but clearly….they are#so like. what’s the point here?#also possiblyhighly controversial opinion but i like the tlou gameplay#it can get boring when it’s like ‘pick up and move these planks’#but they rectified that in the second game#but like. what im saying is that just bc tlou is cinematic doesn’t mean it’s bad at being a game#it’s not trying to copy a film - otherwise it would have been a film to begin with#it’s particularly well suited to the screen and i am personally very excited for the tv show#but the tv show doesn’t render the game irrelevant#the experience of playing the game is excellent#honestly my hope is that the show will open the door for more people to examine viddy games and take them seriously#which would then ideally lead more people to appreciate the more unique and game-specific games out there that CANT fit the screen#uhhh what else. oh yeah - tlou also DOES take advantage of the game medium?#just in subtle and admittedly occasional ways#a standout is in part2 when the game won’t move forward until u as the player make ellie torture nora#now i have BIG issues with this scene but it’s for the (no pun intended) execution rather than the concept#basically if it were almost any other character than nora in this scene it would work better#BUT - that emotional turmoil and devastation and guilt and pain from pressing x and hurting someone until they give you what you want?#that’s not possible in any other medium#anyway hehe oops this is a long rant 🤪#my point is if u don’t like tlou then don’t worry u don’t have to play it 💕
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Me: "hey game developers, especially AAA ones, are getting laid off en-mass and it's awful for our industry" Gamer: "well I only play INDIE games and the problem with AAA games is they are creatively bankrupt"
Me, slamming my fists on the table like a baby: "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THIS IS ABOUT A BUSINESS PROBLEM PERPETUATED BY CAPITALISM NOT A STATEMENT ON CREATIVE DECISION MAKING"
#look I think AAA should make weirder games also but I wish we stopped treating that like some kind of solution and not just a fun idea#the problem is capitalism. its always capitalim#its not like AAA studios would have less problems if they made weird indie games lol#also hey spoiler alert: indie studios need to organize their labour too#in fact I think the organizing movement would be stronger if more indies adopted it first#anyway im busy so imma mute some posts now#thoughts#blog
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unfortunately I have opinions about the ascendant astarion ending and I have been holding back from saying it. but it's a problem that applies to the whole game and it's been annoying me
what's actually weird about the ascendant "romance" scene is that the writer considers it a tempting option for the player. They wrote it to be bad, but they also think it's a fun and sexy option. Same goes for the haarlep scene which they also wrote that way because they find it sexy. Except finding this sexually appealing entirely hinges on the idea that the player is a submissive. So RIP to a scene that the rest of us could have found sexy because the lead narrative designer was a submissive. lmao
In this game you can have a scene where you have to kneel for a male character. But you can never have a male character do the same for you. (Halsin doesn't count. It's a vanilla scene, he is not submissive there and we are not even asking/telling him to kneel down) You don't get such options, not even if you play a drow female! RIP the number one reason for playing drow female to be honest. lol You can kneel and fully submit to ascendant astarion or fully submit to mizora or fully submit to haarlep or submit to lae'zel or submit to minthara. you can get whipped by abdirak or you can tell him "touch me and lose a hand" he even responds positively to this remark and yet the possibility to flip the dynamic doesn't exist. There is never an option where a male character truly submits to the player. RIP to a scene that would have been the opposite of the traditional dynamic. the potential that existed but they never used the opportunity
By the way, how interesting that Lae'zel is dominant but she is a woman so ofc you get the option to tell her “no you will submit to me”. You never get such switch options with any of the male characters... Obviously it's not ascendant where they could have made that an option. My point is that it's NEVER an option among so many male characters.
It's a cool idea that the bad ending in a romance means "I saw this character as a sex object" except it falls apart when the scene is very sexually unappealing to anyone who is more dominant leaning. If I see a character as a sex object then I would place them in sexual situations which are appealing to me. so the message doesn't quite work. because there isn't anything that I can selfishly choose for myself just because I like it and I find it sexy.
#it's the old traditional setup where male characters are never submissive. either vanilla or they are dominant. and no other options exist.#I just find it a bit funny how they seem oblivious to the fact that these scenes being “sexy”and tempting entirely hinge on the possibility#that the player has the same tastes but a LOT of us don't. and then these scenes aren't even remotely sexy#don't get me wrong it's cool to have these scenes in the game but there could have been something different as well#rather than the same dynamic multiple times. and if you are super not into that then you only have the vanilla options#meanwhile the subs get multiple ''fun'' scenes. I just find this very unequal. if you are not into that well your character#will be placed into situations where characters make these unappealing propositions and sometimes it's fight or submit. that's weird imo#for a game that has storylines about consent. sexually weird scenes would be fine and interesting if it wasn't SO unequal and always the#same dynamic where they mostly give players options where our female characters should submit and NEVER the opposite I will always be salty#bg3#larian studios#baldur's gate 3#bg3 mine#haarlep#astarion#my post#abdirak#my thoughts#my posts#it's like the whole reason I like to play drow women if I am honest but it's been so utterly pointless#as a drow female on a rare occasion you may be allowed to say a barely rude dialogue to males and that's all lmfao#mildly rude to men is just what I do in real life but it's a viddy game and I should be able to be a bit of a nasty aggressive female#(sure they can frame it negatively. that's fine. but let the ''fun'' option exist for us as well)
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re:kinder doodle dump part three !!! drawings with wildly different moods www they are more polished ans complete than my other doodles because. why not🥺!!!
#re:kinder#rekinder#fanart#ryou re:kinder#mami re:kinder#takumiel re:kinder#yuuichi mizuoka#i will now provide commentary ...#the first one i did was the takumiel one lets start with him#that one was done in ms paint MERELY for the sake of me making a speedpaint in the style of 2010's speedpaints#turned out great . put some nightcore on it... not placing it here because tumblr does not take it kindly to me putting speedpaints here#(im still petty about that)#the chie one as you can see. is not a line from re:kinder. it is a line from “If...” another game by parun#where the girl who says it has the same sprite as chie. so i drew chie based on the line. chie in the multiverse...#mami was because i just dont draw her enough for being one of the characters with a drawn portrait and why not#ryou candy because i can ive been meaning to draw him more properly for a while outside of silly little projects i just never got to it#so there he is with the layout of clip studio paint because the drawing looked bland. and i didnt know what to use as a background#i do not use clip studio on light mode. i just thought itd look better with the background. all for composition sake...!!!#now about the yuu drawing i did that this morning its funny actually... if you see it that way i prefer seeing things as comedic if possible#today's morning dread would simply not leave so i decided to draw rekinder because its my go to for whenever im feeling low#and i decided. i will channel my feeling into this drawing because i can i will channel it outwards so i dont have to deal with it#so at first i was very dreadful and sad drawing. but then as i was finishing it#and the drawing looked more gloomy than it had ever had I HAD GLEE ONCE MORE!! IT WORKED!! i did channel it outwards im a genius#so i totally would recommend if you dont want to deal with dread and are in a state where you can draw#you should make your drawing feel it so you dont have to. its great#its like when one manifests their period cramps onto goku from dragon ball z.... at least i do that#i do love goku. what kind of latinoamerican would i be if i didnt id be a disgrace but im not strong enough i know he can fight it
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Alrighty, everyone mute me here cause I'm about to go on a tirade.
Look, I've been playing video games since I was young. Very young. Probably too young, if we're being completely honest. We had an old Nintendo 64 from my step-dad's youth that I used to play religiously. I played my ps2 for hours and hours a day as a way to cope with a.. shall we say unstable household. I had Gameboy Advanced, Gameboy color, all the way up to Nintendo DS to the switch. This is something I've been doing since I was barely old enough to speak. I used to get games at Blockbuster, okay? I played the OG Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights on a clunky old computer. Even when we were flat-busted ass broke with absolutely no money to spare, I would play at friend's houses. I would play old AV consoles on those fat ass TVs. It's my oldest hobby besides reading, is the point here.
My point is I'm old enough to remember when gaming was a niche hobby that you could actually get bullied for. It was back when studios made games mostly out of passion, and not to sell to a broader audience. There wasn't really even such a thing as microtransactions. You bought a full and complete game. Blizzard released good products, actually (unbelievable, I know.) Games knew their audience, and there wasn't necessarily an assload of money in it, so it was mostly made out of love for the games and their community.
Gaming has grown in popularity over the last 10-20 years, and that can be an excellent thing! Really! It can be! But Baldur's Gate 3 winning game of the year brought something to my attention that has been driving me mad for a few days now. It's a concept I've found myself repeating for a long time, but barely just sort of sat down to analyze it:
Not everything is for you.
The last few winners of GOTY have had some... sour people be very upset. Not that this is uncommon, but especially the last few years. People saying Elden Ring is 'too hard,' people saying that Baldur's Gate 3 is nothing but pedantic dice rolls, etc. People who, in general, were very unhappy that these games did not appeal to them in particular, and they were very vocal about how these games should be changed to appeal to them personally.
What I'm saying is that these people, along with most others, were not there during the days of niche gaming, where when you didn't like a game, you didn't necessarily throw a tantrum and stamp your feet and demand that these games aren't good and that they need to change, but rather, you just... didn't play them. They weren't made for you.
We live in an age where absolutely everything is being scraped for every last dollar. Games that used to be made out of passion for their communities are now being made to sell, sell, sell as many copies as physically possible to everyone. If it won't pander to every last person, it's not going to be made. Things are being 'streamlined' to make the games appeal to anyone and everyone who might play them.
'Streamlined' in this case, means 'dumbed down.' As Bethesda famously says, KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid.
Games that used to be a little bit more 'niche' and 'complex' like Morrowind, are now games like Skyrim, that are dumbed down to sell to everyone. They remove a lot of the aspects that made them beloved in the name of 'garnering a new and broader audience.' Older folks, adults, children, everyone. But this attitude of inclusivity isn't as great as it might seem initially. It isn't done out of community. It is done to get absolutely every last person possible to empty their wallet at the altar. To get every last fucking dollar out of everyone.
Games are passionless money pits. They sell you a half-baked, simple product that insults your intelligence. It's impossible to fail quests, because God forbid one person doesn't like that and asks for their money back. They won't touch on complex topics, because they don't want to cause a controversy that might drain their prospective bank account. They can't make things so intricate that God forbid a toddler might not understand them. They are milquettoast, miserable little games that appeal not even to people who enjoy games, but rather, people who don't.
Yes, they are making games to try and get money from people who don't even like them. They can't make anything nuanced or put a learning curve or put any actual work or fun into the game, because people who don't actually like playing games might realize "Hey, actually, I'm not enjoying this at all." and not give anymore money.
I'll get to the point.
Games being disliked by certain people is a good thing. It means those companies were unwavering on their vision and their loyalty to their fans. It means it was a game made from passion, and not just to be marketed and sold to literally every living person. They were made with their communities in mind, and no offense, but if you aren't one of the people that likes the things those communities stand for, maybe you should seek it elsewhere rather than trying to change something someone loves to suit you instead. You are not the demographic here.
You hear people that hate turnbased saying that Baldur's Gate 3 should not have been turnbased. Guess what? That's literally DnD. It's a DnD game. Don't like the lack of day cycles? Again, that's long resting in DnD. Pedantic dice rolls? That's fucking DnD, baby. Maybe you don't like it, but just because the game got popular does not mean it was made for you. Too much gay? Go away. Baldur's Gate was not made to sell copies to everyone. In fact, it was a relatively niche prospect that gained massive popularity near the end because of a scandal. I've been with them since Patch 2 of Early Access, and it very much was a passion project by people who loved DnD and TT games. They did not think it was going to hit this level of popularity, and they stuck to their guns even when it did. I cannot tell you how rare and remarkable that is.
Dark Souls is too hard? Maybe it's not the game for you. If you don't like certain design aspects, that's fine and okay! But Miyazaki and Fromsoft should not be forced to change their vision of their passion project because you personally do not like it. It was around before you, and they have a loyal community that does love the game just how it is. If you want a game with a difficulty slider, maybe you should play a game that has one. I'm sorry if you don't like the fundamentals of the game, but they exist for a reason, the community likes it, and no, it's not just for elitist reasons like I see all too often. You just do not understand because you don't like the game and do not like being told no for once by a company that has integrity.
I'm not trying to insult you. I'm being honest when I say that it's an attitude that is expected in the current climate where everything is changed when people complain the loudest because changing it means more money, and more money is the goal. These people are not your friends. Do not forget that. They are not changing it because they care about you. They are changing it because they think they can con you out of another dime.
People have a masochistic relationship with these companies. They have gotten used to being pandered to. They have gotten used to being sold a shitty game that everyone from their grandmother to their toddler niece and nephew can beat. And no, there's nothing wrong with games for everyone. But it's not because they wanted to make a game for everyone. It was because they wanted everyone's money.
People make hour long youtube videos about how Baldur's Gate would have been better if it was real time, and if it was more like this game and that game (namely games that pander to everyone) and then, in the same week, release a video bewailing that all games are so bad now and they don't understand why. They grasp that greed has a part in it, but they don't understand that they are directly contributing to the problem.
Games are bad because when everything is for everyone, nothing is truly for you. You won't have a chance to be passionate about anything, because on the off chance you find something you love, you will inevitably watch it die the same way that those of us who have been here forever did, because someone outside of the community doesn't like it, so it has to go because Christ forbid they don't sell two more copies.
And no, I am not talking about 'woke' or 'political correctness' so you alt-right weirdos can keep the fuck off of this post. I am talking about things like a lack of quest markers. Complex puzzles that you can fail. Political nuance. Things that take brainpower and are fun but not everyone likes.
Maybe not everything is for you. Maybe a game is allowed to exist even if you don't like it. Maybe communities are allowed to have their thing while you have yours. Maybe you have gotten so used to being pandered and catered to with every game being this blase, half-baked experience that is sorta liked by most, but... beloved by none. It's a forgettable, boring experience that garners no real loyalty, but at most a "Ha, that was alright." And then you put it on the shelf never to touch it again.
It means these companies aren't thinking of money; they are thinking of their communities. They are thinking of their fans and the people who love their games. Every time Miyazaki says 'no' to changing the formula that we love about his games, he is thinking of his loyalty to his community and his passion to the game. When Sven refuses to change aspects of the game to suit people who don't like DnD, he is staying loyal to the DnD community.
More companies should be doing this. Not less.
But consumers need to remember that one little creedo: Not everything is for me.
It can exist and I can exist. I do not have to play it and I do not have to enjoy it. It doesn't mean that it's bad. It means it's not for me. And that's fine.
#morgana and friends#im going nuts here I just had to say it#so many people whining about bg3 and dark souls and like#these are games I LOVE#and if you don't like them DON'T PLAY THEM#not everything has to be for you#this is a good thing#it means these studios CARE about the people in their community!#it means they aren't thinking with their wallets!#they are making games out of PASSION#something larian is actually famous for#and ill be damned if I have to sit and listen to another whiny toad whinge about how 'they don't like it so it should be changed'#im not tagging this cause I'm not railing for popularity points#I just had to get it out#back to your regularly scheduled filth
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Hot take but if I buy something I think I should own it :/
#Yes this is about digital vs physical media.#I hate digital games and movies I hate subscription services I hate not having a physical tangible disk#If I buy something I don't want a license to use it I want an actual copy of the product!!#No I don't want to subscribe to clip studio to keep getting updates! I hesitated buying the damn thing digitally! I wanted a fucking disk!!#I don't want to subscribe to a game or anything I just wanna buy it (and it should work without needing to download half the damn thing!)#I want disks and cartridges and boxes!!!#I want to own what I purchase without a company threatening to go offline and make me lose access to what I got!!#I want to go to best buy and buy software in a box!! Please!!#ok rant over#I just get mad at the current state of technology sometimes.#Rant on planned obsolescence likely coming soon lol
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I think I'm actually onboard with DA: The Veilguard's change in art direction compared to the other games. I am so deeply over the attempts at hyper realistic see every pore and hair follicle styles that bloat the file size by 200% leaving less room for actually interesting game mechanics and details and in the case of most fantasy games make the armour and magic effects look just that tiny bit stupider because the level of fantasy doesn't mesh with the realism. And also if this art style lowers the chances of my character's lip gloss being visible from space I will damn well take it.
Plus the lighting and the colours? Showing contrast between light and dark while still letting me be able to see what was going on? Fantastic.
Literally my only note is why does the Qunari dragon slayer who clearly goes for the brutal and direct melee approach have supermodel proportions? Like where are her muscles? Even Harding, light of my life, looks a little too Made Up and slight and she's a dwarven scout. I'm lowkey convinced all the women have the same model just set to different heights. Idk. Taash's model is probably pretty final but maybe Harding will be allowed to look a bit more rugged in game compared to the cinematic trailer.
#chirping wren#da4#dragon age the veilguard#da: veilguard#taash veilguard#lace harding#scout harding#i should know not to expect better from bioware when it comes to making female characters#but its just so jarring after playing games by other studios who are willing to put in even 5% more effort#my only other gripe is that the way they did varric's grey hair#the shading makes it look like a black/brown haired person went grey#instead of a guy who already had fair hair going grey#without his clothes & voice i would have been so confused as to who tf he was meant to be coz of the style and colouring of his hair
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More progress being made. I finished re-reading The Illusion of Living this past Friday. It's a nice book. 👍 This was the last of the Bendy books in this "marathon" that I'm doing which I had already read previously and now I'm rereading, meaning that I'm kind of up to date when it comes to rereading all the books that were released until December 2021. But the race is not over yet. Soon I'll start Fade To Black, and (technically) I'll finally be up to date.
Just to continue my chain of posting about the books I finished (at least, the main ones that I really wanted to read) here it is…something I did at the beginning of March, on the night when shit went down. (I hope you know what I'm talking about). I saw the tweets first hand, I was there! Right at the damn moment. And it was..something reading those tweets alright. If the image above doesn't show it, my mood that night and the next 1-2 days wasn't so… great. You might read this and think I'm exaggerating, but that night especially I, uuhhh, I didn't feel good! And this image (and maybe 2 more posts I made that night) are the results of that. (And to think that a week before this happened, I had finished rereading DCTL after a long time. Talk about better/worse timing than this)
At least, if you want the bright side of this, it's that even after that day, I decided to continue with my book marathon, and I don't regret it. I was down that day, but I wasn't out yet damn it!! and I'm still not. (I don't know if this sentence makes a lot of sense, but you get my point)
As a bonus, here's something I did the night I got to the part where Henry is first mentioned in the book (you can consider this as a representation of my reaction when he's first mentioned, both for when I read TIOL for the first time in 2021, as now in this rereading)
Feat. canon Henry design and my fanon design for him (I wanted to include him here + I still read this book with my fan-designs in mind)
#bendy and the ink machine#batim#crookedsmile open his mouth#crookedsmile open his mouth;bendy#ABBY LAMBERT; IN MY HEART YOU ALWAYS BE CANON TO THE GAMES; I DON'T CARE WHAT THE OTHERS SAY#also;i'm a Henry Stein fan;could you tell#re-looking at the first image and realizing that I will probably have to change my Abby design eventually;specifically; the hair.#I'm sure this hair doesn't match with what was described in DCTL or TIOL;#It's going to be a little strange; I'm so used to drawing her like this; but hey; every now and then we have to make sacrifices#To summarize my thoughts on TIOL: it's a nice book! Although it is not my favorite among the other Bendy books written by Kress#It's great to see more of Joey; delving deeper into his character and seeing how he thinks and seeing more of his life before the studio#is an interesting read! but I still prefer stories like DCTL and TLO; you know;especially because these two also have the horror factor in#which;considering what TIOL is; it doesn't have it. It's still a good book tho. It's just not my favorite#and re: the whole book canonity thing: I was not happy! Wow; what a surprising thing to say#as someone who enjoyed the books;I was disappointed with what I thought was expanding the games universe;In the end;just wasn't doing it#like;ok;sure;that doesn't mean the books aren't worth reading; I'd say they are! but still;*points to the last tag*#Maybe; one day; in the future; I can even accept this decision and move on with life; you know. understand the why of this.#but in the current present? yeah;no. I will continue to ask myself why#I would say more; but Tumblr has a tag limit apparently so I'm running out of time. as a last message: read the books#regardless of what the devs say; I still think these things should be recognized.#that's all; peace
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low-coherency rambling in the tags
#the thing about IPL is that‚ at least as far as i see it‚ they've essentially been propagating and encouraging an auteur myth regarding him#which is nothing new or unique to them; i think that people (audiences) naturally want to ascribe some Great Man Theory to everything#it's hard to conceptualize the fact that almost anything that comes from a ''studio'' will be the product of collaboration#people naturally want to personify things and attach a human face to what they like#and studios (whether game or whatever else) will indulge this by generally seeming to pick one or maybe two people (often men)#to essentially be the main ''face'' or ''spokesperson'' for the product. it's branding.#and it has an effect even if people obviously are aware that someone isnt the ONLY person who's hands touch a work#i see it in the way people take this very personal parasocial tone in how they talk about the creators they like#which is just a subset of the problem of parasociality in general but in this case i mean how they basically put these people on a pedestal#because they seem them as singularly responsible for creating Thing They Liked because of the aforementioned spokesmanship#i've seen it in how people talk about (and talk to) j sawyer and chris avellone as if they're singularly responsible for fallout#anthony burch and borderlands 2. christian linke and arcane#robert kurvitz and disco elysium (but to be very clear im not saying that makes cutting him out of his own intellectual property acceptable#fucking i don't know.... jeff kaplan and overwatch lmao#and very much with dybowski and pathologic. like the kind of memes i saw people make about him and the personal way they'd refer to him#BUT that pretty much all stopped after 2021 or so at least in the fandom spaces i saw#because i suppose people realized that whether those rumors and allegations were true or not that they did not really know this person#no matter how much they liked ''his'' game. and that he might not be a good person at all.#which is good. i think people should take that kind of ambivalence by default instead of getting parasocially attached to anyone#especially to one lead figure out of an entire studio#and then winding up distraught and disappointed when it turns out their fave did something bad#like be distraught for victims sure. but don't tell yourself you understand this person because their fiction spoke to you#and you won't wind up feeling personally betrayed.#i'm rambling big time but basically i hope people start taking this view more#because among other things. putting these people on pedestals and singling them out as auteurs gives them social power#which allows some of them to engage in the awful behavior that leaves fans feeling betrayed in the first place#and i hope that studios and creators stop leaning into it too#if it really is true that dybowski is barely involved with the IP anymore then IPL should say that.#don't prop him up as the face just because he's the one everyone knows#maybe they think it'll get backlash if anyone but him is said to be writing the game because of how much they leaned into him as the auteur
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one of the perspective practices or whatever
#doodle#thanks i hate it or w/e#you think you know what a room would look like & then you draw it and are like. fuck. what the hell. how does interior design work again#and then youre like. i have to google so many types of furniture goddamn it all#i should just learn blender#i did originally draw all this with a grid and all the lines were perfect and heterosexual#but then i traced over it w/o a ruler because the perfect lines make it look off.#i also dont have any energy. i'm tired.#i need to improve drawing scenery and backgrounds or w/e so i can stop filling my blog w nothing but bland portraits#i also have to draw backgrounds for my game lol i thought let's make vestnai's lab/workspace! this did not turn out how i wanted it.#didnt do enough planning really. common mistake i make#i also did 3 point perspective practice and lemme tell u. clip studio's rulers just do what they feel like. they dont care about ur feeling#so many tags. i'm chatty. and tired.
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I FUCKING DID IT
#splatoon 3#splatoon side order#side order#this took WAY longer than it should have#splatoon devs in the studio like#“yeah the rollers brushes and brellas could really use some range assistance#make them prioritize literally anything else"#decktech#decktech irl#decktech games
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yakuza: dead souls - american vibes, bigass guns, and why zombies are super weird to have in ryu ga gotoku thematically/ideologically speaking
so i've been playing dead souls recently (hell yeah hell yeah hell yeah) and although i'm having the time of my life with it, there was something about it that kinda felt off to me, and i think i've figured out what it was, but i'm gonna have to walk you through a bit of my thought process to get there.
my first instinct was that it felt... american? and upon further examination i think that boils down to a couple of things:
everyone suddenly has lots of guns and also way way bigger guns
high emphasis on individual heroism (this itself is quite typical for rgg, but it manifests differently here; more on that in a bit)
military/government incompetence, which must be solved by the right individuals having the biggest and bestest guns
[for the sake of transparency i will note that my experience with zombie media is pretty limited and skews american (and i myself am american), so that may create bias. however, the 'this feels american to me' instinct is a rare one for me even in genres where i have seen little/no non-american media, so i think the fact that it did occur to me is notable. what about dead souls triggered that response when little else has? that's why i examined it and, truthfully, i think there's merit in the idea itself.]
the first point is pretty self-explanatory. america's got more guns than it does people, and its gun worship is infamous. japan's ban on guns (aided by its being an island state) means there's far fewer guns in the country, as well as far fewer people with guns (and likely far fewer guns per gun owner, excepting arms dealers/smugglers) than somewhere without such a ban. obviously, there are guns anyway. due to their illegality they are clustered within the criminal population, which explains their presence within organized crime within the series. very few guns will be sitting around in the homes of otherwise law-abiding citizens.
and yet, when the zombie outbreak hits kamurocho, plenty of civilians suddenly have access to quite an arsenal. everyone has the knowledge they need to aim, fire, and reload smoothly and quickly; ammo is infinite for certain guns. characters we've never seen using firearms before suddenly have shotguns under their couches (looking at you, majima). it's not only very different from reality, it's very different from guns' place within the series up until this point, when they were limited weapons used primarily by the enemy.
and they're making a zombie shooter, so of course they would have to do this. it has to be unrealistic to be simultaneously in this setting and in this genre, in the same way that yakuza solving their problems with bareback fistfights instead of guns is itself both unrealistic and necessary to being the kinds of games rgg are.
my point is that this is a kind of focus on and valorization of gun ownership and competency unusual for the series and setting. further, it serves as an argument for why an armed, competent populace is crucial typical in american media.
which brings us to the third point (we'll get to 2 in a minute). guns are often marketed as self-defense weapons. the implication is that the government's defense of the individual (via law enforcement or the military, but particularly the former), are insufficient. this is objectively true. if someone pulls a gun on you at the gas station, will a cop manifest out of thin air to intercede? no. that's impossible. but if you have a gun, or if some bystander has a gun, you or they may be able to do something with that gun to stop the armed person. thus, there is an undeniable gap in the effective immediacy of such responses.
many gun advocates also point to the incompetence or insufficiency of law enforcement, even when they are present to stop an armed aggressor. the fact that law enforcement do not have a 100% success rate in protecting the citizenry is also objectively true.
so, when you are in danger, arming yourself increases your chances of being able to put down (or at least take armed action against) a present or potential threat. whether it is viewed it as a supplement to or a replacement for law enforcement, it is meant to make up for the shortcomings of the government's ability to completely protect all its citizens. it's a safety net for state failure.
back to dead souls. rgg has always centered political corruption in its stories, including politicians, the police, and sometimes even the military, though usually the former two. sometimes this is treated sympathetically (i.e. tanimura, a dirty cop, whose dirty-cop-ness allows him to work outside/against the law to help disadvantaged people, not unlike how kiryu views being a yakuza), and other times it's simply a matter of greed or lust for power (i.e. jingu).
however, something that's almost never touched on so clearly is government incompetence. when the government fails to help people or hurts them or does corrupt things, it's usually due to a competent, malicious bad apple who is removed from power by the end of the game. this implies holes in the system because it keeps happening all the time, but that's on a series-wide scale, a pattern ignored by the series in favor of the individual game solution of "this guy's gone now :) yay".
but in dead souls, the SDF's barracades fall, their men are killed, they are unable to help protect the people outside or inside the quarantine zone. they are weak in a way the government usually isn't in these games. and who is stronger than them? our individual good guys with guns. so we need to be armed because the government is weak and can't protect us. boom. america.
returning to point 2, i'd like to say that dead souls is not particularly more individualistic than any of the other games in the series (other than, perhaps, y7). rgg is an incredibly individualistic series, actually. its protagonists are usually men who defy, oppose, and skirt around the law as a way of helping others and doing what is truly right (with a few exceptions, like shinada and haruka). the romanticized view of the yakuza as a force for helping the community in the face of government incompetence is a real one, and one that tends to manifest itself most in kiryu and how the series treats him. it shows us yakuza who aren't willing to kill, yakuza who cry about honor and justice and humanity and brotherhood, yakuza who never dip their hands into less palatable crimes, or only do with intense regret (and only ever as part of their backstory). the beat-em-up style emphasizes this as well. i mean, what's more individualistic than a one-man army?
put more clearly, this series is about men defying legal and social laws and expectations to live in a way that feels right to them, and about making themselves strong enough to combat those who would get in their way. the individual is placed before the society in importance, (though generally in a way that benefits the community, because they are good guys who want to use that agency and power for good).
all of this is true in dead souls as well, technically. those who live on the outskirts of society are the ones who actually save the day, and the ones who go in there and save people rather than just walling them off and pretending like they don't exist. they have the guns, which are illegal and mark them as criminals, but this broken law is what gives them the power to save themselves when the government will not, and to save their community if they so choose.
where dead souls differs is in the nature of that strength.
rgg places a lot of emphasis on self-improvement, both of one's body and of one's character. do both of these, and you will be strong enough to back up your ambitions. what allows someone to carve their own path in life is the ability to put down ideological and physical resistance by having resolve and the ability to tiger drop whoever won't be swayed by your impassioned speeches. you make yourself a weapon. you make yourself strong. in dead souls, that strength comes from an external, material possession. strength is something you buy (or that you take from someone else). who is able to survive the apocalypse comes not from the heart, nor from rigorous training, but from who has the most, the biggest, and the most bestest guns. it's an intersection of capitalism, militarization, and individualism. simply, deeply american.
[when i was talking myself through this a few days ago, i spent a lot more time on the capitalism + individualism stuff, but i think i'll keep this moving. consider this aside the intermission]
dead souls also differs for a few other interlocking reasons. it can be described with this equation:
zombification of enemies + lethality of guns = loss of emphasis on redemption
if your best friend turned into a zombie, could you shoot them? or your child? or your lover? it's a common trope, but it's a damn good one. watching your family, your neighbors, your town, everyone turn into a husk of themselves, something that looks like them but cannot be reached, is deeply tragic. it's even more tragic when these husks are trying to kill you. unable to be reasoned with and unable to be cured, you must incapacitate them before someone innocent is hurt--or hurt, then themselves made dangerous; each loss adds to the number of threats surrounding you. your life is seen as more valuable than that of your zombified friend, not only because the zombie is attacking you and it's self defense, but because they are no longer a person to you. to be a zombie is to no longer be human; zombification is dehumanization.
and so in a series so focused on connection with one's community, on saving innocent civilians, often on saving kamurocho specifically, one would expect similar tropes to occur. even if one's friends aren't turned, perhaps the cashier at poppo you chat with sometimes is. it's the destruction of that community and of the members one has tertiary relationships with that i expect would occur most within a kamurocho zombie story, since they are likely unwilling to axe anyone more important than that, even if dead souls isn't canon. i'd especially expect to see that in the beginning, before the need to kill zombies rather than contain or redeem them becomes apparent.
this does not happen.
i cannot speak for the entire game, but i can speak of gameplay choices that affect this, and ones i think will not be subverted throughout, even if they are somewhat contradicted by plot events i am presently unaware of.
kamurocho is not a community to protect, nor is it filled with your fellows. it is a playground filled with infinitely respawning, infinitely mow-downable, infinitely disposable zombies. you are meant and encouraged to kill them by the thousands, and never to hesitate or consider whether they may be cured or who may be mourning them. who may be unable to identify their loved one because you were trying to reach a headshot goal from hasegawa. you are not meant to consider them as human, nor beings that were once human, nor beings that could be human again, in the eyes of the zombie shooter. they are merely bodies, targets, and obstacles.
the zombies are contrasted with the true humans, those barricading themselves within the quarantine zone or those living in ignorance outside it. humans are meant to be saved, zombies are meant to be killed. the player character is the only one who can truly help with either of these goals, because the other humans are cowardly, ignorant, or unarmed/helpless. you must be their savior. to be a savior is to eliminate zombies, who are less than human.
the black and white nature of this is also emphasized by another gameplay characteristic: the lack of street encounters. when you traverse the peaceful parts of kamurocho, you are never attacked. you are also never directly attacked by the humans within the quarantine zone. kamurocho feels very different without its muggers and hooligans, but it's because this is a zombie shooter, not a beat-em-up. in a normal rgg title, you'd subdue threats by punching, kicking, and throwing them. you'd use your body in (supposedly) nonlethal ways. dead souls does not have a combat system meant for civilians. you have your guns. you subdue threats by shooting them, preferably lethally. the game doesn't want you to do that to humans, so you never fight humans. this furthers the black and white divide between the salvation-worthy, noble humans and the death-worthy, worthless zombies. combat is only lethal, and only used against the inherent other.
this leads me to the part of dead souls i find most conflicting with the ethos of rgg broadly, and perhaps its greatest ideological/thematic failing.
because the enemy are incurable, dangerous, and inhuman, you must kill them to protect yourself and others, others who are still human. humanity is something that is lost or preserved, but never regained. once someone's gone, they're gone, and you not only must kill them, it is your duty and your right to kill them. you should kill them.
in dead souls, there is no redeeming the enemy.
and that's a big problem.
rgg is about a lot of things, but a key one is the ability of people to change for the better. its most memorable, beloved villains are those who see the light by the end and change their wicked ways (usually through some form of redemptive suicide, though that's another essay in itself). its pantheon of characters is full of those who come from questionable backgrounds struggling to be the best people they can be, to live as themselves authentically and compassionately. it's about the good and the love you can find in the moral and legal gray zones of life/society, and the potential/capacity for good all of us have, no matter how far we may have fallen. it is a hopeful series. it is a merciful series.
this is something bolstered by its gameplay. countless substories are resolved by punching a lesson into someone until they improve their behavior, either out of fear or genuine remorse/development. the games don't just discourage killing your enemies, they don't allow you to (yes, we've all seen the "kiryu hasn't killed anybody? umm. look at this heat action" stuff before, and while they've got a point, i believe it's the narrative's intent that none of this is actually lethal, based on how laxly it treats certain plot injuries (cough cough. y7 bartender) and the actual concept of taking a life, the gravity it is given by the text, particularly when it comes to characters crossing that threshold into someone who has killed. explicit killing is not an option open to you, even when you're being attacked by dozens and dozens of armed men. conflicts are resolved by simply beating up enough guys in this nonlethal manner.
but dead souls is a shooter. to avoid conflict with the series' moral qualms about letting its characters kill, the enemies cannot be human. furthermore, the zombie shooter genre can only fit within the series if its zombies are completely inhuman. this means their pasts as humans cannot be acknowledged, nor the possibility of a cure, nor the characters' own potential conflicts about killing them; or, at least, not in a way that impedes their or the player's ability to gun them down afterwards.
if you can't kill humans in your series, then it cannot be possible to save (in this case, rehumanize) zombies. this is especially true in a game where you are unable to fight humans, and thus human lives are universally more valuable than zombie lives. because if you kill a zombie that can be cured, you are, in a way, killing a human.
and so, in a series where you should always assume your enemies (and everyone, for that matter) are capable of reason, compassion, change, and redemption, and where they are always worth that effort, even if they reject it in the end, dead souls' enemies are irredeemable and only worth swift, stylish slaughter. there are only good guys and bad guys. good guys must be protected, lest they be turned irreversibly into bad guys. good guys are only protected by killing bad guys, and the only way to save good guys is to kill every last one of the bad guys. do not spare them, and do not ask whether or not it's right. only kill.
i love dead souls. it's a silly game. i like seeing daigo in decoy-drag and majima gleefully cartwheeling his way through zombies and ryuji with his giant gun arm prosthetic. it's fun. but when i was trying to figure out what felt off about it to me, one of the words that came to mind (besides american) was indulgent. that, too, felt odd, because i love indulgent media. i am not one to scorn decadent, hedonistic, beautiful high-calorie slop type media. if dead souls was just fan servicey, that wouldn't really bother me. i am a fan and boy do i feel serviced. it rocks. but i think my problem is in what dead souls is indulging.
i think dead souls indulges in the desire to cut loose, and to see these characters cut loose. thing is, they're cutting loose all over kamurocho, and all over the bodies of people they used to (at least in concept) care for. with lethal weapons. it is catharsis via bloodbath, not by pushing your body and mind to the limit in man to man combat, but by pulling a trigger before the other guy can hurt you, or even think about hurting you, for the crime of existing as the wrong kind of thing.
and i just don't think that's in line with rgg's beliefs.
yes, it's probably fair for dead souls' characters to kill zombies. i'm not against that. i'm also not against games letting you do purposeless violence. i spent a good amount of my elementary school years killing oblivion npcs for shits, like. that's not what bothers me about dead souls.
rgg as a series has always taken a hard stance in both its game design and narrative choices against killing and for the potential for redemption in its enemies. and i think the lengths to which it goes to promote that despite the probably-lethal moves you do and the improbability of a harmless do-gooder yakuza is one of the most endearing things about the games. so for this one entry to disregard that key theme for the sake of a genre shift that flopped super hard, well? i dunno. it feels weird i guess. it's out of place not just because it's a dramatic shift in gameplay and style and also zombies are only a thing here (and the supernatural/fantastical are thus only prominent here), but because of what those shifts imply.
so, uh. yeah. my pre-dead-souls thoughts that dead souls wasn't that out of pocket bc rgg's just kinda weird? turns out it was actually super weird to have a zombie shooter in there, but for way way deeper reasons than anyone gives it credit for.
(footnotes in tags)
#1) i deemphasized the physicality of shooting to emphasize my points about the viscerality and personal nature of rgg#brawls and the colder more detached nature of gun use relative to that but i do NOT mean that shooting has no physical component to it#obviously it takes a lot of skill to shoot quickly and accurately and lugging a bigass gun around kamurocho would tucker me out for sure#2) no i don't think all those things i said were american were usa-exclusive. it's a big world out there. i'm just saying those things#combined feel like a particularly american flavor of thing to me#3) there's probably more to be said about the connection between wanton killing and american styling or anti-immigration theming in zombie#stories or dead souls But i figured that was a bit too disconnected to the funny zombie game. this shit was a lot anyway y'know?#4) also i don't think most of this was intentional on the part of rgg studios. i genuinely think they just wanted to make a fun zombie#shooter and didnt really think about it all that hard. whenever you make smth there's gonna be implications you never considered. it happen#5) is it ballsy to write a giant essay on a game i'm like 1/4 the way through? yes. i've done smarter things. i'll revisit it when im done#if i'm wrong then i'll figure it out probably. but like. i don't think they'd set up the hasegawa objective stuff or have akiyama just#unflinchingly start shooting zombies and then later challenge that. we'll see but my hopes aren't high y'know? i know rgg#6) i should also clarify that violent catharsis is a) a part of all rgg games and b) cool as hell. it's the lethal bit that doesn't fit with#the series y'know?#rgg#ryu ga gotoku#yakuza#like a dragon#yakuza dead souls#dead souls#classic skrunk 4 hr middle of the night impulse essay hooorayy
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honestly so far veilguard just looks like an amalgamation of whatever features ea's other games already have instead of a good rpg
#im watching the combat video rn and why is it so ugly#this looks like yet another ea game that was supposed to be an mmo but got changed and thus is complete shit compared#to the earlier games of the franchise#also this im feeling neutral about but interesting seeing their console first type of ui#man if i wasnt feeling so sick rn id get up to play dao#there is nothing interesting here#dragon age critical#ok the combat moves look like they could be fun but it all looks so unpolished#yknow how me:a also had fast combat with pause and meele characters fucking charging to enemies?#that was fun. i feel like this tried to do something similar but failed miserably#also the ui ele.ents are so small and in such weird places#idk maybe they should make a game that looks finished#this is on level with some student projects ive seen. and those are impressive but not for a studio like ea#ah sorry im already premourning how i think this is it for me and the da franchise. as in. i will still love it but i dont think i want to#touch anything new#idk im going to take a nap gn
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its in queue so sorry for being confusing you'll get the full picture in a month but. like. 'gacha art style' is not a thing. by the way. you only think its a thing because there are like 5 popular gacha games made by the exact same studio and the exact same developers saturating the market.
#.text#i hate the concept of gacha so much like if you ask me i will go in depth about how it is ruining the game industry#and outside of how disgusting it is to prey on gambling addictions and the like#i think it is genuinely upsetting that there is a large portion of gacha games that actually have really wonderful art and storytelling#made by people who want to make genuinely good things. because its their passion and its what they love to do.#there are dozens of gacha games with good story and art and characters. they should not be gacha games.#dragalia lost and world flipper and another eden and granblue fantasy and kingdom hearts and mementomori and nier#crippled by the fact theyre f2p mobile gacha games because thats whats 'trending' and earns the most money#dislyte and mhyk and octopath.#like what do you mean..... 'gacha artstyle'.... you just mean hoyoverse. just say hoyoverse.#so irritating. how much beautiful art is being lumped in with genshin. that feels gross#the fact of the matter is if you want to make a video game you have 3 options.#join a mobile game studio. join an indie studio. and join a company studio.#and the 2 most available options are in fact the first and last ones. and that job scene is not safe.#youre either going to create bad art or youre going to be given budget/paycheck cuts or youre going to be laid off.#or youre never going to share your art and story with the world because. you dont Want to make your own game.#you CANT make your own game. the fact we have indie games at all is a miracle. i dont think people seem to realize this.#ugh. i forgot what i was talking about.#as always there is wonderful things that can be found in a thing that should be destroyed.
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