Tycho and Gabe Respond to Your Questions

We passed on your questions to Tycho and Gabe of Penny Arcade a while back, and today we have their answers. Tycho primarily answered the questions with consultation from Gabe and discusses the PA comic creation process, their views on the industry, and the possibility of an animated Penny Arcade venture. As usual, they do so with wit and verve: "I am not an industry analyst, so I dont feel like I'm qualified to talk about ebb and flow of hojillion dollar industries. However, it is easy to imagine a universe where small developers don't huddle in blasted out wreckage, waiting to be vivisected by the the next wave of EA Scion-class sawbots." Read on to check out their responses.

1.) Tools by cbrocious

My question is very simple: What tools do you use (both physical and digital) to create your comics?

I'm a long-time reader and have always wondered :)

Tycho:
He uses a pencil and paper for starters, and once he's scanned that in he does all the finishing work with Photoshop 6.1 and a massive 12x24 Wacom Intuos.

2.) Your Job by JediLuke

How much of your personal life does Penny-Arcade consume? On that note, great job, I love your strip.

Tycho:
Thank you for saying so. It is hard to know, actually, where to draw the line between our personal lives and Penny Arcade. The scripts come from our normal conversations. You knew almost to the moment when Gabriel was born. The site is virtually our diary, so I'm hard pressed to determine what corner of my life it hasn't yet been dominated by.

3.) First gaming webcomic by genessy

Was Penny Arcade the first, regularly produced gaming webcomic? I read approximately 20 webcomics on a daily basis, and many of them are dedicated to gaming humor or frustration. Were you guys the first, and if so or if not, who or what inspired you?

Tycho:
No, I don't believe so - in terms of a gaming focus, that honor goes to Scott Kurtz of PvP, by five or so months. We didn't know about him when we started, but we did know about Iliad from User Friendly who covered games from time to time, typically Quake. As for inspiration, we've always made little comics, but never considered doing them in strip form until we entered an online contest that Next Generation Online (now defunct) was holding. I can honestly say that if we had not entered that contest, there would be no Penny Arcade. It never would have occurred to us.

4.) Question Two by dgrgich

A question for both of you: Name the console and three of its games that you would take to that mythical desert isle.

Tycho:
Gabe suggests that a Playstation2 would suffice, with Disgaea, Phantom Brave, and Rez. If he had Internet access, and I submitted that this island might have some kind of satellite uplink, he would gladly bring along an Xbox, with the local staples Halo 2, Pandora Tomorrow, and Links for good measure.

Consoles are, in general terms, not my bag. I have come to enjoy them but they are not my preference, but I will answer the spirit of your question. It is clear to me that I would bring along a custom PC, with System Shock 2, Missionforce: Cyberstorm, and (this is a recent addition) World of Warcraft. That is, of course, provided their game begins to work properly.

5.) Gabe and Tycho: by mcc

Just curious: Are there any webcomics you read?

Tycho:
Sure. Gabe reads Kazu's Copper, Machall, and PvP regularly. I cast a fairly wide net, but the strips I read whenever they are updated include Boy On A Stick And Slither (which I crave beyond reason), PvP, Shaw Island, 8-bit Theatre, Machall, Wigu, Deisel Sweeties, Creatures In My Head, Scary Go Round, Exploding Dog, Goats, Ctrl-Alt-Del, and VGCats.

6.) Domesitification ... by SuperRob

Jerry's bought a house, Mike's had a baby boy. How has becoming bona-fide adults changed your lives, and do you find your priorities changing away from drawing comics and playing games.

Bonus Question: What advice would you give to geeks looking to in some way ensare geek grrls?

Tycho:
We are lucky enough to have really unorthodox jobs. Drawing comics and playing videogames is what we do for a living. It is an odd loophole, I admit, but if I don't play Half-Life 2 or whatever I'm actually slacking off.

As regards the laydays, Gabriel suggests the most important thing is that you simply be yourself, unless you are poor. Then, try to be someone who is richer and better looking, because you are kind of ugly. I am only only speaking for myself, but I have had good success with traps.

7.) Halo and Bungie by SilentChris

You guys absolutely roasted the original Halo, then gradually grew to like it. You've said you've met with Bungie since then. Were the meetings amicable?

Tycho:
It's important to note that what we came to like was the multiplayer mode, and the console LAN party culture it fostered, but yes - we did come around. As for the guys at Bungie, they have never been anything but nice to us, which always makes me feel bad.

8.) Collaboration... by kayser_soze

How far does the collaboration between you two go?

Does Tycho usually come up with the text/idea for the comic, then Gabe does the art as a separate process or is it more of a collaborative venture?

Tycho:
It's the collaborative venture you suggested there at the end, for the comic at least. They are written first, in a tag-team manner suggestive of the WWE, and then the art is created. For longer form projects, the full page stuff we've done for PA Presents, I handle the writing itself almost completely - but that's only after we've both come up with what happens on a page, and he has given me a light sketch of the events we've agreed on for me to write to.

9.) Rise of the Megapublishers by CarrionBird

Do you think that the industry is doomed to be under the thumb of less than a handful of publishers, buying up every promising studio?(and keeping the cost of promotion so high that small guys could never keep up)

Or is there a chance for a new wave if independent developers breaking free from the EAs of the world?

Tycho:
I am not an industry analyst, so I dont feel like I'm qualified to talk about ebb and flow of hojillion dollar industries. However, it is easy to imagine a universe where small developers don't huddle in blasted out wreckage, waiting to be vivisected by the the next wave of EA Scion-class sawbots. None what I'm about to say applies to closed platforms, consoles and so forth, where the relationship between the developer, the product, and the platform locked to varying degrees.

If you are not already familiar with Garage Games, Totalgaming.net, and of course Valve's Steam, I can understand why you might feel dread. As for the costs of promotion, I'm confident that community sites like this one can recognize quality and deliver shrewd gamers unto products missed by larger sites or publications. I'm very curious to see if, for example, the Steam platform gives rise to a number of retail quality mods for cheap. We'll see how it goes.

10.) Favourite comic? by ecliptik

Out of all the comics you've done, which one is your all time top favourite, and why?

Tycho:
Gabriel has suggested to me that his current favorite is Mr. Period Returns, where Mr. Period and his Bad Boys of Punctuation resolve issues in a collected, helpful manner. It often changes for me, typically I say Red and Blue in: We Deliver to deflect the question. Honestly, I just went into the archives looking for my favorite comic and I was stuck there for like forty-five minutes. The last strip we did is usually our favorite one.

11.) Life outside of games by hng_rval

How do you spend your free time outside of gaming?

Tycho:
I guess we don't understand the question.

And on that note, what do you and your spouses do for fun (outside of the apartment)?

Tycho:
Gabe and Kara don't really leave the apartment. They do escape from time to time to see a movie, but he just suggested that a fire might also make them leave. I typically accompany Brenna to interesting cultural events, like shows and plays, that are very interesting and cultural.

12.) Do you feel the pressure to self-censor? by Drunken_Jackass

As you get older and as PA's popularity increases to more of a mainstream level (thanks to the great job you did on last year's Childplay), are you starting to feel the pressures of self-censorship? I mean, how many news anchors could reference the good work you do with Childsplay without giving a Within that site, there be fruitfuckers warning?

Are you becoming too popular to maintain your riske side?

Tycho:
Not censoring ourselves is what made us popular, so locking up our most depraved ideas hardly seems like a recipe for success. The question itself implies that we are monitoring some kind of meter that determines how mainstream we have become, and can altering the mix of ideas to match our audience. You're giving us way too much credit.

The Child's Play thing is an issue, though it's more an issue for Child's Play itself than it is for Penny Arcade. I think about this a lot. Is it proper that a site like Penny Arcade should host or operate a charitable organization? I'll tell you where the thinking usually leads me: Maybe not, but that doesn't absolve us of our social responsibility.

13.) Difficulty of making a living via online comics? by Zeddicus_Z

Guys,

At the last SAGE-AU [sage-au.org.au] conference in Brisbane we had J.D. Frazer (Illiad) as guest of honor.

At dinner J.D. spoke of the difficulties he faced in the early years attempting to make a living from comics - the insanely difficult process of being sydicated into newspapers, working out a revenue model for a web-based comic when he realised syndication was too restrictive, and generally attempting to make a living doing something he loved.

With PA and UF being roughly as popular as each other these days and thus (hopefully!) both providing decent incomes, I'd like to hear how you guys coped with the early years and how you faced some of what seem to be the common difficulties such as the syndication process, creating a viable revenue model and dealing with early set backs.

Tycho:
Well, we walked different paths somewhat, and that should be firmly delineated. One of the few things we have in common with J.D. is that we both upload images to webservers. Gabe and I have never sought syndication as an end or a means to it. Don't forget that Illiad also made Userfriendly a public company at one point - try to imagine buying stock in Penny Arcade. The mind reels.

The main thing we share, and this is something that we have in common with all cartoonists making a living on the web, is that we keep at it until we find something that works, and when that stops working - and it will - we try something else. We don't confuse that business model with our creative work, imagining that its failure has revealed some desperate flaw in ourselves.

Over the course of six years, we have cycled through nearly every sequence the tumbler can produce. The first year and a half, we worked regular jobs until it could support one, and then both of us. We've done advertising, outside projects, joined a content aggregator for a percentage of the revenue, supported the site solely on donations, eventually moved to the quid pro quo, donations-for-gifts method that is fairly commonplace now, went hybrid with donation gifts and very limited advertising (no more than two per month), and finally stabilized on advertising alone. We've gone back and forth from doing our own merchandise to having someone else do it a two or three times, trying to find the right balance.

14.) Strawberry Shortcake by Anonymous Coward

A little while back, PA had a run-in with American Greetings over the use of the copyrighted and trademarked likeness of Strawberry Shortcake in what was obviously a (protected) work of parody.

American Greetings got called Nazis, but American McGee's Strawberry Shortcake is still missing from the PA archives.

What are the reprecussions of the Strawberry Shortcake debacle? If you had it to do over again, either the strip, or your interactions with American Greetings, would you have done anything different?

Tycho:
I think we made the best decision that we could have, and in retrospect I haven't gained any wisdom on the subject that leads me to believe we erred in judgement. We got the best advice we could from places like the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, and the final analysis was that we weren't absolutely, one-hundred percent in the right. We could have been a good deal more feisty legally, but we're still in court over something that happened five years ago and I think we were hesitant to open up another front when the first one was already as much as we could afford.

I think I would be much more unhappy about the situation if people didn't have access to the comic, if they wanted to find it - it's not difficult to type strawberry shortcake penny arcade and have it revealed in all its sensual splendor. In fact, and I think I've said as much, I almost prefer that there is this hole in the archive where a comic should be. If the strip was just there, I think it would have been forgotten by now - you wouldn't be asking me about it. As it stands, virtually every time I'm asked to speak to people the Strawberry Shortcake Issue comes up, which keeps the notion that corporations overreach in these matters front and center.

Update: 11/30 19:09 GMT by Z : Tycho sent this in to answer some questions brought up in comments -

The "ongoing legal battle," and it's still with us, is over the book we printed a few years ago. People often ask us why we haven't produced another book, and there's people who don't know about the first one. Our publisher never paid us for the first book, and then told us the second book had to be in black and white, and we'd better start writing it for them if we ever wanted to get paid. Obviously, we did no such thing, but since they own the print rights we can't make books for ourselves either. Hopefully it's something that can get worked out in arbitration here in a few months.

15.) Question for Tycho by Captain Splendid

Despite the fact that you've mentioned a few times that your aspirations don't go much beyond PA, is there any chance your unique writing style may be found elsewhere in the future? Is that even a remote consideration for you?

On a related note, what kind of offers have you received from mainstream (and not-so-mainstream) publications?

Tycho:
Not having aspirations to write outside my comfortable context is sort of my cover story, I'm afraid. I shudder to think how the things I write would be perceived outside of my own comfortable context. Even inside what I consider my own community, there is considerable disagreement about whether my output has merit. So there you go.

I've been offered this and that every now and again, but I'm not unsatisfied with my life or the way I spend my time, so I'd usually rather reserve my energies for Penny Arcade. Offers to write for gaming blogs, do community management, editorials in magazines that cover games, review sites and the like make up the bulk of such offers. I'm very lucky, which is another way of saying our readers are good to us, but neither of us needs to take work that we aren't genuinely interested in.

16.) An Animated Penny Arcade by Altima(BoB)

Have you ever considered trying an animated form of Penny Arcade? It seems that your brand of humor makes particular use of precise timing, and while you tend to be successful at conveying that through comic strip panels, the formula could translate to animation quite well.

Tycho:
When we're writing a comic, we will often become too elaborate than we can reasonably achieve with three panels. Sometimes, we try to make it fit - but more often than not, we say That's One For The Animated Series, which is to say that it would be well served by the properties of that medium. We have been approached on multiple occasions to do just this sort of thing. In fact, there is something percolating even as we speak.

Comments

Tools

[elid]

He uses a pencil and paper for starters, and once he's scanned that in he does all the finishing work with Photoshop 6.1 and a massive 12x24 Wacom Intuos.

Those devices are really amazing. I wonder why he doesn't just get rid of the pencil and paper altogether.

Re:Tools

[Anonymous Coward]

Because a Wacom tablet, no matter how hard one tries, cannot emulate the texture of graphite pencil on paper. It takes forever for a serious artist to get used to a Wacom; some never do, and are quite fine with that.

Re:Tools

[Legato895]

as a user of a 12x12 tablet, i can tell you that its much much easier to do rough stuff with a pencil. this goes for technical art mainly, but simply the ability to turn the paper and get better angles at stuff is the main advantage (to me) over using just the graphic tablet.

Re:Tools

[ohida]

I've found that the texture thing can be solved by drawing over a sheet of roughly-grained paper (construction paper works well).

My biggest problem with the actual drawing is being able to see the stylus and the drawing itself at the same time - I just don't think I'll ever be able to get the shapes I'm looking for without actually drawing on the picture itself. Of course, if you've got the bucks, you can get a Cintiq, but then that whole construction paper thing is out the window.

Re:Tools

[irokitt]

My God, Wacom's website just vanished in a puff of smoke. That's right, I think we murdered it.

That said, I wonder how many Google searches for "penny arcade strawberry shortcake" occurred in the last 10 minutes or so.

Re:Tools

[Flamefly]

There is still a certain control you lack when dealing with art tablets that you have with paper. I have a A3 Intuos 2, I've stuck paper over the top to gain some grip when using it; but you still have that detachment of hand and eye, whereas with pencil and paper you can look down, I'm sure some people can get over that, but most artists have grown up learning the feel of different pencils and paper, I would imagine it's incredibly hard (and often not that much of a timesaver to make a significant difference) to unlearn that sensitivity.

I often recommened getting tablets to heavy users of PC's (not just photoshop/painter users). I originally purchased mine due to my wrist playing up when using the mouse for extended periods, it takes a while to get the hang of, but when you do, the tablet can be incredibly efficient replacement for general and specialised desktop tasks (I found it fantastic for 3D Modelling)

Re:Tools

[Metsys]

As an owner of an Wacom Intous 2 6x8, I will agree that they are amazing. I can get jobs done 4 times faster than with conventional paints, and it can still look like it's been painted by hand. However I still do all of my sketch work in pencil.

Even though a tablet can give you superior control compared to a mouse, nothing beats a pencil and eraser when it comes to quick sketching. I've tried to sketch with a tablet and it isn't the same. It also helps you to get away from the computer. Most designers will agree that the more time you spend planning and sketching on paper the less time will be spent sitting in front of a blank screen. You'll know exactly where to go with your project, so it's just a matter of finalizing. Production time is reduced significantly as well.

I find the computer more of a finishing medium than a thinking tool. Nothing beats good ol' pencil and paper, and for me nothing beats painting with a tablet.

Re:Tools

[lifeblender]

The really funny thing is, I'm a programmer, and I still start from pencil and paper almost every time. There's something much more free form about paper: you can throw it to the side knowing you can come back to it later, you can rearrange pages, and you can draw boxes or arrows or strike-throughs any way that you want. Once I know what the general structure of a program or large module will be, then I switch to the computer and start declaring types in Haskell. Maybe it's my ADHD, even though I'm 24 now, or maybe it's the fact that a desk can hold many square feet of diagrams while a screen can only hold a few.

Either way, I need the layout and design process to use tools that are much more flexible (literally) than a computer's display and input devices. With paper, you can actually develop tactile and spatial memory as to the location of various items, whereas using a computer requires me to use logic to find information. When I'm designing, logic and abstraction is at a premium, again maybe because of the ADHD, so I can't use a system that makes me break my train of logical thought. Just my experiences, but if I was ever going to use a computer to do the initial design for software, things would have to change, and I may not be the only one willing to pay for it.

Re:Tools

[RandomLinguist]

Wacom tablets are pure condensed and ironed flat slabs of joy. About a year and a half ago I got one of the 5x8 (I think) inchers as a present and it is one of the best peripherals I've ever gotten. I don't do much much artistic with it but I will say that, combined with a good mouse gestures program, it has made my life much easier.

I happen to be a bit of a mouse addict (I have a little handheld trackball, 2 optical mice, a wireless gyromouse, and my tablet pen and mouse within easy reach right now) but I have to say that for the money, a tablet is the best thing I've found. On top of making quick movements faster, they're also easier on the wrists - big deal for me as I'm in thesis/final project mode right now and glued to my desk.

When people have to use my comp, I usually pull up a spare traditional mouse for them, but a lot of people tend to pick up that tablet fairly quickly. My boyfriend fell in love with it after we were doing some coding late one night and he was dragging some stuff around. The tablets have absolute positioning which, while it takes getting used to and isn't for everybody, can be really handy.

I know that Wacom 0wnz my input methods for as long as they are around, and I keep trying to get other people to sell their sou--I mean try out tablets.

Re:Tools

[jacksonj04]

I would imagine it's incredibly hard (and often not that much of a timesaver to make a significant difference) to unlearn that sensitivity.

I solved that problem by actively avoiding pencil and paper for most of my life. I've never done serious art on paper (although I can do a reasonable level of such), and instead work with WACOM tablet, palmtop, tablet PC, anything with a stylus input basically.

Whilst for text you can't beat a good old fashioned keyboard (although those projecting ones look *very* cool), just scrawling notes etc I'd rather use my palmtop than my pencil and paper. This is partly because of the portability (reams of paper on one device), but primarily because I can then go 'Find me anything I drew last week' or 'Find something with a squiggle vaguely like this'. After learning to file my scribbles with little symbols, searching through notes became very fast.

I can appreciate that some people just can't get stylus inputs for sketching though - I agree it takes a lot of getting used to.

Re:Tools

[Anonymous Coward]

i find i can draw fine on my pda (hp 4150 with pocket artist 2.7) but using either of my wacoms is difficult at best. the division between where i'm drawing and where it's showing up throw me off. that and the fact that i spin my paper in many different angles while drawing, never just a standard straight on start to finish thing.
e

Re:Tools

[arose]

I have to agree that paper-and-pencil is excelent, even if you don't use it for anything but experimenting and do the final from scratch at you computer. Not that the opinion of this amateur carries any weight, I don't even have a Wacom tablet...

Re:Tools

[Anonymous Coward]

OMGWTFBBQ!!!1!
Maybe she's teh female...

We do exist, you know.

Dolt.

Re:Tools

[Dun Malg]

He uses a pencil and paper for starters, and once he's scanned that in he does all the finishing work with Photoshop 6.1 and a massive 12x24 Wacom Intuos.

Those devices are really amazing. I wonder why he doesn't just get rid of the pencil and paper altogether.

Tactile feedback and better visual coordination. You can feel the paper under the moving pencil and the feel communicates the type of line you're getting. You can also see your hand as you move it, making it easier to follow a desired curve or what have you. Wacom pads are good for artists moving from traditional mediums to computerized, but few of the computer artists I know who started out doing computer art bother to use anything more complicated than a two button optical mouse. All of them do, however, start with a pencil sketch (sometimes inked) or the occasional watercolor painting and then scan it in.

Re:Tools

[Ohreally_factor]

There's something much more free form about paper: you can throw it to the side knowing you can come back to it later, you can rearrange pages, and you can draw boxes or arrows or strike-throughs any way that you want.

You can also crumple it up and throw it in the trash. That gets pretty expensive quickly with Wacom tablets. =)

Seriously, I'd only add that there is something immediate about pencil and paper, while using a wacom tablet is good example of a technology mediated process.

Re:Tools

[mausmalone]

Those devices [wacom.com] are really amazing. I wonder why he doesn't just get rid of the pencil and paper altogether.

Speaking as a webcomic artist and a tablet user, you simply can't beat a pencil and paper when trying to sketch something out of nothing. The slick plastic-on-plastic surface of a tablet makes such things feel awkward, and the ability to move the paper around as you draw is a big plus. It's not like you can't do everything purely digital, but the resolution on the tablet and the monitor is simply not enough to make it work. (When you zoom out far enough to get a feel for the whole image, you simply don't have enough resolution left to make a decent sketch. If you zoom in enough to have the resolution, then you lose the feel for the entirety of the image.)

funny comic excerpt

[essreenim]

This is that Star Ocean?

Yeah I hate it.

Looks like 2 of your characters are being molested by lizard men.

I didn't send those gus over there.
I don't even control them.
I don't know what the f*** they're doing.

Why don't you jus switch to the other guys?

It doesn't matter. Whoever I'm not currently controlling gets gangbanged by reptiles....

Oh, and why are you so cool?

[Cooler1011]

I got a few questions: Where do the ideas for your comics come from? Favorite game of 2004 so far? Quake III/IV Vs. UT2004? Ever think of a Penny Arcade movie? DS vs. PSP? Console vs. PC and why? Thoughts on Nintendo in general? And last but not least: Are you available for birthdays/bar mitzvahs?

Re:Oh, and why are you so cool?

[Anonymous Coward]

You missed the "Post questions" story by a few weeks.

But

[nagora]

Although "it is easy to imagine a universe where small developers don't huddle in blasted out wreckage, waiting to be vivisected by the the next wave of EA Scion-class sawbots.", it's very hard to believe in it now.

TWW

Re:But

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe because you were too lazy to read down and see that quote in context...

First gaming webcomic by genessy

[WormholeFiend]

I was reading the Sexy Losers webcomic way before I started reading Penny Arcade...

Oh wait, a gaming webcomic?

Re:First gaming webcomic by genessy

[JabberWokky]

And I was reading the Thin H Line long before Sexy Losers... wait a second...

--
Evan

Re:First gaming webcomic by genessy

[Norgus]

Since WHEN was that comic based on gaming?

All I remember are lots and lots of very sick jokes.

Re:First gaming webcomic by genessy

[kinga]

So can you teach me Fist of Fury? ;-)

Re:First gaming webcomic by genessy

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not trying to bash, but sexy losers is far superior to most comics. In creativity, anyway. How often do you see content like theirs?

Drawing

[stateofmind]

I draw during my freetime, and the reason is probably because paper and pen/pencil creates a deeper attachment to your work then a machine.

Josh

Re:Drawing

[MustEatYemen]

What is the difference?
(Emotionally, not mechanically, there's much more tactical feedback w/ paper/pencil and it's easier to mock something up real quick w/o worrying about changing tools or "features")
Both are tools, one is more established :D

Re:Drawing

[stateofmind]

To me there is a huge difference. :) I'm not saying my view is how everyone feels.

The smell of the wooden pencil, the feeling of the lead against the paper, my fingers becoming black from the lead, the sound of the pencil as I draw with it, the feel of white scraps of eraser left on the table.

Josh

Re:Drawing

[Blakey Rat]

And this relates to the interview... how?

Moderators, let's work for a more focused discussion, please. Posts like this, one-liners which have nothing to do with the article in question, should not be moderated up, they should be moderated off-topic.

Re:Drawing

[stateofmind]

And Blakey, let's have you work more on enjoying the discussion, instead of posting nonsense like this.

My initial reply was suppose to be a reply to some ones comment on why does he even use pen and paper and just use the "Wacom Intuos" instead, but I made a mistake and replied to the topic itself. The moderator noticed this, and understood.

Josh

Re:Drawing

[AvengerXP]

Are you masturbating over your own work as we speak? Wow, i'll never understand artists.

Re:Drawing

[Ohreally_factor]

I agree completely! We're trying to discuss something very important here. Penny Arcade. Oh, wait. . . .

Re:Drawing

[Ohreally_factor]

If you ever have to borrow a pen or pencil from Josh, remember to wash your hands afterwards. =)

Re:Drawing

[stateofmind]

I could very well be. Mmmmm.. look at that sexy pencil.

"protected works"

[operagost]

A little while back, PA had a run-in with American Greetings over the use of the copyrighted and trademarked likeness of Strawberry Shortcake in what was obviously a (protected) work of parody.

Except that it's not obvious.

The fact that two trademarks (American's McGee's Alice and American Greetings' Strawberry Shortcake) were being parodied at once made it open to debate. If one or the other had been in the public domain, the comic would have been clearly protected. For example, parodying Strawberry Shortcake with "Frankenstein."

I'm not taking a stand one way or another -- I'm just pointing out that it's not obvious at all.

Re:"protected works"

[Anonymous Coward]

I happen to think it's perfectly obvious. But obvious to a human and obvious to the legal system are two completely different things.

Re:"protected works"

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that two trademarks (American's McGee's Alice and American Greetings' Strawberry Shortcake) were being parodied at once made it open to debate

Nonsense. I can parody the whole of DC comics characters and they can't do a damn thing about it legally as long as the primary function of the parody is to make fun of the characters or their creator. If I'm using the characters for some other purpose (to make fun of something else, say), that's not protected. Parody is the most time-honored fair use doctrine there is. The number of things being parodied doesn't have anything to do with it.

Re:"protected works"

[Anonymous Coward]

I can parody the whole of DC comics characters and they can't do a damn thing about it legally as long as the primary function of the parody is to make fun of the characters or their creator.

Exactly. Which is why the Strawberry Shortcake comic ran into trouble. That comic was actually making fun of American McGee's Alice, and Strawberry Shortcake merely was caught in the crossfire. An innocent victim, so to speak. So it wasn't obviously protected, maybe not protected at all.

Re:"protected works"

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Which is why the Strawberry Shortcake comic ran into trouble. That comic was actually making fun of American McGee's Alice, and Strawberry Shortcake merely was caught in the crossfire. An innocent victim, so to speak. So it wasn't obviously protected, maybe not protected at all.

Really... cite some legal precedent then? Because so-called "crossovers" are veritable staples of parody. I certainly can't think of any precedent where parodying any entity en passant somehow gives it less protection. Otherwise, Beach Blanket Babylon, which skewers pretty much everyone and everything, is in a lot of trouble.

Re:"protected works"

[tekunokurato]

is in a lot of trouble

Only if someone cares enough to sue.

Usually there's some parodying of both, as opposed to just one. It's pretty clear that in the example of the comic only one was being parodied.

Re:"protected works"

[aafiske]

Yeah, but it could be said that the true target of the parody there was American McGee's Alice. Penny Arcade parodies games and game companies. One could argue that children's dolls do not often feature as the target of their wit. Using the trademarked Strawberry Shortcake to parody some game is not protected.

Not that it makes American Greetings' response any less stupid; they just made themselves look bad. But stupid or not, they could conceivably been right.

Re:"protected works"

[Jeremiah Blatz]

No no no no. I shouldn't get upset, very few people understand IP law at all, but I get frustrated anyway.

Parody is protected if you are parodying thing x using thing x (or thing y which is in the public domain). The Strawberry Shortcake strip was parodying thing x (American McGee) using thing y (Strawberry Shortcake), so it was not clear-cut.

Now, it's not clear cut that there was actually any trademark infringement. There are multiple tests that you have to pass to have a valid trademark case, and it's pretty tenuous to claim that the strip passes the tests. Be that as it may, it's definitely not 100% clear that PA is not in violation.

(Disclaimer, IANAL, but I hang out with an IP attorney, and I read Ed Felton and Lawrence Lessig's blogs)

Re:"protected works"

[Ohreally_factor]

What does Public Domain have to do with it? You think that because one case (ZipZap) had to do with Public Domain that all Fair Use cases must have some element of Public Domain? If so, that's just plain incorrect.

Personally, I thought the SS parody was more a parody of SS than of AMcGA. I'd played the demo once, so I was aware of Alice and it's style, and I could argue that a reasonable person could interpret PA's parody in this way. After all, it's generally refered to as the Strawberry Shortcake parody, not the Alice parody.

The point remains that PA decided not to argue the point. However, unless they signed anything, there really is nothing stopping them from putting the SS parody back on the PA site and fighting it out.

Re:"protected works"

[AkaXakA]

Have you looked at it?

Strawberry Comic from PA

It's a so obvious parody that you can use trademarks all you like.

Obviously, that's common sense speaking. Legally it probably isn't, as Tycho said.

PS. New question: Where the hell is Gabe?

Re:"protected works"

[nasor]

"Personally, I thought the SS parody was more a parody of SS than of AMcGA. I'd played the demo once, so I was aware of Alice and it's style, and I could argue that a reasonable person could interpret PA's parody in this way. After all, it's generally refered to as the Strawberry Shortcake parody, not the Alice parody."

I'm sure you could try to argue that they were parodying Strawberry Shortcake rather than "Alice" in their comic, but that would be more of a sleaze-ball lawyer defense trick than an actual reasonable argument. Since Penny Arcade is a comic about parodying video games rather than small children's toys, and since the news post that accompanied the comic talked extensively about "Alice" but said almost nothing about Strawberry Shortcake, it's pretty clear (to any reasonable person, anyway) that they were using SS to parody Alice, rather than the other way around.

Re:"protected works"

[Ohreally_factor]

You've got a pretty one dimensional view of things if you don't think it can be both, or if you think art has to be about only one thing.

Frankly, the concept wouldn't work if it wasn't parodizing both at the same time. Try to imagine a parody of Alice that used Strawberry Shortcake without parodizing Strawberry Shortcake. In that case, you'd have a point, but I doubt it would be a very funny comic.

Still, your point about the context, i.e., the linked article (not accompanying, but linked), is a good argument for the plaintiff, and is one of the elements that stops this from being 100% clear cut.

Now, as far as your mis-characterization of my argument as a "sleaze-ball lawyer defense trick", I think you must have problems seeing other sides of an argument. Do you really need to attack my argument using emotional language to make your point?

Re:"protected works"

[nasor]

"You've got a pretty one dimensional view of things if you don't think it can be both, or if you think art has to be about only one thing. Frankly, the concept wouldn't work if it wasn't parodizing both at the same time. Try to imagine a parody of Alice that used Strawberry Shortcake without parodizing Strawberry Shortcake. In that case, you'd have a point, but I doubt it would be a very funny comic."

In order for a parody to be considered "fair use" it has to provide some sort of commentary or criticism related to the copyrighted work that's being exploited. For example, if I thought that the Disney corporation was run by fascists I could make a cartoon that depicted Mickey Mouse dressed in a Nazi uniform and it would be fair use. On the other hand, I couldn't take a copyrighted character that was owned by another corporation and use it to make fun of Disney. So if I were to draw a picture of Bugs Bunny dressed in a Nazi uniform and write "This is what Bugs would look like if he were owned by the fascists at Disney" it would not be fair use. What Penny Arcade did is an example of the latter. The mere fact that they depicted Strawberry Shortcake as an S&M dominatrix doesn't make their use of the SS character a protected parody, because the purpose of the dominatrix Strawberry Shortcake depiction was to make fun of "Alice", not to provide any sort of commentary on Strawberry Shortcake.

Re:"protected works"

[Ohreally_factor]

Excellent example! You've made your point very well, but you've not won me over, and I highly doubt that I'll win you over.

I think our major stumbling block is this: You are not open to any interpretation other than what the artist ostensibly intends. This is not an uncommon view; indeed, it's often the means by which we judge artistic merit. How close did the artist come to fulfilling his intentions?

On the other hand, I hold the view that the viewer or reader may approach a work of art or text without regard for the artist's intention, and interpret as he or she will. You might argue that this will yield wildly inappropriate interpretations, and this will be so, in some cases. But it will also yield interesting valid interpretations that can be explained to and accepted by a reasonable person. This is a more modern view.

So, even if we assume that the artists' intentions were otherwise, I can interpret the comic as a parody of the wholesome pre-sexual world of Strawberry Shortcake.

See also what John Scalzi wrote about this. His argument is different from mine, and he is not a lawyer either.

Re:"protected works"

[nasor]

I agree that it's possible for one to interpret the comic as a parody of Strawberry Shortcake rather than "Alice"; in fact, if someone who was unaware of American McGee or his twisted line of videogames were to view the comic they would likely interpret it that way, since that would probably be the only meaning that they could extract from it.

I'm not aware of any copyright cases involving a claim that the possibility for someone misconstruing the purpose of an otherwise illegitimate use of copyrighted material would cause the use to become legitimate, but I doubt that such an argument would hold up. The fair use laws that allow parody say that "the author's purpose" must be taken into consideration, which seems to suggest that only the actual intent of the authors is important - not how others perceive it.

But I admit that I could be wrong about that.

Speed and accuracy.

[solios]

Yeah, WACOM tablets are sex. I have one at home and one at work, got my boss and my coworkers turned onto them. They are far beyond awesome for shading, painting, etceteras.

But I can't draw for shit with one.

It's a speed / undo / comfort / tactile / positionable thing. Especially positioning. You can't rotate your monitor and the tablet to a weird angle so you can draw the bit from a position that doesn't make your hand or your brain explode. It's not exactly feasable to lug a wacom and a laptop to a meeting for the express purpose of doodling, and it's easier to lug a sketchbook on those forced family outings.

In short, I'm sure he has his reasons. I use a Wacom for a ton of things, but drawing is not one of them.

Re:Speed and accuracy.

[drinkypoo]

While I am not an artist by any stretch of the imagination I would like to comment that you can rotate the pad and you can rotate the monitor in your brain. Your brain already has to turn everything upside down for you, with a little training it can handle believing that the pad at 45 degrees and the monitor at zero degrees are the same thing.

Also, Wacom makes tablets with an LCD built in, so you CAN rotate it to whatever angle and draw on it. They are horrendously expensive, though.

The tactile issue is the best reason, especially when airbrushing. How could airbrushing with a tablet ever be like airbrushing with an airbrush?

Re:Speed and accuracy.

[John Harrison]

Some web pads use wacom tech for the pen.

Re:Speed and accuracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

"You can't rotate your monitor and the tablet to a weird angle...". You can rotate the canvas you are drawing to... ...if you are using OpenCanvas. It'a a bit like a young Photoshop - misses a few things but has some other interesting tools...

Re:Speed and accuracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Some web pads use wacom tech for the pen.

Yeah, but then the display and pad are perfectly aligned. Solois' problem is that, in a desktop working environment, the monitor is square with respect to the desk, but the pad is not; i.e., at an angle off to one side, and that mis-alignment misses up his, umm, alignment.

Re:Speed and accuracy.

[John Harrison]

I was responding to his desire to bring a tablet and a laptop into a meeting for doodling.

Re:Speed and accuracy.

[UranusReallyHertz]

Offtopic, but I really want to try one of those Cintiqs with a FPS like Counterstrike. Hehe, just tap the enemy and he's dead. Would that be cheating?

Re:Speed and accuracy.

[Khaotix]

I would love to see that.

Now where are the guys selling them off the back of trucks? :D

Re:Speed and accuracy.

[captaineo]

Quick question - do you ever have a problem with Photoshop "forgetting" the tablet exists (and thus disabling the pressure sensitivity features)? This happens a lot on my system and is very frustrating because I have to reboot to get it back. (the tablets are otherwise just great)

Re:Speed and accuracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

When this happens, It's usually the fault of the tablet driver crashing. All I do, is minimize photoshop, and re-run the tablet software that loads from the startup folder of the start menu.

Re:Speed and accuracy.

[wolrahnaes]

I tried that with my Tablet PC. Doesn't work.

Re:Speed and accuracy.

[UranusReallyHertz]

Why not?

Re:Speed and accuracy.

[KDR_11k]

It's called the Nintendo DS and is available in the US now.

Re:Speed and accuracy.

[KDR_11k]

Happens when Photoshop loses focus during startup. Simply exit PS and restart it, this time without switching to another app before it's fully loaded.

Re:Speed and accuracy.

[WWWWolf]

Exactly my ideas as well.

It's funny that for years, I firmly believed I couldn't draw worth damn. Now I think I *can* draw somewhat, I just should do most of the groundwork the old way: pen and paper.

I've found it best to sketch on paper, scan it, pop it on a layer in GIMP, set it to 30% opacity, pop an empty layer on top of it, then ink the sketches with tablet and all. Even better would be to use some tools that clean up the ink drawings (potrace, and so on), because if I zoom the ink drawings, I often note the drawing is just a little bit wobbly or something.

The tablets are just too accurate for drawing. Perfect embodiment of computing in general: They do what I tell them to, not what I mean. =)

Re:Speed and accuracy.

[BRTB]

I've tried several different implementations of tablets/touchscreens with various FPSes, and the problem seems to be the same on all combinations: FPS games use the mouse as a simply directional device, not an exact X-Y positioner. If you tap the screen to the left of center, you start spinning in that direction, same for the other 3 directions. It's just the way mouselook works - I guess if you could disable mouselook and use [something else] for movement and view changing, and use the mouse to move the crosshair around on the screen, it might work, but I haven't seen an FPS yet that works that way.

we're still in court over something that happened

[gear02]

"we're still in court over something that happened five years ago" Anyone care to describe what they're talking about?

Huzzah for chilling effects

[Anonymous Coward]

We could have been a good deal more feisty legally, but we're still in court over something that happened five years ago and I think we were hesitant to open up another front when the first one was already as much as we could afford.

"Something that happened five years ago"? Interesting, I didn't know anyone had sued Penny Arcade. Does anyone have any idea what this is about?

Re:Huzzah for chilling effects

[Nick Harkin]

IIRC, It was to do with a book deal that went all wrong, rather than someone sueing them.

As a result though, it is unlikely we will see another PA book, at least for some time.

Steam as salvation?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure why Steam is often mentioned as some sort of possible salvation for independent gaming. I mean, online-delivered content has been available for many independent games, and in fact, is probably the norm for delivery of independent games. I'm not sure that online delivery has somehow radically changed the gaming industry, if at all. It has certainly made independent games more accessible, but I'm not sure it's changed the general status quo of gaming.

Holding up Steam as revolutionary has actually seemed sort of ironic to me, because Half-Life 2 has seemed to me to be one of the most over-hyped games ever produced. HL2 is a good game--don't get me wrong--but it's not nearly as good as some of the mass-media reviews, nor is it radically better than other FPS, except in technical quality perhaps. Using Steam as an example has therefore seemed sort of strange to me, because the very act of arguing that it's sort of revolutionary seems to maintain the very status quo that it's being used to argue against.

I'm not trying to be a troll here. I'm not saying Steam isn't useful--if Valve can avoid the middle-man, great. I'm just wondering if there's something about Steam that really is radically different in terms of content delivery from typical online delivery, or the sort of delivery implemented by e.g., Bioware.

Re:Steam as salvation?

[Cooler1011]

What are the pluses of online delivery anyways? I'd rather have a physical copy thats safe, and in my hands, then some digital copy that could dissapear overnight. Look, i'm not saying that my hard drive is gonna crash, because that never happens to anyone, but its not like someone is gonna break into my house overnight just to grab my copy of HL2, right?

Re:Steam as salvation?

[RupW]

I'm just wondering if there's something about Steam that really is radically different in terms of content delivery from typical online delivery, or the sort of delivery implemented by e.g., Bioware.

Critical mass. Everyone who has HL2 has Steam, and HL2 will likely sell big.

Re:Steam as salvation?

[oZZoZZ]

Steam's importance is much deeper than you think. For starters, CS is the most popular online game in history, now, available on steam, and only steam. This means that Steam is now the delivery method of the most popular online game. HL2 will probably pan out to be one of the most popular PC games in history, again, Steam is there. if HL1 taught us anything, HL2 will probably be the most modded engine in history, again, Steam. Source should have the ability for full TC mods (like CS, DOD, etc) to be created, and sold via Steam. This means a small studio can use an engine that will do mostly what they want it to (Source), for no cost, and write a game for substantially less money than before, and deliver their mod (game) to millions of people (Steam). Steam also has a payment system, so for maybe $5, they can sell hundreds of thousands of copies of their mod, giving small percentage to VALVe, cutting out the publisher, and allowing a small developer to earn money making games. Yes, technology like this may have existed before, but Steam is in the mainstream, and it seems to be in the right place at the right time. I think Steam + Source will have a MAJOR impact on the gaming world.

Re:Steam as salvation?

[Anonymous Coward]

What are the pluses of online delivery anyways? I'd rather have a physical copy thats safe, and in my hands, then some digital copy that could dissapear overnight.

What use is that physical copy to you if you still need the online half of it to let you play? This is true for Steam at least -- without an internet connection you cannot register and decrypt the files. It doesn't matter if you bought HL2 retail or online -- they're both encrypted and they both need an Internet connection to install properly. And once you've done that, you don't need the Internet connection anymore -- Steam works just fine in "offline" mode.

Oh, and if you really want, you can burn the downloaded files to CD or DVD. Excepting a fancy installer, you now have the same thing as that store purchased version.

Except, of course, that if you buy HL2 retail then you have to have the damn CD/DVD in the drive every time you play. I don't know why -- it validates via Steam anyway -- but that's true. Pisses me off.

Maybe you want the box? Er... ok. You have a cardboard fetish. There's nothing else in the box though -- a registration card (yay! More spam!) and an ad for ATI video cards. The collector's edition adds a pretty crappy t-shirt. Woo.

Meanwhile if you buy the online edition, you don't have to worry about keeping your CDs. Or taking them with you to play. Or taking them with you to a friend's house to play. Even if your HD crashes you can download the entire thing all over again from Steam -- as long as you remember your username and password.

Get a scratch on the CD and see how quickly you can get it replaced.

And yes, I bought the retail version of HL2. Wish I hadn't. The CD thing pisses me off.

Re:Steam as salvation?

[UWC]

I think the revolutionary part is that Half-Life 2 is a game that could have done just as well as a retail-only release. Independent games' use of online delivery is generally viewed as a necessity because they have little chance of being picked up by a major publisher. When a major release game chooses to also offer such a delivery, it signifies that big publishers might not be quite as necessary an evil as previously thought. I'm reminded of Tycho's reply to another question, in which he applauds Halo for bringing the LAN party into the mainstream.

There are, of course, arguments that HL2 is only successful because of HL's original Sierra-published release, which does seem to support the claims of the necessity of a publisher for exposure. The fact remains, though, that HL2 is still a massive, high-budget game that you can obtain without going through the publisher. Also notable is that the original HL was pretty much independently funded, and that HL2 I assume was primarily funded by HL1 profits.

Re:Steam as salvation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Steam also has a payment system, so for maybe $5, they can sell hundreds of thousands of copies of their mod, giving small percentage to VALVe, cutting out the publisher

But then doesn't Valve just become another publisher--just an online publisher?

Re:Steam as salvation?

[oZZoZZ]

No, they become a distributor. A publisher will fund a game, and take most of it's profits, and have a large say in the creative process..
ie: "Here's $5 million, go make a game".... "change this"... "change this".... "what's taking so long? release it now"
After the game's released, the developer usually sees around $7/copy of the final price, the publisher eats the rest up.
In this definition, VALVe is NOT a publisher, they don't fund anything, nor do they have any creative say, (with the possibility of limiting what shows up on Steam). They also have no obligation to success, it didn't cost them a penny, so they don't really care how well your mod does.

Re:Steam as salvation?

[lifeblender]

It's an economics question, straight out of the textbooks. Assuming Valve will distribute games for a fledgling game company, Steam can drastically decrease the entrance cost to being a game company. This changes the industry, perhaps slowly.

At the moment a moderate-to-large sized game (like say F-Zero, La Pucelle:Tactics, Star Wars Galaxies) requires fifty employees for anywhere from six months to over two years. That requires a cash outlay of somewhere between $2 million (very cheap for such a game) to $10 million. Bigger games, like Halo 2 or Half-Life 2 might cost five to ten times that. To get a bank, venture capitalist, or stock owners to loan that kind of money, even a million dollars, you need to have a proven track record and stable profits already. The hardware on the major consoles now makes it extremely difficult to make a game for much less, so small companies have to find very creative ways to enter the market, or die trying.

There is another issue. Games must sell well in stores if those stores are going to keep them on the shelves. This means that in addition to shelf space, a game company needs massive advertising all over their target countries. This is a huge additional cost, and requires different and equally dedicated staff.

Steam can change this. Since the distribution cost (mostly bandwidth as opposed to physical production and shipping) scales with the number of sales, Valve can afford to act as a distributor for games that might only sell a hundred copies. Good examples of this happening in the retail industry are www.cafepress.com and www.lulu.com. This means that a small game company can write a simple game, advertise a little, contract with Valve to distribute it, and maybe sell enough to break even. This lets small game companies develop. And that's how Steam can change the gaming industry.

Re:Steam as salvation?

[Anonymous Coward]

A couple of my friends work for Valve. HL2 over Steam has been a huge eye-opener for them. As of last Friday (when I last chatted with them), they had made more sales over Steam than over the retail channels. Right now, the buzz going around internally is that unless things change significantly over the Christmas season with boxed retail sales, they'll drop it completely for their next game. The advantages are quite high, particularly dealing with all the extra artwork and manufacturing costs for the box, and distribution overheads. Quite simply, it seems that they make more profit per distributed copy when using Steam than using retail channels, and it's significantly less of a PITA dealing with distributors etc.

Posting anonymously for obvious reasons...

Re:Steam as salvation?

[Telastyn]

I wouldn't be so sure that it will be the most modded engine in history. The original half life used a highly modified q2 engine itself. The id engines have always lent themselves to modification [and I wouldn't be suprised if the original quake engine has more mods anyways]. Personally, I will be a little skeptical that the folks at Valve can reproduce that versitility.

Re:Steam as salvation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Psst...

Revolutionarily part is, Valve will publish your game for £1000 upfront and 50/50 split of profits. That's pretty good considering you're instantly put in front of several hundred thousand gamers through a system they are already familiar with and have spent money on.

Re:Steam as salvation?

[Wescotte]

I'm not sure why Steam is often mentioned as some sort of possible salvation for independent gaming. I mean, online-delivered content has been available for many independent games

Say I write a little puzzle tetris clone and it becomes somewhat popular (say 100,000 downloads). Say my game is at most 10megs to download. Now the amount of bandwidth to support this game could very likely be hosted on my dsl/cable modem for $40 a month.

HL2 is somewhere around what 3.2gigs compressed? The amount of bandwidth required for even 100,000 downloads would most likely offset the benefits of an online release. Using steam (modded bittorrent) system valve can offer it's product via internet download at an insanely small cost to them (I'd make a guess that steam costs a few hundred a month to maintain and only because HL2/CS:Source is such an insanely popular game).

Now, suddenly an independent developer can distribute his rather large game via a bittorrent file reducing the distrubition costs to almost nothing.

For the larger gaming companies suddendly to be a successful game you don't need to sell a million copies but maybe 100,000 to see a profit. Then mabye less money is required to be put into marketing a game to help ensure it hits those big numbers and more money can be put into actually developing a great game that is fun to play.

Re:Steam as salvation?

[kin_korn_karn]

As soon as Steam starts having this sort of beneficial effect someone like EA or Microsoft will find a way to shut it down.

Re:Steam as salvation?

[oZZoZZ]

well, for starters, Half Life was made on the quake 1 engine, not quake 2... and I've worked with quake 1 and half life 1 engines, also the Unreal engine. I think id's kinda out of it now when it comes to mods, the battle seems to be between Epic and Valve.

Unreal mods are coded in Unreal Script, Valve's are done in straight C++. Both release most of their tools, and both sets of tools are fantastic. Hammer vs Unreal Ed is an ongoing debate, so I'll say they're equal. Unreal works with Maya out of the box, Valve uses XSI (with Max/Maya exporters), so Valve wins here in terms of what it can create out of the box. The code (script vs C++ is open to debate). The quality of the engines are also open to debate.
Mod quality is open to debate, RO is very good, as is DOD/CS. Basically, both engines are fantastic, which should you use? well, Epic seems to release a new UT every year, and Valve sticks with the same version for many years, that could be one deciding factor. HL2 will probably sell more than a given UT, that could be another factor.
It seems the biggest factor in choosing an engine is what's going to get your mod the most exposure, and what gives you the best chance of supporting yourself on your mod, Valve wins, and they win because of Steam.

Re:Steam as salvation?

[dstyle5]

I'm just wondering if there's something about Steam that really is radically different in terms of content delivery from typical online delivery

The key thing that is different is the much-maligned online license key verfication through Steam. In order to play HL2, Counter Strike (one of the most popular online games) and any other online mods that may come out of Half-Life 2, you must have a Steam account and a verfied license key. If you are a small, independent, game developer every extra game sold helps. If Steam makes it difficult for people to play on or offline with illegal copies, most likely more copies of the game will be sold.

Re:Steam as salvation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it's certainly had a major impact in my life, and those of the people I play NS with. Half of them couldn't get Steam working at all for months, and ever since the transition, it not only takes me several times longer to get in game than before, but now I'm lucky if my mouse doesn't freeze on me every time I fire a gun, or if my framerate doesn't dip to a good thirty every time something moves on screen. Frankly, at this point, I wouldn't trust Valve to code for a toaster, let alone anything this complicated.

Re:Steam as salvation?

[Farmer Jimbo]

Right now, the buzz going around internally is that unless things change significantly over the Christmas season with boxed retail sales, they'll drop it completely for their next game.

Perhaps, but Valve is still contractually obligated to do one more game for Vivendi. They may want to release thier next game as steam only, but they have to do one more major title for Vivendi.

Re:Steam as salvation?

[Anonymous Coward]

They also have no obligation to success, it didn't cost them a penny, so they don't really care how well your mod does

Well, even if they just distribute it, it does cost them something, at least in terms of bandwidth and distributing resources, if not reputation. So it does matter to them.

I mean, after all, haven't many of the classic discussions about network provider monopolies been about controlling distribution and access?

In this definition, VALVe is NOT a publisher, they don't fund anything, nor do they have any creative say, (with the possibility of limiting what shows up on Steam).

I'd say the latter part of what you're saying--about "limiting what shows up on Steam"--is relevant to the former part of what you're saying--Valve "not being a publisher." Is having a say in the creative process that different from setting the conditions for access to distribution over a widely popular resource? At what point does Valve start saying, implicitly or explicitly, "well, if you were to do X, then we'd offer your game on Steam"? And how is that really pragmatically different from "having a large say in the creative process"?

I'm not trying to bash Valve or Steam, I just have a lot of reservations about them, and am concerned about the argument that influence deriving from excessive popularity somehow implies greater access for independent developers.

Re:Steam as salvation?

[Lisandro]

Don't forget that the only one using Steam, for the time beign, is Valve. That means HL1, HL2, assorted mods and nothing else. Online delivery is "big" only because HL2 was distributed over it, with sucess. It's yet to be seen how it will do after that, let alone if someone else than Valve decides to use it to publish their games.

Re:Steam as salvation?

[Anonymous Coward]

...well that brings up another concern for me about Valve: the lack of concern about the customer, at the expense of them driving up their profits.

What would Valve say to the person who doesn't want to use up 3+ Gb of bandwidth to download their game?

I believe that the profit per game unit is probably much higher online than through the distributor. Maybe they sell more units online than through a distributor. But what percentage of their profits is through the distributor?

A normal company would reason like this: we make a lot of sales, with greater profit, through channel A. But a significant percentage of sales is through channel B. If we cut channel B, we lose X profit.

Valve, on the other hand--if what you're saying is accurate--seems to be saying: we can cut channel B, thereby forcing consumers to use channel A, because we have the power to do so, and we like it more that way.

Couple that with things like no refund policies through Steam, and their history, I get more and more of a sense that Valve is trying to control everything about their game, down to who plays it, how, and when.

I just get the feeling that Valve is using their influence to pull things that otherwise wouldn't be acceptable. The more and more I learn about Valve, the less and less I trust them.

Re:Steam as salvation?

[Anonymous Coward]

But my question is:

Independent game developers are already distributing content online.

So why do they need Steam?

Because Steam has more exposure?

Assuming that Steam provides wide access to numerous games, why would Steam provide increased exposure over just internet exposure?

It assumes that people's internet access is somehow restricted to Steam, or that Steam has some sort of reputation cache associated with it.

But as the number of games on Steam increases, the distinctiveness associated with it goes away. So then you're left with Steam restricting distribution access to maintain its distinctiveness, which leaves Valve in control over what gets on Steam and what doesn't.

The problem is, as the number of games distributed on Steam goes up, there's little benefit to a developer over doing it themselves. As the number of games goes down, there's greater benefit in terms of exposure and brand distinctiveness, but then Valve has more control anyway, and you're back to the status quo.

Re:Steam as salvation?

[DeltaSigma]

And through all that you don't manage to tell us what made you think Half-Life was the most modded game in history.

Re:Steam as salvation?

[Cecil]

I second this. Steam's concept isn't revolutionary, and it's very poorly implemented to boot Get over it.

Re:Steam as salvation?

[Mac Degger]

"so Valve wins here in terms of what it can create out of the box"

??? I would not say that: Unreal has exporters for all mayor 3d platforms...more out of the box (or out of UDN) compatibility than Hammer.

"It seems the biggest factor in choosing an engine is what's going to get your mod the most exposure"

Again, I wouldn't entirely agree...a hell of a lot of people decide what engine to use more on easy of use and even more importantly on capability: 'can I do such and such, and how much time will it take me to implement it?'...basically the exact same question any gamedev asks. I'd even go so far as to say that engine market penetration is the lesser of the looked at factors (although of course there needs to be some level of installed userbase; Serious Engine is not an option for many larger mod teams, no matter how easy it is to use...or even Farcry for that matter).

But I do think you're right: due to Steam (and capability of the engine), Source is this round's winner...until Unreal Engine 3 becomes available: Unreal is much more mod friendly even as Unreal Engine 2, but the capabilities of Unreal engine 3 will far outmatch Source, seeing as it will come out soon (compared to the next Valve engine) and the fact that EPIC have some insane mod supoport going on.

Re:Steam as salvation?

[Mac Degger]

Please ask you friends at Valve if that means we will get to see some of the savings in the sales price for all the money they save on distribution, art costs, manufacturing costs and time/money spent on the whole physical product (disks, manuals etc).

I'm all for online distro's...but if it costs them less, why should we the consumers pay teh exact same price when we get less (and if the answer is 'because the market will bear it'...go look at why ebooks don't take off).

This post isn't meant to be nasty or anything...I'm just a consumer who doesn'ty enjoy being ripped off for more than neccessary.

Re:Steam as salvation?

[lifeblender]

The problem is, as the number of games distributed on Steam goes up, there's little benefit to a developer over doing it themselves. As the number of games goes down, there's greater benefit in terms of exposure and brand distinctiveness, but then Valve has more control anyway, and you're back to the status quo.

It wouldn't quite be the status quo. At the moment, the status quo is maintained by barriers to entering the industry. On the other hand, just as cafepress.com and lulu.com (link in grandparent, I'm lazy) can survive by taking a small cut of online sales of products which other people created, so could Valve. That is where things get interesting. Steam gives a sizable company the opportunity to make money by allowing small game development companies a chance to sell their goods. Valve will do what is profitable, because now someone else will if they don't. The critical issue here is that someone has created and popularized a technology which will make money and change an industry. We have seen this before, in Napster's case for instance. Even if the originating company stops, the technology will be recreated and marketed by those who see it as a way towards profits. The industry will be altered by people seeking personal profits, whether it is Valve or others.

This is the technological counterpart to the invisible hand of Adam Smith [or Harry Seldon, if you prefer - ed.]. Technology makes certain actions profitable, and once you determine that a technology can be used profitably, many people will try to. That is the reactionary stance towards technology that most companies have, and now that Valve and the rest of this media fever have helped Steam gain recognition, that technology is here to stay.

Even if Valve was the only company to run such a service, they would not greatly constrict the products which could be sold on steam. That would make less money, and drive their potential customers (in this case game developers as well as players) to substitute goods. So there will be widespread distribution of cheap low-budget games, it will be done online, and this will let small companies enter the game industry that couldn't enter it during the last half-decade or so.

Re:Steam as salvation?

[TeraCo]

Well, we can only hope that VU find that 'Johnny Headcrab goes to college' meets their definition of 'major title', because the sooner VU are out of the picture, the sooner we get HL3!

Re:Steam as salvation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quote: HL2 is somewhere around what 3.2gigs compressed? The amount of bandwidth required for even 100,000 downloads would most likely offset the benefits of an online release. Using steam (modded bittorrent) system valve can offer it's product via internet download at an insanely small cost to them (I'd make a guess that steam costs a few hundred a month to maintain and only because HL2/CS:Source is such an insanely popular game).

A few hundred dollars a month? Are you retarded? Maybe you should go look at the bandwidth they're putting out to distribute it, wether it's a torrent type download or not, they still have to authenticate the game every time it's installed as well as every time the game is booted up.. They're usually doing about 5000mbps to 10000mbps. Yeah.. a few hundred dollars a month would cover that.

Re:Steam as salvation?

[The Raven]

Most popular SHOOTER. Counterstrike is the most popular "Multiplayer First Person Shooter" ever. That is the ONLY contest it wins.

Now, that is not to say it is insignificant. But claiming CS is the most popular online game ever is like claiming that Harry Potter is the best selling book ever. It is not... every incarnation of the bible has sold more copies (and I do mean SOLD, not counting givaway) than any other work of fiction/fact.

But people tend to only look in their own narrow 'genre' and think that it encompasses the world. Harry Potter is the best selling childrens book ever... maybe... are you CERTAIN that Cat in the Hat hasn't sold more copies in the fourty years it's been sold? Where is your proof?

Er, I'm off ranting on a different subject, heh. Remember, CS is not the most popular online game of all time, not even close. There are asian MMOs that have a couple million subscribers, and have many more million 'player minutes' per month than Counterstrike.

Previous Legal Matter

[rsmith-mac]

We could have been a good deal more feisty legally, but we're still in court over something that happened five years ago and I think we were hesitant to open up another front when the first one was already as much as we could afford.

Does anyone know what Tycho is talking about? I'm familiar with the SS incident of course, but I'm not aware of them being in court with anyone else.

Re:Previous Legal Matter

[grungebox]

I'm thinking it has to do with the book deal. They have a (shitty) deal with some publisher that ran off somewhere, more or less, and I think they're in court to try and get out of the contract so they can get books out for the first five years of strips. I think.

Re:Previous Legal Matter

[Njoyda Sauce]

My guess is that is was trying to get money out of Kiwi publishing for their (excellent) paper collection of the 1st year. It is rather a shame that no more books have been discussed and I'm betting that the publisher screwing them over has something to do with it.

Re:Previous Legal Matter

[Cassius105]

they once made a limited edition book which the publisher never payed them for

Re:Previous Legal Matter

[Captain_Frisk]

It pertains to their first (and only) book. If memory serves, they accidentally sold the rights to their first 5 years worth or comics to someone who made the book, who basically kept all the money and fled the country.

They haven't made any more books because legally this guy has the rights to the comic strips.

Re:Previous Legal Matter

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess is that it has something to do with the e-Front incident (if you dig hard enough, you'll find that at one point the goons that ran thier hosting/advertising service thought that they owned PA's intellectual property because of some contract BS.)

That's just my guess from stuff I remember from back then, though.

Re:Previous Legal Matter

[Txiasaeia]

Call me crazy, but if the guy ran off with the money for the rights, then how is this contract binding? I don't get it.

Re:Previous Legal Matter

[retinaburn]

From what I recall the Publisher of their first hard cover comic book thought it was fair to publish their comics in book form, then take the money he owed to Tycho and Gabe and move to Alaska.
I found the quote "We had a little disagreement with the publisher. We thought he should pay us and he thought he should keep all the money and move to Alaska." but couldn't find the news post.

Re:Previous Legal Matter

[jandrese]

IANAL, but unless the contract had an explicit clause nullifing it in this instance, the scumbag on the other end still holds a valid license. The obvious thing to do is to summon him to court to have the contract nullified (for breach of contract), but that costs time and money. I don't know if they'd have to hunt that guy down and provide an address to do that either.

No other publisher is going to touch the material with that sort of legal baggage attached to it. That guy could come back into the country and sue the new publishers for copyright infringement, and since his contract would still be valid he could stand a chance of winning (even if the contract is nullified before his case gets to court). Copyright law (as it is interpreted today) is very liberal in who you can sue. Don't underestimate the greed or audacity of a scumbag.

Re:Previous Legal Matter

[DevNova]

IANAL, but I do know that a contract has to have consideration on both sides - i.e., both parties have to receive something for it to be a contract. If PA did not get paid for their work then the contract should be null and void.

But, I'm sure they have lawyers and there's something I'm not understanding.

Re:Previous Legal Matter

[Anonymous Coward]

Call me crazy, but if the guy ran off with the money for the rights, then how is this contract binding? I don't get it.

It's not, but they're still in court about it. Acting as if the matter was already decided may jeopardize whatever they're trying to get back from the publisher.

Re:Previous Legal Matter

[/dev/trash]

How does one accidently read a contract and then accidently sign it?

Re:Previous Legal Matter

[svallarian]

Ouch!

No wonder my question
"When's the next book coming out?" got modded straight to hell.

Who needs a book anyway. Sell me a big ass PDF on DVD.

Steven V>.

The infamous comic

[Cooler1011]

Is there any way I could see or read the infamous Strawberry Shortcake comic legally... Or not... Not that I support the latter method, but a 1337z0rs gotta do what a 1337z0rs gotta do.

Re:The infamous comic

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.scalzi.com/pass.jpg

Only a mini-version, but you can still read most of it.

Re:The infamous comic

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.jasongriffey.net/images/amss.jpg

Re:The infamous comic

[Anonymous Coward]

did you try google?

Re:The infamous comic

[derF024]

The comic and the followup

It's just not the same...

[Merkuri22]

The simple answer is, "it's just not the same." I have a smaller Wacom and while I absolutely adore the thing it still can't hold a candle to simple pencil-and-paper. It may be because I have a smaller model, but I just don't feel like I have the same amount of control with a tablet as I do with a pencil, even though they feel exactly the same in my hand. It probably has something to do with the slight disorientation you get when looking at one thing but drawing on another. Usually I can get over this, but when trying to make small, quick strokes I find I often draw at the wrong angle. My instinct is still to turn the tablet to get the correct angle, but obviously that causes problems (the pen in my hand no longer matches up with the screen position), and even with software that will turn the page on the screen it's hard to get that perfect angle. I find I need to erase (or undo) more often with a tablet than with a pencil because it just doesn't look right. Until they make the tablet itself behave more like paper (same texture, reactivity to the pencil, etc.) then the tablet will always be "just not the same."

Re:It's just not the same...

[elmegil]

they feel exactly the same in my hand.

Maybe it's just my older Wacom pad or something, but it doesn't feel exactly the same to me. I generally do pen and ink when I'm drawing, and the slick surfaces of the wacom (combination of pad and pentip) just don't have the same friction and tactile feedback as my microball on decent stock paper. I could get some of that by applying masking tape or paper over the pad, but that's still not going to give me the same feedback because of the slick round tip of the pen. Add that to the fact that my wacom pen doesn't have the same heft as the pens I usually use, and that leaves me just using pen & paper and scanning it.

Re:It's just not the same...

[NightHwk1]

The Intuos3 that I just purchased came with several extra pen tips, three regular ones, one with a spring that makes it softer, and one rough-textured tip, which makes it feel much more like a pencil on paper.

Re:It's just not the same...

[elmegil]

So I need to upgrade then :-) I bought my pad about 10/12 years ago....

Re:we're still in court over something that happen

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe he is talking about not getting paid for the limited edition book they did. I can't find where he mentioned it last, but I think it was fairly recently.

Re:dang I should have asked...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe if we put some cells in your brain stem you'll learn to make plurals WITHOUT USING A FUCKING APOSTROPHE. I've got some orang-outang brain cells lying around that look like they'd be a huge step up for you.

Kara and Brenda

[Anonymous Coward]

All I want to know is where I can get a picture of what Kara and Brenda actually look like.

Re:Kara and Brenda

[Anonymous Coward]

All I want to know is where I can get a picture of what Kara and Brenda actually look like.

Who's Brenda?

Re:Kara and Brenda

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I remember seeing one somewhere. It's just as horrific as you think it is.

Re:Kara and Brenda

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, considering what their husbands look like, and considering that they webcomic as a job, I'm perfectly happy without knowing.

How's Business?

[Anonymous Coward]

... now that Slashdot's removed your link from their front page? I used to visit you everyday, now I never do. Same with the Filthy Critic.

Re:How's Business?

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

You can add a PA box to the side of your front page under preferences.

You have to be logged in, of course.

Re:How's Business?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but that's like telling my mom to simply find the Mozilla site, download Firefox and Thunderbird, install them, migrate her Favorites over to Bookmarks, migrate her addressbook and mail history for her Thunderbird mail, set a new Home page, set up her cookies and Javascript preferences for security, delete her old desktop icons and start using the new 'Zilla icons. In other words, it's NOT going to happen. It's not worth the effort. If only a couple percent of the people have strayed from the default buggy IE browser, let alone changed their sickly Windows background color, how many are going to even remember that PA *USED* to be a daily site? I didn't until today...

It was a lot easier before Slashdot decided that it's more "businesslike" not to support cool websites anymore.

And I don't want to log in, since the Slashdot guys collect more information than MS does when I use Windows Update. Really. Read the O'Reilly Slash book and see the kind of stuff Taco can collect on you just from visiting here. I have to assume he's using Slashcode's "Big Brother" capability, since he was one of the authors of it and must have added it for a reason....

Re:How's Business?

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

No, it isn't. Because you're a /.'er. You know how to do things. Your mother does not.

Re:How's Business?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm from Alabama. I AM my own mother.

Give me strength!

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not going to respond, ass.

Judging by your high userid, you must be new here, but that don't excuse such wilful stoooopidity.

Re:Give me strength!

[skadus]

I think the guy was trying to be funny by posting a series of 'stock' questions; the kind that really have nothing to do with PA or Tycho and Gabe specifically, possibly as a commentary on the quality of the questions in the article.

Or I'm just reading too much into it. Whatever.

More?

[pla]

we're still in court over something that happened five years ago

Anyone else curious about this answer?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Re:we're still in court over something that happen

[H3lldr0p]

I believe this is over their original book deal (where the "publisher" took the money and then ran to Alaska). But I could be wrong considering that much of their early history has become something of a legend.

Re:dang I should have asked...

[Ignignot]

LOL way to correct someone and then spell plural's and cell's wrong! roofles!

BOASAS

[Apreche]

...but the strips I read whenever they are updated include Boy On A Stick And Slither (which I crave beyond reason)...

Tycho reads boasas! That's awesome. If you don't already, you very much must read this comic. It is clearly a relatively unknown awesome comic of ultimate awesome.
The Comic.
My favorite one

Re:BOASAS

[JJBird]

boasas is funny, but it's no Achewood.

Re:BOASAS

[Joe Tie.]

Thanks for pointing that out, I've been going through the archives and nearly each one has been in fact the very definition of awesome awesomeness. So awesome that I'm going to be very tired tomorrow thanks to an inability to tear myself away from the strip.

Re:BOASAS

[squaretorus]

I wish I'd actually done it when I thought of redrawing a bunch of talking heads versions of calvin and hobbes with different characters. I didnt because I cant draw little bodies - just little heads. This bastard got around my problem!!!

Seriously - awesome? How?

Re:dang I should have asked...

[clarkcox3]

God, I hope you're trying to make a joke, and not just being stupid. "cells" is the proper way to write the plural of "cell", and "plurals" is the proper way to write the plural for "plural". You could even say that "cell's plural is cells, and plural's plural is plurals"

Speaking of gaming webcomics.

[arose]

I find Angst Technology much more geek friendly than Penny Arcade.

Re:Speaking of gaming webcomics.

[iphayd]

Open letter to Web Comic Webmasters...

Please, Please, Please, when a comic is over a year (or even a month) old, put it on a page with several other comics.

I find it way to annoying to hit the freaking Next button every 20 seconds (10 for reading, 10 for pageload) for 4 years worth of comics, no matter how good your comic appears to be.

I gave up on Angst after about a month's worth because the pageload takes too long between short hits of comic. Now, do the numbers, one month is 12 views of your Steel Wool manufacturer. Had the page been a full month's of comics, you would have gotten the same income out of the first year as you did from me as I gave up.

Then you get 3 more years of archive pageviews (36). And an addict to add a pageview every MWF.

Instead, you got someone that decides that it isn't worth the hassle to get to know the characters, so will most likely not be a regular reader of your wares.

Define 'hojillion'

[wildwood]

HOJILLION (n): amount of money necessary for sex with erotic professionals, non-stop, for an average human lifespan.

Re:Define 'hojillion'

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, but it's far, far less than a pimpjillion. Pimpjillionaires slap hojillionaires arouund.

Re:Define 'hojillion'

[{tele}machus_*1]

This has become my new sig.

Re:Define 'hojillion'

[LarsWestergren]

If you did it long enough, you would actually PAY to not have sex. Trust me. Even sex gets boring eventually.

Re:Define 'hojillion'

[Severious]

That was funny, so I made it permanent. Well as permanent as an entry on wictionary can be. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Hojillion

Re:Define 'hojillion'

[kesuki]

Just because your sex life gets boring, doesn't mean everyones will.. and frankly your statment of 'if you did it long enough... you'd pay to not have sex' has no real valid proof, however the opposite is fairly easy to prove.. I remember a howard stern where he had the woman from one of the worlds largest gangbang videos and during the interview she mentioned she had sex with her boyfriend when she got home from filming... apparently 1000 guys banging her wasn't enough for one night...
the fact of the matter is it's the fault of the individuals involved when a 'sex' life becomes boring. it's not the sex that has become boring, but rather the people you are having sex with cease to arouse you... (or you cease to arouse the people you're having sex with)
Sex has too many infinitely variable properties to toy with, being 'bored' with sex shows the weakness of your own libido ^^;

Re:we're still in court over something that happen

[skadus]

I vaguely remember a deal between them and an online content provider (possibly UGO) that went sour when the provider decided they weren't going to pay Tycho and Gabe for their services. Since PA's been around since the latter part of the 90s, that would make more sense than the collected strip book that others have mentioned.

Someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Re:dang I should have asked...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you mean "orangutan" brain cells? Maybe you're just a punctuation cop, rather than an all-around language cop.

Re:Well, 5 Intelligent Questions out of 16 Isnt Ba

[Wandering Wombat]

How is that a troll? It happened. A post at the VERY bottom of the page, posted two minutes after mine, had a +5 Interesting mod within three minutes. I really don't think moderators scrolled down, clicked on that one particular thread, read it, and modded it that fast.

Art tools are not on features judged

[AllenChristopher]

One tool does not substitute for another. I know artists who use crow quills. Nobody is so old that using a crow quill is "just what I learned in my childhood, I can't move on."

You use a crow quill if you want a certain line texture. You use a pen, pencil, or tablet for very different results. Art tools are defined by the limitations they place upon the artist.

Charlez Schultz used a certain pen nib for years. When the company making them went out of business he rushed over and bought up all the remaining stock rather than switch to a different nib. Another nib would have been very nearly the same in that it would be a fountain pen nib with the same ink, but he had trouble making his lines with anything else.

Gabe developed those characters on paper. He made a certain process. Drawn entirely on the tablet they probably won't look quite the same, feel quite the same, or act quite the same.

I learned to draw almost entirely on my 12x18 Wacom, so I'm perfectly content to make every piece from digital scratch. I haven't touched my scanner to start a digital piece in over a year.

Several sibling posts are talking about the problems their authors have with a tablet. The hand-eye disconnect or whatever. Those are silly answers to a silly question, though I'm always interested to read how people feel about tablets. If you ask a cellist why she plays the cello instead of the electric guitar you also won't get a sensible answer. It's... bigger? Deeper? Softer?

It's a different instrument.

Re:Art tools are not on features judged

[XO]

It's because cellos (and "not upright" basses) have 4 strings, and you have 4 fingers to play them with. The looneys that play 6-string guitars .. well.. you just can't play them right, when you have four fingers.

Re:Art tools are not on features judged

[Rimbo]

If you ask a cellist why she plays the cello instead of the electric guitar you also won't get a sensible answer. It's... bigger? Deeper? Softer?

Because my parents were more willing to spend $10k on an ancient relic than $5k on a Marshall stack and a Les Paul, and now I'm too used to the instrument I learned to try to change to something else.

Re:Art tools are not on features judged

[thoromyr]

I draw my own artwork and only recently started getting serious about it. I bought a Wacom at the same time. I do some art starting from the Wacom but I find that it *is* more difficult for some specific things than paper & pencil *precisely* because of the tablet/monitor issue. I can rotate the tablet as needed, but I'm still drawing from the monitor. This disconnect may not bother you, but it is an issue. I'm still learning to draw better on the Wacom, but there is no doubt that I am more generally facile with paper & pencil.

Thoromyr

Article needs too be renamed.

[enditallnow]

Should't the title of the article read "Tycho Responds To Your Questions, Gabe's busy playing Metroid 2 or something."

Jokes aside thanks for the Q&A guys.

-- Enditallnow

Re:Article needs too be renamed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, thanks for putting -- Enditallnow at the end of your post, I had no idea who posted that nor could I ever figure it out. THANKS!! BUDDDDDDY

-JEFF, YOU GOT THAT, JEFF POSTED THIS

YOU FAIL IT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Poor little you.

Self censorship

[silverbax]

I know some corporations ( like mine ) started blocking access to Penny Arcade at some point over the past year.

That's when I knew they were mainstream.

Good for them.

For some more satire, check QuipWire...

The Bench

[Viking Coder]

I really liked The Bench. I wish they would do that again. I think I contributed three cartoons for The Bench, and one of them was even funny. =)

Re:The Bench

[G-funk]

Yeah same. IIRC one of mine even made the front page - but before they were archiving them, *sigh*.

Thanks a lot Tycho

[Sentry21]

So I hopped back to Slashdot after my break at work came around, hoping to enjoy some well-worded commentary from my favourite webcomic authors. I had already glanced at the first few questions, so I grabbed for my beverage and began reading.

I had managed to take a whole mouthful of apple juice when I got to the 'sawbots' comment, and as a result spent the next ten minutes in a coughing fit that I'm sure the majority of my (call-centre) coworkers appreciated to no end.

So for drawing undue attention to my breaktime reading, and for making those around me think I should be restricted to a sippy cup until I get the hang of this whole beverage thing, thanks! I appreciate it. :(

Re:Thanks a lot Tycho

[Anonymous Coward]

There should be a boring mod for posts like this. OMG I SPILLED MJUICE AT CALL CENTERA

Re:Thanks a lot Tycho

[fbg111]

So I hopped back to Slashdot after my break at work came around,

That's alright, you don't have to hide the fact that you leave /. open on a web browser and constantly refresh it every two minutes at work. Like we all do. It's okay to come out of the closet here.

Gabe's Wacom

[BrodeCo]

he does all the finishing work with Photoshop 6.1 and a massive 12x24 Wacom Intuos.

I mentioned this to my gf, who uses a 6x8 tablet (our friend cartoons capably with a mere 4x6) and she wanted to know, "Does he stand on the thing and ice-skate to draw?"

Re:dang I should have asked...

[sharp-bang]

Looks like a couple of jobs for Mr. Period!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Polymer-City is the first vg comic on the web

[gmezero]

The very first regularly published web comic based on video gaming is the original incarnation of The Polymer-City Chronicles which ran through Game Zero magazine and can be read in the Game Zero comics archive. The strip dates from the week of March 13th, 1995. Prior to that the strip was running in the GZ print magazine. The current PCC site features the story arc since January 2000. For more chronology about PCC, you can read this post in his forum.

While there were some one-off comics that floated around the usenet that had video gaming punchlines, PCC was the first on the web dedicated to that theme.

Re:Polymer-City is the first vg comic on the web

[Anonymous Coward]

If it originally ran in a magazine, how exactly is it a webcomic?

Re:Polymer-City is the first vg comic on the web

[gmezero]

If you had read the paragraph, how exactly did you come up with that question? It was a print comic first, then became a web exclusive comic. I think that was pretty clear. And if you bothered to read the linked to history, it even changed names between print and web iterations.

Re:Well, 5 Intelligent Questions out of 16 Isnt Ba

[Anonymous Coward]

Want to keep going, champ? Maybe you can reduce your karma to 0 if you keep working at it.

You can set preferences to list the newest posts first, which means whomever posted AFTER you would end up at the top of the page for hundreds of thousands of readers, including moderators. In fact, a lot of moderators surf just that way so that they can spot threads that might otherwise get buried by people who don't know any better (coughyoucough).

And you may just have to face the possibility that what you had to say just didn't have that much worth.

And yes it IS a troll, because you're whining for attention because the big bad moderators didn't give you karma, and now you're crying about it. It's ALSO offtopic, but you can't win them all.

Re:Well, 5 Intelligent Questions out of 16 Isnt Ba

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah... not to mention you've whined about this before, and no one gave a shit then, either. Almost word for word, in fact. Have you been holding a grudge for weeks over this unimportant schlock?

When are you going to stop crying and get over it?

Re:Well, 5 Intelligent Questions out of 16 Isnt Ba

[tsm_sf]

Ahem.

"If you give a rat's-ass about your Karma score on Slashdot, you have Too Much Free Time(tm)."

Call your mom and see if she has any chores she needs you to do. Subscribe to World of Warcraft. Something. Anything.

I Wasnt Whining About Karma...

[Wandering Wombat]

I was talking about how people mod up their own questions, and how silly, unintelligent, meaningless posts get more regard, and indeed praise, than posts with some thought to it.

This is also on-topic, since it is in regards to questions to Gabe and Tycho.

And please keep in mind, you started the flaming by responding.

Re:I Wasnt Whining About Karma...

[Anonymous Coward]

Offer some proof that these posters modded up their own questions and that you're not just whining because they got mod points instead of you, and I'll take you seriously.

No? Didn't think so.

Sometimes insightful posts get missed. Sometimes asshat posts get modded up. It happens. It doesn't mean the whole world is conspiring against poor, misunderstood, forgotten-genius you. Get over it.

Re:I Wasnt Whining About Karma...

[Wandering Wombat]

When did I say the whole world was conspiring against me, or that I was a poor misunderstood forgotten genius? I am a little annoyed, that hardly warrants immature personal attacks.

Re:I Wasnt Whining About Karma...

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean besides the personal attacks you're making on this mythical legion of people who are modding up their own posts?

Pot, kettle, black.

Re:I Wasnt Whining About Karma...

[Wandering Wombat]

What personal attacks did I make on anyone? Please quote one.

Re:I Wasnt Whining About Karma...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, I'll quote more than one!

"This got modded up ... while slightly more intelligent questions for slightly more intelligent people get ignored?"

Yes, slightly more intelligent people get ignored! a.k.a. "I am smarter than you, I should get mod points, and both the posters and the mods are too dumb to realize it." It's not just the posts that are lacking -- but the people posting them! That's the definition of ad hominem attack, my friend.

"I gotta get myself some more Slashdot accounts so I can start modding my comments +5, too."

Or to rephrase, "Any posts that are not my own that get mod points must be because dishonest people are breaking the rules." (It cannot POSSIBLY be that their posts were more substantive and interesting than mine; that is just unthinkable.)

"Well, 5 Intelligent Questions out of 16 Isnt Bad... I wish I had 5 Slashdot accounts so I could mod my posts up to +5 within three minutes of posting."

See above, with "the vast majority of these questions aren't intelligent" added.

"I was talking about how people mod up their own questions, and how silly, unintelligent, meaningless posts get more regard, and indeed praise, than posts with some thought to it."

I guess silly, unintelligent and meaningless aren't personal, right. Not to mention a re-hash here of "My posts are so thoughtful and insightful compared to yours, I deserve the praise and not you." (Where "you" is anyone modded up who's not Wandering Wombat.)

Because you have nothing to substantiate your little theory that the big bad cheaters are taking all YOUR rightful mod points doesn't mean you're not making it personal.

Animated Series Speculation

[fussili]

w00000! I don't really think anything more needs to be said. Gimme!

Re:Animated Series Speculation

[Goosey]

Same enthusiam here! I am surprised more people arn't posting about this. How many "What 5 years ago legal action?" replies do we need anyway?

Re:dang I should have asked...

[geekoid]

how much for your rock? ;)

My favorite comic

[jridley]

Anything (everything?) with the Fruit Fucker in it. The first strip was probably the best.

Wacom == Moonies

[Civil_Disobedient]

You do know that the Moonies, or rather more specifically, Sun Myung Moon, owns Wacom, right?

I know, I know. It's still a bad-ass product.

Steam IS Salvation!

[EXTomar]

To Valve companies EA, Vivendi, etc. are just leaches. They provide a minimal function for their game: they place the box on the shelf at Worst Buy and Circuit Crudy. And for their minimal input they take a bite out of that $50 for each box sold.

I see Steam as a natural reaction to this and in a good way, it is using technology to solve a problem the right way. The higher ups at Valve hate working with these big companies especially on their Source/mod projects. Why should they fork over big cash to a faceless company just to put a box on a shelf for a minor add-on when the Internet has shown to be a great distribution model on its own? Cut out the middle man and reach the gamers directly!

I suspect the stink in the summer between Vivendi and Valve was over this very feature. I suspect two events came up: either Valve wanted to undercut Vivendi's box price with a much cheaper Steam price or Vivendi felt they deserved a piece of the Steam profits as well. I would love for someone closer to the parties to reveal what happened.

Beyond all of this, Steam has the possiblity of breaking free from EA, et-al. A small company publisher can use Steam like technology to charge and deliver to gamers quality games without them. If Steam catches on, EA will go the way of the dinosaur.

Re:Steam IS Salvation!

[Mac Degger]

Don't forget one thing: developping a game requires time spent by people who need to get paid during that period so they can eat. Steam provides distribution, not money so developers can quit their dayjobs to work full time on a computergame (which might not sell).

The death of the publisher is grossly exagerated.

Re:dang I should have asked...

[Fr05t]

No one ever get's my joke's!

Paper texture, easy solution

[the grace of R'hllor]

If you find the tablet too 'slick', and want that papery feeling back, here's a simple solution:

Tape a piece of paper of the drawing area.

Sounds simple, and it is. Works like a charm, though.

Re:Paper texture, easy solution

[elmegil]

You didn't read my post, did you? You know, where I said:

I could get some of that by applying masking tape or paper over the pad, but that's still not going to give me the same feedback because of the slick round tip of the pen.

Re:Paper texture, easy solution

[the grace of R'hllor]

This is Slashdot. How can you expect me to read your post?

Okay, okay, sorry for not paying attention. The fact that I still got moderated up proves that I'm not the only one, though, and as such the tip bore repeating.

By the way, have you tried to tape a piece of paper to the pad, to increase the traction?

Follow up question:

[focitrixilous P]

I am only only speaking for myself, but I have had good success with traps.

What kinds of traps? Do you have to bait them with some sort of female geek bait, or will they willingly throw themselves into your traps of love?

Re:Follow up question:

[imroy]

MacHall suggests a good book for attracting smart women :)

Clan Walrus

[_w00d_]

I should have asked Tycho and Gabe about Clan Walrus. It was their Quake clan back in the day, of which I was thankful to be a member. If Clan Walrus still exists, Tycho and Gabe are probably the only two left playing.

Impact

[Iscariot_]

I'm sure it will have a big impact on PC gaming, but not console gaming. And console gaming is where most of the money and populus is. So saying it will have a MAJOR impact on the gaming world is not accurate. It will have a major impact on PC gaming only, which is less than 30% of the overall "gaming" market.

Re:dang I should have asked...

[Jason One]

This calls for Bob's Quick Guide to the Apostrophe, You Idiots.

Re:we're still in court over something that happen

[mark_space2001]

I tain't sure either, but I remember at one point where they did a PA comic for some gaming site. Said site then promptly claimed they owned *ALL* PA's work, as the contract Gabe and Tyco signed said that the strip they did was a "work for hire" and that the gaming site owned all the rights to it.

Gabe and Tyco almost the case, IIRC.

Re:we're still in court over something that happen

[Chyeld]

I beleive it was Gamespy and the Planet Network.

After their first site died, they did a short stint with Gamespy to help keep the comic alive.

GS then claimed that they owned the cartoon.

I sympathize with your position

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, any artist ought to be able to use many media. Gabe's got a comic going. It's a product that he's spent a long time developing, so I can sure see how he might not want to switch at this stage in the game.

If you don't have a product already going it's important to remember that it's not as though paint feels like a pen on paper. Charcoal does not feel the same as pastel. Airbrushes don't really feel like anything because you're not touching the surface. There's a sort of distance rubbery sensation that comes from the kickback.

What I'd suggest is that you try expanding your range by working in a whole slew of media. Do more charcoal, do more painting, try chalk on the sidewalk. By the time you come back to the Wacom it will just be one tool of many.

Re:I sympathize with your position

[elmegil]

If I were anything close to a professional artist, I'd have to agree with you. Multiple media are important. But 1) I'm not, so I don't care about the others and 2) regardless, "one tool among others" is where it stands right now. It still doesn't replace any of those other tools, which is the point I was making.

Dealing with not seeing your hand

[Anonymous Coward]

Try doing more Blind contour drawing. That's where you cover the work and just draw directly from what you see without checking back.

Blind-contour drawings are always rather crude, but as you get more skilled you start to be able to do what any dancer or gymnast does. You know where your body is without looking at it.

In comparison using a Wacom is very easy.

interesting stuff...

[torrents]

good questions and the answers are as amusing as they are informative (very... (clarification for the cynical crowd))

Oh come fucking on

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just a quote from a random PA comic. Granted it's a good one, but almost all of them are good. No additional context, not related to any of the questions or really related to anything. And 5 fucking funny? What is wrong with /. these days...

We killed them...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't ... believe... we killed them.

(First time I've ever seen penny-arcade down... day of slashdot posting. Coincidence? Probably not.)

Re:We killed them...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been down before. Pretty often, actually...

I am confused

[The MESMERIC]

This Gabe is not the same Gabe as Valve right?
Got the impression Valve's Gabe did some cartooning as a past-time.

The mentioning of Valve HL2 etc did add to my confusion.

Hasn't been an issue for me.

[solios]

My problem is the lack of ADB tablet support under OS X- I have two ADB tablets and the necessary adapters, and hey- they work fine in OS 9! :|