Slashdot Mirror
Indie Game Jam Show Collapses Due To Interference From "Pepsi Consultant"
Sockatume (732728) writes "Would you like to see a half-million-dollar TV show in which four teams of indie developers and Youtube personalities compete to create amazing videogames? Tough luck, because GAME_JAM from Maker Studios has spectacularly imploded. Although a lot could go wrong with this kind of show, the blame isn't being levelled at game developer egos or project mismanagement but the heroic efforts of one Matti Leshem, a branding consultant brought in for Pepsi. After imposing Mountain Dew branding rules that even banned coffee from the set, his efforts to build a gender divide amongst the teams culminated in the competitors downing their tools and the production collapsing. Accounts from Adriel Wallick, Zoe Quinn, and Robin Arnott are also available."
Rule #1: Always read the contract carefully.
If you read the articles, you'll see that not only did they read the contracts, they re-negotiated several provisions that were clearly unacceptable.
So far, no luck though ...
Well, some devs went to a game jam. The production company tried to turn it into a dodgy reality TV show, which annoyed everyone. And it was all being run by this guy who I think is best described by a quote from "in the thick of it": Christ alive what a cunt!!!
The combination of him and the generaly crappyness of it resulted in a mass walkout from the devs and the event tanked, burning all the money spent on it.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
They're all fake to some extent.
My favorites:
- Storage Wars. The producers were in the habbit of pre-stocking lockers up for auction with rare, valuable or unusual items to ensure some good television. One team objected to this, and made their objections clear to the producers. The producers responded by no longer pre-stocking lockers for that team, but continuing to give the others with just as much loot as before. The team sued.
- Scrapheap Challenge and the US counterpart Junkyard Wars. Though the rules state that competition ceases at sundown, towards the end of the builds it's not hard to see that the sun has long set, and bright floodlights can only go so far to mask it - and, in all the series runs, not once has a team failed to produce a machine that can at least run. It's not hard to tell what is going on: A machine that can't move is bad television, so the organisers don't declare time up until both teams are ready with a machine that can provide an entertaining contest.
- Duck Dynasty. After the 'incident' a few people did some digging on this, and found photos of the family from before the show - when they were all well-dressed, and clean-shaven. By all accounts well-spoken people, with college education. Their redneck persona is entirely fictitious, an act put on for the show - beards, accents and all.
- A visitor to the pawn shop of Pawn Stars wrote a very interesting account. You can buy a lot of show merchandise there - but it's no longer a functioning pawn shop, and the owners are rarely present. They make an appearance only when it's time to kick out the fans and film a producer-supplied purchaser to play their part.
"Let me suggest an alternative. The consultant was very smart. He knew that without strife and discord, there would be no show. Nothing that people would watch. Reality programs need drama. "
Let me offer an opposing view, you didn't read the article and have no idea what you are talking about.
Since the actual show wasn't a reality show, it was something more akin to "http://www.amctv.com/shows/the-pitch" or home makovers where the homeowner comes back to see their renovation and the show follows the technical aspect of the renovations, there was no need for "manufactured" drama.
In fact, making an indie game from scratch, involving all the technical aspects from both veterans and novices (the programmers and youtubers respectively), and having to do this on an imposed deadline would create all the "real" drama needed to make the show interesting. Not to mention the inside look at what most people never get to see, creatives making entertainment out of nothing.
what this douchebag did was take a creative environment, strip all of the creativity out of it and then throw in heaps of sexism, forced strife, corporate policy and "reality" fakey crap (like forcing a game programmer to re-enter a "scene" 5 times to get the "shot").
the biggest stupidity was that he was just some corporate douche who used the sponsorship ties the program had to force changes he thought would make the program better, he wasn't even someone there to make those decisions, only by throwing his corporate money weight around was he able to get the ones who were in charge of that stuff to concede to his input.
at the end of the article everyone pretty much agreed if this douche had never been there, there would have been no issue...
TL:DR the adults would have gotten along fine without this mental 3yr old.