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For Game Developers, It's About the Labor of Love

Posted by samzenpus on from the just-play dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes With "GamerGate" and all the debates over who counts as a "gamer," it's easy to forget that games are created by people with a genuine love of the craft. Journalist Jon Brodkin sat down with Armin Ibrisagic, game designer & PR manager for Coffee Stain Studios, the Swedish studio that made Goat Simulator, to talk about why they built that game and how it turned into such a success. Brodkin also talked to Leszek Lisowski, founder of Wastelands Interactive, about the same topic. While these developers might debate with themselves (and others) over whether to develop games for hardcore gamers, or jump on the mobile "casual gaming" bandwagon, they'll ultimately in it because they love games — a small but crucial detail that seems too easy to forget these days.

11 of 164 comments (clear)

  1. Nobody Counts by Kunedog · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "GamerGate" and all the debates over who counts as a "gamer,"

    I heard vicious shouts that gamers were dead, and those didn't come from Gamergate . . .

    1. Re:Nobody Counts by gl4ss · · Score: 1, Insightful

      "Gamers" as in gamergate seem like "people who would like to make money off from games without making games".

      the whole gamergate is stupid. it's about a stupid game, about stupid journalists writing for stupid online magazines and about stupid gamers.

      goat simulator is stupid too - that and depression quest both underline how PUBLICITY matters more than the game being good in any way! and the problem is the "gamer" journalists who just latch on to everything they see other youtubers latch on to - so playing the indie game lottery has nothing to do with how good your game is! it's just lottery(or maybe you can effect said lottery by putting out).

      I say bring back the shareware indie and get rid of the fucking media publicity indie "ooh I'm a hipster game developer uu give me money uu look at this movie of me developing this game give me money uu don't try my game just give me money uuuuu".

      and goat simulator is stupid, this is from their own fucking webpage ffs:
      "Goat Simulator is a small, broken and stupid game. It was made in a couple of weeks so donâ(TM)t expect a game in the size and scope of GTA with goats. In fact, youâ(TM)re better off not expecting anything at all actually. To be completely honest, it would be best if youâ(TM)d spend your $10 on a hula hoop, a pile of bricks, or maybe a real-life goat."

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  2. Gamer Gate Why ? by Crashmarik · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Really why bring that into a story that's about people who are passionate about creating great games. Gamergate is about people playing the victim card, and pulling a shakedown on an industry. Sad for use we made it work for them. Who cared about Sarkesian before this ?
     

    1. Re:Gamer Gate Why ? by Dins · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The whole "Gamergate" thing all just seemed like a lot of hand wringing and teeth gnashing over nothing. I'm vaguely aware of what it was, but don't see how it would ever relate to mine or really anyone's enjoyment of video games.

      In other words: Who the fuck cares. I'll be over here playing some games until everyone's done talking about it.

    2. Re:Gamer Gate Why ? by sandytaru · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Folks like Sarkeesian have been publishing feminist critique of pop culture for years, in their little bubble of academia. She's mostly being punished because nobody outside of the bubble ever knew that PCA is a thing, and she was the first visible target.

      --
      Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
    3. Re:Gamer Gate Why ? by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > Who the fuck cares
      I don't, but the author's of the offensive articles really screwed up.

      They took a demographic they considered male, teenage basement dwellers and wrote a couple of astonishingly offensive articles, on a website aimed at that demographic. Then they found out that 'gamer' != that demographic. It cuts right across all levels of society and all genders. So they managed to write something offensive to everyone. When the story broke out of bubble of that one website, sympathy for the authors was heavily muted by the fact that everyone who plays computer games, myself included, think they brought it upon themselves, because they can see plainly how offensive the articles were and how they articles are talking squarely about them, regardless of where they sit in society.

      Not being the sort of person to take offense at random things on the internet, I really don't care, but it's still pretty obvious the authors screwed up and got a predictable response. Society has people who live on a broad distribution of extremism. If you uniformly offend people across the distribution, you're going to offend the sort of people who send death threats over the internet for fun.

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
  3. Not an April Fools joke? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Wait, so you're telling me that Goat Simulator was NOT an April Fools joke? Wow... there sure are a lot of fools out there.

  4. I hate this strategy of justifying exploitation! by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think it's too easy to justify grueling jobs with bad work conditions and inadequate compensation by saying "Oh but the people who take them do the work out of loooove!" We do the same thing with teachers: Their jobs suck, their hours suck, their pay sucks, they deal with absurd bullshit, but all that is ok because allegedly, "they loooove kids and receive intrinsic rewards from their work."

    We don't think this way about accountants or dentists. We don't expect them to loooove replacing fillings or mastering actuarial tables. We pay them so that their jobs are worthwhile even without the love. And I wish we would apply this standard to all jobs. A coding job where you produce games should be compensated like a coding jobs where you produce financial software, or anything else.

  5. It Remains a Journalism Scandal. Deal With It. by Kunedog · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If Nathan Grayson, Patricia Hernandez, et al were Republicans, Gamergate would be handled exactly like the journalism scandal that it is. The corrupt writers would lose their jobs, their employers would acknowledge the seriousness of the situation and at least attempt to convince us that that it wouldn't happen again, and the rest of their ilk would be watched like a hawk for evidence of similar transgressions for a long, long time.

    But no. Because the perpetrators were extreme leftists, they're afraid that the scandal might give folks like Fox News and Limbaugh political ammo*, so there was a complete media blackout, the likes of which I've never seen before (not a SINGLE article detailing the corruption, on ANY tech/gaming site, for a week). Another part of the blackout was blanket censorship in user forums/comments, up to and including reddit and--no bullshit--4chan. IMO this censorship of users merely discussing the scandal is still the most oppressive (and damning) anti-GG measure of all.

    And then when the blackout didn't work, they colluded in a synchronized shotgun blast of articles to slander their core audience and intimidate any dissenters among them. The long-running smear campaign that began with the "Gamers are Dead" articles continues to this day, and the popularity of Gamergate is the long-running response to it. Every criticism and call for integrity is met with completely irrelevant accusations of misogyny and right-wing motivations. Gamers are (rightly) astonished and appalled to see corruption defended so vigorously (and uniformly).

    And now that the smear campaign isn't working either, anonymous threats are used as an excuse to again slander the movement (this time as terrorists) and completely ignore the corruption. So of course as the smear campaign ramped up, the popularity of Gamergate ramped up accordingly--I think it's over 100K tweets per day now. And the gaming press, having addressed almost none of its ethics issues (to say nothing of its contempt for the gaming community), regularly feigns disbelief that Gamergate hasn't "burned out" yet in one-sided opinion pieces that, if anything, more than prove the need for the movement.

    The crazy thing is that Gamergate itself is largely leftist. I am right-wing on many issues, but I've been impressed by (and learned something from) the integrity of the vast majority of left-leaning individuals in Gamergate. They just want journalism they can trust. They want the bad eggs removed, even if the bad eggs share many of their political stances. They understand that circling the wagons to protect "the cause" and "do good work" is likely to result in far more harm to the cause in the long run.

    I see some of the mainstream media has now taken notice, and is just as happy as the tech press to pretend the journalistic lapses and cover up never happened, and to slander Gamergate as right-wing misogynist terrorists, all to support the invented narrative. It's an all too familiar story to those of us who've seen the mainstream media portray DVD ripping as grand theft auto, net neutrality as communism, or Jack Thompson as a defender of morality. But in this case, unbelievably, even here on Slashdot there hasn't been a Gamergate article yet that doesn't go out of its way to frame the whole issue in terms of misogyny and harrassment (much less an article that's pro- or even neutral). Is slashdot politically motivated to misrepresent this issue? The question is moot, because all those articles got 700-1200 replies each, so the clickbaiting is motivation enough. As far as we know, slashdot's editors are kicking themselves for not praising Jack Thompson years ago as a hero activist.

    * not an invalid fear, but you have to cross that bridge when you come to it. If you try to pre-emptively murder the truth then you get no sympathy when it blows up in your face.

  6. Re:It Remains a Journalism Scandal. Deal With It. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There is no journalism scandal.

    You have:

    1. GamerGate nuts focussing on a developer who an ex-boyfriend with "issues" claimed was sleeping with journalists to get better reviews. Turned out the journalist has never written about any of the developer's games. GG participants changed subject, claimed the issue was her sex life (who the hell cares? Jesus!). So: SCANDAL ONE: NOT ABOUT JOURNALISM.

    2. GamerGaters then get upset that a "feminist" has written an editorial claiming that the games industry is catering for a non-existent market if they insist on aiming games at some kind of crude stereotype the industry refers to as a "gamer". GGers rant, rave, call feminist names, a minority make death threats with mixed reactions from the GG "community" - some condemnation, but plenty of victim blaming - and even persuade Intel to drop advertising with said publication. No hint anyone in industry paid for article, no hint article bettered anyone financially beyond advertising dollars and author's royalties. Article very clearly an earnestly and honestly expressed opinion. SCANDAL TWO: NOT ABOUT JOURNALISM.

    3. With women developers in particular feeling that the viciousness of the campaign against the feminist in #2 crossed the line frequently into misogyny, and with many also concerned that anyone expressing a pro-diversity point of view was being labeled, as an insult, by the term "Social Justice Warrior", some start to speak out. One, who had even been told by a GameGater that if she didn't like games she should go off and write her own (she, uh, does) retweeted an amusing image meme making fun of some of the more bizarre quotes and positions she's been challenged by. Within days she's the victim of serious death threats, and has to flee her home with her family. GamerGaters generally answer that (1) it wasn't us, (2) we don't believe in that kind of thing, and (3) she was asking for it. In this case, no journalism is involved. SCANDAL THREE: NOT ABOUT JOURNALISM.

    So, there are the THREE major events in GamerGate industry. Not one involves journalism, albeit the first kinda did for the 30 seconds it took to discover that while a journalist was involved, no journalism took place.

    It's not about journalism. It never was. Stop pretending otherwise. And if you're going to pretend it is, choose a new hashtag, and start tweeting stuff about, you know, actual journalism scandals. Clue: the first time you tweet some whine under that hashtag about "SJWs", you've probably stopped talking about journalism.

  7. Re:Suckers by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When I was QA tester for six years at Accolade/Infogrames/Atari (same company, different owners, multiple identity crisis), I was told repeatedly to be happy with working 80 hours per week or get a job at Taco Bell. Management shut up about Taco Bell when someone left and made better money with benefits while working 40 hours a week at Taco Bell. Granted, cleaning toilets after the lunch hour rush wasn't fun, but that was better than dealing with crap that management threw at us.