I withdraw my support for RPS and eat a large slice of humble pie

[Gusington]

The real crime of all of this is Zoe Quinn isn't even hot. Does that put me on the right or wrong side of this issue?

[GDS_Starfury]

What we need now is a game called "Battle Bewbs" ;D How cool is that? 8)

almost as cool as Battle Bawbs.

[Bletchley_Geek]

I mostly echo Panzerde's sentiments. The Internet can indeed be the definitive crap printing machine.

Of all this very confusing business I only find really interesting the quite clearly stated point of view of TotalBiscuit, here

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1s4nmr1

and particularly this:

2) Games journalism as a whole has a massive nepotism problem, encouraged by the publishers and developers and actively partaken in by many outlets. There are plenty who don't, whether they be independent Youtube channels or important websites like Giantbomb, who made the decision not to review Bastion due to their connections with Greg Kasavin. Maintaining your independence or at the very least being completely honest about your relationship with the developer is paramount to maintaining the trust of your audience. So much shit goes on behind the scenes, more than you could ever possibly know about. I personally find things like industry parties thrown by devs and attended by the media, enthusiast press or otherwise to be a waste of money and time but more importantly an element that horribly muddies the waters in our line of work. It's one thing to be more willing to provide coverage because you happen to know a developer, it's quite another to not disclose that and then create a favorable review of a product, whether it be the final product or repeated pushes to the greenlight page. Transparency in all things is important. People are going to have friends in the industry, that's natural. They are also going to try and help them when they can, they just need to be straight up about it and be very careful about keeping their bias in check.

Which brings me to a recent topic on RPS which has made me to raise my eyebrows

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/08/24/dirty-dozen-sale/

This totally looks to me as Positech - Jim Rossignol - jockeying for the same position that Valve has - becoming a middleman - raising the "Death to Middlemen" battle cry. I have engaged him on the basis of this comment of his on the Comments section

Well from my point of view it's more just a litmus test to see what a direct-sales sale will do. Direct sales are so limited now that I had no idea what to expect from this, so a standard sort of discount seemed like a good way to see what it would do.

with the following questions

A few honest questions, Jim. Of course, feel free to ignore them.

1) These prices are really crazy. To me only make sense under one (or both) of the following conditions:

a) The game has already covered development expenses. Further sales are just icing on the cake.
b) The game is about to receive some form of DLC expansion – which isn't discounted. It makes sense to lower the entry price so to increase the reach of the expansions.

2) Don't you think that we're seeing a price war? Aren't you worried by the economics of these deep discounts? I mean, undercutting "publishers" royalty cuts (between a 20% to a 40%, depending on the publisher) can make sense. But here I'm seeing discounts of over a 50%. This looks a bit like dumping. Which I think it is something that a major retailer like Tesco can afford to do. But I reckon that as a producer, a totally out of control race to the bottom can't be good (but it is true that Valve was perhaps the first one starting the race). The bottom line is that expenses need to be covered (salaries, promotion, art), so as an indie developer, I am at a loss at seeing what's the sense of doing such deep cuts, unless I can break it even. I am aware of the strategy where ones tries to increase volume decreasing the entry price, but I think that the odds of sales volume to soar to sufficient levels may be quite long for some titles. Especially "niche" stuff like Democracy 3, which at least on Steam

http://steamcharts.com/app/245470

looks like having an audience numbering on the thousands at best.

While I do generally appreciate RPS content - I skip what I find to be bullshit, very much as I do when I get bullshit on commercial TV, and I suspect they do enjoy 'trolling' people doing this thing of 'publishing a gushing First Impressions' piece and then an 'scathing' Wot I Think - I can't help the feeling that RPS seems to be angling for a very particular position in the gaming press (and the industry). As a music fan I used to enjoy a lot Pitchfork, and its slashing reviews that would reduce musicians into tears, until they became what they're now. A retailer of opinion, as "corrupt" as commercial music radio can be.

I do see RPS following a similar path.

[MikeGER]

...conclusion: so a week  a month RPS Forum changes its brandname and topics to R PMS now or what?

I had stopped reading/consuming casual 'gaming' media's so called previews 'n stuff about mainstream hyped games at all.

Its dead Jim!
...last time i tried to get some meaningfull! info about what games (that fell into my interrests niche) may get presented at the Gamescon 14 in Cologne ... All i found was all sort of videos instead of texts, where two or three young bearded hipsters males of some dime a dozens 'games media company' mag start-up (who somehow all looked like somewhere between Sheldon and Lennart actors who went to the BBT casting and didn't made into recall) joint up with some unknown (to me) even younger German letsplay-"celebrity"-Buberle ...were talking shit and joking, or tried to be to dead serious about a 'revolutionary' game feature, while the 0815-official game trailer was running on a big screen behind the sofa they all sit on... Its like Wayne's World-cellar show  transported from 1992 to 2014 and about games instead of rockmusic now ...without the babes of course.

Thank the Gods of war for Grogheads

[Bletchley_Geek]

Its like Wayne's World-cellar show  transported from 1992 to 2014 and about games instead of rockmusic now ...without the babes of course.

That's a good analogy, Mike. Just like that, but not being fun nor fresh. And it also looks to me that far too many people take Beavis or Butthead as role models in the Internet.

[Jarhead0331]

2) Games journalism as a whole has a massive nepotism problem, encouraged by the publishers and developers and actively partaken in by many outlets. There are plenty who don't, whether they be independent Youtube channels or important websites like Giantbomb, who made the decision not to review Bastion due to their connections with Greg Kasavin. Maintaining your independence or at the very least being completely honest about your relationship with the developer is paramount to maintaining the trust of your audience. So much shit goes on behind the scenes, more than you could ever possibly know about. I personally find things like industry parties thrown by devs and attended by the media, enthusiast press or otherwise to be a waste of money and time but more importantly an element that horribly muddies the waters in our line of work. It's one thing to be more willing to provide coverage because you happen to know a developer, it's quite another to not disclose that and then create a favorable review of a product, whether it be the final product or repeated pushes to the greenlight page. Transparency in all things is important. People are going to have friends in the industry, that's natural. They are also going to try and help them when they can, they just need to be straight up about it and be very careful about keeping their bias in check.

Industry parties? They throw industry parties? What was that I was saying about irrelevance?

[bayonetbrant]

in the interest of maintaining our ongoing irrelevance, we threw our own party at Origins

[Jarhead0331]

in the interest of maintaining our ongoing irrelevance, we threw our own party at Origins

I know. I saw the pictures...

[Barthheart]

in the interest of maintaining our ongoing irrelevance, we threw our own party at Origins

I know. I saw the pictures...

It's like you were there! 

[Boggit]

ROFL! ^^ ;D

[Boggit]

The real crime of all of this is Zoe Quinn isn't even hot. Does that put me on the right or wrong side of this issue?

You weren't attracted to the blue hair, and the stud in the lip then?

[MikeGER]

 Didnt Bob Dylan even wrote  a song about her in precognition  ;) (i prefer the Manfred Mans EB version so)

Come on without
Come on within
You'll not see nothing like the Mighty Quinn
Come on without
Come on within
You'll not see nothing like the Mighty Quinn

Everybody's building
Ships and boats
Some are building monuments
Others dummy pound notes
Everybody's in dispair
Every girl and bo]y
But when Quinn the eskimo gets here
Everybody's gonna jump for joy

...

[bob48]

What we need now is a game called "Battle Bewbs" ;D How cool is that? 8)

With 2 on each side presumably.

[Boggit]

What we need now is a game called "Battle Bewbs" ;D How cool is that? 8)

With 2 on each side presumably.

Nah! Inspired by this thread it should be at least a 6 player game! ;D

[bob48]

That could be a bit of a handful........I hope  ;)