Dialogue Tree 14: Fatigue

In this episode of Dialogue Tree, Eric Brasure talks to Konstantinos Dimopoulos, aka Gnome. They discuss the Bundle in a Box, the diminishing economic returns of indie development and a possible way forward for indie developers.

Contents

04:20 “I’m not really comfortable with the category of ‘gamer.’”

08:25 “We’re not living in a world where competence and hard work and artistic vision are a priori appreciated.”

12:45 “It was too easy to game the poll, the voting, if everyone could vote.”

16:55 “The first two bundles were obvious losses. We lost quite a bit of money.”

20:15 “People obviously do not know what goes into a game.”

22:25 “Even the indie developers are playing it as safe as they can.”

29:25 “There was a period where you could build your audience, and I believe that this period is mostly over.”

32:45 “The fact that you can play with literature, they find it amazing.”

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Addendum: Gnome comments that RPS did write about the fourth Bundle in a Box after this interview had been recorded, on the bundle's final day.

References

• Featured music: Woody Guthrie, “All You Fascists Bound to Lose”
• Gnome's Lair
  
• Bundle in a Box
• Kyttaro Games
• Indie Dev Grant

You can subscribe directly to Dialogue Tree via iTunes or RSS. For more of Eric's podcasting work, please visit his site smallbatch.fm.

Dialogue Tree 13: DIY

In this episode of Dialogue Tree, Eric Brasure interviews John Sharp, associate professor of Games & Learning at Parsons. Sharp discusses his IndieCade East keynote that drew parallels between the punk DIY philosophy and indie developers. He also goes on to discuss the problems of design in the thrall of tutorials, the realities of surviving as an indie developer and a need for more anger.

Contents

02:40 “One of the things I was most struck by, I guess, was the DIY attitude that those guys had.”

03:50 “They were having to invent everything from scratch.”

07:30 “They called it a computer toy.”

10:40 “I think that robs players of their agency, to some degree.”

12:00 “They kind of found themselves painting themselves into a corner.”

15:10 “What's going on in the... 'indie academic' or 'academic indie' scene... is really quite vital.”

18:40 “...it's embarrassing to me. The number of games that involve male power fantasies about shooting.”

22:20 “Punk also sort of churned through people... it was a monster that needed youth to fuel itself.”

27:10 “The thing that's perhaps a bit of a lie from those people is that not everybody is going to be Team Meat. Not everybody is going to be Phil Fish.”

35:20 “There's a real danger there of never actually getting to make the games you want to make and, instead, making games for toothpaste companies.”

36:50 “There's a few too many people who grew up playing platformers and are kind of reliving that through making indie platform games themselves today.”

42:20 “I think there's a space for anger, let's say, inside Johann Sebastian Joust... though I don't think that's necessarily the kind of play experience Doug Wilson wants to happen inside that game.”

Download the podcast MP3 or play it right here in your browser:

References

• Featured music: Pitchman - "Route 13" (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
• John Sharp interview discussing IndieCade East talk
• Space War!
• Tracy Fullerton (Night Journey, Walden)
• PETLab (Red Cross games for disaster preparedness, Data Toys)
• Robert Yang (Radiator blog)
• dys4ia
• Rise of the Videogame Zinesters
• Indie Game: The Movie
• Liz Ryerson on Indie Game: The Movie (Midnight Resistance)
• Large Animal Games
• Gaijin Games
• Gamelab
• Mattie Brice
• Local No. 12
• Simony
• Molleindustria

You can subscribe directly to Dialogue Tree via iTunes or RSS. Eric also maintains a web site called Charles Wallace on Camazotz and a Star Trek podcast, recorded with Richard Goodness, called Trekabout. Richard promises never to use the word "gynoids" in a podcast again.

Dialogue Tree: Getting Better

In this episode of Dialogue Tree, Eric Brasure interviews Charles Battersby about his work putting together and moderating the PAX panels on transgender issues in gaming. He discusses a broad range of topics such as the fine line between stereotyping and authenticity, transgender characters as plot twists and crossplay. Battersby will be chairing a similar panel at PAX East later this month.

(Originally broadcast August 13, 2012.)

Contents

01:10 “I'd noticed over the last few decades that there are a lot of transgender videogame characters.”

05:00 “It was important to have a lot of different voices rather than just one small cross-section.”

06:20 “One of the ones that had the greatest impact for me is a game caller Nier.”

08:00 “I'm sure a lot of designers are trying to walk the balance of including transgender characters but not including offensive or negative stereotypes.”

09:30 “Far too often there is the humorous note where they try to have a transgender prostitute as a little gag.”

10:25 “It's absolutely getting better.”

11:00 “I know I talk about Kainé a lot but she really is a terrific example of a character that just happens to be transgender.”

13:40 “People often think that transgender people are weird and icky.”

15:10 “I almost always play a female character.”

17:40 “Even though my Commander Sheperd is a woman, she is actually a transvestite.”

19:30 “It's just one step away from what's already available on the market.”

24:00 “Who are all these people here to see? And it turned out they were there to see us.”

Download the podcast MP3 or play it right here in your browser:

PAX Panel Videos

Press XY: Transgender Issues in Gaming / PAX East 2012

Press XY To Continue Transgender Gaming / PAX Prime 2012

References

• Featured music: Inara George - "Can't Say No"
• Poison from Final Fight (Wikipedia)
• Nier (Wikipedia)
• Alfred Ashford, Resident Evil: Code Veronica
• PAX Panel Videos are embedded above

You can subscribe directly to Dialogue Tree via iTunes or RSS. Eric also maintains a web site called Charles Wallace on Camazotz and a Star Trek podcast, recorded with Richard Goodness, called Trekabout. Richard also sings for a band called Riot Fox but that has nothing to do with Star Trek.

Dialogue Tree: Verisimilitude

In this episode of Dialogue Tree, Eric Brasure interviews Cart Life developer Richard Hofmeier. Hofmeier discusses the importance of the mundane, the reception of Cart Life, sports games and also whether we are moving towards a filter bubble dystopia or a world of limitless possibility.

(Originally broadcast June 12, 2012.)

Contents

01:10 “It bore the title of 'Commerce Unread' for a long time.”

12:30 “It doesn't work as a game mechanic, really at all.”

15:30 “I got a writing award when I was just a kid and I spent that money on the Sims.”

17:30 “It's the most rewarding thing I've ever worked on.”

20:00 “Games are capable of great art. Great narrative art, even.”

22:30 “I'm still waiting for someone to tear it to shreds on a message board.”

25:20 “I relate more to failures, I think most of us do.”

28:00 “The customers are individuals instead of manifestations of a type.”

31:30 “The more pain I could inflict on my loved ones in play testing, the better the game would be.”

38:50 “You either go to work as a street vendor to make money or you can go explore the city for other possibilities.”

43:10 “This game is about paperwork. It's about permits. It's about waiting in line.”

45:40 “Was that your experience with the game? Did it come anywhere close to that for you?”

47:10 “And you pick what you like from what you know.”

48:50 “That's the thing about games... by accommodating choice, it's not that you're destined in one direction... your choices expand your possibilities.”

51:40 “Everyone's capacity to be an artist can manifest in a game.”

Download the podcast MP3 or play it right here in your browser:

References

• Featured music: Bird Names - "We Want to be Old" (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
• Cart Life
• Richard Hofmeier's site
• Electron Dance on Cart Life: Non-spoiler teaser and full spoiler analysis
• Rock Paper Shotgun on Cart Life

You can subscribe directly to Dialogue Tree via iTunes or RSS. Eric also maintains a web site called Charles Wallace on Camazotz and a Star Trek podcast, recorded with Richard Goodness, called Trekabout. Honestly, don't they have better things to do?

Dialogue Tree: Struggling to Make It

In this episode of Dialogue Tree, Eric Brasure interviews game developer Jonas Kyratzes about the reactions surrounding Steam’s Greenlight and what it says about both indie games and videogames in general.

Contents

02:10 “I thought this is very peculiar because there's no real system for checking what people are submitting...”

03:40 “A lot of indies are struggling to make it.”

08:50 “You can say 'I'm a hippie' or whatever - then a couple of years later they'll be selling you little hippie badges...”

10:20 “I think it's a pretty normal blind spot for people who have money.”

18:30 “It's impossible to get a $25M movie financed but you can get a $200M movie financed more easily.”

20:00 “It's not pixel graphics. It's not 3D graphics. I don't know what it is, therefore it's bad.”

21:50 “You're told this can't be successful.”

24:00 “I think games... more than any other medium, are obsessed with categorisation to such a degree.”

25:00 “Even a negative review from a major website is more likely to drive traffic to you, and to get you sales, than some small site.”

26:30 “...and to them, the history of indie games begins with Minecraft.”

30:40 “People get very angry when you suggest that maybe something is wrong with the [capitalist] system.”

31:50 “...but the ship is still sinking.”

33:50 “...I don't see most people claiming that the greatest work of literature in human history is Twilight.”

37:00 “In general, we see [games] more like something which is 'used up'...”

38:30 “The mainstream gaming industry is so obsessed with realism that their games look like shit after ten years.”

44:10 “But people are starting to think... why am I working myself to death for, you know, a few cents?”

49:50 “...while the systemic process that creates a million poor African children goes on unchecked.”

51:40 “That's pretty much human history right there - unlikely, but not impossible.”

Download the podcast MP3 or play it right here in your browser:

References

• Featured music: Cars Can Be Blue - "Hey Hippie"
• Jonas Kyratzes' site
  
• The One Hundred Dollar Question (Jonas Kyratzes)
• Moonlight
• The Sea Will Claim Everything
• Steam Greenlight
  
• Addendum on Classism (Jonas Kyratzes)

You can subscribe directly to Dialogue Tree via iTunes or RSS. Eric also maintains a web site called Charles Wallace on Camazotz and a Star Trek podcast, recorded with Richard Goodness, called Trekabout. Richard is still suffering through his pon farr.