Stolen Pixels #186: Well Lookie Who We Have Here

By Shamus Posted Friday Apr 16, 2010

Filed under: Column 69 comments

Here we have some thoughts on the whole X-Com / XCom… situation… thing.

I don’t know what I was thinking when I made this. The new (to Stolen Pixels) character is one I’ve had sitting around for ages, and I’ve been waiting for a special occasion to use him. But this wasn’t a very special occasion. Sort of an absurd conversation. Not really the sort of bang he deserves.

Ah well.

A bunch of rambling about Stolen Pixels itself below, for those who are curious why I do what I do…

A few people have noticed I’m using more Garry’s Mod comics these days. This wasn’t something I really planned on, but a natural result of a few different factors. For the most part, Stolen Pixels has contained four key types of comic:

Screencaps

Frames lifted from videogames with dialog bubbles added are the core of the strip, and the reason it exists. It’s actually really, really hard to fill week after week of nothing but screencap strips. Not all games lend themselves to this, and I can only consume games so fast. Lately it seems like less than half of the games I play are screencap-worthy. So, we need some other strips to fill the gaps. Which leads to…

Stock Photo comics

Comics like the EA guy. I’ve stopped using these for the most part, mostly because the cost of doing them has gone up. Shots used to be a buck each. With a little creative re-use, I could make them last over several comics. Then the stock photo site I used was bought out or absorbed by another company. Their prices were double, and their low-end image sizes were halved. The upshot was that I would actually have to pay four times as much for the same quality image. At four bucks a panel, it’s no longer an attractive option. For a while I just kept re-using my existing supply of images of the EA guy, but lately EA just hasn’t done much that’s comic-worthy. Ubisoft and 2kGames are both doing a far better job at being really humiliatingly stupid on a day-to-day basis.

Travis

I’ve tried to moderate my use of Travis. I’ve only got a few images of him, and using him too often will wear them out. Moreover, some people can’t stand the Travis comics. It would be one thing if they just didn’t find him funny, but I get this sense of loathing from people.

The real purpose of Travis is to satirize gaming journalism. Gamepunx magazine (his fictional employer) is a better source of humor than Travis himself. I’ve often played with the idea of doing the Gamepunx website, complete with gaming news and reviews. (Stuff like this.) Sort of like the Onion, but for games. I don’t have time for it, but it’s an idea I toy with now and again.

GMod Comics

The Breen show and the two gamers are both made in Garry’s mod. Breen is far and away the most popular part of the strip these days. I prefer to to the strips in pairs: A monologue strip followed by an interview. I could probably come very close to doing nothing but Breen comics if I wanted. (Although finding an interview subject every week would be hard, since I can only interview characters that someone has imported to the Source engine.) I try to space Breen out simply because I don’t want people to get sick of him.

The “two gamers on a couch” (one of which appeared in today’s strip) are an accident. They were supposed to be a one-off, intended to satirize the over-use of the trope in comics. And then I started using them regularly. Every couch strip I create adds to my running hypocrisy score. I’ve done three of them now, each time expecting it to be the last.

I also have the psychiatrist strips, but he’s of limited usefulness. He and Breen both share a common pool of potential interview subjects, but Breen is more popular and fills two strips at a time.

Left 4 Dumb was of course also a Gmod series. I loved doing L4Duh, and it was reasonably popular, but the idea never reached its potential because Left 4 Dead uses a newer version of the Source Engine and Gmod can’t load those maps. (Even getting the characters into GMod is a chore.) I had to use the Half-Life 2 maps, which was frustrating, difficult, and ruined about half the jokes. I decided I wouldn’t do Left 4 Dead 2 unless a new version of Gmod became available that let me use the Left 4 Dead 2 levels. (Which seems extremely unlikely.) So for now this series is retired.

As I’ve scaled back my use of stock photos and Travis, Gmod has filled the gap nicely. Which is why some people are getting the impression that Stolen Pixels is “turning into” a Gmod comic.

 


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69 thoughts on “Stolen Pixels #186: Well Lookie Who We Have Here

  1. Viktor says:

    Going on record as saying I’m not a fan of Breen. Or Left 4 Dumb. The other GMod stuff is fine, but never having played the source material for those games means many of the jokes fall flat.

    Is there no other site where you can get stock photos at your price point?

    1. Nick Bell says:

      The solution to that is to go play those source materials. Come on. You know you can’t be a real gamer unless you’ve played every game anyone ever considers important. Even in genres that you don’t like. Its a requirement.

      Also, if I was more clever, I would make a source material/Source Engine joke here. But I’m not, so you’ll just have to imagine one up yourself.

      1. ngthagg says:

        I know the source material, but I’ve never really like the Breen strips. I think it’s because pretty much all the jokes are told from Breen’s perspective. When Shamus can only tell the jokes that Breen would tell, it cuts down on the possibilities. I never surprise myself laughing at Breen.

    2. Jordi says:

      I also didn’t like Left 4 Dumb, most likely because I didn’t know the source material. I think that series’ main problem was that it mainly relied on inside-jokes and that it was fairly long. It’s fine if I don’t get an inside joke every now and then, but I think it’s nicer if in between those comics are ones that I can enjoy. I like pretty much everything else in Stolen Pixels (including Breen).

      It seems to me that Googling “free stock photos” gives plenty of results, but I imagine Shamus already tried that and found these sites lacking in some regard.

      Edit: I agree with krellen that spacing things out a good idea. Variety is good. It would have solved all the problems I had with Left 4 Dumb as well. Sorry for the criticism/suggestions. I’ll go back to enjoying my free entertainment now.

      1. Meredith says:

        I felt this way about L4Dumb as well. I’m not really into multiplayer so I never tried it and didn’t really get any of the jokes. That’s not so bad for a two or three strip run about a particular game, but that was a long unbroken run of ‘huh?’ for me. But I figure it’s free entertainment and if I wait long enough something that’s funny to me will show up (and then someone else won’t get/like it).

      2. Peter H. Coffin says:

        Yes, exactly. I’d have no trouble guessing that “free photos” is easy. “Free photos that provide a useful jumping-off point” are a lot more scarce.

    3. neothoron says:

      Going on record to say that, though I have never played the game, I enjoyed L4Dumb thanks to the side explanations. If I decided to go and buy it, that comic would be a non-negligible factor.

      I like Breen more though.

      However, 2 gamers on a couch needs to go:
      – One reason you do them is because they are an extremely easy to use framing device when you want to make a comic about video games – but that’s also the reason such comics are so overused.
      – Another problem is that the last two “gamers in a couch” comics played the genre completely straight – the first two contained at least some lampshading on the genre, and without that you’re guilty without even a redeeming feature.
      I would suggest going as far as deleting the files that describe the room so that you can never be tempted into doing them again.

      And remember that the girl says “Screw it. It’s a Garry’s Mod comic.” Someone could take that sentence literally – and you’re on the internet, so someone will.

      1. evileeyore says:

        I agree and disagree.

        I’ve enjoyed every comic Shamus has done so far (good stuff Shamus!), including the L4D and Breens (even though I’ve never played the sources).

        My disagreement: So far I think Shamus has nicely “parodied” the 2-Gamers-on-a-Couch trope. Too many more might be a bit difficult to maintian the parody level without it devolving straight into 2GoaC though.

    4. JKjoker says:

      I agree with Viktor, i never liked Breen or L4Duh, but its not about the source material, i just find them terribly boring

      for Travis im neutral, he fits his purpose

      other random game strips, the ea guy, sarcastic rants about game publisher moves, and even the two gamers in a couch strips are much better

      i wouldnt worry that much about using Gmod for everything as long as you dont reuse the same theme all the time

  2. Fenix says:

    I know this comment is less about Stolen Pixels and more about Spoiler Warning however have you thought about doing X-Com for Spoiler Warning? Just on the subject of X-Com and all. Just think it has some good potential. (Trails Off…)

    Oh! And on topic, a Gamepunx Onion type thing would be Awesome! I bet that the Escapist wouldn’t mind having it as a sister site for comic relief. However I guess ENN already does that to some extent.

    1. Bret says:

      New blood playing X-Com does lead to amusement at their expense, but it might not fit the spoiler warning theme.

      Still, I’d watch.

  3. Cough. X-Com Enforcer. Cough.

    Which I own, but only because I got the complete X-Com series from Steam and it included that and Interceptor.

    I still feel dirty.

    1. Michael says:

      If it makes you feel less dirty, I actually installed them after buying the complete package.

      That said there’s always UFO Extraterrestrials…

  4. krellen says:

    I think spacing out Breen is a good idea. Using him all the time would lead to hate; using him once in a while (and your use of him as a stand-in for EA guy when it isn’t EA doing dumb things is brilliant) makes it more like a treat than a staple, which makes it tastier.

    1. Teldurn says:

      I agree. After all, treats taste better than staples. ;)

  5. Moriarty says:

    I don’t understand why you keep using those “2Gamers on a couch” comics, you said yourself those kind of comics were awful and you even kicked those comics out of the escapist contest because they were “just like PA, only worse”

    …and now you do them despite knowing they are overdone?

  6. Bill says:

    Well keep it up, Shamus. I enjoy all of your work except for the Spoiler Warning stuff. I just don’t have time to sit around for hours watching someone else play a game. Perhaps a highlight reel would be a good idea?
    Breen is great and Metro is an awesome side-kick.
    I really enjoyed L4Duh, it’s too bad the tools aren’t working for you. I think your humor is best when it has time to establish characters and build into a story like with the “Shamus Plays” stuff. What game is next after LotR?

  7. Meredith says:

    Totally didn’t see that coming in the last panel, nice surprise. I love the hypocracy of a character from a first person shooter about aliens complaining about too many fps games with aliens. Well played.

  8. Allan says:

    I tried to play the original X-Coms once, didn’t work out. If anyone knows how to force games to run in a window I’ll give it another try though. Having ye Olde Time games running fullscreen on a 1920 x 1200 monitor is not good for the eyes.

    1. Moridin says:

      Virtual machine? Many older games wont run on Vista/7 anyway.

      1. Allan says:

        Wouldn’t I need to buy a second copy of windows to make that work though? Also I’m still chugging along quite happily on XP so most of my old games work fine, I just can’t really tell what’s going on since I got the big screen.

        1. evileeyore says:

          Got a second monitor that is smaller?

          I know that’s a weird suggestion, but as someone who has two spare older monitors sitting in his closest it’s the first idea that sprang to my mind…

    2. Daemian Lucifer says:

      I think you can do it with dosbox.

    3. Nick Bell says:

      Check your video card settings. My ATI drivers have an option for “GPU scaling.” With this, you can tell it to “Maintain Aspect Ratio.” This allows you to play non-widescreen games without stretching.

    4. neothoron says:

      Get Dosbox, and use the instructions there (they boil down to: download Dosbox, and that configuration file)
      http://www.freewebs.com/xcombat/dosbox.htm

  9. Greg from St Paul says:

    The Travis comics are my favorites. Especially the Ask Me About My Pants shirt.

    And Piss Up a Rope is a great song.

  10. SatansBestBuddy says:

    Ah, I see that you, too, have fallen into the trap that is “two gamers on a couch.”

    See, the problem you’re facing is that you need a voice to speak what’s on your mind, and two gamers on a couch are two people who can have say whatever you want them to, regardless of the game or the context.

    In other words, it’s far, far easier to come up with rants and jokes when you use the two gamers on a couch formula.

    To break away from that hypocrisy, I would suggest coming up with another voice to speak what you want to say.

    This, naturally, is harder, but that’s what makes it better.

    A suggestion, at least for this strip, would be to use screen shots of X-Com, with, say, a couple of the marines in it talking to each other about potential work opportunities in 2010.

    It makes getting the point across harder, but hey, that’s what you have a blog for, isn’t it? (remember, jokes don’t need an explanation, particularly when you can explain everything just to the right of the comic, anyway)

    EDIT: Also, I’m surprised that you don’t have an “Activision Guy” yet, considering they manage some new controversy every other week.

    While EA’s most recent controversy’s mostly take the form of boneheaded moves and honest mistakes, Activision is actively doing everything it can to insult and belittle it’s customers and employees in ways that would seem cartoonish and silly if it wasn’t so very, very real.

    1. Garden Ninja says:

      See, the problem you're facing is that you need a voice to speak what's on your mind, and two gamers on a couch are two people who can have say whatever you want them to, regardless of the game or the context.

      This may be a really stupid idea, but maybe Shamus could take a bunch of pictures of himself in various poses, and use those this type of comic. At least where there isn’t a more effective way to do it than the two-gamers-on-a-couch shtick. I do like your “Marines talking to each other” idea though.

      1. Zombie Pete says:

        Yeah, not that you have any minutes left in your day, Shamus, but original photography might work well. I’m thinking action figures or gaming miniatures, but maybe your friends would like to be immortalized in some game parody as well.

  11. Lintman says:

    My take on the Stolen Pixels types:

    – The continued use of the “2 gamers on a couch” puzzles me. As you said, it’s way overdone.

    – I really like the Travis strips. I like to imagine that Gamepunx has become a huge sellout (of the Gamespot/Kane & Lynch sort), which is part of why Travis is so cynical and bitter. (Just curious – you said you only have a few images of Travis – where are they from? I had thought you drew them)

    – Breen is great. That’s been some of your best work, I think.

    – Left4Dumb was OK, but I didn’t really care for the game, so not a huge appeal for me here.

    – The other screenshot ones are generally all very good.

    – I like the stock photo EA guy, etc, but won’t mourn them if those type comics cost you extra.

  12. Garden Ninja says:

    Shame that the Left 4 Dumb comics were so hard to make, because they were my favorite. However, part of why I liked it was that it was long running, with an actual story arc, and lots of in jokes, which I happened to understand. The source material was good, but only provided a starting point, so I think you could do something similar with a different game, were you so inclined.

    On the topic of the new X-Com (er, XCom) game (FPS, Alien Invasion, FBI), it occurred to me that it already came out. Last year. On the Wii. There must be a confused time traveler involved here somewhere.

  13. Yar Kramer says:

    Well, while we’re “airing our grievances”:

    -I have played Half-Life 2, and I like the Breen comics partly because of imagining Breen’s dialogue in the actual actor’s voice. (Pity about that, though …)
    -I have played Left 4 Dead, and I didn’t like the Left 4 Dumb comics, because it was basically one continuous “lol, dumb/sociopathic versions of the existing characters” joke, as far as I could tell, plus the juxtoposition of the characters onto Half-Life 2 scenery. Maybe I would’ve been more open to it if you’d waited until Gmod was able to use L4D maps, and thus set it up properly, but … I dunno, even the first comic with Francis running off with all the weapons and medkits kinda fell flat for me. I admit I didn’t really read many of them at all, due to this.
    -I’m neutral on TGAC (who, DNA!), which I suppose is largely because I’ve deliberately avoided reading any “gamer comics” besides Penny Arcade, so I don’t have the … overexposure, I guess you could call it, like I’ve had with (sorry, this is the only example that really applies to me) Touhou Project doujins where Alice Margatroid is some sort of tsundere. I definitely laughed at the Bayonetta one, just for the gag in and of itself. I understand the feelings of those who do feel overexposed to it, though …

  14. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Well its good that youve introduced gordon finally.If you kept waiting for episode 3 in order to put him in,hed probably turn into a skeleton.

  15. 2tm says:

    I was a big fan of the Left4Dumb comics, even though I hadn’t played the game before you ran your series.

    I’m also a big fan of the Travis series whereas I’ve never really liked the Breen comics. I wouldn’t go so fan as to say I don’t think they’re well done, just that I tend to find myself thinking “oh, one of these again…” every time I open stolen pixels and find a Breen comic up.

  16. Robyrt says:

    As far as personal opinion goes:

    Stolen Pixels overall is eminently readable and often funny. This is a level that few webcomics ever reach, let alone one-man shows. Keep up the good work!

    Garry’s Mod comics are my least favorite parts of the strip. I don’t find late night talk shows funny in the first place, so Breen usually falls flat and/or takes 3 panels to tell a 1-panel joke. I’m not a Left 4 Dead fan (no good at FPSes) so Left 4 Dumb went mostly over my head.

    On the other hand, I know I’m in for a guffaw whenever stock photos or Gamepunx magazine appears. They’re a hassle to make, but generally awesome with a good bit of commentary for those likely to have been exposed to other gamer media (i.e. all Escapist readers).

  17. acronix says:

    TGC (Two Gamers on a Couch) comics are overdone, mostly because people want to emulate the success of Penny Arcade, but also because the setting is versatile: those two same character for a year can talk about whatever game in whatever way without the author having to come up with new art or ideas. He only needs to make the characters say something that can be recognized as “satire”, “irony”, or just a plain rant.

    Of course that most of them are destined to suck.

  18. Emm Enn Eff says:

    The reason for why X-Com was turned into a shooter… Naturally has everything to do with the fact that they are currently the most profitable genre. Look! MW2 made a gajillion dollars! If we make an X-Com FPS, we’ll also make a gajillion dollars!

  19. UtopiaV1 says:

    Still hating the X-Com revamp then? I can understand why, I just choose to be blissfully ignorant of my past experiences of being let down by IP reboots from new developers.

    Also, anyone think a MGS dating sim would be pretty cool? I did want a Sonic RTS at first, but then I realised it would (with a 98% certainty) look, act and have the same engine as Halo Wars or Red Alert 3. Give it up developers, the SAGE engine sucks!!!

    Also also, you know you can take screenshots in any game Shamus? Most keyboards have a print screen button, you could take this as a wonderful oppurtunity to rip on some of the games you’re playing at the moment! Not an awful lot of gaming comics do that (new game with new characters each week, instead of same old ones on a couch etc). I know it’s not consistant and it will be more of a challenge, but dammit you need to mix it up in your marriage to Stolen Pixels to stop things going stale. Think of the children!

    Oh yeah, only just noticed that you used characters/engine from Half-Life 2 in your comic this week. And you were making fun of X-Com being turned into a generic alien-shooter FPS. Like Half-Life 2. Wow, that’s a deep level of subtextual humour right there!!!

    1. Shamus says:

      PrntScrn is a HORRIBLE way to do screencaps in bulk. :) It’s flaky, and only copies one image to the clipboard. I use Fraps, so I can spam the cap button and let the images pile up in a preset directory.

      As for your third paragraph, I can tell if you’re making fun of me or not. I mean, that’s what I DO. (When I can.)

      1. UtopiaV1 says:

        Nah I wasn’t making fun, I was just pointing out that if something ain’t broke…

        Oh yeah, forgot about Fraps. That’s a much better way. Ooo, now that I think about it, when are you going to do another Reset Button, those vids are cool! (you know, in a nerdy let’s-talk-seriously-about-games sort of way). I know they’re difficult to do (and require much more time & effort than a webcomic) but I always find them enjoyable.

        @acronix (because I don’t wanna have to do 2 posts here ¬_¬ ), i bet you could TOTALLY make a decent webcomic or two taking the piss out of Civ4. For example, show a nation/player at the corner of a continent, under constant attack from barbarians. He decides he’s had enough, and although he can’t do it quickly, starts to build the great wall of china to keep them out. He struggles away at it, slogging away turn after turn, night after night, losing his wealth (in game), his family (in real life), and finally his sanity. Then, just as it is finished and he finally has the ultimate defense against barbarian hordes, they bypass the wall and attack by sea. Cut to loud expletive.

        That’s an example, not a good one (by far), but I’m just saying, it can be done. You probably need to have played Civ4 to get the jokes (because it’s just that kind of game, unless you take the time out to explain what’s happening in game through narrative, and say how ridiculous it is compared to the real world etc), but then again most gaming webcomics rely on that sort of writer/reader connection (ie. they both know a sufficient amount about the game to poke fun at the holes in it). Might be kinda fun, all i’m saying.

    2. acronix says:

      UtopiaV1, I hope you realize that taking a screencap of something doesn´t magically mean you can make a funny comic out of it. You can have a mountain of Civilization´s screencaps, but that doesn´t mean you´ll have the idea/inspiration to make a fun comic with them, or maybe the jokes you can make with them are just not that good/worthwhile.

      1. Bret says:

        Mostly that, but some X-Com on Dosbox at least has the decency to have a quick way to save the screenshots directly.

  20. Mr_Wizard says:

    Hey, hasn’t EA been firing people? Maybe you can write a small arc where the EA guy gets fired and gets rehired by Activision, or Ubisoft, or even bounces around the industry? That way, wherever the industry reaches its stupidest, you can just have him be their newest employee. Might not be possible with your stash of EA guy photos, but just an idea that popped in my head when I read the EA guy section. :D

    1. Anaphyis says:

      My idea exactly. Have him pop up at Ubisoft, that would be the perfect explanation for the sudden influx of overwhelming stupidity there.

  21. Amarsir says:

    In today’s comic I think you buried the lead. “Animal Crossing: the Flight Simulator” is really funny and the ideas of that first paragraph would have made a better comic than the one you used. (Though probably more editing.)

    Re: Graphic sources, personally I think you’re fine with the mix you’ve used. But a well-defined custom character that you enjoyed reusing would add a little more distinctiveness to the strip and sometimes suggest his own comedy just by combing “my guy” + “situation”. Like Breen is probably easy to write for, because he was externally defined. But controlling the idea of his talk show isn’t the same as having your own character.

  22. Avilan says:

    I never liked Breen…

    I never played Left For Dead but I still loved the L4Dumb strips because I have watched enough zombie movies, and played enough games, that the knowledge of the actual source material isn’t that important.

  23. Atarlost says:

    I suppose if you get desperate you can keep the two gamers and lose the couch. Start with something like two gamers in the kitchen getting snacks and keep getting weirder until you reach something like two gamers doing ballet. That would let you get maybe a dozen more strips out of the trope with a pre-planned metajoke so you don’t have to think of a new lampshade every time you wind up without a better framing device

    1. Shamus says:

      Wow. That’s a REALLY cool idea.

      1. Volatar says:

        Yes! It is a great idea! You can also easily make use of all the HL2 stuff that way.

        Two gamers on a helicopter
        Two gamers on a strider
        Two gamers in a teleporter
        Two combine on a couch

        ….

        Ok, my ideas are not good, but you get what I mean :P

        1. Daemian Lucifer says:

          Tho zombines in radioactive goo?

        2. acronix says:

          What about two couches on a gamer?

          1. Blackbird71 says:

            Oooooooh! Now that’s thinking outside the Xbox…

  24. Jabor says:

    Regarding your commentary on X-Com…

    I dunno about you, but I definitely didn’t treat my commandos as “expendable”. My motto was “no-one gets left behind” – any casualties meant a reload, unless they were suitably epic like one-guy-saves-his-squad-by-taking-out-the-entire-base-single-handedly sort of things.

    1. Me too. I never ever ever leave people behind. Fire Emblem is amazingly difficult for me. I know that I have 4 different cavaliers that could all take this one’s place. But it doesn’t matter. He died, I have to reload to keep him alive longer. As soon as they have a name and unique stats, I have to have them forever.

      I think I lost maybe two grunts total on X-Com.

  25. WoodenTable says:

    As long as you use different people frequently in your 2 Gamers On A Couch strips, it stops being the trope. If you want to break out of that mold before you fall into it, start throwing in all sorts of random models and characters, and don’t default to the “2 Main Characters” or however many there are when you want to tell a joke.

    The name 2 Gamers On A Couch doesn’t perfectly fit the trope… The 2GoaC stereotype arises because the writers fall into a groove, using the same few characters over and over because they’ve had some minimal level of character development; Straight Man is the only straight man, and only Zany Guy can be the zany guy, and Cool Shades is the sole owner of cool shades. The characters “feel” right in their roles, which is exactly the pitfall most authors fall into.

    Guest characters don’t count, as it’s usually one of them interacting with a main character… though they occasionally become a sidecomic, IE Satan and Jesus on a couch playing games in purgatory, or something.

    If you make the characters more cardboard than usual, meaning they’re literally interchangeable, with few if any personality traits/features restricted solely to them, then it ceases to be 2GoaC, and starts being more of a Couch of Infinite Characters. You have to focus on the jokes, because the characters aren’t funny in and of themselves.

    If a joke can only be told by Cool Shades and a Muppet, it might not be a very good joke, because it’s dependent on the characters once again. It can work if they’re preexisting characters from somewhere other than your comic, but that’s still getting very close to the trope, so it’s iffy. Gordon Freeman in this comic, for example. Everyone knows he’s silent, and it’s sort of funny that NPCs pretend he isn’t. Is there anything funny in this comic other than Gordon not saying anything? It’s basically a stream-of-consciousness rant without him. It’s fine for a blog post, but makes for a very banal comic.

    Your Bayonetta comic is the opposite, an excellent example of a joke that works with nearly anyone; you could even have used 2 random men and it would have worked. 2 women would be a bit harder to believe, since one character is the Dismissive Guy archetype (dense women are much harder to write, for various usually-cultural reasons).

    Anyway… that all made sense in my head. Not so sure now that I typed it up, but eh, the internet was made for rambling.

  26. IgnusDei says:

    I can’t help but wonder if X-com Alliance was ever met with such scorn when it got announced. Or even when we knew everything there was supposed to know about it? Which was a tactical FPS?

    Look, i know i can’t stop the hate, but can we please hold it in until we have a more tangible grasp on how its gonna play?

  27. Griffin says:

    Regarding EA Guy, I think it would be perfectly, hilariously appropriate to use the exact same set of stock photos for Ubi Guy, 2KGuy, Activision Guy, and all their other identical corporate brothers.

    1. Blackbird71 says:

      Maybe a little photoshopping to change the color of his tie (or something else subtle) for each company? Make it some sort of parody, indicating that it’s a different person at each company, but all the “suits” at the big companies are the same.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        This would be an excellent comic.The same guy,saying the same thing,with same facial expression,only in a different suit for different companies.Ea,ubi,activision,2k,all of them “care” about their customers in exactly that way.

  28. It strikes me that complaints about this generate free publicity, more than the concept could probably get in any other way.

  29. Vegedus says:

    Unless the point was to troll the entire industry and gather attention by doing something absurd. In which case: Well played, douchebags.
    Huh, never thought of that. If you believe in the whole “no such thing as bad publicity” you can get a lot of free marketing by destroying a beloved franchise, even if it’s old and niche.

    Also, Bioshock MMO

  30. Gavin says:

    Thanks for the lol from SP#1:

    But if you dress up like a knight in cardboard armor and pretend your friend is a dragon, then you’re suddenly LARPing, which means you’re making fools of yourselves.

  31. Zaghadka says:

    Yup. Why did they do this? When you a leverage an IP, there’s supposed to be synergy. In this case, they left the synergy up on the spice rack next to the ground cumin. Seriously, the genre flipping here is as mixed-up as that last metaphor. It’s as bad as putting “pipe dream” in Bioshock. It’s like turning The 7th Guest into a interior decorator game for 8-year-olds.

    Why? Why? Why?

  32. You could always do what Qwantz comics does (www.qwantz.com) – he uses the exact same artwork for every single strip, just with different dialogue.

    Course the author has said something like “Yeah, it seemed like a great idea for the first 20 or so. Now that I’m up to 1500 or so, it’s not so great.”

  33. Daf says:

    Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait…

    A BioShock MMO!?!

    Sign me up! ;D

  34. Hey! I realize this is sort of off-topic but I had to
    ask. Does operating a well-established blog such as yours
    require a massive amount work? I am completely new to writing a blog however
    I do write in my journal on a daily basis. I’d like to start
    a blog so I can share my own experience and thoughts online.
    Please let me know if you have any kind of ideas or tips for new aspiring bloggers.

    Appreciate it!

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