Game Boss – Rematch

By Shamus Posted Monday Feb 6, 2012

Filed under: Notices 110 comments

At the suggestion of others, I’ve watched a few episodes of Game Boss. I would say that the previous clip did indeed employ editing that bordered on deception. Now, I did caution that we were seeing the results of double-editing, but I should have checked to see how bad it was. Given that my major problem with reality shows is that they manufacture conflict through aggressive editing, I would say that the person who put together the earlier highlight reel is more guilty of that crime than IGN. Disgusting. And I am now a rube for passing it along.

Let’s be clear here: This does not excuse the awful things that were said in the show, but it does show that IGN wasn’t nearly as depraved or as cynical as the video led us to believe. This editorializing is a shame, since it pretty much sabotaged the important conversation that could have taken place here about the direction and content of this show.

I’m not going to sit down and watch all of the available episodes just so we can sort out the nature and the degree of the editorializing done by the YouTube poster. I no longer want to stand with either side of this exchange. A plague on both their houses, and a heaping helping of humiliation to me for swallowing the story as presented.

In the interest of fairness, here is a full episode of the show so you can judge for yourself. This doesn’t change my opinion of IGN or reality shows, but it does show that Game Boss is not anywhere near the circus of hate and stupidity that it appeared to be.


Link (YouTube)

Even after watching this episode, I still get get that creepy I-need-a-shower vibe that I get from reality shows. Videogame development is interesting stuff, and you don’t need to construct a narrative of conflict through gossip-mongering and trash-talking. For someone wanting to look inside the sausage factory of game development, I highly recommend Season 2, Episode 12 of How it’s Made, which is available on Netflix. It gives a (fleeting) look behind the scenes of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time.

For the people producing Game Boss: You’ve got a good concept. I’d suggest you leave out the “here is what team A’s members say about Bob when he isn’t around” crap. Let us see the technical and logistical challenges of making software under pressure. Knowledge itself is entertainment. You don’t need the interpersonal cock-fighting to make this good. You just need to let us go on the journey with these people.

 


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110 thoughts on “Game Boss – Rematch

  1. FryGuy says:

    I think the problem any person or person trying to do a show or movie or any real media for the masses type thing on gamers or gaming is connecting to the audience. Most will try to bring the feelings of their subjects to the watcher, help them understand why these people do what they do. The easiest way to do this is conflict and tension. There’s less to sell, it’s more obvious.

    Mind you, there’s good ways to do this, see King of Kong where the tension is build out of us connecting with Steve first before we ever get the negative feelings towards Billy Mitchell and his uncouth ways.

    However, it’s far easier to just have folks get annoyed at each other, have outbursts or just try and create tension that’s not really there through editing, etc.

  2. Ravens Cry says:

    You know as an experimental thing, having a game where you fight female NPC primarily/only could be interesting. For most games, you fight either male combatants or neuter monsters that appear closer to male than what our brains define as ‘female’.
    Yes, it’s kind of fishing for controversy, but sometimes exploring what does and what doesn’t get controversy can be a worthy exploration in itself.
    How, as a gamer, would it feel different to do the opposite?
    Why?
    I’m not saying our little man-children here had anything like a good idea, but certain aspects of it might be worth exploring on an experimental level.

    1. Atarlost says:

      Actually, the concept could be salvaged. Extreme feminism is a real thing that real people really worry about, usually in the context of parental rights and divorce settlements. Making extreme feminists the villains of an over the top game could be funny if, and this is an important if, the protagonists were also female to eliminate the gender bashing. The luring males into prison with beer would have to go as well. The game would need to respect some members of both genders.

      And here we see just how terrible the game is. If you take take their premise of dystopian feminism the males are the victims: the metaphorical damsels in distress. The action hero(ine)s would be women with fathers and brothers and significant others who were decent people, at least until they started assisting jailbreaks, but in proper action game style the lone protagonist remains the primary protagonist even when her brother or love interest is out of the concentration camp and joins the fight. Probably should be a brother. The theme shouldn’t be that women need men, though until we perfect cloning anyone arguing otherwise is campaigning for human extinction, but that it’s not okay to mindlessly hate people because they have the same gender as people who lived a century ago that you disapprove of.

      Funny thing that. When you start to consider what a workable story would be like it stops being as offensive as it would be with slipshod writing. It would still be offensive. Unlike the more popular villains like Nazis, Aliens, Zombies, and Alien Nazi Zombies, feminists actually exist in the modern world. But it wouldn’t have to be offensive to women who aren’t radical feminists or men with a sense of shame. It would be politically offensive instead of sexually offensive. Offending people is kind of the price of making any sort of political statement and being able to make political statements is part of being recognized as an artistic medium in the modern world.

      Sadly, these guys aren’t ready to create art. They can be “edgy” like P. T. Barnham but they can’t be edgy like Johnathan Swift.

      1. Thrawn says:

        Disclaimer: I didn’t watch either video… I’m not going to kill my brain cells by watching reality TV.

        I really like your point about having the villains being caricatures of “real” and current people, as contrasted to Nazi zombies. As a general rule the more human and believable the villain, the better the conflict and thus the better the story. Unfortunately, the closer you are to a real person, the closer you get to having a justifiable villain, which creates offense.

        And even if the dystopian nature made the villains indefensible, the general premise would still be offensive to some. Some would be offended because the intentional perversion of typical male/female character roles is itself “offensive” (for whatever reason), and others because primarily male gamers would be still be beating up virtual women (plus your typical modding community rule 34 nonsense will really add to this one). At some point, being offensive is unavoidable if you want to break the safe, traditional settings. I think you implicitly pointed to this by saying that the protagonists must be female… why must protagonists be either specific gender if their cause is actually justified? And if the cause is not justified, then being either gender is not sufficient to stave off the problem.

        Of course this is always the problem with art/literature. If it is relevant to culture, someone will be offended. The trick is balance.

    2. Mumbles says:

      I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the Metal Gear series did it well with the beauty and the beast corps. But, that series has always had interesting female characters.

      1. SolkaTruesilver says:

        I don’t remember exactly who said it, but I hate when you have to define any character as a “female” character. Just have a villain who happens to be female. Some of the best “female” characters in the entertainement business were characters you could have put a man in their stead and have the story still hold out.

        – Alyx
        – Chell
        – Ripley
        – Alice

        What’s so important about them? their role in the story wasn’t even remotely connected to what sex they were. They were just women at the right place at the right (or wrong) time.

        It’d be better to simply write your story and then eventually flip a coin to decide wheter or not your character is man or woman. This is why FemShep is such a popular/strong character, feminization aside. You don’t need to horn-in feminine characteristics just to pass across the point that “HEY, THIS IS A FEMALE CHARACTER! SHE IS FEMININE BUT STRONG! STRONG BUT FEMININE!”

        1. Mumbles says:

          Now, now. Gender does help define someone’s character (as it should!). Let’s look at The Boss from the Metal Gear series. Her defining characteristic is that she’s a patriot until the end, however she has some side qualities that involve motherhood. That is specific to gender and if she were a man, she’d end up completely different.

          Alyx has feminine qualities, too! She’s a daddy’s girl through and through.

          1. SolkaTruesilver says:

            She has feminine characteristics, but they aren’t relevant anywhere in the story. And she could be a Daddy’s boy just as well and the story as a whole wouldn’t be broken.

            1. Mumbles says:

              Honestly, I think Alyx is a bad example of a good, deep character. I always found her charming, but very shallow.

              1. SolkaTruesilver says:

                Hmmm.. point

              2. Daemian Lucifer says:

                I dont agree with you completely on that.Half life is an interesting series,because it doesnt flat out tell you anything.Just like how if you were to suddenly meed someone in a dangerous situation,and get out of it with their help,you wouldnt learn much about them.But that wont make them shallow.

                Almost every character in half life 2 is like this,we know very little about them,since we only see snippets of their actions.Was mossman a double agent because she wants to save the earth,because she respects eli greatly,or because she is in love with him?

                The only really fleshed out character is breen,but thats because everywhere you go either breen is talking to you,or people are talking about him.You dont just see snippets of his actions,you hear a whole lot about his actions,both from him and from everyone else.

                And this gets confirmed in the episodes when you get paired with alyx for quite some time and her character gets expanded.So while alyx wasnt presented as a deep character,that doesnt mean she isnt deep.That just means that we dont get to learn enough about her.

        2. Aanok says:

          I must disagree. There are strong differences between a male and a female charater. There must be, otherwise the writers have failed at characterization.

          The big deal with Alyx is that there is a hinted romance between her and Gordon, thanks to Valve’s trademark subtle storytelling, while she still exists as a believable and independent entity.

          If Chell had been a man, he wouldn’t have had a third of the attention she had. Not even in a Gordon Freeman-esque way. GlaDos would have completely dominated the narrative. In a nutshell, this is due to the fact that the predominantly male audience of a videogame is more easily fascinated by females.

          Alice (I presume we’re talking Wonderland), as a young girl, is given as a fragile thing, a poor lass torn apart by her madness. You might also argue that hers is a journey into puberty, which is completely different if seen from a male or female point of view: while she feels somehow violated, a boy would be much more enterprising and adventurous.

          And, if I were to get out of videogames, I could just say “Madame Bovary” and be done with it :D

          EDIT – Damn! Beat by the Mumbles.

          1. Mumbles says:

            Ohoho! Also, GlaDos wouldn’t be the same if she were a man robot! And, if Wheatley were a girl he’d probably be like a British Harley Quinn.

            Listen, gender issues shouldn’t freak people out! You like deep complex characters? Well, gender helps play into those complexities. Sure, it might teeter on the edge of sexism if handled incorrectly, but that doesn’t mean we should bleach it all away.

            1. SolkaTruesilver says:

              The hinted romance is just that, hinted. And it’s not even plot-relevant, as it’s simply some fluff added to make the character more likable during cutscenes. Anything that defines Alyx beyond the #LoveInterest tag could be achieved with a man character.

              And Chell’s generated interest by the nerddom, sourced in said nerddom’s obsession with anything that doesn’t have a Y chromosome is not due to writing. When it came to character traits (as scarce or suggested as they were), it didn’t changed a thing to have Chell be a man or a woman.

              And I wasn’t talking about Alice in Wonderland, but Alice of the Resident Evil movies.

              1. Irridium says:

                So… by making Alyx a man you remove all that fluff romance stuff, which would end up making Alyx a less likable character.

                So she wouldn’t be as likable as a man. Why would we want a less-likable character?

              2. Aanok says:

                My dear man, if you remove “fluff” from characters, you destroy them, you deny their very characterization. You make them different, possibly shallower entities altogheter. A story is not just made up of its plot and the presentation of said plot.

                I have a dejavu of this conversation, but just think of FF7 and try and reverse Cloud and Aeris’ relationship. You’d get something completely different. Mind you, not necessarily bad! Just different.

              3. Zukhramm says:

                Why does it matter if it’s relevant to the plot or not. We’re talking about characters as characters, not characters and their relevance to the plot.

                1. Eärlindor says:

                  If anything, it’s the characters that make the plot of a story and drive it forward.

                  1. Zukhramm says:

                    So? That still does not make a characters importance to the plot matter to what affect a character’s gender has on the character.

              4. Abnaxis says:

                GlaDos spent a full 80% of the dialog in Portal 2 (rough estimate) shooting catty barbs at Chell suggesting she was fat. If you think that doesn’t have different connotations for a female/female antagonist relationship than for a male/male or male/female relationship, you haven’t spent enough time around females.

                Personally, I found it funny. It said a lot about GlaDos’ character, and set up an entertaining contrast between her mechanical nature and her human nature. It most definitely would not have been possible if Chell were a man.

                1. krellen says:

                  Also a lot about how unlikeable Chell is. When a woman says that about another woman, it’s fairly normal interpersonal conflict. When a woman says that about a man, it’s almost always because of personal history, usually a breakup.

                  1. Eärlindor says:

                    Sorry, but I’m confused; why would it mean that Chell is unlikeable? Of course GLaDOS wouldn’t like her because Chell killed her, but why would it make Chell, generally speaking, unlikeable?

                    1. krellen says:

                      I was saying GlaDOS often makes comments about how unlikeable Chell is during Portal, in addition to the fat jokes.

                    2. Eärlindor says:

                      Oh. I have always understood it as another random, mean-spirited comment/taunt in an attempt to keep Chell down.

                    3. krellen says:

                      That’s actually exactly what it is – but that is behaviour that exists in female/female relationships, and not female/male relationships. (Were GlaDOS HAL and Chell still Chell, it might work. With GlaDOS being GlaDOS, it only works if Chell is female, and would have entirely different connotations if Chell were male.)

                    4. Eärlindor says:

                      I understand what you’re saying now, though I wasn’t wondering about the whole gender thing. :)

                    5. Abnaxis says:

                      Thinking about this, I think it would have been really funny if Chell was actually a male, and GlaDos was still female, and focused all of her ire into emasculating the main character. It…actually would be a lot more OT, with GlaDos more closely resembling the Game Boss villain. Done right, it would be hilarious.

                2. Dragomok says:

                  Actually, I happen to live under one roof with another male. He says quite often out of spite that I’m fat and I’m rather offended by it, so I think your view might be somewhat limited on that matter.

                  1. Abnaxis says:

                    Let me clarify: I wasn’t saying it’s not offensive for a male to call a female fat, or that males do not call females fat, but rather I’m saying it’s not the same when a male engages in the behavior towards a female or toward another male versus when one female is doing it to another female. When a man does it, it’s usually considered a derisive put-down, whereas when a woman does it (especially with the passive-aggressive style that GlaDos does it) it’s considered catty.

                    If GlaDos had HAL’s voice or if Chell was a man, the insults would not have come off as catty. There’s just something funny about a robot being catty.

                    Men or women who put others down are assholes either way for it, and one could probably make persuasive arguments over which gender is the bigger asshole, but they are still both different in the connotations their actions carry, and what their actions say about who they are.

                    1. Dragomok says:

                      Ah, know I understand what you meant.

          2. Daemian Lucifer says:

            Its not really a hinted romance,its more of an idolization.Gordon is a character from fairy tales her dad was telling her,and now she finally met him.And if we put her fathers comments aside,there isnt anything really romantic about the two.

            1. Aanok says:

              Well, it’s all quite subtle and much is left to the player’s imagination.

              At least that I remember. Don’t things get slightly more explicit in EP2?

              1. Daemian Lucifer says:

                Nope.She jokes,she gets hurt,you save her,she has some trauma,her dad dies.All of it is done well,and fleshes her character quite a bit,but nothing to show that she actually feels more for gordon than idolization.

                1. SolkaTruesilver says:

                  If she was a man, it would be seen as simple idolization. Since she is a woman, people (in large majority the male gamers demographic) see it as romantic interest..

                  Hmmm…

                  1. Dragomok says:

                    That just shows what a lot of people think to be True Love(tm) – or rather what many people expect from their spouses, life partners or whatever you wish to call them. Which I always found as a bit of… sad. And senseless. But mostly sad.
                    Personally, I think this, and concepts such as “love from the first sight”, “you only love once in a lifetime” and destined love, is the main source of love problems. However, I have never been in love (heck, I don’t even have actual friends!), so it’s not like I have any first-hand experience to support my thesis.

            2. krellen says:

              I don’t think Alyx’s “be careful” farewell at the elevator down into the reactor (this is HL2, no episodes) would come across the way it is without some romantic overtones. That was not idolization.

              1. Daemian Lucifer says:

                It does to me.Just look at a scene from a bit earlier when she thanks you for coming back to help them.Its her father who was in danger,and you didnt have to do anything,but you still did come to help.That deserves a lot of respect and admiration,which can seem like romanticizing if you dont know the full story.

                1. krellen says:

                  Have you ever been in love, Daemian? I ask, because this might be one of those cases of not seeing something because you’ve never really felt it yourself.

                  There are a lot of clues, not the least of which are the ways Alyx looks at Gordon (which, given the high quality of Valve’s facial expression modelling, are not coincidental). She does not look at him like a father figure or a hero figure (as she often does Eli); the way Alyx looks at and reacts to Gordon are very different from the way she does her father, which is the closest model we’d have for comparison between love and idolization.

                  And, of course, it’s Word of God that she has feelings for Gordon, from developer commentary in Episode One.

                  1. Daemian Lucifer says:

                    I have been in love,but Ive also seen how a teenage girl behaves when in presence of her idol.The differences are quite hard to spot.

                    1. krellen says:

                      Alyx is a grown woman, not a teenager. She’s not even a near-teen.

                    2. Daemian Lucifer says:

                      Yes,and Im a grown man,but even now when I wait for something very long,and finally get it,my face lights up like Im a child again.

                      And thats not even talking about how the combine have influenced the human race.Did alyx ever experience love?Or even liked some guy,or just lusted for him?

                    3. SolkaTruesilver says:

                      As a 26 years old hetesexual man, I would still giggle and be excited like a teenage girl if I ever get to meet PK Subban.

  3. Knut says:

    “Videogame development is interesting stuff”
    Yes, for some of us…but seems IGN wants to hit a broad spectrum of viewers (well, broader anyway). Conflicts are a cheap way of doing this.

    I am just waiting for them to introduce “and now…….the TWIST”

    1. Jarenth says:

      The TWIST is that they’re developing a game for the Atari 4600.

      1. Aanok says:

        The TWIST is that the game they’re really creating is the competition they’re taking part in.

        1. rofltehcat says:

          The TWIST will be a “real life” match of CoD (Paintball, or some sort of rubber ammunition) with extra points being awarded for flaming and teabagging.

          1. CTrees says:

            The TWIST is that it was his sled all along.

            1. Dragomok says:

              The TWIST is a type of dance.

              1. Parkhorse says:

                I AM THE LORD OF THE DANCE

                1. Pete says:

                  The TWIST is there was no TWIST in that sentence.

                    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

                      Bah,your twist is pretty weak.I have one thats much more twister.

              2. Gamer says:

                The TWIST is that the whole series was shot and edited on April Fool’s Day.

  4. Josh H says:

    Indeed, the concept of the show is good, and the presentation not nearly as trashy as the last video made it seem.

    That said, I was very disappointed with the one method of input challenge. Not only does that limit your options while already under time pressure, but the wording itself was unclear. Does the entire keyboard count as one method of input, or can you only use one button? Does the mouse count as one method of input? And more importantly, why would you ever start making a game with such a silly restriction?

    I understand the aim is to add a twist to keep it interesting, but there must be better restrictions than that. Like it has to be 2D, or use a specific gameplay mechanic. Hopefully the other episodes did something more reasonable, if they use extra restrictions at all.

    1. Sydney says:

      And more importantly, why would you ever start making a game with such a silly restriction?

      Practice. Ever play Thief without using arrows, and then go back to ‘normal’ and find you’ve improved at pure stealth? Or run a gimmick Baton Pass chain in competitive Pokémon for a week, coming out of it with a losing record but an intimate understanding of predicting and blocking the phaze? Or play Diablo “Nethack-style” to see how good you really were at survival?

      1. Josh H says:

        True. I didn’t think of that. Then my only issue would be the ambiguous wording, though it’s possible that is the result of editing.

        Anyway, a nitpicker will nitpick. Now if you don’t mind me, I’m going to tell my cat how to properly groom her fur.

      2. Darkness says:

        I didn’t make it to the end. I figured there was going to be several variation on … QTEs! Single input leads to Quick Time Events so it is publisher friendly. Yuck.

      3. Peter H. Coffin says:

        Not sure what “nethack style” Diablo is. “Iron Man” variations are pretty well recognized, and usually end up being something along the lines of

        * Never sell anything
        * Never buy anything
        * Never repair anything
        * Never interact with townsfolk beyond the minimum required to move quests along
        * No healing from townies — if you need to interact with a healing quest-giver, wait until you’re full up before talking to them
        * No identification from Deckard Cain — wait until you find a scroll

        If anyone thinks Josh’s inventory management is horrific, they have not seen an Iron Man sorceress schlepping around a half-dozen unidentified staffs trying to find an Identify scroll to find if any of them are even worth carrying, and the frustration of encountering YET ANOTHER DAMNED TOWN PORTAL that the player won’t use anyway.

        1. Ingvar says:

          You die, you start over. No starting from an earlier save. In fact, any save you have spent any amount of time playing since it was made should be considered voided.

          1. Stranger says:

            . . . wait, you die you start over?

            That’s exactly the form of Nethack I have here. You mean it doesn’t normally do that?!

            1. Dragomok says:

              They’re adding Casual Mode in two weeks to make the game appeal to a broader demographic. Also, in 2013 they are going to add Action Mode for people who don’t like all that stupid number crunching and Storyteller Mode for people who don’t like fights and just want to watch all those shiny, jaw-dropping ASCII cutscenes.

              This post might have or might have not been inspired by news regarding BioWare’s new design decisions regarding a certain space-opera-themed franchise from last two years.

            2. Ingvar says:

              That’s Nethack-style Nethack.

          2. Peter H. Coffin says:

            “Hardcore” is actually built into the game, legitimately, in II and Lord of Destruction. Old hat.

            http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Hardcore

      4. Zagzag says:

        Baton pass chains aren’t that gimicky. They are not what you first think of when you think of a normal strategy, but some people have taken them beyond gimick level. Also, phaze blocking is often the least of your concearns on a well designed baton pass team, as you can just pass an ingrain with your Smeargle and completely ignore them…

    2. Pete says:

      Severely handicapped people would probably appreciate one-button inputs.

    1. Exetera says:

      Gotta love Screenwipe. Honestly, that’s the first thing I thought of when I saw Shamus’ first rant. Don’t forget the rest of the episode, though.

      1. anaphysik says:

        The episode goes on after that, too:
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCforPLUYHU

        There’s also a short segment purely on deceptive editing in reality TV:
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBwepkVurCI

  5. Darkness says:

    I watched about half of the original show on IGN. It is one of four new youtube shows they are producing this year. It wasn’t a big deal but it devolved into a standard reality show very quickly.

    The idea sounded alright but having two hours to put together a boss fight is … stupid. The only way to win is to be more outrageous then the other contestants. Really though, the only winning move is not to play.

  6. Exetera says:

    This does actually seem like a cool show, but I don’t like the way they hew to all of the reality show clichés. I think, for me, the core “cool thing” about this show is sitting off to the side, wondering how I would implement the game challenge of the week… so why doesn’t the show format emphasize that? Maybe have a group brainstorm after the judging (perhaps keep the losing team around to implement the group idea?) or have industry idols like Jonathan Blow come in to give their take on the idea. We’re not going to come to IGN to see jerks butt heads… there’s plenty of space on network TV for that. So why would they build the show around it?

  7. Amen, Brother Shamus. Amen.

    I feel the same way about the SyFy show FaceOff. I suffer through the insipid reality show format just so I can watch these incredibly talented people through their creative processes.

    Again, I don’t mind competition. But FaceOff would be a far superior show if the contestants were actually having FUN, and if one of them wasn’t forced to do the “walk of shame” elimination each week.

    1. Hitch says:

      I haven’t watched any of the second season of FaceOff, but I did watch the first. Even the elimination aspect wouldn’t be so bad if they cut all the petty squabbles and backbiting out of the episodes so they could devote more time to actually showing the make-up jobs.

  8. MikhailBorg says:

    The forced drama ruined “American Chopper” for me. It started out as three very colorful family members building cool bikes, and then turned into an unwatchable soap opera. Thank goodness that the hosts of Mythbusters had the ratings clout to demand that such BS be stopped by their third season.

  9. Kresh says:

    Remember, the show’s target audience is gaming idiots who like watching people clash and hate each other. Wait, that’s 99% of all “reality” shows… and the internet.

    Sex and violence sell. This show is no different. The people who create, produce, write, and market these shows (heck, most shows) thinks their audience is made up of sub-human drooling morons. That’s why TV is so bad.

    It’s also why I don’t watch TV. One can only stand being insulted so many times before one give up on being “entertained.” *shrug*

  10. Tharwen says:

    Wow, that guy with the goggles was annoying.

    Now, I have to stop and wonder if that was IGN’s intention…

  11. Nick says:

    “I'd suggest you leave out the “here is what team A's members say about Bob when he isn't around” crap. Let us see the technical and logistical challenges of making software under pressure.”

    It would just be a documentary then.

    This annoyed me about the TV show Overhaulin’, if they left out the practical joke crap and just showed us how they restore a classic car in a week, it would have been so much better.

    1. Aanok says:

      “It would just be a documentary then.”

      Well, it would be a documentary about the creative process of designing and crafting a game. You could argue wheter if you should put more or less technical details inside, but it would not be your standard “lions in Serengeti” reportage at all. Watching how different teams approach a similar challenge, how they tackle the problems they encounter, the solutions they come up with, would give you a very different experience from your everyday documentary.

      Kind of what Shamus does (did? we haven’t heard of that in a while) with Project Frontier.

    2. KremlinLaptop says:

      This problem seems to plague every show related to building cars, where it’s a reality television soap-opera that happens to involve cars. As a petrolhead it usually leaves me either annoyed or dismayed when all the technical aspects and details of how things are done are left insultingly simplified or not shown at all so as to make room for more INTERPERSONAL DRAMAFESTS.

      I’d love to see a show where they follow normal people with project cars and big dreams. Some guy purchasing a ’57 Chevy to make a hotrod out of it, a drag-strip demon or just restoring it, with narration on the build processes, history of the car, all sorts of stuff. Could be a damn interesting show, but I guess it’d be interesting to a niche audience only so they try to grab more market appeal with the dramabombs.

      Something along the lines of say these articles: http://murileemartin.com/ImpalaRoundup.html in the form of a show instead. That’s by one of my favourite writers and covers far more than just building the Impala, well worth a read.

      1. krellen says:

        Note that any endeavour involving more than two people will contain drama, also known as “politics”. People will jockey for position, create factions, try to get their ideas to the forefront, etcetera. It’s unavoidable.

        That doesn’t mean the shows have to focus exclusively on it, of course.

      2. Nick says:

        I'd love to see a show where they follow normal people with project cars and big dreams.

        Amen!

        There’s a couple of UK series’ called Campervan Crisis and Beetle Crisis about VW enthusiasts trying to restore rustbucket VWs. They are just straight-up restoration, there’s a little bit about what the car means to the family, etc, but it’s mostly about the restoration.

    3. MikhailBorg says:

      Hear, hear!

      Watching them fix up those old dead cars? Fascinating. The prank stuff? Juvenile, and on a few episodes, clearly harmful.

  12. Wandring says:

    In a day I went from fuming over a show that I perceived as outrageous and vile tripe ever to be mislabeled “entertainment”. To generally interested in seeing a little more of this tripe.

    Don’t feel sorry about being mislead. I for one am happy to have grown from a humbling lesson in critical thinking.

  13. rrgg says:

    I get the sense that most of you on SW are already CRACKED addicts in need of serious help. But for the benefit of everyone else:
    5 Secrets of Making Reality TV They Don’t Want You to Know

    That said, when you want media about something you know to be more realistic I find that you will always be facing an uphill battle. Similar to the military buff who would like to see realistic damage instead of “Gasoline everywhere,” or history buff getting sick of overly-choreographed “dancing with swords” routines, or even the plumber wondering how on earth taking off that lady’s shirt is supposed to help fix that leaky drain line. You are always going to be met with the usual chorus of “But that would be boring” or “Fun vs Realism” even when the realistic option would be just as fun if not more so (no, especially then, because that’s when they won’t have any real arguments).

    1. Shamus says:

      Just to be clear: I never read Cracked. I’ve wound up there now and again from a forwarded link, but it’s pretty darn rare.

      Make of that what you will.

      1. MrPyro says:

        That’s probably a good thing. Cracked is like TV Tropes (I’ll be good and not actually link it); you read one article, then at the end there’s some suggested articles, and some featured ones at the top that look interesting, and wait where did the last hour go?

        1. littlefinger says:

          How about I link you to the TVTropes page on Cracked?

          :evil laugh:

          1. MrPyro says:

            Oh God. Pretty much every trope links directly to a Cracked article.

            Oh well, that’s what lunch time is for…

            1. Lazlo says:

              “So, um MrPyro, why exactly is it that your lunch hour started at noon and ended on Thursday?”

            2. littlefinger says:

              I err, may inadvertently cursed myself as well… Where’s that close all tabs button, quick!

      2. Gamer says:

        I’m honestly kind of surprised by that. I didn’t think you’d read it regularly, but you seemed like the kind of guy who would go on that site whenever you get a little bored.

    2. Moriarty says:

      I don’t understand the popularity of cracked at all. They always present myths or opinions as facts without mentioning any kind of proof or reasoning and yet nobody calls them out on it. They just write out FACT in bold letters and suddenly everything they say must be right, because it’s a fact, obviously.

      1. Sagretti says:

        Well, it’s supposed to be a humor site, so there’s the “Rule of Funny” defense. It doesn’t help, though, that I’ve seen Cracked articles linked as some kind of final word on subjects.

        I use to read Cracked, but grew tired of it about a year or so ago. The site increasingly gained a bit of a political bent after a while that just wasn’t entertaining to me. There were more and more articles that really weren’t funny at all and existed only to make some meaningful point. I avoid political debates like the plague anymore (for my own reasons), and I don’t have much use for a humor site that stops being funny.

      2. Aristabulus says:

        …it’s a humour site. Indeed, they’re probably taking the piss out on the whole internet with the whole no-fact-checking-but-presented-as-fact bit. There’s no lack of examples out there.

      3. Daemian Lucifer says:

        So they are just like fox news,only with humour.

        1. Irridium says:

          And they don’t pretend to be completely factual.

          1. Stranger says:

            So it’s like the Daily Show on the Internet?

      4. rrgg says:

        I’ve noticed that everyone seems to state opinions or sides of complex issues as outright fact. Heck, you did it just now. Part of the reason is that it makes far more interesting than stating every time “In my opinion this fact is probably true but it maybe isn’t.” But just to be safe assume that everything said ever by anyone should have been in that sort of format.

        1. CTrees says:

          Absolute statements are always wrong.

          ;-)

        2. krellen says:

          Stating opinion as if fact is one of the first rhetorical devices anyone learns to use. Far more annoying than people stating opinion as fact are the legions of people that seem to think there’s something wrong with this. If you didn’t believe your opinions have merit, you wouldn’t speak them in the first place.

          1. Pickly says:

            If the purpose of some bit of communication is to convey information, and incorrect or iffy information is passed on, than people have reason to be annoyed.

            1. krellen says:

              I have almost never seen anyone complain about the “opinion as fact” thing in a news article. It’s always attached to someone’s opinion column, which is all Shamus writes. (This also applies to Jim Sterling and Movie Bob, incidentally; neither of them do “news” either.)

              1. Zukhramm says:

                But complain that Shamus is stating opinions as fact is annoying not because there’s nothing wrong with stating opinions as facts but because he’s not stating opinions as facts.

  14. Daemian Lucifer says:

    You shouldve linked the video that spawned the previous clip.Then that comment “When I think villain,I think woman” becomes even worse,because they were designing a realistic simulation in a post apocalyptic future.Also,while it doesnt paint the judge badly,it does something worse:It paints the audience really badly,because they were voting for the worse design.Not to mention that everyone complained how “awful” their twist choice was(uuuh,a futuristic space comedy rpg,how hard),yet the only one who got the really awful choice(a violent fps rated e) was voted out.

  15. SatansBestBuddy says:

    Heh, I was actually wondering if you’d check out the show or not, considering the YouTube video wasn’t actually the show and it’d bug you enough to want to see what the real show is like.

    Personally, I’m fine with just watching the YouTube clip and dismissing the whole thing as juvenile and ignorant of the implications of what they’re actually doing, so I’m not interested in figuring out if that’s what they’re trying to do or not.

    It’s like watching a trailer for a movie; if I don’t like what I’m seeing then I’m not gonna check out the movie, regardless of the actual quality of the movie.

    Still, it’d be interesting to hear how this show stacks up compared to your own experiences in game making.

  16. DanMan says:

    The same thing happened with Top Shot. I love guns, but the forced drama and obvious editing really pissed me off. If it was a straight up competition, I would probably have watched it marathon-style (I watched it on Netflix). Because of the stupid reality-show-ification, I could only watch one at a time then needed a break.

    1. CTrees says:

      Urgh, agreed. Season one wasn’t as bad, but season two wound up with a whole lot of petty crap which detracted from the quality of the competition. Could have been fantastic, ended up just pretty good.

  17. Knight of Fools says:

    There’s a careful balance that I find enjoyable with a reality TV show – You have to have something with people who are human enough to be interesting, but not so rude, hateful and mindless as to be dehumanized. Most shows err on the side of “everyone loves fighting and suppressed rage” and come out much worse for it.

    When the characters in a show are having emotional issues, and those issues become the meat and barley in place of the show’s concept, then you’ve done something wrong. There’s a small number of reality shows that do this correctly, because in the end, they’re less successful than the ones that allow themselves to become pissing matches of angst.

    Also: My respect for you has increased greatly, Shamus. Kudos for clearing the record – It’s not something a lot of people can do without being pressed.

    1. Aanok says:

      Now you’ve made me curious. Got any recommendations?

  18. Dev Null says:

    You don't need the interpersonal cock-fighting to make this good. You just need to let us go on the journey with these people.

    Or some different people, who weren’t specially chosen for their cock-fighting potential.

    Just sayin…

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