T w e n t y S i d e d
1) It looks like the crew from Loading Ready Run has sold out. They used to be this cool indie comedy team, and now they’re trading all that in and appearing at The Escapist. Oh, their stuff is just as funny as it ever was, but it’s a shame to see them lose their underground status just so they can cash a paycheck.
2) In completely unrelated news, my Let’s Play series has been picked up by The Escapist, and it will appear on their site. I’ll be covering Lord of the Rings Online first. More details ought to be forthcoming in the next week or so.
Philosophy of Moderation
The comments on most sites are a sewer of hate, because we're moderating with the wrong goals in mind.
Grand Theft Auto Retrospective
This series began as a cheap little 2D overhead game and grew into the most profitable entertainment product ever made. I have a love / hate relationship with the series.
Are Lootboxes Gambling?
Obviously they are. Right? Actually, is this another one of those sneaky hard-to-define things?
Could Have Been Great
Here are four games that could have been much better with just a little more work.
Programming Language for Games
Game developer Jon Blow is making a programming language just for games. Why is he doing this, and what will it mean for game development?
For shame! Receiving monetary compensation for one’s work smacks of capitalism, and shall not be tolerated!
Awesome that your great Let’s Play’s are going to be on the Escapist Shamus!
My dream is to have enough talent to sell out. I could gain a cult following on Monday and working for Microsoft on Tuesday. I would have absolutely no shame.
Congrats on the new gig, Shamus! I presume your existing work there will continue forward as well?
Nice to see your work on Lets Play got picked up. Its a great series. Vague curiosity — did you submit it for publication, or did they solicit it from you?
Also happy to hear LOTRO is your next Lets Play. Looking forward to hearing your detailed take on the game.
RTBones: It was sort of a mutual thing. I needed money and they were looking for ways to lower their standards.
More seriously: I pitched the idea.
Congratulations Shamus, i’ll eagerly wait for your stories!
signed,
an italian fanboy of yours :)
PS: Communist Europe does not approve that “work –> money” nonsense you seem to suggest!
Which reminds me of this:
http://loadingreadyrun.com/videos/view/35/The-Rant-Scenesters-and-Snobbery
Congratulations! I’m definitely looking forward to it.
Well, good for you! However, I’m starting to get sick of the Escapist constantly adding new series. They bought out Unforgotten Realms two years ago, and that went seven kinds of nowhere and ended up meeting a convoluted, monotonous end. Apocalypse Lane has yet to be funny, and the Rebbecca Mayes thing is just kind of random.
Gah, whoops, I turned that into a rant about the Escapist. I do look forward to reading your LPs, though; Star On Chest was great and it’ll be nice to read more in that vein.
Well deserved Shamus
OFF TOPIC WARNING!
Who is the dude that always posts about Dwarf Fortress?
You may enjoy this (SFW):
http://www.somethingawful.com/d/photoshop-phriday/video-game-movies.php?page=4
This cannot be anything but AWESOME.
Good to see you continue to crank out successful ideas. I am very happy for you, and glad to see the feature grow in popularity.
I am personally sad as Blogs (like Twenty Sided) are OK by my work net policy, but Game/Hobby Sites (such as The Escapist)are not, so each time a feature moves to The Escapist, I gain another dead link instead of an entry to read. The price of success, eh?
Congratulations! It’s always nice to see talented and passionate people get paid for their work.
… it’s kind of a shame. Your Let’s Play Fable and Champion Onlines drew a lot from the horrible writing, and I have to say, I nearly wet myself from laugh both of them. You think you will be able to keep up with not so bad writing to work on?
Bah. I read Shamus’s blog back when he was indie.
Yay! Now all of us that were following LRR and you before you sold out get to be all snobby to the newcomers! A sense of baseless superiority is important for a healthy sense of self.
This is beginning to be quite the conundrum. Normally when something becomes “mainstream” I abandon it to the legions of hand-stamped meatheads. I was with The Escapist back before they lost the actual web’zine feel and I was with you back before everybody and his dogs was reading DMotR. But The Escapist has become clearly mainstream and this blog is becoming increasingly mainstream as well. So do I stick with them because I still enjoy them or do I move on to edgier and lesser known geek resources in a vain attempt to maintain my “superior outsider” status?
Naw seriously, Shamus, congrats on being paid for another example of your excellence. You deserve it.
My ONLY concern about LRR moving to the Escapist is that it’ll result in an alienation of their current and rabidly loyal fanbase/community. That’s the only place where I’m not 100% behind the guys on this one. Still, good move for them all the same, and good for you too, Shamus.
Congrats on your Let’s Play column getting picked up!! You have a true talent for this stuff and your writing consistently makes me LOL.
@Mari: Could you please tell me what these lesser geek resources are? I suffer from the same problem as #13, in that all the more popular ones have been picked up by the filters and I can’t access them while I’m being paid to do something else.
Congratulations are in order Shamus! Nice to see that the time and talent you put in these Let’s Play is paying out
I like LRR, but man was that intro video painful to watch.
I don’t really see how they “sold out”. They were already making two videos a week for the Escapist (ENN & Unskippable). In their blog & podcast, they mentioned that while they (LRR) are going to be appearing on the Escapist, they will still retain their rights to their videos after their run on Escapist.
That, or Shamus’ sarcasm is not really easy to tell anymore….
The sarcasm seemed pretty obvious to me, given the second point. Shamus also “sold out” by pitching his Let’s Play to the Escapist.
Congratulations, Shamus!
It’s funny, it seems like more and more of your blog is moving over to the Escapist as time goes on. :)
Congrats!
The escapist is a mainstream, mainly because its a popular site. But I still think it has some interesting content and its definitely much better than the more commercialized sites out there.
Shamus, with all due respect, whatever happened to you reviewing Mount&Blade? There’s an expansion coming out this spring, and if I may, you need to have a basis upon which to review the expansion. It truly is a great game idea, carried through by a talented Indie dev team, and in my opinion, it deserves your attention.
Yes, it is indeed a shame when people sell their souls for money and still make awesome stuff. I’m glad nobody else does tha… heeey, wait a second…
Cory:
A truly great game you say? Not much review material there then! :P
Hooray!!! Congratulations Shamus! I cannot WAIT to see this series take off for you! And LoTRO is a great way to go, I think its going to provide a ton of material as well as letting us gamer/Tolkien nerds know if its worth the monthly fee.
Hopefully this will cancel out the awfulness that Game Dogs will (probably) be.