{"id":47786,"date":"2019-08-20T06:00:55","date_gmt":"2019-08-20T10:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=47786"},"modified":"2019-09-04T12:13:35","modified_gmt":"2019-09-04T16:13:35","slug":"this-dumb-introduction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=47786","title":{"rendered":"This Dumb Introduction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here is the first entry in the new video series. This one is more aimed at my mostly-dead YouTube channel, so it&#8217;s not going to be terribly interesting to read. For the first few videos I&#8217;m going to be playing things safe and sticking to familiar topics. I have some proper episodes planned for when we&#8217;re comfortable with the format.<\/p>\n<p>Like I&#8217;ve mentioned before, this is a collaboration with my son Issac. He&#8217;s going to be doing the editing and animating and I&#8217;ll do the scripts and still images. We&#8217;ll see how it works.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, here&#8217;s the script for the video:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h3>This Dumb Introduction<\/h3>\n<p><table class='nomargin' cellspacing='0' width='100%' cellpadding='0' align='center' border='0'><tr><td><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cUT5raBOENY\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen class=\"embed\"><\/iframe><br\/><small><a href='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=cUT5raBOENY'>Link (YouTube)<\/a><\/small><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n<p>Hello there, The Internet. Do you remember those <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=xMbW24ggTmE\">Reset Button videos<\/a> I used to make? I know they look janky these days, but they were pretty good for the time.\u00a0Anyway, if you&#8217;re one of the fives of people who subscribed to my channel hoping I&#8217;d make more of that kinda stuff, then I have good news. I&#8217;m doing that.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m going to change the branding a bit to fit with my other projects, but it&#8217;s going to be more or less the same style of content: Analysis of gameplay, game technology, story construction, and the gaming industry as a whole.<\/p>\n<p>Why did it take me ten years to get around to making these things on a regular basis? Well, funny story about that.<\/p>\n<p>See, I have basically three audiences:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I have my YouTube channel where I post a video every six months or so. I have a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=HhyyUiYQolA\">couple<\/a> of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=BiQCz2NjPR8\">popular videos<\/a> and one <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=uQrC_C6SexI\">really viral one<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I&#8217;ve also been a contributor to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.escapistmagazine.com\/v2\/category\/experienced-points\/\">Escapist<\/a> for the last twelve years or so. My content there is currently on hiatus, but a lot of people from that site know me.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And then there&#8217;s my main audience on my blog. Yes, blogs are still a thing in 2019. Oddly enough, this is actually my most popular work. The blog is where I do these <a href=\"?p=27792\">super long-form retrospectives<\/a> and analysis of older games. Also, I did that one webcomic that basically the entire internet read back in 2007.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>So I have these three audiences. The problem is that they&#8217;re completely separate. People on the Escapist don&#8217;t want to click on off-site links, people on my blog don&#8217;t want to watch videos, and people on YouTube don&#8217;t want to watch anything that <b>isn&#8217;t<\/b> a video. So I&#8217;ve never been able to figure out a way to reach all three groups at the same time.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve tried, but over the years I found I never had time for more than two of these three projects. The Escapist and the blog paid my bills, so that&#8217;s where I spent my effort, and my YouTube channel just sat here gathering dust. Even when I wasn&#8217;t getting demonitized, YouTube just wasn&#8217;t a good investment. For the time it took me to make the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=xMbW24ggTmE\">Do it Again Stupid<\/a> video I could have written like six articles. Video editing is time consuming.<\/p>\n<p><div class='imagefull'><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/tdi_intro_favorites.jpg' width=100% alt='' title=''\/><\/div><div class='mouseover-alt'><\/div><\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, YouTube is where the people are. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/YongYea\">All<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/LinusTechTips\">my<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UC3nPaf5MeeDTHA2JN7clidg\">favorite<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/Campster\">creators<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/bunnyhopshow\">are<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCxO_ya-RmAXCXJCU54AxYFw\">here<\/a>. All the major gaming sites have some sort of YouTube presence. YouTube is where the publishers release their trailers, it&#8217;s where we react to trailers, it&#8217;s where people review games, and it&#8217;s where we go to watch people play games after release. It&#8217;s where we go for analysis and walkthroughs and tips.<\/p>\n<p>YouTube an annoying platform run by an obnoxious company with the help of an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/erikkain\/2017\/09\/18\/adpocalypse-2017-heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-youtubes-demonetization-troubles\/#5780e866c267\">oppressive<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=BSpAWkQLlgM\">mystery algorithm<\/a> that uses a random number generator to enforce <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theregister.co.uk\/2019\/07\/03\/youtube_bans_hacking_videos\/\">secret rules<\/a> about what videos can be monetized. The recommendation system forces creators to spend 30 seconds of every video begging for likes and subscriptions so their hard work doesn&#8217;t vanish off the front page before people get a chance to see it. It&#8217;s a system <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=nryFmUjtwEY\">plagued by copyright trolls<\/a>. It has a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=z4AeoAWGJBw\">Kafkaesqe claim system<\/a> that punishes the accused before they can defend themselves and incentivizes frivolous claims, allowing wealthy corporations to skim money from independent creators like the mob shaking down local businesses. It&#8217;s a corporate dystopia. A sewer. A nightmare of injustice and frustration.<\/p>\n<p>But&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s also basically the center of gaming culture. That sucks, but that&#8217;s the way it is.<\/p>\n<p>My hope is that by turning some of my content into videos, I can stay a tiny bit relevant in the YouTube space without sacrificing the long-form analysis that I like to do.<\/p>\n<p>One last note: I like to remind people from time to time that I am not a journalist. I know the line gets pretty blurry here in the video game world and it&#8217;s not always easy to tell the reporting from the opining. It&#8217;s not my place to draw the line between the two, but I&#8217;m definitely the latter. I don&#8217;t review games in the sense of giving review scores, I don&#8217;t do consumer advice, I don&#8217;t investigate stories or report the news, and I&#8217;ve never been to J-school. I actually spent most of my career as a programmer and 3D artist. That was fun and interesting work, but game analysis is where my heart is and I&#8217;d like to keep doing this for as long as I can.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m a big believer in analyzing games in a holistic sense. I&#8217;m not one of those people who will overlook a garbage story because the gameplay is fun, or who ignores lackluster gameplay because I like what the game has to say. If the developer is going to spend millions of dollars making Hollywood-style cinematics then they should be willing to spend just a tiny bit more to hire a proper writer who knows how to tell a story. A game doesn&#8217;t need a story to be good, but if it does have a story, then it should be worth the audience&#8217;s time. A game with solid gameplay and a dumb story is fine, but it&#8217;s never as good as a solid game with a fantastic story. A game doesn&#8217;t <b>need<\/b> to have tacked on gameplay features, sidequests, item collection activities, and multiple romance options, but if a game does have those things then they should worth doing and integrate with the rest of the game not just exist to fill out a checklist of features.<\/p>\n<p>So now you know where I&#8217;m coming from and what the plan is. I hope you&#8217;ll stick around for the content. The current plan is to release one of these every couple of weeks. We&#8217;ll see how that works out. If you&#8217;re interested, then, you know, do the like \/ subscribe thing.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for watching.<\/p>\n<h3>After-Video Commentary<\/h3>\n<p>Like I said at the top, I realize this announcement video isn&#8217;t going to be particularly captivating to readers.<\/p>\n<p>To be honest, I&#8217;m not even sure I can make this work. Video and text are different mediums with different strengths and weaknesses. In text, I can link to stuff to cite sources, and you can copy &amp; paste text to quote me. That doesn&#8217;t work in video. In a video I can easily show off animations and gameplay, but in text I need to spend a couple of paragraphs explaining it. Video can show rapid images over narration, but if I put all those images into an article body it would make it a pain to read. Jokes that work in one medium often can&#8217;t be translated to the other.<\/p>\n<p>I can use articles as a starting point for YouTube scripts, but it&#8217;s pretty obvious some adaptation will be required. The above text is direct from the video, but I don&#8217;t want to limit myself to this transcript-style approach. I think in the future the video will diverge from the article.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know. I&#8217;ll see if I can make it work. I hope you&#8217;ll be patient while we figure this out.<\/p>\n<p>One final note: On Patreon, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/posts\/name-in-credits-28936182\">I announced that you can get your name in the credits<\/a> as one of the reward tiers. It felt silly and self-important to list credits for this simple announcement video, treating it like a full video when it&#8217;s basically an announcement that the channel isn&#8217;t dead. So we didn&#8217;t do that this time<span class='snote' title='1'>Also, the Patreon system seems to only recognize backers after they&#8217;ve been billed. I assume that&#8217;s to prevent people from signing up for a reward and then cancelling again before they&#8217;re billed. I honestly wouldn&#8217;t care. I seriously doubt that would be a major concern in our case.<\/span>. Next time will be the first real entry in the new series and that&#8217;s when we&#8217;ll be doing full proper credits.<\/p>\n<p>Also, the Patreon reward system is apparently pretty obtuse. People keep getting confused because they want the $2 reward, but they want to give more than $2. They click on the &#8220;Name in the credits&#8221; reward tier, and it will LOWER their contribution to $2. Ridiculous!<\/p>\n<p>This is the fault of the web designer. Someone is so enamored of their sexy layout that they&#8217;re willing to sacrifice usability. It looks like this:<\/p>\n<p><div class='imagefull'><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/patreon_donate.jpg' width=100% alt='' title=''\/><\/div><div class='mouseover-alt'><\/div><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not obvious, but you can just change the number when you sign up. Before you hit &#8220;Confirm&#8221;, just click on the $2 and change it to whatever.<\/p>\n<p>The problem is that there&#8217;s nothing to indicate the $2 is an edit field. For proper usability, it ought to look like this:<\/p>\n<p><div class='imagefull'><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/patreon_donate_fixed.jpg' width=100% alt='' title=''\/><\/div><div class='mouseover-alt'><\/div><\/p>\n<p>I realize that&#8217;s not as sexy, but <strong>sexiness shouldn&#8217;t be the top priority for a page designed to handle financial transactions<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Aside to PayPal: Everything I just said goes double for you. Your once-intuitive interface is now attractive and horrendously inconvenient.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, sorry for the confusion and hassle.<\/p>\n<p>If all goes well, the first real entry of This Dumb Industry should go live on September 3rd or 4th<span class='snote' title='2'>I&#8217;m not sure if I want to go with Tuesdays or Wednesdays.<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, I&#8217;ll be posting more <a href=\"?p=47697\">Steam Backlog<\/a>, I have a programming series coming up, and a few other rando articles to fill things out.<\/p>\n<p>Fingers crossed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here is the first entry in the new video series. This one is more aimed at my mostly-dead YouTube channel, so it&#8217;s not going to be terribly interesting to read. For the first few videos I&#8217;m going to be playing things safe and sticking to familiar topics. I have some proper episodes planned for when [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102],"tags":[614],"class_list":["post-47786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weekly-column","tag-2-00"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47786"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47925,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47786\/revisions\/47925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}