Corrupt, Censoring, Suicidal Indie Devs (Jimquisition)

I get the point, he's right of course, but the whole Dr Evil rant at the end is somewhat off-putting. I was expecting him to do some weird megalomaniacal laughter like a souped up Fu Manchu to finish. Funny.

 

I honestly like the "reviewer/editorial" type you tubers less and less. Not really because of their editorials, but because they come off as megalomaniac self important people who think that because they have an audience it means they get to act like tough guys. In that video itself the guy goes off on rants about "you should never piss us off or we'll get you".

I hate greedy/scummy indies and devs with a passion, but even as someone agreeing with the guys point, I was actually put off watching his future videos (same with TB really) because of his attitude. I get enough toxicity online from other people, we don't need to be seeking it out in other venues.

Go watch AngryJoe or something. I can appreciate his editorial content a lot more than this type of ranty stuff.

 

I think thats part of his online persona. I guess if your game sucks maybe you should have tried to make a better game then trying to "get even" with the critics because it doesnt seem to work.

These guys can essentially make or break a game depending on if they think the game's good (and alot of that is very subjective depending on the reviewers personal taste -- rather than objectively is the game any good or not -- for example TB will go nuts if your game doesnt have a "proper options menu" -- the review will usually go downhill from there).

Essentially gamespot and all the gaming sites are going downhill because of people are listening to people to like TB, jim sterling from youtube.

 

Excellent video. I agree that most indies cannot handle criticism. Whilst I enjoy making games, I know my games suck and I also think everyone else's indie games suck. I would never expect anyone to play my games. Often people cannot handle that maybe not everyone is in love with their game or indie games and I get called a troll or whatever.

I just find the attitude ignorant and arrogant that just because some dev is indie they are automatically more creative than a AAA and they somehow don't have to follow the rules of making a somewhat bug free game. To hell with that attitude.

 

If I dislike him this much when agreeing with him..how much shall I dislike like him when I disagree?

I just hate something about this guy, I don't know what.

This "topic coverage" turned more into "oh look at me...I'm so tough....I have subs!".

Go watch boogie2988 or AngryJoe for real coverage

 

I agree.

I do think we have the ability to make stuff that is different, simply because we don't have a big corporation telling us we can't take risks and lose millions of dollars doing so. We don't have to please the masses and can make more niche games. That doesn't mean they are better and in many cases, they are not, but they are not all the same.

Unfortunately, I see a lot of cookie cutter games come out of Indie development. Everyone wants the next WoW or Skyrim or whatever. Zombies are big so everyone makes zombie games. I don't find that especially creative. On the other hand, I sometimes find gems in the indie world that amaze me, games that don't follow the formula and ones that barely sell, but have some artistic quality.

 

That's funny, because I dislike AngryJoe. I do agree with you about certain indies and certain reviewers.

 

NOw I want to play the games they were talking about to see how s**t they are.

 

Just checkout his personal YouTube channel.

I think every developer on here should watch the Jimquisition regularly since he made quite a lot of interesting videos. It's no secret that most of the crap that is getting released is made with Unity.

Another important video is this one here:

Spoiler

 

Wow that guy is a complete .. well nothing I can say politely on a forum so I'll stop there.

There's a case to be made that small indie teams don't always conduct business professionally. This can be observed at every level of the spectrum because there are so many small developers you need only look around to find an example of poor customer service, a badly failed kickstarter, or mismanaged pre-release funds etc.

But this video reviewers complete lack of professionalism really turns me off from his case.

Additionally his vitriolic and completely in your face adversarial personal attacks make him lack veracity in his claims.

Game Developer's do in fact own copyright to their works. There are of course some exceptions to copyright for certain 'fair use' terms. Did this reviewer cross the line? We'll probably never know because he only seems interested in show-boating, name calling and general 'nanny-nanny-boo-boo-ing'.

I look forward to a day when there is in fact an actual real voice of either the community or a reporter for indie's that can call us on our bad practices, as well as encourage us towards better ones for the benefit of our industry and our customers. This guy isn't it.

 

It's his internet persona.
Just like PewDiePie screams a lot when playing horror games in front of the camera. One of the mantras of the Jimquisition is "Get Angry" (although it's not written in the new intro anymore). If you watch this episode for example, you'll notice that he's a pretty relaxed guy.

Nonsense.
There's "not professional" and there's "stealing artwork".
There's "poor customer service" and there's "I get positive reviews from people on my friends list, then delete all negative reviews and ban all people who warn others on my Steam forums (after deleting their threads)."
There's just no excuse for such behaviour. Neither for that not for false advertising or completely broken games.

Developers who do the above deserve every bit of S*** and every insult directed at them.

"He/She wasn't all nice and politically correct so I'll use that as an excuse to not even bother." is one of the cheapest cop-outs there is, you know?
Although he swears a lot in his videos, he makes very good points and backs them up. Give me some specific examples of him being unprofessional in a way that is undermining the point he's trying to make.
I wish you good luck with that.

 

Simple for me, get a demo out to as many people as possible and keep a closed beta going for a while. Get as much feedback as possible..

Clench hard if the likes of TotalBiscuit get hold of it. Just keep honest open and professional through it all, you can't and shouldn't shun criticism. Life is always a learning experience...

 

There's two major problems with this though.
1. You need to be a good developer to start with. Some of the games Jim covered on his YouTube channel were so bad that no amount of testing and feedback would help. In that case you should cancel your game and learn/refine your skills.

2. You need to possess the ability to handle constructive criticism, which often turns out to be a problem since it can be very harsh. The sweat and tears put into their own work often blinds people. They then dismiss constructive criticism as trolling, flaming, insulting or "being unprofessional".

If you lack either ability, your tips won't get you anywhere.

 

Jim is pretty funny. I don't always agree with him, but with a complete lack of quality control in the indie dev scene people like himself and TB are exactly what is needed. They keep indies and big studios on their toes. I also watch Angry Joe occasionally and I find his critiques very entertaining, I don't think I've ever seen him do a small indie game though.

 

Well can't disagree, it takes time and lots of it to get to the point of a decent game. But some games I've seen don't even seem to have put the required effort in, if something doesn't look right don't think ahh screw it. FIX IT! .

We should all know from AAA games (well some) what your game should roughly look like, where your competitions at and by time of release where you need to be. If you can't "get that" I agree, it's questionable if you will ever get to the point where you should consider a commercial release.

On number 2, it's difficult for anyone to see all your blood sweat and tears be shreaded right in front of your eyes. Kill them with kindness, it's all you can do. Suck it up and take it on the chin.

 

I find Jim Sterling ok, and the video was actually ok, but the end part with the Messiah complex joke was getting cringe-worthy.

 

He does that sort of as a running gag across all of his videos.

I agree that his content is reasonable, but the B.S. 'Thank God for Jim Sterling' bit can go, it's really not necessary. I guess some people may like it, but something more akin to a Jerry Springer 'final thought' would be a better idea, I think.

It's sort of like how Yahtzee has to bring up 'interesting' parts of human anatomy to make points in his videos, despite bringing up valid points, it makes him look all sorts of inarticulate. There are ways to cuttingly, effectively, and efficiently criticize something without various sex references; in fact, the sex references get in the way because you add the extra mental step of separating the hyperbole from the actual critique.

 

Do those guys even cover indie games?

Most of the big "personalities" get there views from covering AAA games, sometimes they throw indies a few bones -- but those are usually the games that have already gone viral anyway. I guess I will plug rockleesmile since he covers very obscure indies every day, but his view count seems to be low (probably some fatigue from doing it every single day).

 

So the video states something like... indie game devs take no criticism?

That's probably because with indie games you deal with the actual people. Artists behind AAA games have no say when it comes to criticism, at best they're shown in "special interviews" along with trailers, but you never really see them that much, you're not in touch with the actual AAA developer artists, as it happens with indies.

In addition, neither AAA studios or indies can, or should, accept ALL criticism. Every person can give you a completely different critique, more often than not you can get opposite critiques on the same feature, and every one of them would be correct, and entitled to mention it... but the thing is you can't please everyone. You accept criticism when it's a common denominator, everyone's complaining about the same thing, and it's the only time you can make a more enjoyable game for everyone, by improving a certain feature.

 

They are not always so stoic though. I have read numerous defensive posts by EA developers who invade our fan sites for The Sims 3 and whine about how the fans don't appreciate them, how they can't help that the game is full of bugs, and basically "stop being mean to me_it is not our fault" kind of mentality. I feel for the individuals as they are under a lot of corporate pressure but it seems they can't always handle the criticism either. I rather wonder if this happens on other fan sites as well with other games or if it just EA/The Sims developers! Sims fans can be brutal. You wouldn't think a bunch of people (many women) who like to play with pixel dolls and houses would be so cruel to the poor developers!

 

Got to agree with Shadow and say people need to harden the F*** up.

If you can't take criticism then you shouldn't be putting your stuff out there to get criticised.

Edit. Aww wit? A profanity filter? Wheres the option to turn it off? I'm a big boy I can take it.

 

lol
angry joe and spoony is like the only 2 internet personalities i like...
everyone else i seen is SUPER annoying.. ... total biscuit is "okay" , but then hes still annoying