I've got your Miscellaneous Links for ya, 2012! RIGHT HERE!

[Yoshiken]

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/10/11/physicists-may-have-evide_n_1957777.html

Haven't read the details on this, but the general premise is a pretty well-known one. Having some kind of actual evidence for it, though? I just.. wow.

[Fenrir]

Captain K / Adray, save us all

[Anthony Edward Stark]

The issue is not that games are ONLY about fun, so much as fun is inserted into places where it does not belong, and where risks are taken and fun ignored, the game is judged for this lack of fun.  Now there are still examples of accepted games that don't rely on fun in any way (hello Silent Hill 2), but it's too easy to write these off as flukes.  It's comparatively much more common for another medium to find success without fun.

It's really just a thought exercise, no more.

I feel like Telltale's Walking Dead, which generally gets pretty rave reviews and is extremely non-fun oriented, is what he is looking for.

In related news I finished Episode 4 last night. It was pretty rough to get through. Holy shit.

[Grefter]

I saw you playing it and was going to comment about you not playing X-Com but then got all sad that X-Com wasn't out and I couldn't play it.  That said I think I will be playing Dishonored tonight, so I won't be one to talk.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I would feel sad about things but I usually can't feel much of anything for a couple of days after a Walking Dead episode comes out.

[Grefter]

Makes Rob feel emotion, 10/10 game.

[Captain K.]

Captain K / Adray, save us all

Pay no attention to that other universe behind the curtain!  Er, um, watch me wrestle a shark!  Sure is distracting, er, exciting, isn't it?

[Luther Lansfeld]

http://andrewgelman.com/2009/06/gay_marriage_a/

[Captain K.]

http://www.voiceactingmastery.com/

Crispin Fucking Freeman teaches you about the world of voice acting.

[metroid composite]

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/beyond-fun

Some of you may recognize this as things I have tried (and probably failed) to say for years.  Hurray people better spoken than me.

So...for the record, I'd argue this is about 3-4 years out-of-date.  I've worked on games where the directorial goal was something other than "fun".  I've given a GDC talk about deliberately producing negative emotions in games for added dramatic effect.

Certainly the indie scene in the past three years has been very good about expanding what games can be, with games that are basically just art tableaus like Passage.

Also, in the past three years, Zynga happened.  The way a lot of Zynga games are described is not fun at all, just compulsive, and using emotions like guilt to keep players playing, but no real "fun" emotion for much of its audience.

For all that sure, "Find the fun" is still a phrase that gets used in the industry, probably in inappropriate places, but I don't think it's singularly dominating.

[SnowFire]

On the Zynga note:

http://www.google.com/finance?q=Zynga&ei=ON58UNjlGu-80QGjjgE

Check out that 1 Yr graph.  14 dollar high to 2.50 low, couldn't have happened to a nicer company.

[NotMiki]

But if they go under, how am I gonna fill up all my bars?

[Cmdr_King]

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/beyond-fun

Some of you may recognize this as things I have tried (and probably failed) to say for years.  Hurray people better spoken than me.

So...for the record, I'd argue this is about 3-4 years out-of-date.  I've worked on games where the directorial goal was something other than "fun".  I've given a GDC talk about deliberately producing negative emotions in games for added dramatic effect.

Certainly the indie scene in the past three years has been very good about expanding what games can be, with games that are basically just art tableaus like Passage.

Also, in the past three years, Zynga happened.  The way a lot of Zynga games are described is not fun at all, just compulsive, and using emotions like guilt to keep players playing, but no real "fun" emotion for much of its audience.

For all that sure, "Find the fun" is still a phrase that gets used in the industry, probably in inappropriate places, but I don't think it's singularly dominating.

The video is really focusing solely on the mainstream, triple a market.  Entire point of an indie scene is to break convention, so it's unsurprising one of the first things they do is ignore fun.

[NotMiki]

it's unsurprising one of the first things they do is ignore fun.

I love how you say this and it's a good thing(./?)

[Grefter]

To be fair, mc hasn't really been working exclusively in indie studios having no cross over with big budget titles.

Extra Credits trends towards less professional audiences though, so it isn't shocking to see it is lagging a little behind professional theory.  It is more for armchair developers, fans that have something invested in the industry or people trying to break into the industry (as they have had many shows in the past about).

For fans?  I think it is good to bring their attention to the fact that there is more to look for in a game than just Fun.  I am sure as consumers we know subconsciously that there is other things we enjoy in gaming, but giving someone the language to describe why they like Silent Hill 2 over Resident Evil 4 and highlighting to them why this might be the case is a good thing.

[metroid composite]

To be fair, mc hasn't really been working exclusively in indie studios having no cross over with big budget titles.

Yeah, the closest I've been to working on an indie title was working at CCP, a company that had 600 employees.

[Grefter]

Yeah exactly, you have your finger on the pulse of what is happening in notindie space pretty decent these days I would think.  Especially compared to your average DLer >_>  Like I consider myself out of touch with mainstream game market and I buy games like Djinn hits on Japanese girls in a candy store.

Also RE: Zynga, I hear they are currently trading at below their asset value and that is just plain fucking crazy.  That said pretty much everything about Zynga becoming a public traded company was plain fucking crazy.

[Glen Veil]

Not sure where to put this but:

http://www.upworthy.com/meet-the-17-year-old-who-blew-the-lid-off-racial-profiling-with-his-ipod

Pretty much one of many reasons I tend to not trust/respect police forces in general in the states.

[Lance]

Get into the Halloween spirit with this terrifying song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajUYsDbdlsM&feature=etp-pd-nxx-31

[Hunter Sopko]

That song was unexpectedly awesome.

Here's another horrifying Halloween classic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSaqSVi--Ms

[Luther Lansfeld]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fertilizing-ocean-with-iron-to-save-salmon-and-earn-money

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/15/pacific-iron-fertilisation-geoengineering

A couple of interesting articles about the recent science controversy related to geo-engineering. This experiment is likely to do more harm than good in the long-term. Pretty crazy.

[NotMiki]

More Science links: Italy is IotD material forever edition.  I expect to have a lot to say about this case in the future, when I iron out exactly what the legal duties of the scientists were with respect to warning the general populace.  Although it's not necessarily relevant to the case in the sense of whether the defendants were criminally negligent, it's worth noting that if building coders in Italy were better, or better enforced, then this tragedy would not have been anywhere near so severe.

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/22/italys-troubling-earthquake-convictions/

http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2012/10/mischaracterizations-of-laquila-lawsuit.html

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/10/22/the-laquila-verdict-a-judgment-not-against-science-but-against-a-failure-of-science-communication/

[Shale]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V8BVNeK45c&feature=plcp

Did you know there was a Rocky Horror video game? And it has Christopher Lee telling you how to do the Time Warp?

Well, now you do.

[Cmdr_King]

http://kotaku.com/5955223/what-went-wrong-with-silicon-knights-x+men-destiny

Neat read.  Seems like a reversal of everything you normally see about the industry.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

What, "company makes a shitty cash-in game based on a popular license to milk a publisher for cash" is atypical now?

e:  You are all very very welcome for this.