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The Evil That Is Indie
- 1. THE EVIL THAT IS INDIE May 23, 2011 Alexandra Mariner Company Proprietary and Confidential
- 3. So much evil, so little time...
- 4. So much evil, so little time...
- 5. Just Let It All Out....
- 6. Boob Tube, Anyone? + = WIN
- 7. We’re So Glad You Enjoy Your Corporate Servitude
- 9. Journey Down a Dangerous Path
- 10. Too Much Thinking Can Be Hazardous to your Health
- 11. Don’t Wreck the Mood
- 12. The Beauty of Gray
- 13. Old News
- 14. But These ARE My Real Problems....
- 16. Thank You!
Editor's Notes
- Hello, I’m Alex Mariner...I’m the Creative Director at FunRigger Productions, and I’m here to talk to you about the Evil that is Indie.
- When Dajana called to ask me to participate in this part of tonight’s program, it was obviously because she is well aware of the deep loathing and disgust I carry in my heart for the entire indie scene, which meant that this talk ought to have been a piece of cake for me. Surely there’s no one better suited to the job of hating on indie games than yours truly. Finally, a perfect opportunity to vent my vitriol to the crowd most deserving of it - yes, you lot!
- But which game to choose? Certainly there are many to choose from- games that exemplify the myriad “sins” of the Indie Game development community. I could go all the way back to the start, with the original “Indie” game, Pong - the title we have to blame for this whole industry, and one which has doubtless been inspiration to many people in this room.
- Or should I pick on one of the “darlings”- of which there are far too many, by the way. Aren’t we supposed to be killing our darlings, not turning them into international award-winning hits? I’m looking at you, Limbo.
- Ultimately, I could not limit my boiling rage to a single title, and instead I have chosen to use this opportunity here at Nordic Game Indie Night to shed light upon a much important topic - games that pose a threat to our very way of life through a single common insidious trait: These are Games that succeed in making us THINK and FEEL.
- Games should not invoke emotion in players! Developers should keep games in their place and remember the true purpose of their creations, which is to distract and mollify the masses; to enable easy, mindless interactive entertainment; to foster a comfortable numbness, not unlike drinking a whole bottle of cheap no-name vodka, alone in your tiny flat on a cold and rainy Nordic night while watching reruns of America’s Next Top Model.
- Just think of all the lost productivity suffered as a result when our otherwise well-trained drone workforce becomes exposed these seemingly-innocuous games, which in reality do their damndest to provoke thoughts and feelings about our place in the world and what we have in common as members of the human race.
- Games that sneak past our defenses with promises of the type of high aesthetic quality graphics that we’ve come to expect of our usual console game fodder, only to turn our appreciation for eye-candy against us. “Flower” is in all actuality a reprehensible tool of the Left-wing Communist Plot. Don’t believe me? Just when the player has been lulled in, veritably mesmerised by the synestheticgameplay employed by ThatGameCompany, out come the story elements that effectively implant the idea that global industrialization might not be such a good thing for our planet. Jenova Chen is evil incarnate.
- Don’t even get me started on “Journey”. Teaching us that cooperative gameplay doesn’t have to be filled with violence and douchebaggery? Pfft. Isn’t violence and douchebaggery what made America the greatest nation on the planet? Fuck Yeah!
- But sometimes it’s not the aesthetics that are to blame, but the very game mechanic itself. In fact, some of these culprits even possess only the most rudimentary of graphics. Think that rearranging words on a screen to unlock a puzzle is pretty harmless? Think again-- because thinking is what you’ll be doing all too much of after playing the evil that goes by the name of “Today I Die”. Thanks Daniel. I hope you’re having a good laugh, after having inspired thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of people to positively re-assess their perspectives on happiness and depression. You bastard.
- Truly, awakening people from the carefully-crafted First World Stupor of our societies’ leaders has got to be the most subversive effect of these so-called “games”. ThatGameCompany aren’t the only ones who accomplish this despicable act via a bait-n-switch. Take “Shadow of the Collossus”, which from the outset seems like your typical puzzle adventure game (and maybe some of you would not even classify it as an “Indie” game), but as the player progresses with the required tasks, namely eliminating collosi, a sense of wrongness pervades the mood. Ultimately it is revealed that following these orders has in truth allowed the forces of darkness to triumph. Some players have been moved to tears as they realize the evil they have been a party to, the destruction of what were actually ennobled guardians! They start wondering if they should continue to blindly do as they are told, or to think for themselves. This type of conscience-awakening story-telling poses a very real threat to our society.
- Think of how the status quo suffers when people begin to think critically and creatively about their own circumstances, empowered to seek positive change in their lives due to an encounter with one of these wicked digital vehicles of emotional manipulation. People who would otherwise have been content to march along in their hum-drum 9-to-5 lives, never knowing that there’s anything better to look forward to than coming home to enjoy a night of comfortably predictable gameplay, never having to think for themselves - just doing as instructed in order to receive their daily ration of “fun”.
- Worst of all, this is not a new phenomenon, not by far. In fact, this kind of subversive gaming treachery has been going on since the advent of video games themselves. Oh, they may have been more subtle in the beginning, but they paved the way to the cesspool of emotional manipulation we find ourselves exposed to today. Classic games like “Planetfall” and “Missile Command” were the early instruments of those developers hell-bent on provoking thought.Where does it end? Believe me - Chaos will reign if we don’t do something to stop this evil spiral of collective conscience.
- Thus, in closing, I’d like to ask all you indie developers to just leave well enough alone. Really, haven’t you done enough damage already? Do we really want to live in a world in which people are enlightened to the endless wonders of human existence? Nay, I say to you - lay down your code and pixel art.
- Make LOL Cats, not Indie Games.