Puppet Master

Today started like any other day, I ran into some asshat on a forum who I didn't like so I wrote up what I considered to be a pretty clever post stripping them of their dignity and tearing them a new one but since he happened to be a mod with no respect for other people's works of art he deleted that post and cried to his mommy about how I was mean to him so I had to remake a thread and exercise my infinite creativity and word my next post in a way that still made it clear that I didn't like him without giving him a reason to delete it. Unfortunately some other mod edited my post which I just re-edited back (and removed their edit message specifically to spite them because how dare you alter my art) but I think they got the message anyway.

SO, what was this about? Well, it started as just me being angry that I can't play Spyro on my new Vita which don't get me wrong, it's a good investment but not being able to play the PSX games that I actually give a crap about is a huge disappointment and I probably wouldn't have bought one if I knew that so because I can't be assed to dig up the old thread I'm just going to copypaste his response in the new thread and hopefully if you aren't a stupid soulless monkey worthy of my eternal disdain you'll know exactly why I don't like this asshat.

And the rest of this entry will make complete sense to you.

I'm also working off the assumption the thread will be locked because apparently having someone not play your shallow game of statistics justifies shutting down a discussion a passionate fan cared about.

"Sony clarified that statement well before the launch of the console.  Those of us that bothered to read the Vita FAQ before buying the device knew that only Vita-certified Playstation Store content, meaning content that was specifically tested on the Vita, would be downloadable to the Vita.  Support for PS1 Classics was not included until months after launch, and Sony at the time promised only that "at least 100" PS1 Classics would be Vita compatible.  Sony passed that number within 3 months, so it doesn't have to do any more.  At no time did Sony state that the Vita could run "everything" that the PSP could run.

False advertising suits are extremely difficult to win in US courts. You basically have to prove that the seller lied deliberately, and that is essentially impossible unless it was foolish enough to write down its intentions, or was recorded discussing them. Nobody ever received a penny, in or out of court, for any claims related to the Vita's compatibility with PSP content. People are entitled to their own wrong opinions about anything, but when it comes to the law, only the courts' opinions matter.

You are missing the point anyway.  You have only made arguments for why a company could make the PS1 Spiro games Vita compatible.  You haven't made a business case for why any company, whose objective is to make a profit, should bother.  You have provided only anecdotal evidence of demand to play the games on the Vita, which does not even need to be refuted, because it is irrelevant to the publisher.  The publisher cares about how many people want to buy the games in the future on the platform.  Not how many people want to play the game on the platform.  There is a difference, that makes all the difference. You haven't provided even anecdotal evidence that there is market demand to purchase the games, and you won't, because it doesn't exist.  Sony knows exactly how many copies of the Spiro PS1 Classics sold in North America in the years before the Vita was released, and it was so few that the games were given to Playstation Plus subscribers for free. You will never convince Sony that there is money to be made in certifying the game here, because the data says otherwise.  You are wasting your time trying.

As far as your jail-breaking argument is concerned, the rampant piracy of PSP games, especially in Europe, is the main reason why game publishers were reluctant to invest significant amounts of money in Vita games at launch. That is why we got mostly cheap ports of existing games, and indie games, from every publisher except Sony.  Publishers want to see how secure the Vita proves to be, relative to the PSP, before they invest any real money in AAA Vita games.  All that jail-breaking the console will do, in the long run, is to ensure that the Vita never gets more than a handful of exclusive third-party AAA games.  If all you want to do is to play PSP games, then buy a PSP.  Sony still sells them, for less than a Vita.  If you want more AAA Vita games, then your obsession with PSP content is not helping; and your disregard for copyright laws is really, really, not helping.  "


 Note the legal babble, the general up-his-own-ass behavior that comes with ponces like this, but also note the thing that lack of any passion behind his words except to defend the most evil thing about any industry ever; the business-end.

Before you read my response to his bowel movement he's passing off as a post, let me give you some perspective on why I just insulted anything business like in the gaming industry or in any industry to ever exist:

"Hi there Mr. Bigshot Businessman, I'm an artist and a creative spirit. People in my field are usually doing all of the grunt work for, getting treated like shit by, and being screwed out of decent payment or recognition by people in your field. It's nothing personal, I just hate you and everything you represent. It comes with the territory, have a nice day."

So I have a slight bias just because if every CEO on the planet caught fire and burned down the entire highest tier of their respective slave operations they pass off as companies then I would convert to Mormonism and be reassured that good does exist in the universe, and the thought of the internet basically making it so that people can self-publish means that they're cutting off the middle-man and now every industry in chaos teetering on the brink of extinction honestly makes me frisky enough to feel up the corpses of the jackasses that created those power-structures while said power-structures crash and burn in a smouldering heap of what used to be their foundation.

So, knowing my immense contempt for living hell that is "The Industry", here's how I responded to this jackass:

"This is typically why I like dealing with indie developers a lot more than huge companies. If I asked this same question to an indie dev about their game, I'd get an answer from a developer, not some random forum users who think too highly of themselves, especially when they can't even spell "Spyro" properly.

What part of "I don't care about business mumbo-jumbo" did not clear with you the first time? I don't care, I have no intention of caring in the future, and you can sure bet that if I ever have the chance to develop and release games I won't care then either, because some of us have the moral integrity to care about other things besides money and you can get off your high horse right now because if you seriously think spewing a bunch of legal crap when some die-hard fan expresses an honest and passionate investment in a series they care a lot about is something to be proud of then you need to seriously re-examine your moral compass.

And please don't reply, just go get the other mod, I liked that guy a lot better. They were very direct. Or at least don't take three paragraphs to say what you can say in three words: "I don't care", because it's obvious that you don't in fact care at all and I'm really not interested in talking to someone who has probably never even played these games and can't relate to what they mean to people.

And by the way, maybe people wouldn't be motivated to hack their system if they're just release the content officially. Considering most of the content I care about on the Vita is Indie content anyway I don't feel that threatened if some triple-A company loses out, in fact nothing would make me happier, considering the way they treat their customers.

And by the way, playing PSX games on a handheld with dual-analog sticks was a huge appeal of the system for me but I guess that if anyone asks me if a Vita is good for that in the future, I'm going to say "No, I recommend saving up for an OpenPandora. It might cost $300 more but it can also do a lot more than PSX games without jailbreaking."

And as for respecting copyright laws, I can play Gameboy Advance games on my PSP as well as Genesis games, NES games, SNES games (although with horrible lag), GameGear games, and N64 games. In fact, the system being a portable emulator is a selling point for most people. I suspect that Vita sales will skyrocket once people can use it for the same purposes and if it chases off all the greedy triple-A companies who care so little about their userbase that they would actually not make a game available to them just because it won't sell well when it costs them nothing, then I consider that a victory, in fact, more power to the indies."

And in truth I wish Triple-A genocide for all consoles. This industry has screwed over too many people, from fans and customers to developers with dreams for it to deserve anything less than hate and contempt. People SHOULD rage against it, people SHOULD hate it, people SHOULD support independence from it, and people SHOULD be excited for the day when there is no industry, there is no middle-man, and there is no puppet-master businessman running the show anymore.

When we finally wash our hands of big companies dominating gaming, or music, or film, we will finally reach a point where people will no longer have their ideas shot down at the gate because it doesn't sell, and anyone who advocates this mentality that what sells is what gets done is 150% in the wrong.

Anyone who believes a developer being stopped from making a sequel to a game they care about by their superiors because it "doesn't sell" is a reasonable demand is wrong. Anyone who believes being forced to make sequels to a game just because it sells is a good decision is wrong. Anyone who believes in upholding copyright laws that ultimately strangle developers or take away their rights to do as they please with what they created is not only wrong, but a sick human being, and anyone who cannot see the damage these practices do to the industry is not only wrong, but blind with ignorance.

People should be excited for an age where video games, music, art, books, movies, cartoons, and any other form of creative media are published by the same people who made them with their own two hands and people should get angry when those people are made the industry's bitch and crushed and milked and abused until there's nothing left in them. People should get angry when developers quit their jobs because the pressure from asshats who have no idea what their job is like becomes unbearable. People should get angry when big companies have such disdain for their own userbase that they won't even have someone with knowledge of internal workings answer questions for the community. People should feel suspicious and distrusting of any institution that isn't open and transparent with how they do things and people should outright disdain any organized project or effort where the voice of that effort cannot even speak with passion and free will, like a human being.

Right now is how things are, I'm speaking for how things should be. Things should be open, things should be fair, things should be fueled by imagination and the desire to share your ideas with other people, the desire for people to like your ideas, and the belief that your ideas mean something. Art of all kinds is not a damn race to the finish, it's not a competition, it's not an institution, and it's not an industry and none of those things have any place in art. Those things exist to control and exploit talent and all the gain is made by the soulless jackasses who pull the strings.

These business-focused systems benefit nobody but the greedy. They should feel threatened with the current age of information-sharing, they should be humbled by the efforts for people to break free of the institution. They cannot adapt without giving the people power they always should have had to begin with.

Any enemy of this ideal is my enemy.