djpretzel

Well said; I just don't view it as zero-sum, nor do I view "hardcore" gaming as something that necessarily needs to evaporate to let the medium truly flourish. It can't be the standard-bearer for the art form, sure, but I don't think it really has been, for some time...
 
I like the enthusiast car metaphor, because I see a lot of parallels. I'll temporarily invoke some biology/evolutionary psychology and put it out there that males are inherently more aggressive/competitive and enjoy tinkering away for hours on end if it means an inch or two gain in whatever pissing contest is going on. I view this as a double-edged sword; it contributes to disproportionate amounts of male insecurity, posturing, & resource waste, but it also motivates autodidacts & fanatics to push boundaries. You see this in enthusiast car culture just as you see this in enthusiast PC build/overclocking culture just as you see it in hardcore gaming culture, which is related to the latter. Most of us drive cars, and MANY of us are interested in different models & partake in associating our own identity with the brand of automobile we choose to drive - no field of advertising is perhaps quite as saturated with identity politics as automobile sales. Enthusiast car culture exists alongside mainstream car culture; the former is largely male, the latter is uniformly diverse, by necessity. Is this problematic? Can there be niches within cultures/mediums that simply tend to break down along gender lines, or any other demographic lines? I think the answer is a resounding yes.... the only problem is when the enthusiast culture mistakes itself for the mainstream culture, I suppose
 
But see here, if you look at how Anita was expressing herself, it WAS zero-sum... her statements were very clearly NOT of a "gaming needs to branch out & diversify" breed (as Larry rewrote them to be) but rather of a "this type of game is wrong and bad and needs to go away" ilk... thus the reaction. It's one thing to tell an enthusiast culture to make room, that the medium is a big enough umbrella for all types of folks. That's a message I can stand behind. It's quite another thing to tell enthusiast culture that it needs to crawl in a hole and die; this is more or less what Anita and Leigh went with, and it's just NOT necessary, or even desirable.

It'd be great if more people responding actually focused on those two questions
 
My personal answer to the first question is that I do a writeup for every single mix
 
I've VERY interested in ideas for enhancing feedback & number of reviews.... but here's my current thinking:
We upgrade our forums to IPS 4.X We build the workshop out to integrate with the rest of the site We thus allow content creation & promotion on two tracks - the instant gratification, "look what I made" track for anything posted on the workshop AND the featured, canonized track for accepted mixes We automate the submissions process via the forums All of these changes serve to reinforce the forums and the benefits of registering & participating We consider some form of trackable reputation points or awards or whatever for the most active/helpful members who are reviewing content and offering feedback in the workshop forums as well So we WILL be modernizing, quite a bit, and hopefully that WILL help... I sense some defeatism, here, and I can see where it might stem from, but this is when we need people stepping up, not stepping back, because big changes are in store and we'll need all the help we can get to implement them.
 
In the meantime, every review helps!

If I'm hearing this correctly, you're saying it's cool for folks like me to continue typing those huge ass dissertations with 47 paragraphs about how dat filter sweep had me feelin some type of way, yeah?
 
 
 
hoooly shit, the forums are upgraded as fuck.

Well said; I just don't view it as zero-sum, nor do I view "hardcore" gaming as something that necessarily needs to evaporate to let the medium truly flourish. It can't be the standard-bearer for the art form, sure, but I don't think it really has been, for some time...
 
I like the enthusiast car metaphor, because I see a lot of parallels. I'll temporarily invoke some biology/evolutionary psychology and put it out there that males are inherently more aggressive/competitive and enjoy tinkering away for hours on end if it means an inch or two gain in whatever pissing contest is going on. I view this as a double-edged sword; it contributes to disproportionate amounts of male insecurity, posturing, & resource waste, but it also motivates autodidacts & fanatics to push boundaries. You see this in enthusiast car culture just as you see this in enthusiast PC build/overclocking culture just as you see it in hardcore gaming culture, which is related to the latter. Most of us drive cars, and MANY of us are interested in different models & partake in associating our own identity with the brand of automobile we choose to drive - no field of advertising is perhaps quite as saturated with identity politics as automobile sales. Enthusiast car culture exists alongside mainstream car culture; the former is largely male, the latter is uniformly diverse, by necessity. Is this problematic? Can there be niches within cultures/mediums that simply tend to break down along gender lines, or any other demographic lines? I think the answer is a resounding yes.... the only problem is when the enthusiast culture mistakes itself for the mainstream culture, I suppose
 
But see here, if you look at how Anita was expressing herself, it WAS zero-sum... her statements were very clearly NOT of a "gaming needs to branch out & diversify" breed (as Larry rewrote them to be) but rather of a "this type of game is wrong and bad and needs to go away" ilk... thus the reaction. It's one thing to tell an enthusiast culture to make room, that the medium is a big enough umbrella for all types of folks. That's a message I can stand behind. It's quite another thing to tell enthusiast culture that it needs to crawl in a hole and die; this is more or less what Anita and Leigh went with, and it's just NOT necessary, or even desirable.

I had a longer response but I'm gonna try again...
 
 
I don't believe this is an accurate description of Anita's views; her videos actually focus less on storytelling and more on presentation, and she's very plainly demonizing some things being unacceptable to her, instead of criticizing the lack of variety (i.e. well-roundedness). I honestly & truthfully believe that had her videos advocated for "more well-rounded storytelling for female characters in games," that she would not have received 1/100th the hatred and attacks. There would still have been some, mind you, but we know from experience that even posting free VGM arrangements will piss SOME people off, and there's an undeniable vein of misogyny both online (in general) and in the gaming community specifically. Nevertheless, I feel that it was quite specifically the demonizing, negative tone, questionable knowledge of her subject matter, inconsistencies, sex-negative attitude towards objectification, and re-hash of failed second-wave feminist arguments that fueled the flames.
 
A thoughtful analysis on the lack of variety, a critical exploration of the potential impacts (not certitudes, as she expresses them) of certain behaviors/depictions, and a thesis that truly emphasized improvement of the medium... coupled with a stronger grasp of her subject matter... very difficult to see how that would have had the same effect.
 
Her views, as she has expressed them, very plainly deserve a great deal of criticism.
 
 
Well, there's some seemingly-deserved criticism about lack of creation & following through on the KS on Anita's part, is there not? Especially given the degree to which it was over-funded? Surely this specific criticism can be acknowledged objectively & independent of anything else...
 
As for magically getting a following based on harassment... no, it helps when you are:
A member of a group that is oppressed/marginalized in some fashion Doing work that arguably involves exposing/fighting this oppression/marginalization Are able to successfully publicize this harassment in a context relevant to your work That's NOT a list of criticisms/faults, but it explains why not everyone being harassed is getting a following, even if they are creators. If the work they are doing is perceived as somehow relevant to combating the harassment they are experiencing, publicizing attacks can dovetail very nicely into efficient fundraising. It's hard to fault anyone too much for this, as it appears to simply be the new reality - hatred can be monetized, for better or worse. My objection is that this might tend to create situations that make it very tempting to characterize ANY criticism of you or your work as being an attack, or representative of those who have attacked you, to discredit the criticism outright AND to provide further evidence of the challenges you face... which require continued donations.
 
It's not a great situation for meaningful discourse when you continually give your worst, most ridiculous opponents a megaphone so as to make your OWN case, then lump ANY criticism from other outlets into that same group...
 
It isn't admirable.

GG may not have been primarily about "ethics in game journalism," as it has been thoroughly lambasted for claiming, but it also wasn't just about being in "favor" of harassment in the abstract. More of a sociopolitical schism between gamers at large, who are a diverse lot, and game journos, who seem to not only lean hard left, but be okay with injecting that ideology into something that ostensibly should be a little more neutral... if you ask me. No need for a reductionist counterclaim... much of what GG has been associated with, accurately or otherwise, impeaches itself without the need for oversimplification.
 
Speaking as a liberal, I think the medium is rich enough to support works that speak to many different audiences, with criticism & coverage to match.
 
I'm all for resuscitating this thread and seeing where people stand, a year later... as for this movie, well... do video game movies ever work out well? Will nuance even be considered, or are we looking at a feel-good tale of "good" vs. "evil"?

.

Well said; I just don't view it as zero-sum, nor do I view "hardcore" gaming as something that necessarily needs to evaporate to let the medium truly flourish. It can't be the standard-bearer for the art form, sure, but I don't think it really has been, for some time...
 
I like the enthusiast car metaphor, because I see a lot of parallels. I'll temporarily invoke some biology/evolutionary psychology and put it out there that males are inherently more aggressive/competitive and enjoy tinkering away for hours on end if it means an inch or two gain in whatever pissing contest is going on. I view this as a double-edged sword; it contributes to disproportionate amounts of male insecurity, posturing, & resource waste, but it also motivates autodidacts & fanatics to push boundaries. You see this in enthusiast car culture just as you see this in enthusiast PC build/overclocking culture just as you see it in hardcore gaming culture, which is related to the latter. Most of us drive cars, and MANY of us are interested in different models & partake in associating our own identity with the brand of automobile we choose to drive - no field of advertising is perhaps quite as saturated with identity politics as automobile sales. Enthusiast car culture exists alongside mainstream car culture; the former is largely male, the latter is uniformly diverse, by necessity. Is this problematic? Can there be niches within cultures/mediums that simply tend to break down along gender lines, or any other demographic lines? I think the answer is a resounding yes.... the only problem is when the enthusiast culture mistakes itself for the mainstream culture, I suppose
 
But see here, if you look at how Anita was expressing herself, it WAS zero-sum... her statements were very clearly NOT of a "gaming needs to branch out & diversify" breed (as Larry rewrote them to be) but rather of a "this type of game is wrong and bad and needs to go away" ilk... thus the reaction. It's one thing to tell an enthusiast culture to make room, that the medium is a big enough umbrella for all types of folks. That's a message I can stand behind. It's quite another thing to tell enthusiast culture that it needs to crawl in a hole and die; this is more or less what Anita and Leigh went with, and it's just NOT necessary, or even desirable.

I believe there have been some studies that suggest (not conclusively, but being conclusive about something like this is VERY difficult) that heterosexual male gamers often play as female characters simply because they'd rather spend more time staring at a female body than a male one.
 
Personally? Guilty as charged. No shame.

I didn't really mean it as some insidious deliberate plot to shape the culture. These things just tend to happen on their own in a sort of positive feedback loop (although it is sometimes considered beneficial in long term marketing tactics to narrow down an audience by deliberately excluding other potential groups). But if you look at the history of games and how the "rules" of marketing have changed and solidified over time, the 90's was a very notable turning point. I sometimes read scan archives of old game magazines, and it's really interesting looking at some of the ads and how homogenized they were getting. Even Nintendo got caught in the zeitgeist and marketed games for all ages like Yoshi's Island in the same contrived edgy style as you would do for older teens.
 
Sega kind of got the ball rolling in the late 80's/early 90's by aiming for teenage boys as Nintendo was viewed as having the childrens market on lockdown, but it was Sony later who really started pushing the image of gaming as a lifestyle as they were asserting themselves on the market, and I think their marketing campaigns had a big influence on the industry as a whole. There was a series of PS1 TV adverts in the late 90's, and one of them had CG characters from games like Tomb Raider and Crash Bandicoot urging a guy to spend more time with his Playstation and not get "whipped" by his girlfriend. That's a pretty overt message about who gaming was for, and more importantly who gaming was not for.
I'd also like to highlight the computer game market which was growing parallel to consoles in the 80's and early 90's (which is often dismissed as this "other" thing in gaming history as a whole, like being conveniently ignored when the US industry crash of 83 is brought up). It was pretty different in how diverse it was. You had companies like Sierra whose business model was more akin to that of a book publisher, releasing games in a variety of genres (genre being stuff like comedy, fantasy, crime etc as opposed to shoot em up or racing) aimed at a variety of demographics, women included. But as the 90's went on you could see this aspect becoming marginalized for a variety of reasons while the more modern industry paradigm was forming, and eventually the computer market caved in and became almost indistinguishable from consoles in the sense that it was being aimed nearly exclusively at adolescent males.
 
So in the wake of this we have what we'd define as "hardcore" gaming culture. By that I mean someone who plays the latest games, keeps up with the news and reads gaming magazines or websites, and engages socially with gaming-related communities, and more importantly views it as a sort of lifestyle which defines their image. The bulk of this demographic being those who had their formative years in the 90's, or at this point also the 00's which largely overlaps.
This culture for a long time has struck me as being very exclusionary in nature. And I'm not just talking about gender here, but rather about what is and isn't considered a "real" game or whom is a "real" gamer. A real game by this definition would be whatever passed through the traditional market channels, getting magazine adverts and retail releases. Independantly released digital games used to have to endure this kind of stigma. If Minecraft had been made in 2004 and someone said it was their game of the year, they'd probably have been laughed out of the room. Thankfully this attitude has started to change, although I still see that kind of sentiment reeling here and there in how certain people think AAA games are the only ones that "count". But nowadays we also have both the fledgling mobile market and also independant titles that are challenging established fundamental formulas, like Gone Home. These are much more aggressively dismissed as "non-games" and actively sneered at (and it sort of goes both ways as those who exclusively play mobile games likely don't regard them as "video games" per se). Zoe Quinn was the creator of one of these alleged non-games through Depression Quest, and its recognition in the press (which are pretty much viewed as The Great Validators by the layman gamer) gave her a good deal of abuse even before the whole gamergate thing had started.
 
So to tie this lengthy post together, what's happening right now is that "real" gamers are lashing out because their view of what gaming is supposed to mean culturally, which is largely derived from the period they grew up in during the 90's and 00's, is being challenged as the industry is growing to become more diverse and inclusive.

I certainly have my qualms about aspects of the arguments, although as a whole I still agree with her points, however the well has been so thoroughly poisoned I thought her right to express herself became a way more pressing concern rather than any attempt at sincere critique and constructive discussion which would inevitably get lost in the noise of pure vitriol, since people get so overly emotional about it (which is like, highly ironic considering the topic at hand). The people harrassing her don't want any real discussion, they just want her out of the picture. And I think this is also a symptom of something larger going on with the modern internet landscape which is why I'm trying to piece together all these isolated incidents into a wider perspective.
 
There's a lot of talk about the problem with "safe spaces" today and not having to be exposed to opinions that might make you uncomfortable. People usually equate this with US colleges/universities and as something leftist, but I see this kind of behavior manifesting across all sorts of internet communities for any kind of topic, and the phenomenom seems ideologically fairly agnostic. Perhaps the rapid proliferation of the internet and the possibility to pick and choose information more at our own leisure is conditioning society further into this kind of mindset, and the rise of "echo chambers". So to put this in the context of gamergate, I feel as though this is the millennial gaming and geek culture freaking out over the inevitable growth of the industry into a true mainstream force of pop culture attracting new demographics, and view this as some sort of intrusion on "their" safe space (that being video games, but also stuff like comic books, and to an extent, even the internet itself). And of course it was theirs to begin with, because the almighty gods of marketing in the 90's proclaimed it to be so.

There was definitely profit.
 

That's more of a different thing than what I was refering to. I'm talking about the mindset that somehow Zoe and Anita are just as bad, they are opportunists who relish in the attention, etc etc. Mostly just comes down to thinly veiled victim blaming in my eyes.
 
It's both disheartening and fascinating watching both this and several concurrent social trends unfold the past years. That includes stuff like the countless internet lynch mobs out to shame people and even ruin their careers (anything from Zoe Quinn, to that poaching dentist, to that "dongle incident" at a tech firm), and the rise of xenophobic attitudes shedding their taboo with the European immigrant crisis, etc. Perhaps in 15 years or so we can look back at these things as a whole with some historical clarity and put it in a better understood context. What I find particularly interesting about both gamergate and the immigrant crisis (and I suppose also MRA) are the connections found to extreme right wing organizations, how they actively fan the flames and use these sentiments as a means to boost recruitment. In particular with gamergate they have better success at reaching out towards young, liberal-leaning men who would otherwise not sympathize with their ideologies.
 
Inbetween the downtime of this thread there was also an interesting video series released which I think did a good attempt at dissecting the underlying psychology behind the gamergate movement
 

I think one problem, and this might be addressed in V6, I don't know, is that right now if you go to a mixpost, you download the song or listen on YouTube on the mixpost page. Then if you want to leave a review, you have to click on the review link. Then you have to be logged into the forum. What if you're not registered? Well then now you have to register for the forum and create an account. But after that, you have to wait until your forum account is manually activated. At this point, you don't really care about leaving a review anymore.
 
Commenting on remixes on the mixpost page just needs to be easier. There are too many clicks, even if you already have an active forum account. You should be able to just hit play and write a review all on the same page. This is why people comment on YouTube videos. They don't have to jump through hoops to leave their 2 cents.
 
These things might be taken care of with IPS4 and V6; IPS has a commenting system that could be used on mixpost pages (maybe, I don't know, I don't really know IPS's system that well yet). I know we talked about Disqus in the past too, but I also know that it's preferable to keep everything under one software umbrella (in this case, IPS). Regardless, I think the gating that's happening when trying to leave a review needs to be addressed.

Very nice work Tuberz! I don't know why it took you this long to get a solo post, but this is definitely a first post to be very proud of very good stuff. 

I listened to this song anew while walking to work this morning and really paid attention to the lyrics. These lyrics really feel like a metaphor for anything you endeavor to do in your life, and a reminder that failures are not the ends of life, and that you can start over again.
Lose all your continues in one game? Start another game. Come back to this one from the beginning at a later date; maybe it will go better. Same goes for other aspects of life. Lose your job? There are other jobs. Maybe you'll have a chance to do this one again; maybe you'll find a better one. Life did not end with it.
Think about this and listen to this song again sometime.

Have I really not left a review for this mix yet?

Top notch, one of the best mixes on the site.

Let's do it again, then. And we'll try and organize some prizes, too!
 
 
 
Indeed, if you look at mixes submitted/posted, albums released, and total engagement over social media, things are great.
 
The MAIN thing we're seeing less of is forum activity, and almost ALL of my plans for the future of the site surround the forums and what we can do with them, so I'm not too worried.... I just need the time to implement these changes, and support from staff in planning it all out.
 
 
 
I've actually been thinking about how that might work. Does anyone have experience doing comment aggregation and representation across multiple social media platforms? On its surface, it seems like a CRON job that does API calls and caches results back to a table we can use to then present the data on the mix page... would actually be kinda cool... just not at the top of my priority list at the moment...

Ditto!
 
A well advertised monthly one with a few featured remixers would probably see more patronage than the weekly format the show had.  

And here we go!

Ohh my lord... I'm having goosebump all over! This Remix is Awesome! Congratz to the artists!

oh man the ambience... Reminds me of when i used to frequent various jazz bars back in the day.  very nicely done!

01:44 I bet I heard Mystic Cave Zone Great arrangement as always!

This is excellent!!!    Did you play this or sequence it, it is very natural and dynamic, both in playing style and mood.  Piano sample is perfect.  Well done Rexy, I love it!

OC ReMix Presents Vampire Variations: Volume III!

October 31, 2015
Contact: press@ocremix.org

FAIRFAX, VA... Celebrating Dracula's favorite holiday, Halloween, OverClocked ReMix today released its 54th arrangement album, Vampire Variations: Volume III. The album pays tribute to Super Castlevania IV, released by Konami in 1991 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Featuring twenty-four tracks from twenty-three artists, Vampire Variations: Volume III represents the third directorial endeavor of French arranger Alexandre "Chernabogue" Mourey, and is available for free download at http://vampire.ocremix.org.

Vampire Variations: Volume III includes a diverse roster of musicians honoring the work of composers Masanori Adachi and Taro Kudo by arranging it in a variety of musical genres with orchestral elements. Vampire Variations was made by fans, for fans, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Konami; all original compositions are copyright their respective owners.

Accompanying this newly-released third and final volume in the trilogy are re-released editions of Vampire Variations: Volumes I & II, originally published by KNGI and featuring arrangements of the first Castlevania for the NES, 1993's Rondo of Blood for the PC Engine CD and 1994's Bloodlines for the Sega Genesis, including brand new artwork for all three volumes by Andrew Warwick and a grand total of over 4 1/2 hours of music.

"This is the end of a grand adventure," said director Alexandre Mourey. "It started all out as a simple tribute to Castlevania's 25th anniversary, and we're now celebrating its 30th with the final volume of the Vampire Variations trilogy. Once again, Dracula rises as humans wish to pay him tribute. I truly hope we have been able to do justice to the Castlevania series with this trilogy, and that people will appreciate our hard work."

About OverClocked ReMix

Founded in 1999, OverClocked ReMix is an organization dedicated to the appreciation and promotion of video game music as an art form. Its primary focus is ocremix.org, a website featuring thousands of free fan arrangements, information on game music and composers, resources for aspiring artists, and a thriving community of video game music fans.







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Preview Vampire Variations: Volume III: http://youtu.be/KKBHKD4uwio Download the Vampire Variations trilogy: http://vampire.ocremix.org Torrent: http://bt.ocremix.org/torrents/Vampire_Variations_Trilogy.torrent Comments/Reviews (Vol. I): http://ocremix.org/community/topic/42027- Comments/Reviews (Vol. II): http://ocremix.org/community/topic/42028- Comments/Reviews (Vol. III): http://ocremix.org/community/topic/42029-