PriZm

Hey folks, it's been years (decades?)! I'd stopped doing music for a while but got back into it recently and made an instrumental rock guitar album with strong retro video game influences. Allow me the shamelessly plug it @: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/1J4ORYXownWtYqcNjVevdm Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/album/un-autre-adieu/1681984400 YouTube: https://music.youtube.com/search?q=Pascal+Jette+Un+Autre+Adieu Or delete this if this is against guidelines ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I might be able to help you. let me know your preferred method and I'll get it for you.

I want to add that no matter how talented you are at something, you are going to hit a plateau at some point. In that case, talent can actually be a hindrance. If progress has always come easily to you, it's easy to get frustrated once you hit that plateau. But in order to be truly great, you have to overcome it.

I guess it depends on what you're trying to accomplish. I could never be a singer even if I practiced non-stop. Unlike this girl: EDIT: unless you're trying to learn a language, I think age doesn't really matter. There are some notorious late-bloomers in pretty much every field. If you have the talent, the age at which you started practicing/learning doesn't really matter if you work hard!

Everybody bitches about it. Just not always on the internet. You shouldn't assume that news that are popular on the internet are necessarily representative of the real world. But I agree that it's just 'cool' right now to hate on capcom and there is no real reason they are any worse than any other company other that a few testimonials and (very) vocal megaman fans. EDIT: I agree that the Megaman 1 soundtrack is awesome. Cutman?

Something being subjective doesn't mean that there aren't patterns that will be globally more appreciated. It doesn't mean opinions will vary wildly and randomly either. I believe music, like any other art, is about intention. If you write a piece by randomly throwing notes on a sheet and your intention was to be as random as possible, then you just wrote a good piece! Whether it is interesting to other people is another question, though. Your paragraph gave me the impression that you think that music as an art form has been improving in (at least) the past few centuries. If there is such a thing as 'improving' music, why indeed listen to what was written in the past since what is written today is better anyways? Did I misunderstand what you meant? The reason I think people are learning music theory (and even practicing technique) is because it gives them more vocabulary. If you listen to a Beethoven song, for example, and there is a part of the song that you really like and you want to replicate the feeling it gives you while trying to be original, you need theory to be able to know why the song made you feel this way and how to structure your own. All the rules exist because they give people the necessary vocabulary to express their vision, their intention. Interesting aside: all the people I know who have undergone serious formal music training have become less elitist (for lack of a better word) as they learned. I think all the criteria you have identified that make a song good are a good example of intention. When I listen to metal, I like my drums and guitars loud because I think metal expresses 'in-your-faceness' and I get frustrated when it sounds weak. Of course, there could be a way to pull off metal with weak drums that would be nice. I have a dubious literary analogy but I think it will get the point across. Let's say I want to express that my character is very angry. The phrase "He was so angry that he wanted to shout at everyone, even strangers!" is pretty weak. Why? Because my intention was to illustrate that someone was extremely angry, but the weakness of the 'shout at everyone' part kinda defeats the whole intention. Regarding complexity, let's just say I completely disagree. I don't think repetition is inherently bad and that avoiding repetition in your song makes it harder to write and therefore better. I don't think there is a 'perfect' amount of reverb or panning for every sound in a mix either. Look at the Judge Decision subforum, you'll often see them arguing about what they liked or didn't in a song. To answer my own question, I personally like Terra's theme more than The Dance of Eternity. Does that make me "wrong"? It's objectively less complex, has 'cheap' sounds (i.e. low production complexity) and pretty flat dynamics. I just like the melody because I think it's beautiful. Also, don't fuck around.

In an ideal world, I would agree with you. However, I think you are neglecting the political approach in favor of the academic one. The only thing we know for certain is that she wants to mitigate the prevalence of the damsel in distress trope. What better way than to stir up heated discussions about the issue, where you obviously have the moral high ground? Preaching to the choir, yes, but you are enforcing already existing ideas and making the group more vocal. You're giving ammunition to major media outlets; I wouldn't be surprised at all if game reviewers started to bring up tired usage of the damsel in distress trope in their reviews because of her videos or, more specifically, because of the online attention that they've had. That's why I was saying that being vague is beneficial. It reaches all people who feel strongly about sexism in general, whether the argument itself is strong or not. It doesn't even matter if you're right or wrong, because people are much more emotional about an issue like sexism than about preserving artistic license in video games. It's certainly not intellectually honest, and I'm not even saying that Anita is doing this on purpose. But to me, it sure seems to be more effective than a reasonable, academic discussion. Also, remember that we're talking about internet forums, where smarmy, vague, accusatory one liners generally get a lot more attention than honest discussions.

I stand by what I said, but 'mind-bending' was probably a poor choice of words on my part. It's too subjective; now I could give you any example and you could answer that it doesn't correspond to your definition of the word. I personally consider any song that changes time signature every bar 'mind-bendingly complex'. Your statement is pretty condescending in that it seems you are assuming that I would need to learn a lot to understand what complexity is. The problem I have with trying to justify what you like is that there will always be exceptions to your arbitrarily self-imposed rules. Is Dance of Eternity a better song than Terra's theme? No? It's (a lot) more complex, sound quality is much better and more original, etc. There is no such thing as a good song or a bad song, no matter how many variables you try to quantify them with. Only things that you like and things that you dislike.

Does it matter at all anyways, business-wise? There are massive threads about how Call of Duty or Madden or mobile gaming sucks and yet the sales are always very high. I don't think there a sizable amount of people who would actually boycott a game because a developer/publisher agrees with Anita. On the other hand, I can see how people would buy a game to support a developer/publisher who speaks openly about being on Anita's side. It sucks how you can't disagree with her without being dismissed as sexist or that you can't agree with her without being labeled a white knight (or is it feminazi? I forget) but that's just how things work for now. In her defense, being polarizing is a very effective way to get your message across. If her argument was more reasonable, it probably wouldn't be nearly as talked about as it is now. Even though I don't really care about her position, if her objective was to draw attention to the trope and spark up discussions, it was very skillfully done. From a philosophical standpoint, her analysis is deeply flawed. From a communications/PR standpoint (which has, as of now, more pragmatic uses), it was well done. For example, I think your (djpretzel) argument is very well constructed, but even if I accept it, what am I going to do? Wait for more research? On the other hand, if I agree with Anita, I'm going to demand equality, be outraged, and act on it. I think in this case, being vague is actually beneficial. Since her analysis doesn't present research and is scoped pretty widely, people associate her message with sexism at large. You've seen it in this thread, and I am sure on several other forums. Disagreeing with her means you're denying that sexism exist (at large) or that you want to 'cling' to your patriarchal agenda!

Well I was trying to avoid the notion of artistic license, since I think we've covered the subject pretty thoroughly. I just meant if you consider a game as a product, something that you want to sell. In the case of Spelunky, I don't think sex, or 'male power fantasies' (whatever that means) was a main factor in the game's appeal. So regardless of social progress or ethical implications, siding with Anita just makes business sense. In this context, you get sympathy from a currently very vocal group, coverage from video game tabloids and forums, and the backlash seems very minimal; not every decision is driven by personal ethics. I'm not pretending to read Derek's mind. He might have genuinely been convinced by Anita's arguments, but I'm saying that in his situation, it would simply be a bad business idea to publicly disagree with her.

Doesn't it simply makes business sense to be on Anita's 'side'? I mean, I think most people who disagree strongly with Anita don't care as much, in the sense that they wouldn't base purchase of a game on political grounds. It would be pretty ridiculous anyways, to refuse to buy a game because it does NOT feature a damsel in distress. As you said, what he said was good PR.

The problem I have with this is how do you quantify how hard a song was to make? It's easy to write a song of mind-bending complexity, with time signatures changing every bar, modulations, tempo changes, etc. and it's much harder to write a simple song that works and that people will appreciate. I'm honestly surprised that this attitude seems to be so prevalent within people who like to listen to songs from video games. Most of the most appreciated video games song are pretty simple. Exactly. It's almost as if music was used as a fashion statement instead of appreciated for the art form itself.

Holy shit that was awesome, thank you! I've never understood why you would need to validate your tastes by trying to find objective metrics by which a song, or a genre, would be good. To me, it's as simple as: "do I like it?". Who cares whether a song was hard to make, whether it uses presets, whether it's complex, whether it's only popular because it's a fad?

No, it is only cross-save unfortunately

I was kinda expecting that by the end of the third video, she would have explored how the presence of the trope affects our psychology. Because when I hear: "it reinforces the idea that women need to be sheltered", I want to know how. How does exposure to a recurring trope in some form of media really influence the way we think? I know that violence in media has been subject to a lot of controversy (and for much longer) and, so far, I haven't found any conclusive research that demonstrates that exposure to violence in video games (which is much more prevalent than so-called "sexist" tropes) makes people more violent. Therefore, I'm wondering how toxic this damsel in distress trope really is. It seems that she is pulling stuff out of her ass and relies a whole lot about the fact that her arguments 'seem to make sense' instead of presenting valid scientific evidence. Some people are undeniably offended by this trope, but by not presenting it as a genuine issue and not explaining the ramifications she talks about, she fails to make me care.

So, to the people who are talking about a "very real issue" (not just Bleck), how would you define the problem?

Ah, this is the only place where they reported the news that way. I think it might have been simply miscommunication. From what I've read elsewhere, the game (on both PS3 and X360) will be based on the PS2 version. I really don't see how/why they would remove Heihachi from the X360 version.

Source? Also, I'm quite excited with this, but would've preferred an expansion for SCV. Hopefully this will give them the necessary funding and user feedback to make the next game even more fun!

I could understand if there is outrage at how they treat their employees, but regarding merchandise and customers, as a customer you're not under any obligation to shop there. So you just avoid the shop, no? I'm sure several people have a good reason to hate the place, but I'm also fairly sure that the majority of people complaining about it on the internet do not.

See, that's just the mature thing to do. What's irritating is reading about Gamestop/EB hatred constantly over the internet. Like, if you somehow hate a store, just don't go there But well, people have been hating on mainstream/popular stuff all the time. Call of Duty, Family Guy, Madden, Michael Bay movies, every musician who makes a hit, etc.

I don't really think the points he made were all that great, honestly. I'm always wary of someone who has such a simple solution to an enduring problem. There are so many variables to consider in business and I don't think he's even aware of how complicated it is. You need to consider branding, time of release, absorption of risk into additional cost, licensing, etc. The man seems to think what he personally considers good games of anecdotal evidence (Minecraft) should be the principle on which a business should operate. Really? Do you really think that it has never occurred to publishers to reduce spending while keeping the same revenues? The large majority of successful games have a huge budget, or at least needed one to start them up in case of sequels. The more a game sells, the more it will sell used copies as well. Who knows how many copies Resident Evil 6 would have sold if they used game market hadn't existed. Define 'market'. Having a game that is extremely visually impressive in terms of both art design and technology can help kickstart an original IP or, at the very least, prevent from damaging an existing one. It also differentiates you from your competitors; there are only so many genres of video games and people will be drawn to the one that looks the most polished. This is even more true if your product is a flagship of said genre. Gran Turismo (and most sports games) can simply not stop spending like crazy on licensing and photo-realistic graphics. In the end, I think all companies are working hard to find their market and the perfect balance between money spent and revenue in order to maximize their profit. I have more trust in them that a single guy saying: "Hey idiots it's simple, spend less and you'll make a lot more profit!".

I don't know whether this has been done, in terms of affirmative action favoring women, but I remember at an IGDA conference where they were trying to solve the whole 'crunch time' issue, and Team17 had implemented a very aggressive policy where they were literally forcing their employees to go back home after they had worked 40 hours within a week. Unfortunately, it went largely unnoticed and was ineffective. Regarding the idea of merit, I guess I am just approaching the issue in a more psychological/individual level than sociological, if that makes any sense. For example, in a company enforcing affirmative action where, in order to encourage women to join, they lower the required skills and/or give them special privileges, I can easily see people resenting women employees and believing that they didn't have to work as hard to get there, which would just widen the gap between men and women. In terms of more women entering the industry, it would be great, but in terms of how people perceive women within the industry, I don't think it would be helpful at all. All it would do is shift the problem from "she's a woman, so she can't possibly be a game developer" to "she's a woman, so she didn't have to work as hard to get there", which wouldn't be an improvement in the situation at all because it would be just as dismissive or a woman's actual value as a member of a development team. As more women join the industry, it could either 1) Alleviate the problem in the long term because as it becomes more natural to have women colleagues, people start to grow more accustomed to it and stop thinking of them as 'my female colleague' and more as 'my colleague'. or 2) Instigate a cultural grudge that would exacerbate sexism globally. Since the video game industry does not exist in a cultural vacuum, I believe that 2 is more likely. This is related to tropes in video games as well. I don't think female character should get special treatment, or that some tropes should become taboo in order to 'reverse the damage that has been done'. If you have an idea for an character that would work in your plot but feel constrained because of what is socially acceptable and taboo, you're just furthering the idea that some things are acceptable for one gender and not the other. It's a very delicate issue, and I think it should be handled delicately. It is important to realize that not all 'straight white males' have had easy lives and that, even for those that had one, their perceived 'privilege' is not obvious to them. Often in discussions, when someone expresses the fact that they do not perceive the damsel in distress trope to be a harmful stereotype, their input is dismissed as being one of an 'angry white male'. The natural response to being accused in such a way is of course to become defensive. This is my problem with Anita's video and really, with a lot of discussions about discrimination. The feeling I had when I watched the video was: "I still don't feel that the damsel in distress trope is inherently catastrophically sexist, so I guess that makes me a monstrous patriarch bigot and there's nothing I can do about it". Give me more ways to understand how harmful you think it is, and stop demonizing me for not thinking like you do. I feel like djpretzel's suggested changes to the overall tone of the discourse would be a good improvement. Of course, some people are sexist on a more fundamental level and they won't be convinced rationally no matter what... But I feel like there is a lost opportunity to persuade a sizable part of the audience. It might seem unfair to put a burden of the shoulders of people who already feel like they are victims, and it probably is. It might also seem that I am trying to excuse the behavior of those 'angry white males' I mentioned. If it is so, it's probably due to a poor choice of words on my part. I absolutely recognize that there is sexism in the video game industry, but as angry as we might be about it, I think a more reasonable and balanced discourse would help the cause in a more effective and faster way.

Technically speaking, if a woman with the same intellectual capacity as a man gets a grant for a school only because of her gender, she does have less merit. Whether or not this is justifiable for historical and cultural reasons is debatable, but that was not the point. The point is that women in the video game industry feel victimized because their skills and merit is less recognized than their male counterparts, and I think 'aggressively hiring women' would actually exacerbate that attitude rather than diminish it. But changing people's attitude should be the ultimate goal, shouldn't it? All the ways through which we try to eliminate sexism should lead towards that goal, or at least not away from it.

I agree that there should be a disconnect between the target audience and the developers themselves. I don't believe that sexist attitudes in the workplace, which are often blatant, are directly caused by something as subtle as growing up seeing Peach as a damsel in distress but, then again, there is really no reliable way to prove it one way or another. I disagree here. Positive discrimination is still discrimination and begets resentment. I went to engineering school where students were overwhelmingly male. In order to encourage women to enter the school, they introduced some grants that were exclusive for women. This actually hurt the perception of female engineers in the school, because the requirements for them to enter the school were lower and they were obtaining grants that were inaccessible to males, thereby giving the impression that they didn't have to work as hard to get where they were.

You know I've read/heard that several times but haven't found any serious study on this subject. It could be argued that it is sexist because it gives males unrealistic expectations of what they should be. Actually, how many times have you heard people calling another guy 'emo' because he was psychologically vulnerable? I don't disagree that there are harmful tropes and general sexism in society against women. I'm just saying that I think the best way to eliminate the problem is to eliminate sexism as a concept rather than try patch the problem by trying to balance things up for women/men in some area and down in some other. It's not necessary to have suffered the consequences of a problem the most in order to suggest a solution to it.