big giant circles

Very very true. I'm a blend of cautiously skeptical and cautiously optimistic. Optical. No wait. Skeptimistic.

Well, if you read that Penny Arcade report article, it kind of is though. Again, let me just restate that I'm for the idea, but I withdrew my pre-purchase until I see that it's more probable that they can deliver the idea as well as they can pitch it. Still crossing my fingers in their favor.

You know, I was kind of like "eh, I'll wait and see" at first. Then I saw how many people were supporting it. So I jumped on the bandwagon and threw some money at it. Then I read that article. That is an amazingly well written article, piecing together all the facts that I lacked the energy/capacity to figure out on my own. Seeing as they're now approaching $4.5 million, it looks like they have plenty of funding to figure stuff out. But in the meanwhile, they don't really have enough promising current benchmarks on the hardware/controller/software etc. And Kuchera is right, a March 2013 deadline would be tough even for a company like Microsoft or Sony, who have waaaaaay more money at their disposal. Taking all the information that report gave into consideration, and since they're highly overfunded as is, I went ahead and withdrew my pledge. $100 isn't a lot, so if and when it sees the light of day, I'll happily throw down my money. But in the meanwhile, I think I'll wait until things look a little bit more certain for them. I will say, that I'll remain cautiously optimistic for them to deliver, as I think it's a great idea.

I mean, from a consumer standpoint, their marketing guys are idiots. Also, the two games I own are ME3 and Syndicate, I didn't work on either. Anybody who sees Valve making piles and piles and piles of money and then says some uppity remark about how they don't know what they are doing and how they're hurting the industry (despite getting MORE people to buy games AND combating piracy at the same time) are just not seeing things in an adaptive, intuitive way. They're seeing things with some business degree that probably pre-dates the internet and the way modern consumerism, especially of digital content has gone. Not to mention how fast the game market generally moves. Games get hyped for a year, then they come out, and within a couple months, players have already moved onto the next game. So throwing something that I was mildly interested in but ultimately didn't care enough to shell out $50-60 to play on sale for 50-75% off is a great way to convince me to give them my money anyway. And just to clarify, I didn't work for EA. I didn't even work for BioWare. I simply worked for Jack Wall. So I'm allowed to smirk at some short-sighted marketing guy's silly perspective Carry on. On topic, so far I've picked up MW3, Rayman Origins, Tobe's Vertical Adventure, and World of Goo. I'm holding out for Crysis 2, Alan Wake, Black Ops, and maybe Skyrim (which I only don't have b/c I know I won't have the time to play it for quite a while yet.)

Interesting, I didn't realize Valve responded to that. Good for them. EA are idiots. Anybody that says Valve's marketing strategies are bad are idiots. The proof is in the gobs and gobs of money that I constantly throw at Valve that I wouldn't otherwise if not for these sales. It's why I own 2 games (grudgingly) on Origin as opposed to like 200+ (or something like that) on Steam.

http://store.steampowered.com/ Good advice: Until the last day of the sale, DON'T BUY A GAME UNLESS IT'S A DAILY DEAL. Thurs, July 12: click the link below: http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/wg71g/steam_summer_sale_day_01_20120712/

I just don't have the energy to reply to why you're still far too concerned with something that's not really an issue. Suffice it to say, I wouldn't worry about it. OCR isn't pulling some shady scam here. Either support it, or don't, and move on. There will always be folks who are upset by the success of others. Heaven forbid that a non-profit site like OCR actually receive an abundance of monetary support after all these years of volunteer service to the world of video game music. I hate to think that MORE awesome things might come as a result of said support.

Why is it such a big deal if this gets over-funded? Even if it generates a huge surplus, it's not like the site is suddenly for-profit. Seriously, it's like it's a crime to generate a huge pool of money that might just be beneficial to a not-for-profit site for years to come. I am irked by all the "wtf guys, you're too successful!" that I see when projects (including this one) do well on Kickstarter.

OCR Fundraising 2.0! I guess this means I can retire as the official OCR Fundraising guy

Thanks! 12 minutes left, she's still got a bit of a lead, you guys rock!

*update* The contest ends today at 4pm EST and she's retaken the lead so far. Whether she wins or not, thanks kindly for all the support guys, it means a lot to us both. :] As a small thanks, here's some free music for you - http://biggiantcircles.bandcamp.com/track/pixel-cones

It's a good thing. M-Audio has kind of sucked for a while now. I used to love them, so I think the change in ownership could be good.

Dang, that other entry (#9) is really on a push. Last night Amanda's entry (#6) was up like 213 to 154. Now #9 has taken a pretty staggering lead at 240 to her 213 overnight. I guess she has a lot more people sharing. C'mon guys, we ought to be able to whip up some fairly impressive numbers here Thanks so far to those of you who have voted already! <3

My bad, I was assuming everyone was part of the 1 in 11 people on planet earth that are on Facebook

Hasn't this thread existed like numerous times? Because I swear I remember it at least a couple times and I always end up mentioning Terranigma. The ending just gets my eye-faucets going.

OH YOU. *bats eyelashes*

Wow, that 2nd place picture (#9) has really jumped up. It's now 146 to 141. Vote #6! https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150921288491864.414577.11327971863&type=3 You know, I actually voted with my personal account and my BGC account, and I'll be honest. I don't feel bad about it at all because popularity contests in general are crap. Fairness is pretty much already out the window when it comes to the mass public being the determining factor to who wins or not. I realize I'm biased, so maybe it's hard for me to be entirely objective, but considering the topic is picnics, her entry IMO does fit the theme better than most (possibly) all of the other finalists, but since it's a popularity vote, that doesn't really matter to anyone because in the end, it's just whoever rallies the most people to vote for them. So that's pretty much what I'm doing I'm also motivated by the fact that I get to watch her giggle with glee like a giddy child at Christmas when she sees the amazing support you guys, who don't even know her (well most of you anyway) are giving. It's very touching, even for something as simple as clicking a link and liking a picture.

The reason that this is a gray area, and why we're probably not in the wrong (I mean after like 13-ish years of the site being up) is that we provide proper and full credit to composers, publishers, and copyright owners, and since this is a not-for-profit site that doesn't sell any of the music, then the work hosted here (if ever it falls under legal scrutiny) is likely going to be able to fall under the same category as mere fan art, which is also not illegal/criminal. It'd be like suing people for drawing pictures inspired by games on deviantart. The very worst OCR would ever get if it ever came to that would be a C&D I believe. And seeing as we're actually providing free marketing for hundreds of games and developers, I'd say that's pretty unlikely that it'll ever happen.

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html

*bump* Still in the lead, but that #9 is catching up fast. Show some love!

I understand the concerns of those who have voiced concern/distaste of the emailing his mom thing, but the reason I'm not concerned is I don't actually think the intent was just to shame him out of spiteful retaliation, but rather to put a swift and instant end to what is not only an unethical, but ultimately an illegal action. So he's 21. You know what? That means he's legally an adult, no matter how immature/naive/inexperienced. If he makes a raunchy/tasteless/offensive forum post, then that's his prerogative and as long as no laws/forum rules are violated, he can exercise free speech all he wants and I'm fairly certain none of us would think to point it out to his family. But this is different. This is beyond even falsely claiming credit over our music, which has happened time and time again. This is him trying to profit monetarily from work that he did not do. It's fraud. It's IP theft. Think of it this way. If I start selling [insert popular mainstream artist here]'s music on bandcamp, or my own website, and [insert popular mainstream artist's publisher/record label here] were to find out about it, bad things would happen. I need to read up on it a bit more to find out exactly the consequences, but I'm fairly certain it would be beyond a mere C&D (*EDIT* See: Criminal Copyright Infrinement). I'd probably be sued for damages and slapped with a hefty fine for violating copyright laws for financial gain. The moment I ever catch anyone selling my music as their own (not just saying they wrote it and slapping it on soundcloud like that Megaclown kid), you can bet I'm going to look into legal action. That's my work, my property, and they have no right to profit from it. So contacting his mom IMO was actually pretty insightful and direct in this case. Because lets face it, after however many instances of this garbage (too many to count), how many artists simply comply with DMCA's or takedown demands promptly and cordially? Instead, how many people do their best to delete any incriminating comments and accusations until the higher authorities take any action (if they even do at all?) It is a horrible hassle to DMCA/file official complaints to IP-thieves these days. If I knew that contacting someone's mother was a surefire way to get them to stop their copyright crimes and atone for their theft then I'd do it every time.