Interesting Links for 18-09-2025
Sep. 18th, 2025 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrewducker- 1. Ukraine is hitting Russia where it hurts - and it's working
- (tags:ukraine russia war economy )
- 2. 'Erosion emergency' at Edinburgh's Calton Hill after grass cut too short
- (tags:edinburgh nature )
- 3. 'Forgotten' royal castle uncovered on Herbidean Scottish island
- (tags:scotland castle )
- 4. What's changing for trials in Scotland?
- (tags:scotland law )
- 5. Renewables do unambiguously reduce wholesale power prices
- (tags:renewables electricity economics )
- 6. There Are Too Many Video Games (and songs and books and TV shows)
- (tags:media economics society )
6.
Date: 2025-09-18 11:18 am (UTC)I long ago switched my thinking over to making music as a thing you DO with your friends, rather than just consume (or assume a consuming audience for). I guess I am biased because I like and am good at live performance, which is at least an option for music, at least a bit, sometimes. Jam nights, own parties etc if nothing else.
I dunno that there is any equivalent of this for games or books - maybe? I know writers have groups? Maybe mostly only other artists care about art on a "mass"/non-pro level? Maybe that is OK.
Re: 6.
Date: 2025-09-18 11:23 am (UTC)Re: 6.
Date: 2025-09-18 01:16 pm (UTC)I don't know Steam very well; are all its games big like fortnite or are there also many much smaller games like PacMan ?
---
Who writes these games ?
If every other year, one kid in every US high school submits a game to Steam, that would be enough to generate Bottom-Feeder's numbers. If writing a game is a rite-of-passage that many kids do* and dumping it on
Steam is the thing to do, I don't think that the mess the Bottom Feeder talks about is a problem.
*I wrote a couple of crap ones that I doubt three people played.
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After we are told to warn anyone thinking of going to gamedev school and are allowed to stop reading, the second half of his article makes a different point: one that reminds me of more than one of Gulliver's travels.
That is that we value things like books and music and games more than we abhor potholes, and thus pay more for the creation of one than the removal of the other.
Two hundred years ago young school girls were made to sew samplers; many of these still exist and can be found in antique shops. Were these the first steps in teaching them how to make and mend clothes, or introductions to reading, poetry and art ? How different was hanging these on the wall from submitting them to Steam.
At the same time young ladies were encouraged to draw, paint, sing and make music, as entertainment for their families. Was that very different from writing video games for your friends to play ?
Mass production and the mass distribution afforded by sites like Steam have made it possible for every one to make the fruits of their efforts available to the world and not just the people who would see and hear you.
Electronic reproduction makes it easier and cheaper to make a book, a song or a game available to a million people than to fill in a hundred potholes.
Our economic system has been thrown out of whack and made it a no-brainer to spend time on the things we like rather than the things that need to be done.
Re: 6.
Date: 2025-09-18 02:44 pm (UTC)I know that there are lots of professionally made games that just instantly vanish. But you're right that there might be lots of people who are just making things for fun and putting them out there.
Re: 6.
Date: 2025-09-18 05:59 pm (UTC)I think steam has almost all games that anyone is trying at all to sell commercially. I think the lowest end is fairly casually produced, but still usually surprisingly professional by the standards of 80s games.
Re: 6.
Date: 2025-09-20 06:08 pm (UTC)also for "random weekend project" games: https://itch.io/
and old/less aggressively marketed games: https://www.gog.com/
Re: 6.
Date: 2025-09-18 02:33 pm (UTC)This doesn't mean all useful work can fit that format, and you don't make a living that way.
Re: 6.
Date: 2025-09-18 03:28 pm (UTC)Re: 6.
Date: 2025-09-18 04:04 pm (UTC)Would top-up pay help ?
I have filled in a couple of potholes; it wasn't very satisfying as the result with my small kit was not good.
I do wonder if we have reached a point where the efficiency gains of expensive equipment, quality management and other big investment mean that doing things for fun could not get everything done.
Re: 6.
Date: 2025-09-18 05:57 pm (UTC)The article talks a bit about this. I think many people enjoy making a really rudimentary computer game for its own sake, but most games on steam, even the most niche, are usually more polished than that.
no subject
Date: 2025-09-18 05:36 pm (UTC)#6. A totally weird view of the world. Does the author want to control it? To tell the people what to do? That's fascist, I think.
And #1: Glory to Ukraine! Let's hope these real heroes will save the real world. While the rest of the world does not seem to care.
no subject
Date: 2025-09-18 07:08 pm (UTC)#6 The author isn't trying to control anything. Just saying that if you're hoping to make a living from computer games then the odds are really stacked against you.
#1 Yes.
There Are Too Many Video Games (and songs and books and TV shows)
Date: 2025-09-18 06:04 pm (UTC)And in some ways we don't have enough games, in that there's niches which aren't filled. Or like, maybe have more of the equivalent of crappy flash games that are just the right thing for *someone*
But on the other hand, it does seem like there's a lot of pretty well done games that almost no-one ends up playing because there's just so many other options, and if so it's hard to say that the author got something worthwhile out of it. Maybe they should take up singing or writing fanfiction.. OTOH, I do hobbies including write computer games AND writing so who knows :)
Re: There Are Too Many Video Games (and songs and books and TV shows)
Date: 2025-09-18 07:08 pm (UTC)6
Date: 2025-09-18 06:37 pm (UTC)I spent decades modding Civilization II. The target audience for that is approaching 0 given that it's impossible to buy and the oldsters are dropping off. I'm not doing it much these days, but I expect I'll do more Civ2 modding in my life. Entropy makes all art ephemeral. The joy of art is in the creation. Trying to make a lasting impact on the world through art is not for me.
Re: 6
Date: 2025-09-18 07:08 pm (UTC)Re: 6
Date: 2025-09-26 06:08 pm (UTC)Yeah, exactly. I mean, while nearly all of my time writing computer games was professional (during my couple of years programming in the industry), I've probably put in something like a thousand hours writing LARPs over the years. I've been paid precisely nothing for that, nor have I ever sought payment, and the total number of people who have played any of those games, put together, is probably just a few hundred.
The article seems to imply that that's a bad way to spend one's time -- that all of your time should be spent on worthy causes -- but that's bullshit. People need recreation, and for many of us, creating and sharing art is recreational. It doesn't need more justification than that...
no subject
Date: 2025-09-18 10:21 pm (UTC)I don't think there's too much art in the world, personally. I only regret that in one short life I can't possibly enjoy it all!