The Last of Us (Spoilers)

They’re just mad that people are accurately seeing things they legitimately are not going to like about the game and saying so before it comes out, because then some people who would’ve bought it now won’t. That’s it.

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This metaphor absolutely works against the point this person is trying to make for so many different reasons.

How is it easier for us to imagine being a painter than it is for us to imagine being a gigantic video game development team?

In what universe does The Public banter incessantly about paintings, blurry thumbnails or no

I had no opinion about this before but this tweet has made me actively hate this game

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Yeah whenever I make a painting I definitely do a slow, tightly controlled PR rollout to make sure that a proper amount of hype was built up so that lots of people pre-order it

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The analogy might hold better if they equating Naughty Dog to like Thomas Kincaid or someone like that who make a specific kind of painting so they can sell prints for hospital waiting rooms and such.

But even then it’s hard to see how Thomas Kincaid would be harmed by having his latest series of “Painted with Light” leaked online before he was ready to show it off.

The guy who wrote the dumb painting tweet is a level designer for the game. I will assume he understands the videogame he helped design on is more than just a “very serious cable TV drama interactive experience”. Cuba’s on the right track here saying that this is just a very emotional response due to potential bad PR (viewed as unjustly deserved).

It’s worth pointing out that their surprise twist was obviously intended to be incendiary in the first place (it’s purpose as representing “very serious themes about revenge” is absurd and childish if the first game was any indication).

It’s also worth pointing out that the level designer is refusing to engage with the intent of the leak by a QA tester. I’m sure he works very hard but he should consider the differential between a creative complaining about the minimization of the his soon to arrive masterpiece and a low level employee angry at his work conditions.

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imagine you’re the pope and have been chosen by god to get to have all the best paintings and sculptures and shit

and now some peasant can just open a book and see a photograph of your divine treasure

how would u feel

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I guess what’s weird to me about the level designer’s response is that the bad PR would have happened anyway if people didn’t like the narrative or w/e? pinning all of the burden for the audience’s favorable reception of the narrative on a twist seems like a bad bet to me

imagine people having the chance to see your game sucks before they’ve even paid money to experience it. the nerve

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Imagine you’re a famous cook… going to unveil a new pasta recipe… and someone steals one single macaroni with no sauce on it…

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I’m not interested in Last of Us 2 but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to point out that context is very important for narrative works.

this goes far beyond the last of us, but what’s the point of trying to do splatter and grimdark drama with Important Themes in the same piece of media. either have fun with it or come up with a classy, restrained way to deliver your message. anything in between is just creative dishonesty or incompetence disguised as sophistication (because you see, you may then invoke the canned response to critics that they simply can’t “handle” it)

why not

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It is not very important in deciding whether you’re going to spend 60 dollars and 20 hours on a piece of entertainment, though, which very much annoys the people who invested millions of dollars into this game.

It sure feels bad to watch everyone hate on the game you’ve spent years of your life working on before it’s even out, though! Having experienced that a conservative two-and-a-half times, I’ve got more than sympathy, I’ve got a pit of anxiety in my stomach in memory of the weeks I lived it. They have a right to feel bad.

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that’s just as valid a question, sure. but since it’s become the norm for television i haven’t yet seen an example that wouldn’t have been improved by considering its tone more carefully.

my complaint is more specifically in the attempt to sell aspects of one genre as another, without apparently respecting the viewer to tell the difference. it’s very easy to come up with extreme or “challenging” subject matter as an attention grab, but presenting it merely as a base signifier of your work’s supposed gravity without the tact or perspective to explore it in adequate depth reeks of sophomoric posturing.

If it’s all they’re good for, they may as well go all in.

Well, if it makes them feel so bad for people to judge their work without Adequate Context, why don’t they give it to them?

I mean, obviously the people who create videogames on an industrial scale are, like, Human Beings, and they therefore have human emotions that are worthy of respect in the abstract. But I don’t personally know them and using the imprimatur of their elevated station on a public media service to whine that their work isn’t getting a fair shot is not something I’m going to summon any sympathy for. It’s PR whether they intend it or not, and PR has only one master: profit.

I think Dog Days is pretty good

I think these participants are confused in what they’re doing. Their language is a half-step between personal argument and Statement. It’s a problem with these micro-platforms that encourage a mode of honest emoting but punish anything not as carefully-constructed as a PR statement.

If it’s impossible for them to be read as people and not corporate representatives (and I agree with you), then they should do the sensible thing and shut up, and let their frustration and disappointment curdle in their guts. Like a normal person. You can’t speak up over the crowd.

I can just say that I know what this feels like. And it feels like years of your life are being wasted, that every time you worked harder because you knew it would matter to someone is being poisoned, that you’re being misunderstood but you can’t speak in your defense.

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Finally: we agree

There is a solution for this, too.