In the Method to Madness podcast, I’m joined with my good friend Kevin “The Business” Gray to discuss great anime and video games that you should be watching as well as ones you should feel ashamed you are watching.
This episode, we discuss…
These Jerks
Neeeeeerds!!!
We hate to turn on our own, but something needs to be said of (or rather, to) our less-seasoned ilk. Years of anime clubs, conventions, and miscellaneous encounters with fandom gremlins have left Kevin and I jaded. In order to vent our frustrations and perhaps enlighten those in earshot, we spend this episode telling stories of our favorite dorks.
Look to your left. Look to your right. Look in the mirror. One of these poor bastards is probably described in this podcast.
I apologize for the poor audio quality of this episode. There’s some kind of interference that occasionally creates a buzzy sound. I cleaned it up as best as I could; hope it’s still enjoyable.
I was doing some online window shopping with a craving for FLCL. I enjoyed watching the show when it was on Cartoon Network, but never got around to buying the series on DVD. This is mostly due to the series being split into three $30 volumes, with two episodes per volume. Surely by now the box set will be available at a discounted price, as with most other anime.
Alas, no. FLCL’s been out of print for a few years now; its box set (new or used) selling for upward to $150. Maybe I should have bought it when I had the chance… And a few extra copies to profit from later!
After some research, I’ve learned that the company that holds the FLCL distribution license in the USA has pulled out of American distribution. This leaves the possibility of future releases of FLCL in limbo.
So here’s my plea: Could someone please get on that? It’s perfectly obvious that the previous print runs of FLCL were insufficient in meeting demand since there is a large enough market willing to throw down a C-note or more to get a hold of one of the remaining copies. FLCL is a valuable property and would be well worth some other distributor’s effort to acquire its license.
The key, of course, is that once an American distributor possesses its license, they mustn’t sell the complete series set for more than $20. $60-75 for a 6-episode series ain’t gonna fly. But selling a highly acclaimed product for $15-20 a piece and it will sell through the roof.
If this can’t be sorted out, it only encourages anime piracy. Publishers can’t honestly cry foul on piracy for costing them DVD sales when they refuse to produce DVDs to sell.
I make similar arguments for downloading old video games. I’ll illustrate using Red Earth (aka Warzard) as an example:
Me: Hey, Capcom… I want to legitimately play Red Earth. Let me buy an arcade cabinet from you. I could buy a used one, but you might still moan about not making money from that.
Capcom: We can’t. We don’t make them anymore.
Me: Fair enough… Well, how about you produce a port of the game that I can play on a modern console? I would gladly pay the standard retail price for it. Or a cheaper, download-only version will do. I know a large community that would join me.
Capcom: Nah, we’d rather not bother with the expense of producing it. Sorry.
Me: Okay, now who is really keeping you from selling this game? Me or you?
I always discourage piracy of existing products. I like for people to profit from a good product with the hopes they invest that toward more good products in the future. But if a company refuses to sell a product then I call abusing previous releases to be fair game.
Otherwise it would be like your neighbor charging you with theft for pulling an old bicycle out of their dumpster. He wasn’t doing anything with it (in fact he pretty much abandoned it!), so you’d might as well use it. But if he wants to sell the bike and you ride off with it, then it’s stealing and preventing a sale.
Ever since the announcement of Super Street Fighter IV, I’ve been surprised to hear the Street Fighter community rife with complaint. The bulk of them by jaded gamers aggravated by the idea that Capcom has found a way to dupe us into paying full price a second time for little more than an expansion on a game they already own.
Destructoid published an article very close to my own response.
Here’s the facts on Super Street Fighter IV: The game will be released to disc with a price tag leaning toward $35. In addition to new characters on the roster, there was enough changes to the game’s mechanics and new bonus features that Capcom felt a separate release was in order, rather than a downloadable add-on.
Initially, it’s understandable that loyal fans and early adopters might feel swindled. However, newcomers that may not have bought the original release of Street Fighter IV will be able to take advantage of a sweet deal; a $25 drop in shelf price on a superior product. This will continue to draw in new blood to the fighting game community, which has dwindled to near-extinction prior to Street Fighter IV’s introduction.
Those who bought the first release are perfectly able to sell or trade in their original game to pick up “Super” for next to nothing (and should consider the past year of fun, challenging play experience a bonus). Capcom also took into consideration their loyal fanbase and plans to show gratitude for that support. According to a GameSpot interview with Yoshinori Ono, the developers have added content in Super SF4 that will interact with the original release, making it worth keeping SF4 disc.
You know who should be pissed? Competitive players who won’t see an arcade release of Super SF4. This makes it more difficult to meet new players outside of the tournament scene.
Just in time for the launch of the PSP Go, several Nippon Ichi Software of America titles will be available for download via PlayStation Network. These titles include fan-favorites Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness, Prinny: Can I really be the hero?, with other titles hinted to join them. As a special promotion, the games will be priced for “half off” (that is, $12.99 and under) starting October 1st and extending through that week.
Hold on a second.
This means that once the promotion ends, these games return to their normal price of about $25.99, correct? As I write this, I can buy hard copies of those games for the same price at retail. As I asked in my Secondhand Rant, isn’t the main selling point of digital distribution passing the savings of production costs on to the consumers? If the digital copy is priced the same as the physical copy, where’s the incentive? What am I missing?
Of course PSP Go owners aren’t able to play the UMD versions of the games, but then that’s the whole idea. If the entertainment industries can transition digital distribution from a low-cost alternative to the standard, they can go back to charging whatever they want. Worse, they’ll be able to justify it if they can eliminate the secondhand market, since they’ll then gain a monopoly over access to multimedia.
I do give big props to NIS America and Sony for finally having some kind of sale on the PlayStation Store. I can only hope that they learn the same lesson as Valve–that being if you discount the price, sales will greatly increase. Weekly sales would be welcomed by their consumer base and God knows I might just use the service myself more often.
There’s an item of controversy that’s infected the video game industry: The idea that buying used games somehow steals bread from the mouths of starving developers. This, of course, is lunacy.
I have a t-shirt that was given to me as a gift, depicting the “Peanut Butter Jelly Time” scene from Family Guy. For those who have never caught this scene, here ya go:
When I first saw that scene, I laughed because I understood the joke. But every time I wear the t-shirt, it’s felt like a curse because of how many people who comment on it truly didn’t.
The joke is a reference to a classic viral flash cartoon on the web, which you can still find here. It’s not even that old–it was made in 2002. However, to everyone who’s complimented me on my shirt, I’ve asked if they’ve seen the original flash and they have no idea what I’m talking about.
Most people know by now that Family Guy’s humor is mostly derived of referential jokes. It’s what they’re famous for; it’s what they do best. Even if you don’t catch the reference, each time they make one, it rings of something related to pop culture. While Family Guy conjures plenty of it’s own original humor, something as wild as a banana dancing to a rap song about peanut butter and jelly isn’t exactly something that can be written. Yet when I mention it, people usually respond with, “Wait… That’s from something?”
This is driving me nuts.
I’ve always had a passion for understanding comedy, but one thing I may never fully understand is how different people’s sense of humor can be. If you don’t understand the reference, why is that scene funny to you? When I attempt to pick at people’s brains, I’ve been able to come up with two theories:
“Oh, this is a joke! I should laugh at it!”
People can usually recognize when a joke is in front of them, whether they get it or not. But there’s an insecurity inside them that doesn’t want to appear stupid to the people who do get the joke, so they laugh anyway. In a way, they think it’s funny because they are told that it’s funny, whether they genuinely find it humorous or not.
“Ha ha! Silly doggy sing and dancing crazy!”
I believe that most people don’t really mature much beyond their toddler years. Much of this can be reflected in their sense of humor. I love a good fart joke every now and then, but have grown to appreciate other concepts. Those whose tastes haven’t expanded beyond farts (ironically) will laugh at damn near anything.
I also think there’s a correlation depending on whether or not the person has children. There’s a phenomenon that I’ve noticed akin to Bill Cosby’s “My wife and I used to be intellectuals…” routine (found on the “Himself” album), where people who have children revert to being children themselves. It makes a certain amount of sense in that you have to regress yourself a bit in order to relate and communicate with the child, especially when humor is involved. Unfortunately, most adults tend to get stuck in this mode; maintaining the sense of humor of a 9-year-old while the child eventually grows and surpasses the parent in maturity. At least, until they have children of their own.
Maybe I’m being cynical about human behavior. Maybe I’m being a comedy snob. But maybe I’m on to something. In either case, I will do my part mend the ignorance. Here’s some knowledge:
I’d thought that the biggest benefit of digital distribution for consumers was that games could be sold for a lower price, since there’s no cost for a physical product. Yet I keep seeing PSP Legacy games by Capcom posted on PSN for the same price as their physical counterpart.
The latest example is Capcom Classics Collection Remixed, which comes out this week. It’s priced on PSN at $19.99, which is the same price I can buy it new in any store. For instance, here’s the listing for Amazon.
Where’s the incentive, then, to buy the digital version?
Plus, these are older PSP titles whose peak sales were met years ago. It makes sense to put it up for download for gamers that may not have discovered it before. But if they aren’t inclined to buy it in the store for $19.99, why would they be any more motivated to buy the download, also for $19.99?
I’d buy it for $14.99, especially since that also beats the average price of a pre-owned copy. Given the options, I think I’ll buy it used…
Recently, my local anime club began watching a new anime series called Basquash! The premise of this show radiates beauty through its simplicity; that being giant robots playing basketball. Oh, hells yeah!
Even by the opening credits, the show rings of awesome and win. But not so fast! As we watched the first 10 minutes, I was totally drinking the kool-aid for some giant robot basketball action…but then boobs happened.
No, that’s not trick editing; that shot really does last a full 12 seconds. At first, it was cute. A little eye roll here and there in between action scenes. But then boobs kept on happening!
Leave it to Japan to be the ones to come up with such a sweet idea, but also be the ones to thoroughly ruin it. Look, I’m a man who appreciates boobs and boob humor, but I signed on to this show for some giant robot basketball. I can get boobs from 1,000 other shows, but this is the only one that offers the robot/basketball combination. I’d like to have more than 10% of the show actually involve that. I guess the studio wasn’t confident that giant robot basketball wasn’t a strong enough sell for the show, so they padded it up with fanservice.
The guys at Fast Karate for the Gentleman said it best about fanservice: Fanservice is poop. You put poop on cake, you have ruined the cake. No matter how good the cake is, the cake doesn’t improve upon the poop. Poop just makes it into poop cake, which is all bad. Worse than if it were only poop, since we now have to mourn the loss of perfectly good cake.
Today, a headline was posted at Kotaku, “Man Solicits 11-Year-Old For Naked Pictures Via PS3.” This headline filled me with a crimson rage. Not because of the reported sexual predator–I celebrate his capture–but of how the story has been covered.
Whenever video game-related tragedies appear in the mainstream media, the journalists in our corner are quick to parrot the story, carrying along the same context in which it was reported. By doing so, they give credence to the mainstream’s sensationalized spin on the story; that video games are an active player in these events. In this case, Kotaku didn’t even bother to quantify the “man” as a “criminal” as ABC News had done.
Obviously, the solution isn’t in sweeping these stories under the rug. We can’t pretend they didn’t happen and since they are relevant to our niche culture, they should be addressed in our own media. It’s the tone that needs to be reevaluated. The mainstream likes to transmit the notion of “Look what video games caused this person to do!” If our journalists are to act as our voice, they shouldn’t confirm this message…they should respond.
If there’s a means for a sexual predator to remotely victimize their prey, they will use it. They do not exclusively subscribe to a single channel; they use whatever is available. This case was just the PS3’s turn.
Instead of the headline above, a more honest way the story could be reported might be “Pedophile Captured By Tracing His PS3 Account”. The same story is told, but with the game console championed by its role, rather than being regarded as an evil-inspiring devil box.
When the mainstream media demonizes video game just for being present for a crime, the community rolls its eyes. We mourn the people who are hurt while laughing at the media’s misinterpretations. But when our own media recites the story in the same light, it only confirms the fears of ignorant parents and makes gamers ashamed of themselves by association.
While luckily we hear about it less frequently these days, there are always stories popping up in the news covering some tragedy or mishap that the mainstream media has connected to playing video games. This recent episode of natural selection is just another link in the chain.
I think that most of the controversies are stemmed from the same issue, but for the sake of an example, I’ll be discussing the most popular topic: Video game violence.
After some research, I’ve learned that the company that holds the FLCL distribution license in the USA has pulled out of American distribution. This leaves the possibility of future releases of FLCL in limbo.
Here’s the facts on Super Street Fighter IV: The game will be released to disc with a price tag leaning toward $35. In addition to new characters on the roster, there was enough changes to the game’s mechanics and new bonus features that Capcom felt a separate release was in order, rather than a downloadable add-on.
Today, a headline was posted at Kotaku, “
While luckily we hear about it less frequently these days, there are always stories popping up in the news covering some tragedy or mishap that the mainstream media has connected to playing video games. This 