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Re: Star Evil and F-FF

Post by toggle switch »

honestly i have trouble believing that we're talking about forcibly changing the entry against the author's will...

that's not what we're talking about, is it?

if not, that closes that matter, right?
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FrankenGraphics
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Re: Star Evil and F-FF

Post by FrankenGraphics »

Yeah.. i don't think anyone actually is suggesting to undermine that will as expressed, but just in case, i'd defend that the authors' will really ought to trump any argument in any direction.

Further discussions about ethics and pragmatics in publishing and the integrity of authorship might be a good cause for a new thread, if there's a need.
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Re: Star Evil and F-FF

Post by Punch »

Star Evil not being Star Evil is the whole point, and this extends to the original instruction text. Regardless of your opinion on it, this is what the author intended it to be, end of story.

Of course you could say that you're the publisher and you require the instructions to be changed (similarly to how there's ESRB inspired censorship for entries already), you could do it, I guess, but don't expect developers to be particularly happy about it.
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Re: Star Evil and F-FF

Post by lidnariq »

The entire point is to misrepresent what the player is getting in the hope that they'll see through the deception and discover something entirely unrelated. Sure. Fine.

Is that better than the original Action 52, where the deception was instead malicious¹ and there there was nothing else to discover at all? Sure.
¹profiting by claiming that the thing you're selling does X when it does nothing at all is fraud

I still think it's a bad choice, and something that a large-scale publisher would rightly say no to.

Also, the "authorial intent" argument is crap, because in response to that argument, if I had an entry on the cart I would then insist on explaining Star Evil in my entry's text. Yes, I was great fun in grade school. :p

All that said, I am not actually claiming that we should override Pubby's wishes that he be able to misrepresent about what his game actually is. But I am annoyed by the premise that the menu is part of the game and must be coerced into being part of the same deception.
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Re: Star Evil and F-FF

Post by FrankenGraphics »

The entry is as much an experience to be had as a game in the traditional sense. It's okay to not like it, not see it, or not find it funny. Unorthodox designs can't possibly cater to everybody. That's sometimes the price for doing something exactly the way you want it. No big deal.

But if someone had an entry in the anthology and dedicated its introduction to ruining the intent of somebody elses' work, then that would indeed be poor judgment, with tendencies towards bullying.

Just trust the author to know what's best for their work, even if you personally don't see it.

But I am annoyed by the premise that the menu is part of the game
I don't think anyone says it's part of the game. But it affects the range of first experiences you have with the game. So as i see it, it's the other way around. You shouldn't enforce a description that alters the experience of the game in a way the author hadn't intended.
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Re: Star Evil and F-FF

Post by lidnariq »

By having the text in the menu violate the assumption that the menu is a neutral arbiter, to me it feels that it will likewise negatively affect the ability to rely on that assumption for other games.
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Re: Star Evil and F-FF

Post by toggle switch »

Also, the "authorial intent" argument is crap, because in response to that argument, if I had an entry on the cart I would then insist on explaining Star Evil in my entry's text. Yes, I was great fun in grade school. :p
at that point in time, i would simply pull my completely unrelated entry altogether - just to make sure i could not, in any way, be associated with such childish behavior.
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Re: Star Evil and F-FF

Post by tepples »

As a compromise between the "author's wishes over the players'" camp and the "players' wishes over the author's" camp, I currently plan to instead use this screenshot:
default.png
default.png (218 Bytes) Viewed 11743 times
And this description:

Code: Select all

A description of "Star Evil"
was not available at
press time.
EDIT: Implicit in every single post of mine to this topic should have been the following: "Any better suggestions?"
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Re: Star Evil and F-FF

Post by Punch »

A description of "Star Evil"
was not available at
press time.
Uhh yes it was, this is classic NESDev making mountains out of molehills. Jesus Christ.
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Re: Star Evil and F-FF

Post by rainwarrior »

toggle switch wrote:honestly i have trouble believing that we're talking about forcibly changing the entry against the author's will...

that's not what we're talking about, is it?

if not, that closes that matter, right?
Until tepples' post above I thought it was just people expressing that they think pubby's description was in poor taste and want him to change it. After tepples' post I'm forced to make a different assumption.

Personally I think the description is OK, but I also think lidnariq's suggestion to make another entry's description a meta commentary on pubby's entry's desription kind of hilarious, and I'd also think that was OK. I'd also think it would be OK if pubby was swayed by others' opinions and decided to change it. It becomes less OK when some authority changes it for him.

I would see a clear reason to make editorial decisions about previously discussed content to be avoided (e.g. pornography) but not about something like this, and not after the fact. At this point you're just editing his work because you don't like something rather minor about it. Maybe we'd like it if the character moved faster too? Do we need more starting lives? Maybe we should have someone redo the pixel art to look prettier. I think this really goes against the spirit of this compo to start mucking around with choices like this. I thought the point of this thing was that people will make games for themselves, not for some vague editorial panel.

Though on another matter, I would completely understand wanting to reject the entry for being a small copyright violation. I think that bridge was already crossed with Streemerz and several other smaller inclusions, but risks taken in the past don't mean you have to keep taking them in the future. ...but that does come to the point that the person who should have the authority to make that call is the person taking the risk. (NESDev.com for hosting the attached file? InfiniteNESLives for publishing the cartridge?) Who has legal liability?

For things that aren't such a strong liability, well there's subjective calls to be made somewhere, and tepples is acting editor of this compilation, but I don't think this is a good place to assert that authority. I think it cuts against what's supposed to be fun about this compo to begin with: to share the game you made yourself. So I think it's better to be sparing with this knife, to keep that encouragement intact.
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Re: Star Evil and F-FF

Post by pubby »

"A description of "Star Evil"
was deemed too controversial
for this cartridge."
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Re: Star Evil and F-FF

Post by lidnariq »

All the way too many bits I've spent on this basically come down to these two things:

In my opinion, having the menu be complicit in the deception as to what the game is, is what bothers me. If there were no menu, and without context I'd just played the NES file? Yeah, great! (But if I'd bought it from a store? that would be 'return it and get my money back' time. Hence my point that "a large-scale publisher would rightly say no")
In my opinion, this entry isn't a remake of the original ... uh, turd ... by any reasonable definition.

There are lots of ways to rephrase things that I think retain all, or almost all, of the enigma without pre-setting the expectation that this was an earnest attempt to remake the original game.


As far as the entirely separate question of whether there should be editorial intervention? My point was only that an appeal to authorial intent is a terrible argument. And that changing a hypothetical other entry's text accordingly is a demonstration of what makes it a terrible argument.

sniped

... ok, pubby wins one internet from me with that last comment.


(entirely unrelated: this was my 6800th post)
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Re: Star Evil and F-FF

Post by M_Tee »

@tepples
Just because you fail to see the merit in the work doesn't give you the authority to change it. I feel that you've been *far* out of line since the initial alteration, and even further out of line with each additional post you've made in the topic. You're a skilled programmer, but I doubt many who support A53 are doing so to experience "your version" of the games included.

@lidnariq
I think it's time to stop "playing house" and acknowledge that this is *not* "a large scale publisher", it is a small, hobbysit project from hobbyist developers. One of the main appeals of A53 is the fact that it is independent. The work included is from independent devleopers who offer to include their content essentially for free. Moreover, if it were a largescale publisher, the author would be financially compensated in exchange for their rights over the content.

Even if it were a larger scale "corporate, big co." production, anthologies are *exactly* where risks are taken that wouldn't otherwise be taken if work were published individually. This is especially true in the comics field, such as in Brandon Graham's Island or longer running anthologies like AD 2000, or Strange Tales, Marvel's anthology of independent creators' takes on their characters. If some people are disappointed by *one work* in an anthology, they're far less likely to regret their purchase (not like this isn't being distributed digitally for free anyway).
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Re: Star Evil and F-FF

Post by rainwarrior »

I thought lidnariq's opinion was warranted; we are here to share and get critique from our peers, after all.

I just don't think it's a good idea to begin making alterations like that. It sets a bad precedent that I think will discourage participation in the long run.

It's one thing to ask or suggest a submitter to voluntarily change their work and leave it up to them, and it's an entirely different thing to insist on replacing or altering their work. If you're going to pull authority to do something like that, you should have a much stronger reason to do so than this particular menu text, because whatever benefit you think you're creating by making the change you are offsetting by harming the creative will of the submitter.

That creative will is why they submitted in the first place.


...though it's entirely possible that tepples was just making a joke (hard to tell), in which case there was probably no reason for me to respond.
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Re: Star Evil and F-FF

Post by tepples »

Sometimes even I can't tell if I've made a joke, in part because sometimes I cannot be 100 percent sure what is expected of me. When I get a chance, I plan to create new topics about alleged infringements in this and previous volumes and the balance of power between the authors and the editor in an anthology. But for now, I get it: I've lost at NESdev.
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