[bad art]

Here we go again.

All games are art, also Rovio's crap and Zunga's mess. You can't draw the line between art - no art, it is impossible. Good question however is what is good art, and why.

Instead saying Angry Birds is not art because it is rip off commercial crap, one should say it is bad art because...

Flash Gordon (1980) is amazing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMEc_MiLmgw

Lol wow... that is just hehe... I have always hard trouble trying to watch that.

Twilight Zone, if you really haven't seen it before.

I've always liked Outer Limits more, because it went much more overboard in this "genre".

Moonbase Alpha
Silent Running
The Man from Earth
Primer
The Quiet Earth

If 'indies' expect a mainstream level of respect then to a degree they have to be held to a certain level of mainstream obligation, at least when it comes to the consumer-product relationship. Once you accept money from someone (for a product, not a donation) it is your responsibility to either get them what they paid for or return to them what they invested. I don't think 'indies' should have the luxury to bail out on that obligation anymore than I think mainstream developers should. 'Indie' does not equal freedom from responsibility.

Yes here is the main point that being professional, or non-professional, cheating and doing morally wrong is always bad thing. Either money involved or not. But I still feel that you can be total train wreck and still not hurt anyones feelings That is what I try to achieve in my life at least... But yes, other peoples money should not be included in such endeavors. Most people don't take these scenarios as lightly as I.

One can never be childish and irresponsible in any serious undertaking.

Childish or irresponsible approaches don't even try to be serious.

Being Indie is not a licence to be immature and believing that is damaging to our business reputation and livelihood.

No its not, but why should I expect any more as a customer/fan? It doesn't stop me supporting possible train wrecks. I only expect so called professionalism from established entities. Thou I feel that in many cases professionalism equals boredom (in creative field at least).

I don't know how old you are but you sound very young, so let me just tell you that messing up is not fun and lacking professionalism leads to not having fun.

I feel sorry for you that your view of the world is that non-professionalism leads into not having fun. I just can't see and feel this. Hopefully you find enlightenment in your life. If you are not old like me, you might even have time to do the change.

....And professionalism has nothing to do with making proper backups. Heck I backup my porn.

start gaining commercial success and building a community around your game, you need to be professional.

That's the fun thing there. I personally never expect such projects to be ever professional, or their creators either. That's how I see indie crowd funding system and accept it. Way of doing stuff for non-professional hobbyist some sort. If there are real professionals, let them take the classic route through commercial steps ...and actually, they do. And independent non-professional are free to mess up in spirit of this: 

What is non-nerd game?

[nothing]

Maybe it's just that I/the site doesn't have enough indie cred. I dunno. Maybe people just don't care, just as long as the game is popular they'll listen to the music.

It has always worked so that if your music is good an interesting, it gets attention. And there is good possibility that some game wants to feature it as its soundtrack or "hire" you to compose soundtrack. However there is difference between videogame music industry and regular music industry. There is usually great need for any VG music, so it gets attention if you showcase it in right places (like here). Also music is evaluated as element being part of a game, not as independent piece. Thus there don't need to be such heavy marketing gimmicks like in regular music scene.

So, in regular music scene it is not quite as simple as that. Again, yes you need good and interesting music, but you also need heavy marketing and PR. There is million times larger competition than in VG music scene.  You need to brand yourself, and your music. You need good marketing plan when you release something. You need music video, not just any video, but something that hits peoples nerves. Then you need to connect with social portals like Soundcloud, Facebook, Twitter, (Myspace is starting to be dead), Youtube... And finally you need to fix out a deal with online music shops like iTunes and Spotify. And with good luck, you get 100 000 listeners. And that is nothing. Actually what you need to do, is do live gigs and stuff. It spreads the word better.

By this I want to say that VG music scene is in good shape, and it is fairly easy to get going and have your music featured in a game. Problem is thou that musicians are under mercy of games. Successful game helps greatly your music to be heard and to be liked, some cases leads into successful new game projects or even solo artist career. If you find yourself in a bad game, that isn't very useful. Thou Tim Follin is one of the most acclaimed VG artists who has done tremendous amount of awesome soundtracks for usually bad games. But well yeah, it was in commercial game industry anyway.

So heh umm... what where we talking about anyway...

Maybe you should have said that in the first place, I thought you were talking about the ancient city.

Sad thing, as of right now, I have had only one person that's not a musician that told me they like this idea. Which is kind of bad, because if the music is only being listened to by musicians, it's just not getting the music out there as much as it should.

I've learned that other musicians are the worst audience, if not talking purely about technical aspects. Thou nowadays everyone seems to be musician of some kind anyway. Blah..

[officially]

Now there's a shocker, people pay money and form expectations based on that money! How could they! Must be all idiots. Hint: There's a very distinct difference between funding and donation based models.
Also the quantity of the funding doesn't matter. 8$ isn't a lot to me or you. It's nothing to shrug off to a lot of people, even in the midst of Europe with rising poverty rates.

There is difference in paying something that does exists, or that does not exists. Or difference between trusted entity with delivery history, or virtually unknown entity. You pay for other and you should expect return, you pay for other and you don't what happens but hope the best. There are "levels" in different payment scenarios. Giving money in the internet to someone completely unknown person for product that does not exists, should be taken as a risk and give only the amount of money that is worth of losing. That is not idiocracy.

If Zomboid was officially funding (not donation) based project, then legally those terms apply which funders signed when they gave their money. If there is no terms, it is a legal mess. But even with all legal stuff and terms, you should still consider such investment as a risk. Doing otherwise, is stupidity. Yes you would have legal options there, but have fun with that. Hope that trouble is worth of even few hundred dollars.

I definitely like the crowd funding systems. But I understand there are some issues in it. You really can't be sure can one deliver, and in which quality level. How is that even measured? If not, who to blame? Morally, legally? It works only if it is based on trust and if funders accepts the possible risks. Invest only the money worth of losing! It is so simple. Doing otherwise is stupid.

Donation based model is better, but I don't know if that really generates any income to any developer.

Am I really the only one who has serious problems of understanding anything what TIMMY Gilbert says? I really would like to understand, but I don't know if its the how he uses language or the complexity of thought and knowledge. Persepolis?

I never understood players that play "realistic" games and whine about how they are not realistic. I tend to adapt into current level of tech. In 1991 or 92 I thought than Stunts 4D Driving was more real than reality. Okay I am not anymore saying that Battlefield 3 is more real than reality, but I could easily get the same enjoyment out of that similar way like from Stunts 20 years back. There are too sides, the objective analytic technical side, and then the experiencing side and these two do not relate. I can analyze realism levels, technology and the lacks of it easily, but at the next hour I can easily experience great immersive gaming.

Sure many todays games probably look and feel like shit in 50 years, but it doesn't meant that some of those couldn't still be good games. Even today, no single multiplayer game has surpassed Atari's original Outlaw. Okay maybe Ace of Spades 

But not yet single game which I think being serious, haven't proven me why they should play BGM into my ears.

I would like to start a serious game project because this place is inspiring.

http://www.nerd-age.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Project-Zomboid-fan-made-twitter-diagram.gif

I lol'd

Also, devs set up good twitter fiasco afterwards insulting their already pissed fans.

Haha I didn't know that, is there any tasty quotes?

[invest only as much that is worth the risk]

No it is not end. Maybe only for those idiots who think blindly that by paying beforehand they eventually get what they paid for. Not always it goes like that; developers can be robbed, developers can die, it might be a scam, there is mega tsunami, nuclear blast, internet crashes.

Im not saying that this crowd funding thing is there to help develop scams, but it should be everyones own personal judgement of should they invest or not. And if invest, invest only as much that is worth the risk. Always be aware that it might not come true what you paid for. Crowd funding is about trust, of both sides.

It has been saddening to see how stupid people can be about this Zomboid thing. Yes it is stupid of not properly backup lifes work, but it is also very stupid pay 8 dollars, lose it, and then file death threats.

 

Until you can feel and smell, it can't be TOTAL immersion.

You are mixing up realism and immersion. Immersion is subjective feeling about an experience, realism is realism and can be pretty much measured.

Until VR exists, there will be no such games.

For me there are, try harder 

Here is VR for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doAnB5_eDnw