Armoury; Commander Micro-transactions.

^This

You may dismiss games as not being art, fine, but dismissing the fact that the textures, models, animations, and so on are not art is a whole other story as modelling IS art... Drawing backgrounds IS art... and so on...

That's beauty, you're speaking about. For the rest of your comment, you seems to not have been on this forum long enough. Good luck, enjoy your staying

Hello there! I bow to such a sapience!

It's obvious to me that we are referring to different things with the term of art. I have my own opinion about it. And I do respect yours.

More than that, I can't do. Not even want to.

No, I copied exactly what you said, you didn't leave any room for ambiguity.

Also you still have yet to define exactly what a Cash-Grab Micro transaction is.

Mike

Thinking about it. Micro transactions are disproportionate to the effort involved in completing the game.

I remember I bought team fortress 2 for 15$ back in the day before free to play. Now there is keys that unlock crates that cost $2.50 each. 1\6th of the price of my original game.

I do admit that the new content flooding into the game and revitalizing it with new maps/guns and skins is great for making the game fresh. Sometimes an old game looks good with a new coat of paint. For me, it changed the game I originally was playing so much that it was a different game entirely.

I just hope PA doesn't adopt a stupid drop system or keys for random items in crates.

The problem with micro-transactions (as someone else already mentioned) is that they for example, encourage devs to work on only skins and more commander models in this case, which in turn will result in the devs not wanting to go out of their way to make proper full sized content packs or expans upon the game as they will be encouraged to take the easier/lazy route to selling single models and skins for eg $5.

If they develop skins and models and sell them individually then what incentive is there to put a bit more effort into developing proper decent content packs.

And no I did not mean to say earlier that developing models is extremely easy. I simply meant that it is the "easy route" since they can just sell one model for $5 instead of focusing on properly expanding upon the game.

Offtopic relating to art:
I personally believe that anything which a person puts their heart and soul into developing is considered art. For example if a developer put their heart and soul into creating an amazing piece of code then that is art, if a musician put their heart and soul into developing a piece whether it is electronic or not, then that is art. Same goes for modelling, as anyone can model, if you are trully invested in the process and create something intricate and appealing then that is art as well.

That's kind of a self fulfilling prophecy thought, if they do that and the game itself doesn't progress the game will stagnate and die, the Income from Micro transactions will also die off.

There can only be, AT BEST, as many purchases as there players, if there are no players there will be no purchases.

It's not some fancy get rich quick scheme, it actually hampers the total potential income for the game because you're selling it short.

Uber wants PA to work in the Long term, like 5+ years from now.

Also it's worth considering that Progammers don't have anything to do with Commander skins, so they would be in theory free to work on the game.

Mike

As you see, hyperbole is always perfect. There's always the exception to prove the rule

What exactly do you mean by art, given that I've provided a commonly-accepted definition within the scope of video games that is backed up by sources and citations which I could dig up if I thought that'd help?

Bear in mind that despite the right to your own opinion, that doesn't automatically make your opinion correct or in any universe the accepted definition of a term.

In other words, you shouldn't invalidate the arguments of others by providing your own personal definition. You can only do so by providing factual definitions. Otherwise I could just say the sky is green, and I respect your opinion . . . but you're wrong because the sky is green.

here's where you loose me. I don't see the issue in Uber's mod market at all. This is a win-win.

in a bunch of games (namely minecraft), there are already tons of mods but we wish there were bigger, better mods.
a mod market does no more no less then add those mods.

it's a bigger incentive for modders to mod, take a stab at the professional world and crystallize into a developer.

there being no obligation to make your mod paying, mods that are free would be more widespread and popular. hence tricking modders into a double-incentive.

The only thing I'm really serious and scared about is the potential/likely cut Uber gets on the mod, which could be a disincentive all over again.

if the cut is a percentage it's likely to be a no-go for every Dev aiming to make an A++ mod, hovever if it's a fixed price for each copy sold, no matter the number or total price, then it's an absolute win-win from the modder's perspective.

And he'll be enticed to make an awesome mod for the community even if it's to pick up $0.05 per copy sold.

this type of behavior will guarantee PA's longevity.

Just a friendly reminder about post formatting again

here's where you loose me. I don't see the issue in Uber's mod market at all. This is a win-win.

in a bunch of games (namely minecraft) there are already tons of mods be we wish there were bigger better mods.
a mod market does no more no less then add those mods.

it's a bigger incentive for modders to mod, take a stab at the professional world and crystallize into a developer.

there being no obligation to make your mod paying mods that are free would be more widespread and popular. hence tricked into a double-incentive.

The only thing I'm really serious and scared about is the potential/likely cut Uber gets on the mod, which could be a disincentive all over again.

if the cut is a percentage it's likely to be a no-go for every Dev aiming to make an A++ mod, hovever if it's a fixed price for each copy sold, no matter the number or total price, then it's an absolute win-win from the modder's perspective.

And he'll be enticed to make an awesome mod for the community even if it's to pick up $0.05 per copy sold.

this type of behavior will guarantee PA's longevity.[/quote]

Your quotes fixed

But yes, I agree- I'd rather PA use Tf2 as an example, the community creates weapon skins, clothing, hats, etc... and sell them for a cut in the revenue from valve. Another great bonus to this is- this means Uber doesn't even need to make all the stuff on the market to make money, people will create playable commander for them; this means Uber can work on the game without having to devote all their time to making commanders to sell and modders get to make an impact on the game as well as receive some publicity!

Edit: and now my quotes fixed?

Edit: Nope, still broken

today is not my daaaaay, not my daaaaaaay!

Ok, I'll try to make it very short, as much as possible

Until few centuries ago, art equaled beauty. It had to represent the good and all the positive virtues, including beauty, of course. In fact, Classic art is all about how to represent beauty and good virtues. At that time what we call now artists were in fact extremely talented craftmen.

Closer to our time, one of the most influential movement has been Impressionism. Emotions were on display, and emotions can be positive and negative as well. Artists challenged the past using any kind of colors in order to represent the within. Our loved comics comes from there, where angry people are pictured in red, and sick ones in green.

Now a day, Art is no more about beauty. And unfortunately in order to make money there is a lot of crap sold for art. Most of those "art pieces" is nothing more than decoration.

Art accelerated abruptly in the past century, and artists challenged themselves and each other (and the common sense), demolishing any convention about what is Art, and what Art represents, and what's its scope in our society.

So, how do we define Art, and what is Art about, today? Of course you could say that everyone has his own right to think what so ever he prefers. And you're not wrong in that. But still we want to be able to discern real and genuine artists, from others (no offense intended for others).

So, here we come to my personal understanding of what is genuine Art. I stay with what has been said by Kandinsky and what he (and his "buddies") promoted as a new manifesto for the Contemporary Art.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassily_Kandinsky#Concerning_the_spiritual_in_art

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Blaue_Reiter

Basically, Art is where Human Kind struggles to transcend the material World, awaking (the) human desire for the eternal. Read in this sense, I have a very hard time to see any art in Planetary Annihilation and in most of the video games (some can be art, yes, but it is very rare).

For instance, Knight defined himself as an artist.

Even if he has all the rights to say so about himself, it would be very hard for the ones who work in the field of art (business and concept alike) to give him any credit as an artist.

An artist has to prove his sincerity and struggle for something more than mere talented crafting of his creation, and only after years of struggling and burning desire to empower all Human Kind with some sort of spiritual path, that clearly transpires from his artworks, we can finally trust him to be an artist. Which means, Art needs to be explained, and understood in order to be Art.

All the struggle it is really a necessary path. It is mandatory because all the bs you can find now a day in any art gallery. A 17 years old digital artist could be the next Michelangelo. But we need time to see it happen. You can't just say "Look mom! I am an artist!" and expect everyone to believe you.

We need to see more than that, in order to agree with the self proclaimed, or wanna-be artist. He may be right. But we want to make no mistake.

Back to PA and the Knight's adventure for his Custom Commander and his good modelling for video games, where is the struggle for empowering Human Kinds with a spiritual awakening? Where is the Universal message a Custom Commander could give to present and future generation? Where is the message? The scope? The reason to be?

I am sorry to say this, because it could offend some. But a Custom Commander is nothing more than an expensive digital, exclusive toy. Knight paid sound money for a private, personal hobby. There is no art in that. We need to respect his choice, but we don't necessarily have to agree with him when he says that he's an artist.

The same can be said for almost any video games out there. Included PA. Uber has all the right to monetize their hard efforts, and they're doing an excellent work. PA is an awesome game. But the whole operation is driven by money.

Try to pronounce the mere word "budget" on this very forum and you'll see Brad storming and locking your thread at the speed of light. So, ask yourself, is PA (and Uber) about Art or money? Again, no offense intended, of course Uber has all the right to make money with their business, and they never told us they're doing Art anyway.

Art is driven from within. And PA and everything around it, even if amazing and so well crafted, it is not Art. At some point in the future, when we will have a better understanding of what happened during the development of PA, we could eventually look back and say "Damn, that was Art! It really meant something transcendent.". But not today, that's too early (and I hardly see it coming, anyway).

I close with the suggestion for a movie. Despite it being a comedy, it's actually pretty good in explaining what Art is today. And it is very funny to watch. Give it a try

Art has always equalled more than beauty. It speaks volumes of your historical knowledge that you're trying to paint (no pun intended) it as such.

For further reference, please check this link - http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/art.

Art is not what you define it as. Art is what the people who define language define it as.

You should stop judging people by your opinions on the world.

And yes, I did read your whole post. I didn't watch the video, because I'm at work

Well atleast someone tries to express himself as a smartass

I'd have to give the upper hand to @carlorizzante here. Reading you two (and you both have valid points) it seems to me @carlorizzante has been an art student (as have I) and you have not.

It does not mean either one of you has the "right" definition of what art is.

after all the notion has become warped and unseizable these days.

to the point that I got mostly disgusted by it and turned to my good old friend aesthetics who I'd come for in the first place.

Artists and Coders/Programmers typically don't do the same jobs when developing a game.

Also a 3 years dipping their hand in paint and making weird shapes is an Artists.

how can they be exclusive commanders if they are available to buy.

there are exclusive commanders for whom who backed PA on kickstarter
there are exclusive commanders for whom pre-order PA
it is not fair to make exclusive commanders available to everyone, especially the ones who were made for PA kickstarter backers such as the pregintor.

I studied art, but not to any high level. Arguably, if he has, then perhaps he shouldn't profess the things he does about programming then (unless I'm getting him confused with someone else - very possible tbh). The likelihood that he is both artist and programmer is . . . slim.

Also, that's an appeal to authority, which I dislike.

It doesn't matter if he is, or was, an art student. I'm a programmer, yet half the time I have to look up lambda functions (side effect of Java not having them in a stable release, I'm aware Java 8 has them). You have to know the definition of a term instead of attempting to interpret it yourself - even that self-intepretation is favoured within the field.

If you both think the definition of art has been "warped" and is "unseizeable", then there isn't going to be much I can get you to agree on with me, no? I mean, we disagree at a fundamental level.

By carlorizzante's logic, tribal elders who created masterpieces of what we would consider artwork . . . were not artists. And yet, they created art. Any art historian would tell you that. The cave paintings by our genetic forefathers. Artwork, despite no understanding or educated practise in the "arts".

I consider myself an artist, I draw, model, and even dabble in a little programming- I'm even working on a mod for the game once the server is released.