Category Archives: Social Issues
SOPA / PIPA, Fandoms, and the Entertainment Industry
I managed to spend about an hour at the NY/NJ Tech Group emergency meetup / protest yesterday. Listening to the very influential speakers and just the general chatter really got me thinking about what SOPA/PIPA means to me.
I’ve never been an angel. I was a huge pirate during my high-school / college years; at my most ignorant I’d brag at how many thousands of dollars worth of stolen content I owned.
But now, as a functioning adult and someone who’s hoping to break into an industry that is victimized by piracy (gaming, and art to an extent), I am doing my best to rectify those choices by paying for the content I enjoy as much as possible. I can thank Amazon, Pandora, Netflix, Steam and even iTunes for that. Through these websites I have discovered new shows, movies, games, music, books, and the like, all of which I am able to watch and enjoy knowing I paid for it or supported it legally.
Something of note, though: In my many years as a rabid fangirl of many franchises, I can say with upmost confidence that 90% of the time, discovering the series’ and artists that I currently love was through a method that would be considered illegal either by current or future “laws”. I think that stands true for a lot of people in my generation, and likely most in those after me. I can’t even tell you how many songs and artists I discovered from fan-made music videos on youtube or gaming streams. Or how many shows I got into because I saw them at a college meeting or a clip online. How many games I discovered playing on a friend’s account. How many old passions were rekindled because I ran into a great fanart or fanfic or an animated GIF.
Legislation like SOPA and PIPA would do nothing but hinder this process of discovery and the spread of quality entertainment. In fact, I believe it would cause the complete opposite by encouraging a shadier and perhaps more risky internet “black market” by making content harder to discover and enjoy.
The big issue is the entertainment industry’s reluctance to work with new media. They are loath to embrace streaming and other forms of digital distribution out of fear; fear that they can’t monetize a site the way they can profit out of ads. Fear that they can’t easily track or control who and how and what when it comes to their content.
So they go crying to the government. But instead of trying to lobby politicians to block the spread of entertainment, what the industry needs to do is give up the fight on holding onto antiquated formats and get with the times. They can take a cue from the gaming industry here, where monthly subscription games, a model that is losing favor, are slowly being eclipsed by buy or free-to-play titles supported by micro-transactions. This is adaptation. This is working with, not against, your consumers.
By struggling to hold on to “the old ways”, the entertainment industry is perhaps unwittingly causing a huge snowball effect that is damaging everybody, creators and consumers alike. Television as we know it is on its way out. Trying to force people to sit at their TVs and sit through ads isn’t going to work for much longer. Canceling shows because they’re ignoring the much less lucrative views online and through TiVo is only damaging potentially great series. This is why Hollywood is being overrun with unstimulating and unintelligent reality TV and shitty cookie-cutter “blockbuster” movies while good, thought provoking ideas are getting cancelled left and right. But the thing is, those are the series that garner the lasting fandoms that will make the most money in the end.
So here it is. The times, they are a-changing. People are changing. Instead of fighting change, work with it, learn to adapt, and things WILL work themselves out favorable for all parties.
Consider this; already my teenage cousins predominately purchase their music and movies through iTunes. That’s a big deal because when I was 15 I was getting everything off Kazaa.
Tumblr's Andrew McLaughlin speaks at the SOPA protest. Tumblr, a site that thrives on fandoms, would be heavily affected by these bills.
That brings me back to one final point I think the entertainment industry fails to realize; fans and fandoms are a POWERFUL tool, and one that they will slaughter if they have their way with legislation like SOPA/PIPA. I know plenty of great fans who spend a lot of money collecting box sets, comics, and other promotional items for the franchises they love. Many people are willing and able to do so. Yes, you have those who could care less about the work that goes into something and will go ahead and steal it anyway. So be it. That’s life.
Fans are a passionate and rabid bunch. Tap into their potential well enough; treat them with respect, offer them the option to choose when and how to enjoy their entertainment, and watch the magic happen.
Check out my G+ gallery from the protest, as well as a gallery of sites that blacked out yesterday:
September 11th, 10 years later. It still hurts.
It’s strange how 10 years can change things. Despite the impact 9/11 had on me and my family and the sad losses we faced, I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t feel like a bad, distant dream these days. But as I began to write this months ago, everything came back to me. My heart raced and my eyes teared, because that day was all too real.
So this might be kind of long-winded, but, I thought it was worth writing as a reminder to myself and perhaps as a form of venting.
9/11/06, 5 year anniversary
What Makes Us Human: Will AI ever fully replace the human mind?
The subject on what puts us on a different level from the other living things around us has been something humankind has debated for ages. We know we’re different. We know we’re special. But why? What is it that sets us apart from animals?
There are many theories coming from many sources; religious and scientific, personal and global.
I thought about it after reading an article from Deadspin linked by @Wired about how a robot apparently was able to write a better news story than a human. In the end, this isn’t particularly surprising that a program could create an auto-mated report based on facts and data, and randomly interjected descriptive words. But it has people worried; will human writers be replaced by robots? Is this the start of something we’ve seen way too many times in movies but coming eerily close to reality?
Everything evolutionary can be argued as an adaption for survival; even some of the most beautiful displays nature has to offer have some sort of function. Very few creatures in the animal kingdom display a true creative flare; even less do it for no reason at all.
cogito ergo sum
Humanity’s ability to think creatively and innovate is what put us at the top of the totem poll, at least in my opinion. We use tools to help us, we create machines to do what we cannot do ourselves, and we dominate the world to work for us. This is both a blessing and a curse, but in the end it’s the idea of abstract thinking that puts us ahead.
As an artist, I think a huge part of what makes us different is our ability to create for the sake of creation as well. At some point in our history, we started to draw pictures. Further down the line, the pictures no longer needed meaning. We create music, write stories, and express our emotions not for survival (although some may argue that it is) but just because. We want to. It feels good. So we do it.
That’s what sets us apart from animals. But what about robots? What about AI?
Computers can do amazing things. They can even think, so to speak. Anything involving numbers and algorithms, formulas and facts, a computer can do better than a human. But what they cannot do, not yet anyway, is create. Not truly. Yes, we have robots who draw, but all that is really based on software with pre-set factors and/or randomization at best.
A lot of people feel the moment of eclipse when robots take over the world is when one can truly feel something real. Have an abstract thought, question existence. I think the pre-cursor to that is when AI can truly create something new and beautiful and purposeless without being guided to do so by programing. And it’s scary, really, because while the idea of AI being able to think freely or feel emotion is a long-way off, their ability to be creative seems much closer to home and realistic. But that could just be a stepping stone.
I don’t know much about science or programming or AI, really. But I guess the whole human vs robot apocalypse isn’t so far-fetched after all. There still has to be a lot of factors to allow it to happen, though. Free-thinking and creative software on its own can, at best, completely shut us out of the digital world. A social shock perhaps, yes, and westernized nations reliant on anything computerized will find themselves extremely vulnerable. But we still have the ability to go outside and farm ourselves food and hunt.
Svedka is turned on by the robo-pocolypse. You should be, too.
What the AI would need is a humanoid-esque hardware (body) to function in, and manipulate it’s environment. It would also need a lot of bodies. Power in numbers, after all. Lastly, and unlimited power-source. So that’s the golden combination. Solar-energy powered self-thinking robots en masse can destroy everything. But if they feel, perhaps mercy is a part of that formula?
But hey, when the creation surpasses it’s creator, I suppose it’s their time to shine anyway. Shame on us, then.
On Females and Gaming Stigmas
So I was browsing around the interwebs, and came across one of about 3000 articles tackling the subject of women in gaming, and how we are perceived as a consumers.
It actually didn’t make me want to kill myself:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21940
This is always kind of a touchy subject, but it also sparks some interesting thoughts. I really like the way this writer explained her neutral view on things: why do companies think making games “female friendly” means having to cover them up more?
Don’t get me wrong, I think sometimes we have some extreme ridiculousness when it comes to female game characters.
Among some quick thoughts:
In retrospect, these girls make Lara Croft look saintly.
But is it that much different when Kratos runs around in a loin-cloth?
A lot of the places we see of the over-sexualizing of female characters in games also happens to be from our favorite nerd country, Japan. And while I don’t want to be the target of fanboy terrorism, cause I know some gamers hold Japanese games in high regard, but it’s also a reflexion of culture. Women in Japan are not as liberalized and independent as Americans are. And the way the Japanese deal with sexuality is a completely different story. Obviously, those cultural aspects are going to leak their way into their games.
I feel like American gaming definitely has come a long way. In fact, I feel like we never really had the issue with exploitation as badly as the Japanese have. Still, we do have to keep in mind that up until fairly recently the market was always geared to your 18-35 fan base. The companies have caught on that we ladies like games, too. But gearing games towards women doesn’t necessarily mean dumbing down the eye candy (it’s not like we don’t have our share of topless dudes to stare at), but more an education of the masses. Girls like games, we like the stuff in games that guys like. We like the bloodshed, kicking ass in combat, explosions and shooting zombies.
The issue is lots of people don’t realize that, and sometimes the guys expect or assume that we don’t. In return, a lot of the casual girl gamers themselves may not realize they would most likely also enjoy what makes a game tick, cause advertisements suggest it’s for guys. Sometimes, they don’t want to be open about it for fear of being poked fun at.
In retrospect, I also feel like guy gamers should take a step back and think “Is this really how I want the companies to feel about me?” The fact that catering to male fan base is assumed to be successful with lots of cleavage and bouncing boobs. I personally would feel super offended if game companies thought posting up a Brad Pitt clone with swords was supposed to make me want to buy a game. That could just be me, though, and it’s not JUST a gaming issue. Being in Graphic Design and dealing with advertisement, I would know. Sex sells.
I’ve always been open about being a chick online and in games, and I would defend myself to say it’s not for attention, but more a wake-up call to the people that, hey, girls play games, it’s not that big a deal. I hate special treatment, or comments in vent. Is it really that surprising? Really?
Helping boosts sales for the females is simply a matter of waiting it out and not making stupid assumptions. A growing up of the community is needed, but it’s already happening, so I think with time, that balance will come.
Random thoughts.
~Isa
