Denis Dyack in 1up yours. NeoGAF is "hurting society," justifies having it shut down

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KefkaTaran said:
We didn't see the details of what Denis was going to talk about before we went on air. We knew he wanted to discuss something and were told that his points touched on the GAF 'Stand and be counted' thread and the negative previews. And as others have suggested, I think Andrew and I were really just trying to fully process Denis's ideas. I put in a couple points where I felt I could, but...
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If I was in your shoes, I don't know if I could have held a straight face.

Amazing, Amazing discussion, its weird to see a man go from the highest of the mountains (Week before E3 2006) all the way to this. If your game has issues FIX THEM. Focus Groups are there for a reason.
 
Bizzyb said:
I do agree with Dyack about the personal attacks. That kind of stuff is totally unnecessary. You don't have to like the guy but posting possibly offensive images, photoshops, etc should be (if offensive enough) ban worthy

That aside, NeoGaf probably does more good for this industry than bad, esp when it comes to community and user feedback that publishers, developers can use.

I'm looking at You Ubisoft!
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BUT mods have pretty much always taken care of anyone making those personal attacks. I saw one earlier tonight where some mope posted a picture of a donut and told Denis to eat more. He was banned, as he should have been.

I think Denis' example, a mod asking if someone was "stupid", is a pretty silly one. That's a far cry from the stuff that people are usually and rightfully banned for. There's a difference between saying "Don't be such an idiot" and "Eat another Hoagie, lardo."

It's one of the core fallacies in Denis' argument. In reality, GAF is far better moderated than most other forums. When it comes to games, they can be merciless and they have every right to be. When it comes to people, they are much more civil and sensible than a lot of other forum runners.

The problem is when people take those games personally. Mods can't be held responsible for that. Denis feels like he's being persecuted. When he's actually persecuted, in that people are insulting his appearance, steps are taken. When people are just rightfully scorning his publicized opinions, or the game he is bringing to market, what is a mod supposed to do? That shit is out there, and opinions can be and should be formed about them. Denis, of course, takes those reactions personally and has now, at this point, crafted a totally 'naners economic theory out of it.
 
KyanMehwulfe said:
Bitching about interests doesn't change insticts. If Dyack wants to revolve gaming forum, he essentially needs to shut his mouth and start his own gaming community. Words about ours aren't going to change shit.
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See, that's the thing. Ostensibly, a work like "Too Human," if it is what he says it is, would expand the breadth of people participating in the conversation. The folks at The New Criterion are presumably less juvenile than some here. If he would shut up, get inspired, edit his vision to perfection, and make something groundbreaking, both of his problems would be solved.
 
For a game that is going to "speak for itself", Sir Dyack sure has been running his trap a lot.

edit:God, I just got into the meat of this rant.. wow! That's some explanation for why he made that thread.. I am 'against' his explanation, I don't believe a word of this.
 
KefkaTaran said:
We didn't see the details of what Denis was going to talk about before we went on air. We knew he wanted to discuss something and were told that his points touched on the GAF 'Stand and be counted' thread and the negative previews. And as others have suggested, I think Andrew and I were really just trying to fully process Denis's ideas. I put in a couple points where I felt I could, but...
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Yeah, having talked to him, he's hard to stop when he gets going, and it can be pretty hard to get a word in edgeways.
 
Bizzyb said:
I do agree with Dyack about the personal attacks. That kind of stuff is totally unnecessary. You don't have to like the guy but posting possibly offensive images, photoshops, etc should be (if offensive enough) ban worthy

That aside, NeoGaf probably does more good for this industry than bad, esp when it comes to community and user feedback that publishers, developers can use.

I'm looking at You Ubisoft!
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Yeah..... except the only reason the negative images appeared in the first place is because Dyack refused to actually listen to the feedback that forums like NeoGaf are giving him.
 
alistairw said:
Yeah. I mean, I've said it before in this thread, but I like Denis. I've talked with him on a number of occasions, and he's been great. Really friendly. But he takes things too far, and doesn't know when to let go, which is ultimately damaging.
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Yeah, exactly. I still agree with a lot the stuff he's said about previews (stuff that, as has been pointed out, he seems to have abandoned). I still think all this ludicrousness aside, Too Human looks promising.

But he's clearly an intelligent person who has built a philosophical construct out of miffeditude.
 
JasonUresti said:
I'd agree, except that Denis seems unable to approach issues in a detached manner. More simply, he gets too emotional, lets his feelings get hurt too easily, to be able to offer criticism and ideas in a coherent fashion. Denis too often comes across as angry and whiny, refers to his own work far too much when making his points. All this makes it difficult to take his points as seriously as one should, as it sounds more like a bitter man trying to defend himself and attack critics and criticisms of his games, rather than offering advice for improving the way games and the games industry work.
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It's a matter of perspective. If one is predisposed to see him as someone who is whining, as opposed to being logically critic about something, from the get go, like a lot of people around here, there is no way to judge his position fairly. He never striked me as being any more emotionally involved than anyone else would in his position.

Even if hypothetically he was simply a bitter man trying to defend himself and attack critics and criticisms of his games, his points wouldn't make any less sense on their own. Forget the man if you must and concentrate on the message. It's not like he didn't make an effort to make his points sound logical and unbiased.
 
Bizzyb said:
I do agree with Dyack about the personal attacks. That kind of stuff is totally unnecessary. You don't have to like the guy but posting possibly offensive images, photoshops, etc should be (if offensive enough) ban worthy
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Funny you should say that after just PM'ing me this! :lol

Bizzyb said:
Is that a...Guy in your avatar??

Can't tell if its a guy or girl
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GhaleonQ said:
See, that's the thing. Ostensibly, a work like "Too Human," if it is what he says it is, would expand the breadth of people participating in the conversation. The folks at The New Criterion are presumably less juvenile than some here. If he would shut up, get inspired, edit his vision to perfection, and make something groundbreaking, both of his problems would be solved.
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Exactly. 'Critiquing', to put it politely, is easy. Actually providing alternatives, or 'solutions' (subjective), is the hard part.

Whether it be through the subject matter (games) or our community medium (forums), I've yet to see him do that. And until he does, he's just another mouth with an opinion. Opinions are easy.

Mind you, I don't want to revolve NeoGAF. I love GAF. I think it exists exactly how it should, and it has evolved exactly as it best suits our core interests (whether we proclaim them 'great' or 'guilty' or not). It reflects us as gamers.

That said, Dyack short changes gaf's openess to other potential alternatives. He bases it on our reception to his third-party critique. That's a major flaw, and a very contrasting result to how any group would receive 'action' rather than those [critical] 'words'.
 
Dennis you can´t imagine how much damage are you doing to Too Human, and no, it´s not because the stupid things you said about Neogaf, it´s because everytime this game is on the press it´s because your potty mouth.

Someone at Microsoft should teach you how the marketing works in this era of the internet.
 
s1nqdh.jpg
 
Dyack really needs to shut his mouth.


I hope MS paid you up front for your trilogy cause I'm betting on Too Human being the bombing-est game of the generation.
 
rockman zx said:
Dennis you can´t imagine how much damage are you doing to Too Human, and no, it´s not because the stupid things you said about Neogaf, it´s because everytime this game is on the press it´s because your potty mouth.

Someone at Microsoft should teach you how the marketing works in this era of the internet.
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Pretty sure the damage is already done at this point, myself and about five friends have already cancelled all their preorders and whatnot after hearing the reviews and seeing Denis in action.
 
rockman zx said:
Dennis you can´t imagine how much damage are you doing to Too Human, and no, it´s not because the stupid things you said about Neogaf, it´s because everytime this game is on the press it´s because your potty mouth.

Someone at Microsoft should teach you how the marketing works in this era of the internet.
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I'm pretty sure Denis knows exactly how it works. He's just stubborn, and opinionated, and he thinks he can direct that torrent where he thinks it needs to go. He can't, but I don't believe that's going to stop him from trying.
 
lol, oh man, this is comedy gold :lol

So, let's recap: Denis gets on here as an experiment to see what's fucked up with GAF by he, himself, instgating and fueling a debate about his one title which, as he put it, only he is able to actually play.

So now, here he is, reduced to what is without a doubt nothing more than some sort of trolling entity, telling us he's seen the future of online forums and it is, for lack of a better word, grim.

I think not. Quick damage control on his part, and - formally - just a thread which was delivered to us because he felt worried his game still sucked and wanted responses. Welp, it still sucks, and Denis has shown the world to be what we all surmised he was: a sad and deeply troubled wort on the underside of GAF's thumb. He makes up for his broken promises concerning his prolific masterpiece Too Human by pointing out what a dark and disturbed corner of the internet GAF resides in, and all he has to do to prove it was to join, make a few threads hyping up his failure, and then turn the tables on us all by announcing it was all a trap.

Again, gold.

Look, like I said elsewhere Denis -- take a fucking breath. Sit back, watch TV for a while, and eat some cheetos to help digest your failure as a man and designer. Then realize "Hey, Too Human sucks -- I'm over it. I'm going to fire my animation team and make something worth looking at!" Then post on GAF, be humble, acquire your fresh "Owned By GAF" tag, and find youself. Yeah, everyone wants you to be banned cuz your experiment hurt our souls, but if GAF didn't have a big loser to laugh it, would there be enough contrast around these parts? Naw.

Someone posted Nietzsche's quote about becoming a monster. It's great. I will say this: How in the world could GAF be on it's way out ala passive interactivity (or whatever the kid's are calling it these days) when people like Dyack help fuel the fire of awesome that encircles GAF and allows us to suckle every day from its wonderful taut nipple?

We're here to stay :D:D :lol
 
EGM92 said:
Dyack really needs to shut his mouth.


I hope MS paid you up front for your trilogy cause I'm betting on Too Human being the bombing-est game of the generation.
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Oh hell yes, I am listening right now and his is plugging some guru's book and talking about the media something what the hell...

Iaido Sword said:
I really feel like writing out the entire interview dialogue.

Can I? Am I allowed to?
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Please do.
 
I'm off to sleep... but before I go I just want to say:

-Denis: One must atone for his own doings. Your game, which you developed for 10 years, is not coming along so well after all, and you can't do much about it? The responsibility is yours. It's not Mark McDonald's, it's to E3, it's not EPIC's, and surely it's not NeoGAF's. And by making all this fuss about it you're just trowing more wood to the bonfire.

-Garnett: You're the man.

-NeoGAF: Whether we want it or not, everyday this community hold more and more influence over some areas on the gaming world. For some reason members in the high spheres of the gaming industry -Developers, journalists, etc.- visit NeoGAF. Some of them are even fully active members. Some of them even rant about this gaming forum in the most important gaming podcast out there. It's not just coincidence that N'gai periodically links NeoGAF in his Newsweek blog. This community has a special place in the gaming industry. It might be snarky, pretentious, elitist and acid... but I'm sure that everyone here loves gaming genuinely.

Like Garnett said: "Dude, it's NeoGAF".
 
DCharlie said:
so Eternal Darkness is a great game then? Better than Uncharted?

That sounds like a very conveniently reliable benchmark for a game that's not too popular on GAF

also ALL reviewers got elevated post-event from useless schmucks to heroes who all nailed the ED review?

the 90% bet was a joke, i doubt even Evil was serious about it as it was so obviously a trap.
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:lol how did you become such a douchebag?

Dyack's own words:

"The currency is the tag and metascore is the metric - don't try to change the bet. All those "for" and "against" get their tags changed. To all the mods - pick your meta score. Here is some troll reference from your camp to save you time:

Haze (PS3) Avg Ratio: 57%
Lair (PS3) Avg Ratio: 56% "
 
Crateman said:
I'm off to sleep... but before I go I just want to say:

-Denis: One must atone for his own doings. Your game, which you developed for 10 years, is not coming along so well after all, and you can't do much about it? The responsibility is yours. It's not Mark McDonald's, it's to E3, it's not EPIC's, and surely it's not NeoGAF's. And by making all this fuss about it you're just trowing more wood to the bonfire.

-Garnett: You're the man.

-NeoGAF: Whether we want it or not, everyday this community hold more and more influence over some areas on the gaming world. For some reason members in the high spheres of the gaming industry -Developers, journalists, etc.- visit NeoGAF. Some of them are even fully active members. Some of them even rant about this gaming forum in the most important gaming podcast out there. It's not just coincidence that N'gai periodically links NeoGAF in his Newsweek blog. This community has a special place in the gaming industry. It might be snarky, pretentious, elitist and acid... but I'm sure that everyone here loves gaming genuinely.

Like Garnett said: "Dude, it's NeoGAF".
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Nice post to go out with. Thought you summed it up perfect.
 
See, the thing is, he's blaming GAF for decisions we didn't make. No one here told Denis to preview at E3 with his code in a disastrous state. No one here made him release early video or screenshots. We're not his publisher. We didn't force him, or any other dev, to release preview footage.

If Denis wants to wait until the game is finished to show it, and he can find a publisher who doesn't want a starting run at first day sales (which is why they release previews), who will publish things the way he wants to. He could become his own publisher, although he would almost certainly have to scale back his ambitions.

Denis strikes me as the same sort of actor who makes his living with Hollywood pop, while complaining about how horrible the Hollywood system is, always quietly ignoring the fact that there are plenty of independents in both mediums. The trade off, as in any commercial art, is that when you make a unique, challenging piece of art, it's simply going to have a smaller following, and you'll make less money.

Literary novels make terrible money, so bad, in fact, that very few literary writers can manage to make a living off their writing alone. The average advance for a novel is less than $10,000 and the average sales won't net the author royalties. On the other side of the spectrum, you have Stephen King, whose work is open, easy to read, and imminently accesible. He gets more than $10 million a book.

All artists get to pick. Are you doing it for the living, or are you doing it for the art. If you need the money, then you have to bend your knee to the desires and whims of the publishers and the customer.

No one's stopping Denis from doing things his way, except Denis, who thinks the answer is to attempt to silence critics.
 
DeformedOnion said:
Pretty sure the damage is already done at this point, myself and about five friends have already cancelled all their preorders and whatnot after hearing the reviews and seeing Denis in action.
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"Okay, perfect example. A poster wrote 'Myself and about five friends have already cancelled all their preorders', okay, now note that, they were interested in the game because they preordered it, Garnett. 'and whatnot after hearing the reviews' okay, THIS IS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT. Right here! THERE ARE NO REVIEWS OF TOO HUMAN YET. Okay? And hearing them? Okay? 'and seeing Denis in action.' You see? This is exactly what I'm talking about. This is Scientism at work."
 
Ha, Shane on SC4. That shit looks amazing. Backgrounds too. And Amy is another new character. Algol aka Al Gore is bad ass. Neither of the tourney players we've had in the office this week think he's OP either. : P
 
I didnt understand what anything he was talking about in the first 20 minutes had to do with videogames.

What is this starwars thing with a kid that he was talking about?
 
EGM92 said:
. . . I'm betting on Too Human being the bombing-est game of the generation.
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Probably not. For all the influence GAF might have, it has never shown itself to be an especially good barometer for sales success.

All of this really feels like something that would make sense happening in the mid-to-late 90s, when few knew how to really deal with the internet.
 
alright, i actually downloaded the podcast, and i have zero patience for listening to words that i could read a dozen times faster. the first major revelation is that dyack has a pr manager -- a job that might be described as 'preventing people from doing this sort of thing.' should i pity this person or marvel at her negligence?
 
FartOfWar said:
Ha, Shane on SC4. That shit looks amazing. Backgrounds too. And Amy is another new character. Algol aka Al Gore is bad ass. Neither of the tourney players we've had in the office this week think he's OP either. : P
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I wish you'd been at the Dyack segment. Out of everyone at 1up, I get the feeling you would have been the quickest to respond.
 
FartOfWar said:
Ha, Shane on SC4. That shit looks amazing. Backgrounds too. And Amy is another new character. Algol aka Al Gore is bad ass. Neither of the tourney players we've had in the office this week think he's OP either. : P
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Is this something you guys do regularly or is this for the 1UP Show? Similar to what you guys did for Brawl?
 
BenjaminBirdie said:
BUT mods have pretty much always taken care of anyone making those personal attacks. I saw one earlier tonight where some mope posted a picture of a donut and told Denis to eat more. He was banned, as he should have been.

I think Denis' example, a mod asking if someone was "stupid", is a pretty silly one. That's a far cry from the stuff that people are usually and rightfully banned for. There's a difference between saying "Don't be such an idiot" and "Eat another Hoagie, lardo."

It's one of the core fallacies in Denis' argument. In reality, GAF is far better moderated than most other forums. When it comes to games, they can be merciless and they have every right to be. When it comes to people, they are much more civil and sensible than a lot of other forum runners.

The problem is when people take those games personally. Mods can't be held responsible for that. Denis feels like he's being persecuted. When he's actually persecuted, in that people are insulting his appearance, steps are taken. When people are just rightfully scorning his publicized opinions, or the game he is bringing to market, what is a mod supposed to do? That shit is out there, and opinions can be and should be formed about them. Denis, of course, takes those reactions personally and has now, at this point, crafted a totally 'naners economic theory out of it.
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In that case the yeah Denis needs to learn how to be more accepting of criticism. Then again, the honest criticism is mixed in with all of the cynicism, and bashing, all in one big bag of negativity towards him and his game. so I image it's extremely hard for him to separate the honest opinions from the jerk hole comments

I honestly doubt anyone here would be handling the "situation" as well as he is, if they were in his position.

Oh and Nibs, sorry man, I honestly did think that was a guy dressed like a girl...a hot girl though.
 
Dennis made very good points and I agree with him.The other thread that was made started out find but quickly turned pathetic in my opinion.He is right that the reviewers had no right to post what seem like pretty much final reviews of a game they do not have final code for.

Back when there was the whole E3 debacle I also think he was right in that situation.Yes the game was in rough shape but thats what a preview is for and people like to say why was it even shown and I mean I don't know about you but when it comes to info I'll be happy to get whatever I can.Sadly people are too quick to judge.

I don't understand why there is such hate towards Dennis and so what he is opinionated fuck at least he has the balls to say something and he is also very passionate about his work so what.Im still interested in this game here in the Niagara region and there is frequent articles in our paper regarding SK and people around here are excited for this game and I hope it does well.
 
If he don't like the way things are on online communities then he shouldn't waste his time. I'm sure his feelings getting hurt with him bringing this up, quit crying.
 
I'm listening to this and what's coming through to me is that Dennis is a control freak. He keeps talking about how things should be. That's not a good thing. He keeps veiling his cry for control by using the morality card. In the end it's all selfishness.
 
Unison said:
Here's the thing though... NeoGAF is NeoGAF because it is NeoGAF. If we all became self-correcting and overly concerned about not hurting feelings, we'd end up as castrated as the gaming media.

People read NeoGAF because we are honest... brutally so. You put one Enter the Matrix screen out where a car has square tires, we tell you your game looks like shit from day one. We don't go the IGN/1up/Gamespot route and write endless, pointless hopeful previews that withhold judgment and essentially parrot PR. We call it like we see it. THAT is why the industry reads NeoGAF. . . Just the same, if a game looked shitty & improves, we'll admit it and will become the best salesmen for a game you could possibly imagine. We are passionate about games, either way. People, including the industry, respond to that.

We can't and shouldn't try to change what we are. We are valuable as we are. Let other websites try to live up to Dyack's idealism. Let us be us.
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Valuable as what? As someone who is telling others what to think about game A or B? There is "journalism" for that.

Honesty isn't important in a matter that is as subjective as a game's "quality". And how are people to discern said honesty amidst so many internet memes and subculture and general stance (the jaded stance)? How is using so many allegories and metaphors and mockery and profanity a sign of honesty?

And how are personal insults and the like, valuable? We are discussing games here, are we not? The point isn't that GAF is harshly critical. The point is that it's harshly critical in a chaotic fashion. And don't kid yourself into thinking that even on a general scale, things like fanboyism and the like have no impact in GAF's "brutal honesty".
 
Bizzyb said:
Oh and Nibs, sorry man, I honestly did think that was a guy dressed like a girl...a hot girl though.
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What's the GAF like with female pic posts? I'm tempted to post those pics I sent you just to help clear things up lol.
 
MightyHedgehog said:
Probably not. For all the influence GAF might have, it has never shown itself to be an especially good barometer for sales success.

All of this really feels like something that would make sense happening in the mid-to-late 90s, when few knew how to really deal with the internet.
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SK have never sold massive numbers though have they? Not even when the games stood up to what was out at the time.
Maybe the preview code is so old that the gold code will fix all the 'last-gen' issues, but let's be honest, it won't.

Anyone who sees the game is going to laugh and never going to touch it. The intro movie, is literally laughable, when I saw it in the thread they mention in podcast, I actually thought it was an elaborate joke. Mainly because I've heard so much hype about this game's cutscenes and story.
 
BenjaminBirdie said:
Yeah, exactly. I still agree with a lot the stuff he's said about previews (stuff that, as has been pointed out, he seems to have abandoned). I still think all this ludicrousness aside, Too Human looks promising.

But he's clearly an intelligent person who has built a philosophical construct out of miffeditude.
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Denis is that guy you know who is, really, very lovely, and very genuine, and doesn't mean any harm to anyone. Sometimes though, he just comes out with these things that make you say, 'Dude...what the hell?' - these weird ideas that aren't necessarily offensive or anything, just goddamn strange. And then he just keeps talking about them, long after you'd think he'd drop them.

Then, one day, he just forgets about them.
 
Kittonwy said:
So Dyack and I can look into each other's eyes and see our emotions in order to achieve reciprocity?
Indifferent2.gif
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Be careful! hes only getting you close so he can rip the wings off!
Horrible Soul Reaver Reference
 
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