When Reality TV and Game Dev Meet

Karuji

Sooooo yeah. Just some stuff that happened. It's a whole lot of bullshit, but rather inspiring how devs come together.

http://soundselfgame.com/?p=302
http://www.beesgo.biz/reality.html
http://msminotaur.com/blog/?p=187 Gama reblog
http://indiestatik.com/2014/03/31/most-expensive-game-jam/

tl;dr?

So a bunch of indie devs were rounded up and filmed for a reality TV show. One of the producers was a misogynist ass, or just trying to stir drama using gender issues. The devs walked off the show costs the people who set it up around half a million dollars.

Score one for gender representation and indies :)

francoisvn

I recommend the Indie Statik article. It seems to have the most comprehensive cover of the story. Haven't read the others in their entirety though, so take my advice with a grain of salt.

Hadn't heard about this before now, but it seems like a potentially good idea was completely twisted for financial reasons. A game jam documentary - good idea. A game jam reality show - bad idea at best. I wonder if other devs were approached and withdrew earlier, when things started to deviate from the original vision. Really a pity things turned out like this.

dislekcia

francoisvn said:

I wonder if other devs were approached and withdrew earlier, when things started to deviate from the original vision. Really a pity things turned out like this.

I doubt it. This moved very, very quickly after GDC. Zoe was talking about the show happening (and the contract being terrible) the Saturday immediately after the conference.

People were talking about backing out based simply on how stupid the contract was, but I didn't hear any devs mentioned that are obviously missing in the writeups...

Also, gah that whole thing sounds really terrible. I'm glad Robin, Zoe, Adriel and Davey stood up and stopped it. Hopefully something much, much better can come of this.

Karuji

dislekcia said:

Hopefully something much, much better can come of this.

REBEL JAM!

EvanGreenwood

$400,000 (or so) sunk into this makes me doubt there'll be reality TV interest in indie development anytime soon. Although there are allusions to some kind of compromise having been reached... so I guess there's hope?

After reading the Indiestatik article, and Robin's, I can only imagine that the show itself would have been chalk-board nail-scrapingly awful, had it gone ahead in the direction that it was being steered.

Literally a few days ago @Merik and I were joking about what a "Game Jam Survivor" reality TV show might be like. It feels awful to have your nightmares come true.

EvanGreenwood

@francoisvn I just heard, apparently there is a game jam documentary coming out! (I feel a bit derp for not having known about this earlier)



SUPER STOKED FOR THIS! FIRST EPISODE IN APRIL!

francoisvn

@BlackShipsFilltheSky: I heard about Super Game Jam a while back but I managed to forget about it. Thanks for reminding me. Super Game Jam looks like it should be pretty awesome :)

rustybroomhandle

That Devolver series could be good, but I feel the lineup of devs are all too similar. Would have liked to see more diversity.

EvanGreenwood

@rustybroomhandle I would have just liked to have seen more developers (and yes, more diversity). Maybe if the series gains some traction they'll extend it. It feels like the initial selection are all fairly safe bets (though I think there's nothing wrong with betting on Jan Willem in a game jam documentary).

Although, having said that, the SOS + Dose One team really excites me. That one of the team members is a rapper by trade fills me with curiosity.

Full Disclosure: I'm definitely biased for the group of developers in Super Game Jam, their trade is much more relevant/influential to my work than those assembled for the Game_Jam documentary. Jan Willem, Jonatan Söderström and Tom Francis all made games that inspired different parts of Broforce. It's just a pity that Derek Yu, the design team behind Mega Man, and Sylvester Stallone are missing.