Unpacking the Drama Behind Palworld
Added 2024-01-27 19:46:13 +0000 UTCWhoa, this is new. For the first time in over 7 years I'm the one that edited a video.
This is a pilot for a new video essay series that yours truly is planning on working on, talking about the intersection of business and games, including videos like this where we provide much-needed context on big online conversations that become the center of attention.
Feel free to give me some name suggestions and I hope you enjoy it!
- Nick
Comments
Games like Palworld remind me of algorithmically generated Spotify playlists and the impact they have had on a lot of folks' relationship with music. Spotify playlists are music-as-wallpaper; the algorithm is a crucible that burns away art and leaves behind the residual vibe. In go albums and as-intended-by-the-artist releases, out comes this kind of milquetoast mélange that can be listened to indefinitely but which precludes real artistic engagement. Palworld is kinda the same deal, right? The fact that it is so wildly successful is, to me, symptomatic of society's declining ability to engage with art. In go the concepts and designs of other developers, and out comes this kind of soupy gunk, dramatically less than the sum of its parts artistically yet successful in its mission to hook an audience for whom the art is not the point. Ultimately I don't believe it really matters, other than it being interesting to think about and discuss. A penny in the pocket of the Palworld devs does not equal a penny not spent on a more artistically interesting game. This is still the best time in history to be the sort of dev who has a cool idea coupled with a small and passionate team. I do think though that Palworld shows how what people think about and want from games is changing as the audience grows.
ergotpoisoning
2024-01-31 04:15:58 +0000 UTCI did not. I specified the corporations are looking to use AI to replace concept artists, QA workers, localization and other such roles. I did not ANYWHERE say it was a useful tool for doing such, and am completely against that. I provided the context specifically on how it was used in The Finals, because people were not informed on how it was being used. Again, I made no judgment on whether it was right or wrong, I just provided the information for people to make their own decision, and pointed out that when they brought up that The Finals uses AI, they did not know HOW it was used.
Nick Calandra
2024-01-29 23:10:12 +0000 UTCHow about 'State of Play' or is that going to raise someone's pun hackles...
NoteofDiscord
2024-01-29 21:10:53 +0000 UTCBut you positioned a case where AI is being used as a workaround for paying a concept artist as a case where it is being used as a 'useful tool', and then scolded people for not "understanding the context". This is where the frustration comes from.
3mix2yoo
2024-01-29 07:34:56 +0000 UTCThere are a lot of people explaining very cognizantly the anti AI position, and while I didn't go into detail in my original comment, I believe my inference to ai as a means to steal and exploit labor is at least better than "idk ai bad". Random people on a twitch stream not explaining their positions well on a platform not designed to give audience members room for nuanced discussion is not the biggest problem with ai discourse. They're not communicators for the most part, they don't have platforms that can nudge the discourse in certain directions. Social media pileons, where a lot of uneducated people spout random opinions out of their ass, are absolutely annoying as hell and damaging to our society. But the things that are happening around pallworld and ai are the same things that are happening in every fandom and industry on the internet, because it's a structural problem to do with platforms driving outrage engagement for money. This is why I was so frustrated with the framing of this around a twitch chat. It felt like being scolded for the internet being annoying, which lord knows will be an unavoidable fact of life until the heat death of the universe. There are plenty of completely incoherent and annoying pro-ai people, but I'd guess that they're pretty unlikely to show up in a Fecond Wind twitch chat and become the focus on a similar video because the ai discourse is at heart labor discourse and Second Wind began as a triumph about labor. I don't want to come down as a hater here. There were a lot of good points that I agreed with and some i found interesting even if I didn't entirely agree. But if we're going to talk about the *way* ideas are communicated as important separate to the ideas themselves, I think considerations about how we frame things and what impact that framing can have on the discussion is valid.
ixi
2024-01-29 02:24:34 +0000 UTCYea, we gotta get lower thirds in there. But it was me (Nick).
Nick Calandra
2024-01-29 01:43:06 +0000 UTCNice video, gave me some context I was missing. One thing I noticed (and maybe I just missed it) is that the video doesn't seem to credit the narrator, either within the video or in the YouTube description area, so I have no idea who was talking.
dirtside
2024-01-29 01:17:37 +0000 UTCTitle suggestion: It’s Just Business
Jam
2024-01-28 19:20:55 +0000 UTCDidn't say the anti-AI people are irrational. I'm anti-ai as a workaround for the creation of art. Not against it as a "tool" to help in certain cases. My issue is more that when people are angry about AI, they're not able to tell you why. In our stream on The Finals, people came in saying ew, it's The Finals, it uses AI. And that's it. If you want people to understand the position of being against AI and be empathetic towards creators, you should be informed on what you're angry about to help people understand, otherwise you will just be seen as fearmongering over it when you can't explain your position.
Nick Calandra
2024-01-28 16:56:25 +0000 UTCI gotta say I did not enjoy the scolding tone of this one. I'm as frustrated, irritated and concerned with the social media tendancy to dogpile as anyone, but I think to workable solutions are structural, not finger wagging. I'm also irritated by the constant framing of anti-ai people as irrational here. I guess I would consider myself anti-ai: I think it's fine for recreational or non-commercial purposes, but I'm hard line against it for commercial works. There was that fan animation a bit ago that used AI voices, and I do think the knee-jerk backlash against that creator was overblown and reprehensible. But in an industry that experienced such catastrophic layoffs last year and don't look to be slowing down this year, where workplace abuse and exploitation is rampant and well-documented, I think it's disingenuous to paint everyone with a firm stance against ai with the same brush as the people just jumping on the "hating something popular" bandwagon without really thinking it through. I have no defense for people driving the palworld drama. Everything about it seems silly and nintendo doesn't pay me to care about their copyright. I don't love the developer's fondness for ai and i think that tha point that the real issue is their track record of unfinished early access games is a good one. I'll probably still buy the game though, it looks fun and silly.
ixi
2024-01-28 14:37:00 +0000 UTCSounds like corporate influencers trying to tear down a competitor,too big of a success over some seriously pathetic giant game companies. All without a massive cost, mictotransactions or day 1 DLC. AAA companies might lose their credibility that way-more than they have already.
Doggi
2024-01-28 13:59:27 +0000 UTCI think you already have the perfect title: Unpacking the Drama: *topic*
Tammy Spiller
2024-01-28 06:44:12 +0000 UTCMy personal phrase for how social media accusations work: guilty until proven innocent. Really well-done discussion of this situation!
Tim Price
2024-01-28 02:58:19 +0000 UTCAs far as names go, here's a few thoughts: Editor's Interlude How the Money Gets Made The Business End (of the Stick) Some Work, Some Play Getting Down to Business
Nate Myren
2024-01-28 01:58:31 +0000 UTCFantastic, level headed take. Works great as a foil or a chaser to say, yahtzee's more hyperbolic style. Looking forward to more of this!
van_Zeller
2024-01-28 00:56:21 +0000 UTCThe whole AI drama smells to me as some twitter loser with way too much time on their hands and a hell of a lot of blind hatred for this game trying to come up with the most plausible baseless accusation that will go viral in the current Twitter hate meta.
Wally Hackenslacker
2024-01-28 00:20:45 +0000 UTCTime for the nuclear option....We need to call hbomberguy HE'LL get to the bottom of this!
James Verner
2024-01-27 22:21:31 +0000 UTCAt the Palworld intro: "Oh, look, there's Braviary. And Piplup. And Houndoom. And Staraptor."
Derek Peirce
2024-01-27 21:21:01 +0000 UTCIsn't there the somewhat cynic view, that courtcases are often won with money? Depending how true that is, it doesn't really matter how close they are, since Nintendo can just keep the lawsuit going until the devs behind Palworld have no money left and Nintendo has more than enough to cover the cost if they want to. Now do they really want to? I wouldn't think so. The game is very popular at the moment and a lawsuit would cause that community to hate them. No need to be a genius to get that. But I can imagine, that the lawsuit comes once the hype died down, when its just a headline about Nintendo attacking a small dev (which is still bad) and not Nintendo attacking a small dev with a game, that is currently at the top of player charts. I personally, don't care much for Palworld. When it comes to survival games, Minecraft was my entry and exit. Tried some Satisfactory, but always with friends and to qoute our friend Frost: "Its more fun with friends. Why don't you see that as a virtue of your friends and not the game?". What did interested me about this game was how quickly it came to popularity. I don't understand how so many people play this game, that came out of nothing. I mean Satisfactory (one game I would compare it to) has a large follower base, but that is from Coffee Stain Studios, which already had a pretty good track record. (DRG, Goat Simulator [if you want to call that good], Sanctum) Even ARK took some time, to get to the popularty than it has today. And I can't imagine, how everyone who played Ark or Satisfactory suddenly play Palworld. How did they managed to hook so many people? enough rambling
Neintonine
2024-01-27 21:12:44 +0000 UTCBroke: Controversy about Palworld using AI. Woke: Controversy about Palworld letting you capture humans in the not-Pokeballs and then sell them at market.
Dave Van Domelen
2024-01-27 21:02:21 +0000 UTCIt’s been interesting for us IP lawyers let me tell you. The conclusion of my team at least is they’re probably okay, but damn they’re close to the line and there’s a good chance that there will be a lawsuit—and a court might very well find they crossed the line.
Archangel12504
2024-01-27 20:26:36 +0000 UTCPalworld is a really strange one for me. On one hand, I played a lot of ARK, and this looks reasonably fun. On the other, I don't think there's a single original thought put into this game. I also don't care for the Fortnite cartoony aesthetic completely destroying the brutality of guns, but this is hardly a new nitpick.
Maximus
2024-01-27 20:09:17 +0000 UTC
