
Blimey it’s cold out there isn’t it? – After a quick click through my Google Analytics, I noticed something hugely disturbing, (well two things to be perfectly honest) – firstly, I really struck a nerve with my braid post – it’s not only set a record for the highest number of comments on this site, but also set a joint record for the number of times I’ve been called a cunt in the comments on this website. Funny how this page draws lots of angry Braid fans to this page…
Don’t worry, my hatred-o-meter is pointing at other games nowadays, maybe I’ll post about them some day.
Secondly, people are still coming to this website. Approximately 70 people a day, sure they may have just bookmarked the garfield comic strip (it is pretty fucking legendary) but I don’t like imagining a sad lonely person eagerly opening www.screwyouhippy.com every day and finding that same post, a sad little smiley face later they click the X of doom on their browser window and go back to wanking and crying.
Well, like all the false dawns before it, I’m gonna try and pick up “my shit” a bit and post a bit more regularly about random shit. Heck, I might even try and integrate facebook or some other SHITTY fucking social media bollocks to try and get my words out there to some people who agree that Braid sucks balls. (Don’t even get me fucking started on The Witness)
Oh yeah, the subject line, I forgot – The state of the UK games industry is completely fucking fucked. I don’t mean a little bit fucked, I mean a LOT fucked. In fact, I’d say more fucked than it’s ever been fucked before, it’s now into the deep dark recesses of some scary fucking fuckedness. If it was at a swearing convention, it’d be drunk, falling over a lot, claiming it used to be “a contender” and now it’s nothing but a bum, it’d stagger outside onto the balcony whilst nice words like “francise” and “product” looked on disapprovingly, and whilst it sat looking out over the landscape of the starry night in it’s drunken stupor, it’d maybe think about just ending it all and jumping off the balcony into the soft, loving embrace of the concrete pavement twelve hundred feet below. A last puff on it’s nicotinell cigerette substitute (it couldn’t afford real ones any more) and the very real realisation that it’s completely fucked. Like it’s just spunked a million dollar pounds on red and it came up black. Fucked.
Biting back the tears of regret, remorse and the mild outrage that Enslaved: Odyssey to the west was considered a commercial flop because it didn’t sell over a million copies in it’s first week, Mr Fucked UK games industry looks down at his name badge, “Hello, I’m FUCKED” it reads back at him, like a mirror into his soul – a self fulfilling name badge. “Where did it all go wrong?” he shouts out to nobody in particular, at least that’s what he thinks he shouted, but what, in actual fact he really shouted was “MBALAH BALAH URGH FUCK OFF!”
We cut back 10 years, his hair is clean cut, and his 20 a day fag habit shows no signs of stopping. He’s loving it though, the drive to work isn’t just a drive, it’s a carpet ride into the magical world of games development, his ideas matter, he thinks outside the box, he gets in the weeds, big thinking, big blue sky thinking, and some of the best games ever made come out of impossibly small teams in the UK – talented little fuckers who can punch well above their weight – but really competing is easy, there isn’t anyone particularly difficult to beat, dancing for the games playing public is the easiest lay Mr Fucked has ever had because he doesn’t have to complete with anyone better looking…
And then it happened… Quake happened, then Half Life happened, and then Call of Duty happened…. Suddenly hollywood teams realised that the games paying public doesn’t want originality in their games, they want product, they want the same game re-hashed time and time again and people will LAP it up – an endless cycle of franchised product. The word “shed-ule” becomes the word “Sked-ule”
Mr UK fucked games industry nods it’s head, and says “OKAY, if that’s how you want it…” and follows suit, eagerly pumping out games which don’t have any original bits, just products, which, (and god love us) aren’t as polished as American products because we don’t have hollywood resources, we can’t afford to pay for hollywood resources, and frankly all our talented guys fucked off to hollywood years ago… So Mr fucked games industry now turns to the prosperity of youth… Youth which it can milk till it’s eagerness has gone and there is nothing left. And there is nothing left. Mr Fucked knows this, but fears admitting it might push the youth away.. The youth like a prisoner kept in captivity starts to feel a strange sort of love for Mr Fucked UK Games industry — A classic case of Stockholm syndrome. Youth loves it’s abusers because they “listen”, they “care” – sure they might anally rape you, but they do it through love.. “You work in the UK Games industry! We used to be brilliant, YOU SHOULD BE HONORED – (now bend over)”
Eventually – There is shock and dismay in the games press and media and the games paying public. “Mr FUCKED UK GAMES INDUSTRY IN SHIT GAME SHOCKER” – well that’s hardly a surprise is it? The talent has all shipped off, and left shells of inadequately equipped teams who don’t have a cat in hells chance of competing against teams that can PUT A FUCKING MIG-21 IN E3 FOR SHITS AND GIGGLES – The young people of the FUCKED UK games industry all realise that this isn’t the way to earn a living and fuck off to work at Greggs bakery for more money, better working conditions and the off-chance of dying before they are 53.
Back to the 2011 balcony, and Mr Fucked UK games industry starts to cry, he just can’t help himself. He’s still got the ideas in his head for “Super Cock Ball 6″ – it’d sell fuck all, but it’d be inspired, it’d have flaming cock arrows and would make people laugh with so much joy that their spleens would literally tear into three. But it doesn’t matter any more because everyone wouldn’t buy it – he’d build it but no-one would come..
And worst still, the forums, the god damn fucking forums… Where you’d get fucking peasants discussing if they feel sorry for the shit games developer like they have any a) opinion that is relevant b) idea what the FUCK is involved in games development c) compassion – not realising that it’s THEY that cause the fucking shit developers because they brutally murder every game that doesn’t satisfy THEM – “I pay 50 bucks for this game, I expect a god damn blow job, oh, and some chicken, and a t-shirt, and MAP MADE OF FUCKING CLOTH” – yeah well fuck you, because Mr Fucked paid for this game in BLOOD, he paid by not sleeping for three months whilst he was ceaselessly whipped – they were under-resourced and expected to perform miracles, they didn’t see their loved ones for MONTHS – only to feed the insatiable forums a 6 out of 10 pile of dog turd with some jumped up shitty little 13 year old with an overinflated sense of self worth and a soap box to spout cunt-dribble from decides to post on a random forum that in their opinion “Super Spack Ball 3″ isn’t worth anyones money and everyone who did work on it should be fired. “LOLZ”
But hey, there’s a new Modern Warfare 3 coming out right? And Battlefield 3 looks okay I guess, and um, Forza 4 doesn’t look much like the previous one honestly… We can endlessly discuss those I suppose. Until there’s nothing left but games like these that instantly sell a billion dollars over night (otherwise they are deemed not a success)
At least we’ll always have the indie development scene right?, guys who make great games and work from home on peanuts, spunking away their life force in the hope that they are working on the next Minecraft, but in the sad realisation that their game might only just get 10 hits a day on their website. Having to eat rats, and suck on moth balls for sustenance. Don’t worry, THEY’LL always be around Right? — doesn’t matter if we torrent their games because they sell SHIT loads of copies for $5 bucks a piece (hey, Minecraft made millions so surely every fucking game makes a similar amount right?) – and then Mr Indie thinks “you know what? FUCK THIS – I can make twice as much money by writing database software AND I don’t get some cunt critising my choice of the method of SQL I wrote”
Anyway… TLDR;
The UK games industry is fucked. It’d jump from the balcony but soon the building is going to be demolished and we’ll all be standing on the rubble looking across the river and thinking “we could build something so much better – if only someone would give us a break” – but in reality we had our chance and we blew it. You greedy fucking ballbags.
Mr Fucked flicks his nicotinell fake cigerette from the balcony, puffs out some imaginary smoke from his cold dead lungs and picks up another SKOL from his tesco’s shopping bag. Undo-ing his bowtie, he turns and heads back into the party, “FUCK IT ALL, FUCK THEM!, FUCK THEM ALL!” races through his mind, after all this, he gave it a bloody good go but he came up short, lets all sit down in recognition of this fact. He smiles a quick darting smile at “Hi I’m GET A REAL JOB”, the temptress, and then looks through the crowd of people. Mr Fucked looks for someone in the crowd, he’s here, Mr Fucked knows he’s here, somewhere in the mixture – where is he..
Aha – there he is.. Mr High Street Games Retail – someone Mr Fucked can finally laugh at…. Someone even more fucked than he is, but better yet, he doesn’t even know it…
P.S. Go and download RSSOWL – and add this link to it, and my shit will parade in your FACE for eternity
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