[Webcomic] PVP Discussion

Gusto

Gusto

GasBandit said:
Aaand of course the very next comic after me saying that is another "laugh at the psychotic bitch who's Ethan with tits and a green paint job" comic that doesn't even get a chuckle.
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I don't even know what the joke was supposed to be. Does this lunatic not know what a ceiling is? Is that funny? Fucking awful.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Gusto said:
I don't even know what the joke was supposed to be. Does this lunatic not know what a ceiling is? Is that funny? Fucking awful.
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Yes, as a consequence that she never looks up because she's afraid her eyes will keep rolling and she'll be looking at her own brain.

Dreadful.
 
T

TheGuy

Bubble181 said:
I do have to agree with TheGuy up to a point: if PvP were launched now, it'd have maybe 10% of the userbase - even the early work. There's far more contenders for our attention - at much higher quality - than there were 10 or 15 years ago.

It's gotten much harder to become succesful in webcomics than back in the day with limited competition. Talent alone doesn't necessarily have much to do with it anymore.
Take PA: I think they're two very talented guys and I'm happy they're as successful as they are - but look back at the first few weeks of comics and wonder if, if you found that as a brand new webcomic today, you'd add it to your list. And no, two-guys-on-a-couch wasn't original at the time, either.
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Yep. Exactly.

Also, this is all without even mentioning the elephant in the room. No one, (even back in the day), ever initially started reading PvP because of the interpersonal office stories. They went to it because the comic was linked on popular gaming websites, and provided mildly amusing jokes related to current gaming. The reason why awful comics like CAD ended up dwarfing Kurtz in terms of viewership is because he went off into "awful no one gives a shit" land in his writing, whereas CAD stuck with it's original form of content.

If PvP were a random office drama strip (with no gaming focus), it wouldn't have attracted anyone in its early era either.
 
Zappit

Zappit

Staff member
I'd like to think that the second LOLBat strip was really the beginning of the end. Kurtz has a lot of talented friends. Why not farm out PvP to Dylan? That guest arc was one of the comic's best stories in a long time.
 
Null

Null

So apparently Brent thinks that Lucille and Jade's Mom will have sex to bring about the end of the world. Interesting.
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
Dei said:
So they are creating.... Steam?
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More like Desura, or the Humble Store. Not to mention GOG.com now supports new games, and tons of indie titles get published to iPhone and Android through those stores, or Amazon. Oh, and don't forget that Sony is working hard courting indie developers for the PS4, and Microsoft announced that every retail Xbone will be able to function as a dev kit.

What PvP is doing is entering an already saturated market. There's no shortage of distribution platforms for indie games at the moment. Why do I get the feeling that Kurtz isn't keeping up on gaming news?
 
Terrik

Terrik

figmentPez said:
More like Desura, or the Humble Store. Not to mention GOG.com now supports new games, and tons of indie titles get published to iPhone and Android through those stores, or Amazon. Oh, and don't forget that Sony is working hard courting indie developers for the PS4, and Microsoft announced that every retail Xbone will be able to function as a dev kit.

What PvP is doing is entering an already saturated market. There's no shortage of distribution platforms for indie games at the moment. Why do I get the feeling that Kurtz isn't keeping up on gaming news?
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This is kinda the same guy who thought LOLbat was funny and relevant long after the memes were dead and buried.
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

You guys, you just aren't thinking. This is a great idea, there's practically no competition out there!

Except Steam...

Ok, no competition except Steam. And all of the console platforms.

Ok, ok, but no competition except Steam and the consoles.

...

And Humble Bundle.

Ok, no competition except... oh, I forgot GoG. Yeah.

Oh, and:
Indievania
IndieCity
LittleIndie
Beamdog
Green Man Gaming
Desura
GamersGate
GetGames
Gamefly
RainDG
ShinyLoot


But other than that...
 
Shakey

Shakey

It's just a comic. They don't need to live in the real world. It's not like Scott is trying to come up with a crazy brand new idea that will revolutionize gaming. He just needs something for the characters to do.
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
Shakey said:
It's just a comic. They don't need to live in the real world. It's not like Scott is trying to come up with a crazy brand new idea that will revolutionize gaming. He just needs something for the characters to do.
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See, here's the thing... Comics are funny because they reflect the world in a distorted way. PvP used to be really funny when it made gaming and pop-culture references. The comics don't need to match the real world 1:1, but they do need to be close enough to the real world that jokes can spring from that. If Kurtz starts writing about a situation that's completely disconnected from the real world, then humor won't come from that.

EDIT: Better idea, after like 30 seconds of thinking, instead of the over-saturated distribution market, what about the marketing? PvP, as a magazine, would already have connections to advertisers, an active community of readers, and more, maybe instead they could switch over to a company that specializes in helping indie gamemakers market their games. Be the company that helps get indie games noticed on Greenlight, in the Xbox Indie store (where titles notoriously languish), and elsewhere. It's tough getting noticed, it's not tough finding a place to distribute your game.
 
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Dave

Dave

Staff member
figmentPez said:
See, here's the thing... Comics are funny because they reflect the world in a distorted way. PvP used to be really funny when it made gaming and pop-culture references. The comics don't need to match the real world 1:1, but they do need to be close enough to the real world that jokes can spring from that. If Kurtz starts writing about a situation that's completely disconnected from the real world, then humor won't come from that.

EDIT: Better idea, after like 30 seconds of thinking, instead of the over-saturated distribution market, what about the marketing? PvP, as a magazine, would already have connections to advertisers, an active community of readers, and more, maybe instead they could switch over to a company that specializes in helping indie gamemakers market their games. Be the company that helps get indie games noticed on Greenlight, in the Xbox Indie store (where titles notoriously languish), and elsewhere. It's tough getting noticed, it's not tough finding a place to distribute your game.
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That edit is actually not a bad idea. Like an agent for indie game designers. That's brilliant.
 
Shakey

Shakey

figmentPez said:
See, here's the thing... Comics are funny because they reflect the world in a distorted way. PvP used to be really funny when it made gaming and pop-culture references. The comics don't need to match the real world 1:1, but they do need to be close enough to the real world that jokes can spring from that. If Kurtz starts writing about a situation that's completely disconnected from the real world, then humor won't come from that.
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How could a gaming mag with maybe 5 employees ever make it in the real world? Especially when that market was already dominated by only a couple of huge magazines. You're thinking too much into it.
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
Shakey said:
How could a gaming mag with maybe 5 employees ever make it in the real world? Especially when that market was already dominated by only a couple of huge magazines. You're thinking too much into it.
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Fiction compresses things. Have you seen how few people work at a major metropolitan TV station on the Mary Tyler Moore Show? PvP would be more realistic if they had more staff, but as it is they respresent the idea of gaming magazine's staff. The idea of a new start-up company surviving as an indie game distributor doesn't work. The idea of people working in an office of a gaming magazine worked, at least back when PvP started, and having less than a dozen characters was the concession made for it to work as a comic strip.
 
Shakey

Shakey

Because you were willing to let it work. You let it slide. The environment in the PvP offices has always been incredibly disconnected from the real world in every way. It worked because you didn't get caught up in the how. In the end it's about the jokes, not what they do. Maybe in the PvP world we're back a few years to when Steam and all the others weren't around. But really it doesn't matter. It's just a way to keep them in the business of games. Not some revolutionary business idea.
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
You're right, what matters is the jokes that are told. I'm just at a loss as to how this choice opens up good joke options.
 
Shakey

Shakey

It keeps them in the gaming field. Nothing funny really ever came from the fact that they worked at a magazine. It was because they were allowed to sit around, play games all day, and do silly stuff. This keeps them on track for that.
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
Then why not just switch to a gaming Youtube channel instead? Why the switch from gaming news to gaming distribution? If the idea was to maintain the status quo, then why not choose something even closer to what they'd been doing?
 
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