01Net Strikes Yet Again: Iwata near firing

[gumby_trucker]

LordTheNightKnight said:

gumby_trucker said:

LordTheNightKnight said:

gumby_trucker said:

I think this is a purely semantic misunderstanding, because that is precisely what I meant by "quality" as opposed to "quantity" which is usually used in reference to medicine and other such things. Entertainment makes your life more fun/interesting/whatever, which is why I said it was nonessential, unlike medicine, law-enforcement, supplying food and water etc.

I did not mean it as a moral reference, and I certainly do not believe entertainment should enforce certain moral values over others.

Well in that context, making games that please the customers is the way to go, not being "original" or "creative" because the artist wants to be and doesn't care what the customer thinks.

as long as the artist can make a living, he's entitled to do whatever he wants. Artists are people too, there's no reason why your or my enjoyment should be more important than anybody else's.

They get the enjoyment through our money and the satisfaction of a job well done. Art still has to be bought, and last I checked, who gives the money calls the shots.

That's actually how it's been throughout history. Art commisioned by patrons was made to their specs, not to what the artist wanted. Michelangelo only wanted to sculpt, but he took the money given to pain the Sisteen Chapel (and gave us perhaps the most iconic image of the Abrahamic God ever).

The customers pay money for the art. The artist doesn't pay us to enjoy the art. By the simple logic there, it's wrong to assume the artist gets to call the shots and we are expected to pay for it.

I never said that. I said that as long as the artist can make a living he can do whatever he wants. If he's making a living that means there are enough people out there enjoying his current work and willing to pay for it. Those might not be the same people who enjoyed his previous works, it doesn't matter - money is money.

If you are going to bring up Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel as an example of "the proper way of doing things", you might as well renounce capitalism and democracy in the same breath. I don't have to remind you that during the 15th and early 16th centuries, not only did the Roman Catholic church control every form of expression, from painting and sculpting to music and song, it also controlled the flow of money and many of the means of production. In other words, there wasn't a free market! If you wanted to provide a nonessential service, you worked for the church, or you didn't work at all. That's why it's a terrible analogy.

If you want to argue that Michelangelo did his best work because of the oppression he was subject to and not despite it, and that the ends justified the means in his case, then you must also believe that your own personal comfort and well-being are somehow more valuable to the world than his.