Yes, I made this because Rags has a video arguing a pretty similar position but he did it so poorly that i felt sorry for him.

"Art is not made in a bubble, art is communication and has real world consequences" is a beautiful statement

I firmly believe this qualifies as a music video.

Really enjoyed this video, you raised a lot of thought-provoking points, and was a pleasure to proof read it. I think your point towards the end about being able to take away something positive from what could be considered a harmful product is an interesting one, it's hard to tell exactly what alternative realities would take place if we took a factor out of circulation. Although a creative person might see something positive in a possibly harmful/hateful product, it's hard to say whether they would've seen the same without that, maybe they would've stumbled on that idea through another product, and whether the possible negative effects are considerable enough to negate that, and that yields a further question of whether we have to confront those negative effects to fully understand them, or whether we will normalise them. The possible routes are completely endless. I always think about the idea of time travelling, and how things really are incredibly collateral. It's hard to exact the social effect of many pieces, as they are so subtle, and work in tandem with many other societal influences. It's why the rather disagreeable (imo) "video games cause violence" narrative was worked up for decades, because of the existence of so many other variables, many of which completely unrelated to entertainment altogether. Anyway, before I go too much off on a tangeant I'll say good video, loved the music, I like penis, and I look forward to what's to come.

PUBG uses a fair amount of assets from the Unreal marketplace, yet it managed to become a huge steam hit. Part of how it maintained a level of “acceptability” could be because the game doesn’t call attention to its use of pre-made assets (getting over it highlights its asset usage in narration) and that people liked the game, so no one gave a shit (for a while). I’d imagine that accusations of a game being an “asset flip” only come up when a game is considered bad by the discourse, causing everyone to try and dig through asset shops to try and find a match.

I am sitting here without my jacket and without my pants and want to learn how to dance

I don't know that I fully agree. For instance, I don't think curation and gatekeeping are the same thing (though there is some overlap between the two). You've conflated the two, ignoring that curation can play an important role in how art is presented and/or sold. I'd go so far as to argue that curation itself is an art form, which is why there will never be objective standards for curation. "Quality control" is more often than not done in the name of curation. While it may include gatekeeping at times, it doesn't need to. I agree gatekeeping is usually bad but there's nothing inherently wrong with wanting a curated experience. I also think many of these asset flips are made with malicious intent. Intent needs to be considered here. You've largely ignored it. Developers attempting to scam buyers (in more ways than just a poor experience) is more of a problem than developers flooding the market. I also think poor interface is a problem for Steam but that argument presupposes an interface that makes navigating all these games is possible (something that hasn't been demonstrated). I get what you're saying though. I think you make some good points. I enjoy your videos (even when I don't fully agree with your points) and your music.

There’s also the aspect of Steam being a platform run by actual people at some point. A school shooter game should have the right to exist somewhere, but I don’t think Valve has any obligation to be that game’s megaphone. You could say that there isn’t really any Steam competition, but that’s a flaw in the market.

That musical interlude hit me really hard. Not even sure why. Don't usually expect to tear up during a video essay but hey I'm fine with that

Much as I'm for your laissez-faire interpretation of art, I think I'm still onboard with Jim Sterling when it comes to cynical regurgitation of slapdash assets with no intent beyond trying to recoup the cost of buying the assets (if they even bought them in the first place) and/or making a few dimes in Steam's card market.

This is all great, but there's a fundamental point where I think I diverge from your perspective: You're using "asset flip" to describe any game largely made from pre-made assets. To me, an asset flip is a senseless assembly of pre-made assets *presented* as a game, but not intended for players to use (how Jim Sterling uses the term, as opposed to how flipping houses actually works). Flippers of this second kind thoughtlessly pile up whatever junk they can find, write their name on it, and sell it as something new. Getting Over It is great precisely because it's the antithesis of that: It's honest, it's purposeful, it's original, it's more than the sum of its parts, and it couldn't be made from anything other than junk. The problem with most asset flips isn't that they're shit, or that they're made from shit. It's their malicious intent. They're the troll posts and phishing emails of game development, and they give the people you talk about in your song a bad name.

Eric, you make some of the absolute best things (in my eyes).

You know, Hatred (just the existence of the game) gave me an idea for a different game where you play this giant, hulking, intimidating guy who just wants to make people happy and help them out with stuff. And the world starts out being dark and cold, but your character makes it brighter and happier. It would ideally end by you actually stopping the guy from hatred from blowing up the nuclear plant he blows up at the end by sympathizing with how he feels and explaining that hurting people won't make him feel any better, and that the Hatred guy can chose to live (or something like that). Then someone made Dropsy, and I was like, "Hey, someone more or less made that video game I kind of had a vauge idea for. That's neat." ...my point is that something deeply emotionally effecting may have come from Hatred, and that's kind of cool.

16:39 This kind of artsyle was actually used in a game before Hatred came out. A game called Madworld where the entire game is black and white with the only colors used being yellow for the UI, red for blood and blue for... alien... blood... It's actually very similar to hatred in that you're going around killing other people for fun, however instead of it just being you going on a rampage, you're on a game show and it's great. Play Madworld guys, it's on the wii and it's really good. I dont have anything else to contribute, I just got reminded of a good game because of that bit.

Hey! It’s my favorite KZfaqr and person-who-is-objectively-wrong-about-Undertales-Soundtrack!

I'm not buying this. An asset flip isn't a genre, it's a business practice, like shovelware or micro transactions. The dismissal of the significance of the existence of well thought-out level design in "Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy" is particularly uncalled for in that sense. The existence of well thought-out level design is precisely a sign that Bennett Foddy isn't getting engaging in the business practice of an asset flip. Just like the comedy game "I Can't Believe It's Not Gambling" is qualitatively different than the lootboxes in AAA games, despite the fact that it also technically has boxes that are filled with randomly generated loot. Defending asset flips on the grounds of combatting gatekeeping is like when big video companies try to defend lootboxes on similar grounds. Jim Sterling, who coined the term "asset flip" has an episode called "Talent is an Asset" where he clarifies the difference between an asset flip and a video game that makes use of assets. It kind of bugs me that so many attempts to defend asset flips ignore what Sterling actually said about them. The references to "unskilled labor" are also problematic. Digital Homicide isn't unskilled labor. It's unskilled capital. And Bennett Foddy's work is skilled, artisanal labor, made out of pre-made assets. Similarly, saying McDonald's makes crappy food isn't dismissing the role and rights of the unskilled laborers who are exploited by McDonald's. And opposing the environmental destruction caused by the fossil fuel industries doesn't mean being demeaning towards coal miners. But there are plenty of fast food moguls and coal barons who like to deliberately confuse these questions in order to fend off criticism. There are some legitimate concerns about how quality control on Steam could be misused to attack marginalized groups. Bennett Foddy himself has defended Steam's "anything goes" approach for this reason. And Jim Sterling also addressed this issue when Steam temporary removed a bunch of erotic visual novels in response to attacks from right-wing Christian fundamentalists, which disproportionately affected visual novels with queer themes. However, your solution of simply having better searching mechanisms is actually a non-solution. Search algorithms, like direct blocking of video games, serve as a way to give people easier access to certain games and less easy access to other games. If you're concerned about gatekeeping, then having search algorithms that specify certain games at the expense of others isn't actually solving the problem. Whether quality control is done through search algorithms or allowing only certain products. After all, KZfaq's sporadic algorithm changes have also penalized marginalized groups.

I consistently agree with your defenses of the existence and legitimacy of so called "bad art", but I do think there is a thin line you danced over without (enough) comment, and that is using deception to shill a game. At least some of the time, when people demand quality control on steam, they are talking about banning developers and games that delete negative reviews and discussions, obscure the actual nature of their game, or just sell non-functioning pieces of software (or as you mentioned, outright malware). I'm not suggesting you aren't aware of this distinction, I just think it could have used a more explicit mention. (Interestingly, this wouldn't even be a problem if we just stopped living IN A CAPITALIST NIGHTMARE HELLSC-) As to the latter part of the video, "censorship" is a strong word for what steam actually did, which was deplatforming. If Valve allows hate speech on steam, that means they are giving it a platform and bear partial responsibility for it. Not giving it a platform seems like the morally correct, or from their perspective, optically prudent decision. Censorship is something a lot of shitlords like to cry out, and I think calling what happened with Active Shooter "censorship" is giving them a bit too much credit.

Hey, Eric, this is my opinion regarding the last part: I believe that focusing on what an individual might gain from a work of art, in this context, is wrong. When we, as a society, ban hate speech (or death threats, or child pornography) we are not implying that literally no one could get anything of value by being exposed to such speech. But rather than we, as a society are worse off by having such speech around. Of course banning some forms of speech is a restriction of a very important right, so should be very careful to only ban that which is undoubtedly necessary. But, in my opinion, hate speech falls in that category.

Hi Eric, long time listener, first time caller! I wanted to respond to the thing about Active Shooter and Hatred, and subject matters being "beyond reproach". I'm pretty long winded when I write stuff, so be warned. It's also sorta tangential. I hope I make some sense. I'll start with saying that I generally agree with all that you said at the tail end of the video. "I want to make this, but good" is certainly something I endorse artists trying to do, but I think there are a couple things that require careful and conscious steps to avoid looking like an Active Shooter or Hatred kind of game. I think it is very important to tackle hard subjects, but I think it is equally important to take those subjects seriously enough to do them a service. Those two previously mentioned games don't really engage in the subject matter - they're built to shock, as you pointed out. More or less, no topic should be off limits, but context matters. Nobody wants a game about flying planes into a skyscraper that presents itself as a distraction. Nobody wants a game about blindly shooting people, but has nothing to say. Hatred, for instance, has no real message. You can read that as a message in itself, sure, but the art itself isn't doing anything to engage in the topic. In fact, imagine if the character in Hatred was more clearly presented as a member of either a real or fictional hate group, even if that is just in the form of a poster on the wall. Just that could have been enough to make it more clearly a commentary about senseless violence, rather than just presenting itself as "a video game where you shoot guns in the streets". I want to talk about some examples of subject matters that aren't taken seriously that you probably haven't seen, as they're from the board game realm, rather than video games. Board gamers have a descriptive phrase, "Pasted-on theme". This refers to a game being about a topic, but the game itself feels like it could be about anything. Sure, the game calls them "spices", but really it just feels like I'm converting two yellow cubes into one red cube, which I sell for 3 green cubes, which I can use to buy 5 yellow cubes, rinse and repeat. I mention this because I think Active Shooter would probably be considered a pasted-on theme, as the game as presented could be about many things other than a school shooting. Also, none of these things were big ticket controversies. All of them were the subject of very adult and reasonably civil discussions, many of them involving the designers of the games. Board games are much more niche than video games, after all. "Five Tribes" is a board game set in a sort of Arabian Nights setting. Mechanically, it is about distributing pieces around the board to collect stuff, like a juiced up version of Mancala. One of the types of pieces are Merchants, which let you take cards from the market. Market cards come in two varieties: Commodities, which you collect and sell large sets of them for points, and Slaves, which are used as more or less a disposable resource. And it is those slave cards where all of the outrage was pointed towards. Slavery, while a pretty distant memory in a lot of ways, isn't the kind of topic that I think people like to see taken lightly. And here comes a game that uses slaves as a mere token, meant to be discarded. Five Tribes is an abstract enough game that those slave cards could have been anything, and it would have felt similar in terms of serving the theme of the game. It could have been called "Assistants", "Magic Rubies that summon Genies" (because slave cards could be used to conjure Genie cards), or even just "1 Gold Coin, good for buying any sort of thing you want". It didn't have to be a slave, so why make it a slave? The publisher's response to this was to offer replacement cards, "Fakirs", to replace the slave cards. This confirmed, for some people, the notion that there really wasn't any real thought put into the idea to make those cards specifically slaves. Five Tribes wasn't about slavery, but still, it treated slaves on the same mechanical level as a Wild Card in Uno. Just as video games have a million games about "shooting stuff to win the day", board games have a million "trade spices around the Mediterranean Sea" games. But they also have a lot of games about Colonialism. Both of those themes are commonly used as a lightweight wrapper to apply theme to a game that would otherwise have no art. Collect resources to build houses -> "explore" new territories to put those houses -> set up trade routes to score points. If you want to Google some of these games just to read the back of the box descriptions, I'm pointing at "Santa Maria", "Puerto Rico", and "Manitoba". Manitoba in particular is a fun little read, to see how they (failed to) pay respects to the subject matter in the box art. Secret Hitler is a perfect example of a game trying to engage in a touchy topic, and failing or succeeding with people. Nobody in the game knows who is and who isn't part of the Fascist and Liberal parties, and certainly nobody knows who is Hitler, who is played by a player that can end the game prematurely if they are either shot or elected Chancellor, after a certain amount of government policies take place. It's a game about deception and trust, listening to people's words and translating them in your head. Obviously, WW2 is a theme done in every art medium, but not as many of them put you in the shoes of the Axis power government. And certainly not in the way Secret Hitler does it, which is in a very "drink beers and have a party" kind of game. "This Guilty Land" is a game about American politics leading up to the Civil War. One criticism I've heard leveled against it is that it doesn't convincingly engage with the theme. Slightly abridged quote from a podcaster, Mark Bigney - "Very quickly, you feel like you are just pushing pieces around. Which isn't just a miss opportunity , but desperately unfortunate. The game is about the political struggle around slavery, and the moment you write slavery out of the narrative and [the game] becomes a purely mechanical experience, that gets straight into problematic territory." He goes on to talk about how the game felt detached from the theme. All of this is meant to be a different kind of take. None of these games were censored, and none of them were going for shock value. But, in one way or another, they fail to engage in their chosen theme. If you want an example of a board game that does engage with its theme well, "Twilight Struggle" is a classic Cold War board game that does engage with the theme in a pretty good way. I hope that wasn't too boring to read! I really enjoy your essay work.

If I could have one request it would be for video game essays like these to include links in the description to content referenced in them (like the VideoGameDunkey one) so we can easily check those out. Thank you. Great essay. I've been thinking about this topic a lot, especially about finding value in trash and how it seems a lot of people are too easily jumping to the "X means Y" conclusions. You've given me a little more arguments to chew on. And I LOVE when people present multiple viewpoints and are not afraid of uncertainty and lack of final solutions. Such a rare and valuable thing.

this is art.

Your honesty in your uncertainty when coming to conclusions to your ideas/arguments is extremely refreshing to see. It takes a lot of courage to admit to a public audience that you don't have a clear answer to the problem you're discussing.

Heya Eric! I work at a studio that makes interactive exhibits, and “asset flips”, or at least specifically purchasing assets, are incredibly important for our work. Often, we struggle to get our projects made on time and purchasing assets or tools to use in the process of creating our work helps us greatly. personally, I view the things that we create as completely unique, worthwhile creations. In all honesty, what makes asset flipping necessarily distinct from finding open source code online? Or free assets that you take and change around, or just use outright? Is it the money that we spend on those assets? Something I’ve thought about a lot. I’ve been viewing art as this much more fluid definition as of late, and I definitely think your videos have helped me reassess how I view not only my own art, but all art.

this is like a giant @ at jim sterling

I'm listening to that song next time I try anything new. It's really inspiring to me, it makes me feel better about my incompetence and stuff.

The best way to make your point is to break into song.

this is where the theory of analyzing and creating art start to rubs up against the actual material consequences of art in the real world. let's not beat around the issue, art can be a powerful recruitment tool, and allowing hate speech to run rampant on one of the largest distribution platforms for games is not just reckless, it potentially physically dangerous for those in the line of fire from these movements. then again, even things not produced with the intention of being hate speech can be co-opted and used as a rallying cry by bigots. does this mean we should we should ban anything that can potentially be read as hate speech? how do we draw a distinction between something like fight club, a deliberate satire of masculinity worshiping proto-fascism that was widely interpreted by many as a genuine endorsement of said ideology, and something like birth of a nation, which was intended as genuine propaganda and is largely credited with inspiring a resurgence in the kkk as a movement? i honestly have no idea, but the question keeps me up at night.

I just woke up from a pretty bad nightmare and this video is what I'm watching first thing. The song in the middle really made my morning better. Your channel is insanely under subbed but I'm trying by watching through your backlog as I just found your channel myself a few days ago 💜💜

Brilliant video man. I've been modding the Jim Sterling discord for a bit while also trying to make the case for asset flips myself since I feel it's one of his positions that can indeed get very gatekeepy and dissuade folks from ever attempting to create games. It's so good now to be able to use this video as an example of points I've tried making, but put so much better and more succinctly with your branded Eric Taxxon aesthetic.

This video is shockingly beautiful, just to look at. I love your style and its so clear that you put so much care and work into it. Definitely one of my favorite people on youtube!

I never thought to question the value of asset flips, so in that sense you’ve given me a lot to think about. I think your premise is flawed in that you’re conflating “asset flips have the right to exist.” With “asset flips have the right to exist on steam.” In which I disagree. Broken, awful games may have value, but they obscure and clog the storefront and make it nigh impossible to navigate without algorhmic suggestions. This denies visibility to struggling developers with talent. No one can be the objective gatekeeper of talent. But Games are held to standards, art is held to standards and those standards may be malleable, they may change - but that doesn’t give games a free pass onto Steam’s library. Also as a platform, if Steam abdicates any curational responsibility then it fails its audience and allows for a toxic environment to develop. Just look at the swathe of broken, irresponsible, or hateful games Valve tacitly endorses.

9:10 asset flip song "lets kick it up!"

17:58 "in today's political climate"

Every once in a while, I return to this video just to listen to the song. It makes me feel emotions I cannot describe and it is just. The best thing

A lot of this can be said about almost any current trend. Is lo-fi hiphop and vaporwave bad genres of music? No, in fact there are some tracks I like. It's just a lot of people in the genre are very... mediocre at making a compelling piece of it. They're not bad, but they're also not good, and sure you could say "that's the point, it's ironic and a parody" but that's a cop-out if you ask me. Punk rock went through this same phase back when it was starting to become mainstream (which was somewhere in the mid 70s into early 80s I believe?) where a lot of new sceners had the voice, the structure, etc. down, but they never had a clear or interesting message, nor did they establish any new or groundbreaking techniques. Did they have to? No, not really. But you still have to try to differentiate yourself, even in a saturated environment where that becomes increasingly difficult. This also happened with Radiohead. I remember A LOT of people got pissy about Thom Yorke taking a weird experimental route with Kid A, but I loved it, because by the time that dropped, there all of these alt rock bands that were starting to mimic his sound. Couple that with some failed deals and writer's block, and you got an impressive piece of history. Asset flips, in short, are similar to most types of art, wherein the concept itself isn't inherently bad, just how it is used.

In which Eric Taxxon uncovers the obvious and yet somehow elusive revelation: it's not the fault of the art, or the artist, but of the market.

this is one of those pieces that turns the lefty video essay into an artform. it's great .

I love this video so much it's so warm and comforting and inspires me to build something new!

My main artistic outlet is the poetry night at the Cantab Lounge, whose main event is the open mic. This makes me think of two things: One: it is vitally important to provide platforms for bad art, because the more space you provide for bad art, the more space you provide for good art. And most good artists start out as bad or mediocre. In the wise words of Jake the Dog: "sucking at something is the first step towards being kinda good at something." If you don't like a poem, just go to the bathroom or something. Two: at the beginning of the open mic, the host lays out some ground rules, three minutes on the mic, etc. One of the things they say is that this is an exercise in free speech: that does not mean freedom from the consequences of your speech. Also this does not include hate speech. Hate speech will get you booted. Do they define what hate speech is? No. You know what it is, and you will be booted.

Aye Patricia, when are you going to release a single for "rocket ship" on bandcamp or something? I keep re-watching this video because it's so dope

Video essays with musical detours is the hot new wave i hope you invent

this is really touching as someone who has spent a long time working on Unity thank you again

I thought the song you made was a blank banshee track when it first started 10/10

i keep coming back to this video and song. how is something so simple as two starry sky photos layered over each other spinning slowly one of the most beautiful things i’ve seen on youtube? like it gives me an acid flashback.

So far, after watching a bunch of your content, most of the music I've heard from you gives me a weird feeling of weird, "anxious" nostalgia. It gives me the feeling of something comforting that I know but I can't put my finger on what it's making me try to remember and, with one of my biggest fears being forgetting important things/being forgotten, it really fucks with me. This isn't a critique or criticism, your work is amazing, it just garners a very strange reaction for me. Love your stuff, keep doing what you're doing, and my apologies if this is incoherent. 🧡

Brilliant video, comrade. Didn't even know I'd watch a 20 min video on this subject. Amazing as always.

"hey to the kid throwing ott on the mix" legendary

Artistic freedom, like freedom of speech is inherently paradoxical and the reason it is so self-contradictory is because of measurable and objective real life factors that go beyond individual interpretation. You could throw the first third of your video right back at the last third and you'd essentially break the argument. "We shouldn't allow fascist propaganda and maliciously bigoted content onto a large platform as it objectively harms people" "well art and the meaningfulness of that art is entirely subjective and to deny that art a platform is just gatekeeping and doing the world a disservice" Maybe I'm wrong but it kind of seems like you want to have your cake and eat it too. "There is no such thing as objectively bad art.... Except for hate speech I guess". You are essentially contradicting yourself by making a (true) objective claim. I think Lindsay Ellis's video on Death of The Author explains it best when she says that this post structuralist approach to art criticism is ultimately flawed in describing the world as it is now since it (unintentionally or not) assumes all art is essentially created equal and you even bring attention to this fact towards the end which just makes the initial arguments all the more baffling to me.

How will the "objective critics" recover from this?

Vampire Survivors was literally an asset flip that went on to become a sensation

saw this for the first time since it released again because you referenced the video on twitter and I'm happy to say I agree way more with your point now than I did three years ago

Gotta say, this changed my mind about the utility of asset flipped games. I mean, I'm still VERY squeamish about asset flipping myself, but I at least don't judge other people for doing it now.

The song you made for this is making me cry happy tears, thanks!!!!

*scrambles to rewind the last 5 seconds*

this video is objectively good

I come back to this video incredible often, mostly because of that little song in the middle. It's so catchy and heartwarming

referring to videogamedunkey as Mr Dunkey is one of the most absurd and hilarious things ive ever heard

can I just say that I love the fact that you are actually an artist yourself and not solely a media critic? we need more of people like you

This is my first time hearing the lower end of your vocal register, it's nice

leT'S KICK IT UP

The song in this is a fucking banger. Good shit man

Loved the fact that you used the same "let's kick it up" sample as in Dead Inside

Honestly, some cynical cashgrab asset flips can actually be kinda fun. Played a few multiplayer asset flips with a friend once that we got in a pack of like, 50 games for a dollar, and despite how clearly awful they were, we still had a good time playing them, even though the games barely worked. In fact, a lot of asset flips would make a great framework for a more serious game and I feel like there will be great devs in the coming years, if they aren't already around, who got their start making asset flips to sell on steam for 50 cents.

I love that there are 4 minutes of music in between

man, eric, the musical number is a confidence contagion machine. it has this way of quieting my artistic 'mister-not-good-enough' (see philosophy tube). thanks.

So like, here's a thought: have one Steam for everyone, where you banish shoddy asset flips and hate speech to the shadow realm, and another Steam that's only moderated in cases of direct user to user harassment. There isn't a finite amount of space on the Internet. We can have our cake and eat it too. Granted that might well not work, but it's just an idea off the top of my head.

Just wanna start by saying that Eric's video on "what even is art?" is almost mandatory to better understand where he's coming from. Anyhow (and I might put this in a separated comment): I detest hate speech as much as anyone here (given you subscribe to the main points of view found in this channel, Shaun's, Hbomer Guy, CountraPoints, etc). However, what is and isn't such is incredibly person dependent. My sensibilities will never match yours and yours will never match anyone else's. So, even trying to put a filter in art like "not hate speech" or "no blatant hate speech" is incredibly thorny, if not impossible. Or is it, right? Just by reading that, the idea can sound preposterous. For instance, we could all agree (or not, lol) that putting the image of a middle finger on the bottle of a children's drink, isn't a good idea. (Please humour me, I understand this argument can be quite nuanced, but I'm typing this on my mobile and this comment is already long enough.)

Counterpoint: Assuming authorial intent and trying to understand it is infinitely more fun, rewarding and makes art more way interesting than taking whatever baggage you have with you into a piece of art and only ever viewing things through the logic and thought process you would have naturally. I've learned so much from wanting to understand something, reading up on the historical context of it and the life of it's creator. I think if I'd attempted to search for the meaning of a piece of art solely within myself, I wouldn't have grown or changed for the better in the ways I have.

In the anime-esque space, Voltron and Robotech ar good and bad examples of how an asset flip can become its own thing. Voltron was an asset flip of two different anime that has now become its own fully fleshed out entity. Robotech as well for all its flaws is a hell of an asset flip of 3 different shows made into one grand epic that I still think can stand on its own Oh see Power Rangers too.

holy fuck that mukokuseki verse

Holy shit man, that song in the middle was fucking transcendental.

eric THE SONG IS SO NICE I LOVE IT

I think for the sake of archiving and research and just the fact that book burning of any kind is bad. I think with warnings clearly labeled that said content has been deemed hateful then it could be available to download on steam but cannot be profited off of. Saying there is content we cant see because the goverment or corporation deemed it bad for us puts them in a powerful position too that's far too dangerous imo.

for anyone interested the main question for part 1 of this video and Taxxon's Golden Calf one is explored extensively by Kant in the Critique of Judgment and well summarized by Luc Ferry in i don't know what book. I had that as reading material for an Aesthetics class in college a few years ago. I don't know if he mentions this later in the video, I apologize if he does.

These videos you do on art are some of my favorites on this whole site. They've really made me do a lot of thinking about my opinions on objectivity and 'merit' in the arts in the last year or so; your takes on this matter are extremely deep and powerful. And also, the songs you put into these are super, super good. Seriously they blow my mind.

i dont even think we would have to sort through a barrage of garbage asset flips to get goods. people who know how to make good games know how to make good games. its almost like a collage art if you use asset flips. there are people who havent honed their visual art eye and they make “bad” collages and then there are people who are really good at visual art and make amazing collages. people who know how to make good games know how to make good games the end. if you used asset flips you might be able to make a good game even faster and cheaper. also there would be (i guess there are now) a dedicated community to making assets and the more of those people there are the better the game the people who use them will make. also that song is great and has been stuck in my head for a few days. the editing makes me have acid flashbacks i fucking love it.

I believe "Hatred" used the selective coloring motif to evoke the idea of an event viewed through security camera footage. Most Americans are familiar with the idea of seeing this kind of violence recorded from security cameras in the area, especially before the wide-spread use of cellphones with cameras. At least that's what I took from it. If this is the case, the game didn't just use it to look cool but actually actively chose it to compliment the game's style and theme. Even in a crappy game made only the stir up controversy, there is still one choice made with artistic merit.

Always such great vibes and dope ideas Eric

I like how the latter half of this argument is a song

Some of the most fun and memorable experiences I've had from Steam were bargain bin asset flips, and I appreciate that asset stores exist for creators that don't have the time or resources to hire dedicated artists or a coding team to build everything, especially solo acts and those just dipping their toes. It's not difficult to get a feel as a player whether a flip is a cynical cash grab or a genuine effort within Steam's refund threshold, and even then, such games are often cheaper than food. Steam's become more and more ill-suited to expressing as much, unfortunately. I also lean pretty hard toward the "keep hate off storefronts" end of things, but if we can't just keep it clean, I kind of like your points re: hate speech often undermining itself. It'd be kind of nice to see more work showing just how hate often shoots its own attempts at message in the foot, if it even bothers having a message at all. Something along the lines of how hateful KZfaqrs get picked apart and shown for what they are rather than just mocking their production values and calling it a day.

What if Eric Taxxon is a multimedia interactive art piece

This is an excellent video. I agree with you about keeping hateful garbage off Steam, though an alternative might be to implement filters for such content. Depends on what lengths the developers might go to get around them, I suppose.

I'm genuinely grateful people like you exist, your video response "the truth about why your mixes are GREAT" helped convince me to start recording music again and putting it out there, such as it is. I'm not sure how you feel about that video now or if you'll read this, but it described a feeling I'd had for a long time about most mainstream music understanding, make the music sound as crispy as possible whilst ignoring wider elements that something not quite so crispy would achieve. Which helped me listen past the cruder elements of my recordings, and over time making me a better musician overall for just giving it a damn try. This video cemented that over 2 years later, and I want to thank you very much for it. Please continue doing excellent music and inspiring people!

I like to make the jokey-jokes every now and then too, but you've made a lot of good points. I'm not one for 𝑮𝑨𝑴𝑬𝑹 𝑶𝑼𝑻𝑹𝑨𝑮𝑬 (as fun as it is to watch sometimes) and never really got more than a chuckle out of the blatant asset flips as they came out, but your take that garbage (subjectively) work shouldn't detract from the validity of and access to smaller and more novice works really hit home for me. Also your take on the nuance of artwork vs medium for vile propaganda in these paces was also a hot take I wasn't expecting, one that left me wanting for that HATRED selective coloration filter being put to good use ASAP.

I love you my respect for you has gone up so much wow

My favorite quote and one of my favorite defenses for pretty much any artistic sub group of is "90% of everything is crap." Even if there are a lot of bad asset flips, there are also a lot of bad games that aren't. If the issue is that bad games are getting on Steam, then there's no real reason to target asset flips specifically because there will continue to be bad games regardless.

Important to note that the dude that masterminded Hatred ended up being outed as a neo-nazi, as well. We truly do live in a society.

I love every video more than the last one ❤💛💙

just watched the videogame dunkey video you mentioned, and wow I'm slightly surprised, but yeah he deffinetly nails it.

I agree with this so fucking hard.

You put a random song in the middle of this video, wow. I would love to be that good at makinh music

The song is at 9:13 for those of you coming back to listen to it

I think another problem with the edge games you highlighted toward the end is their intent isn't for the sake of expressing art or making a statement, rather just to shock and create headlines. Even if there is something you could make out of the darkest elements of those games, why should we encourage that kind of behavior and risk losing genuinely inventive and creative minds who may be turned off by games like this being allowed on the platform? Not to mention just because the game is no longer on the platform, doesn't mean it no longer exists. A developer can see what a game like Hatred tried to do and still be inspired to make something better. Sure, it could instinctively get shoved off of Steam because of subject matter alone, but I like to believe gamers and games journalism can tell the difference between shock bait and genuine artistic expression. Anyway, gonna be mad at how good the musical number is the rest of the day.

Hi I just wanted to say that for like a short bit now I've been watching ur vids and I need to take a break and calm down given how many times I've gone "FINALLY, SOMEONE GETS IT"

9:12 Why is this song so catchy? I LOVE IT!

aside re: chiptunes - you gotta check out blitz lunars' "triptunes", kfaraday and the "STAFFcirc" series (on bandcamp), and zan-zan-zawa-veia. norrin radd's "anomaly" is dope too. the deep end of chiptune is where all the fun stuff is.

your intellectual integrity and honesty is incredibly admirable, man. you pointing out your own errors of judgement in the past (the chiptune thing) and being willing to move past them in order to have a more holistic approach to art is really something i respect. i love your video essays.

as somebody who's been making games as a hobby their entire life, the song in the middle resonated with me deeply. I've been part of numerous online communities through the years, and some of the best and most inspiration work I've ever seen has been the stuff that is rough around the edges -- yet, you can see the effort and inspiration behind it. I've since lost those projects to my old harddrive, and I'm pretty sure they don't exist on the internet anymore, but they exist through the work me and many other people who were once part of those communities put out. to say that work like that shouldn't be exposed to consumers is stifling the potential mix of influences that could lead to something truly remarkable someday. I watched this video a year ago but I wanted to drop this comment because I've been thinking a lot about the fragmented game development community, and I found myself watching this video again. thanks for the content.

Oh I love that 'no' - 7:55

Really fascinating! I've never really considered the concept of taking hate-speech games and reworking them into more useful products. I still lean on banning them, but I think even then positives can come from it. It's a perspective I didn't think of previously. One thing I do wonder is that there's one pro-QC argument you didn't address: Visibility. It's a very common fear among a lot of developers for steam games that, with literal hundreds of games being released per day, that no one will take notice of their art.