*sticks a "Warning: Contents under pressure" sticker on RA's forhead*
Joel Fagin wrote:It's worth noting, I think, that gaming comics are pitched towards the exact demographic that likes violent, crude, mean spirited humour. That is to say, 15-25 year old males.
I mean, look at GTA. Whatever other sterling qualities the game posesses, you could still beat up protitutes, gun down innocents, drive dangerously and kill cops, all for fun.
It's also, not incidently, a very large demographic on the web. Heck, the web was basically created by and for them. So, yes, get it right and you'll have an enormously popular comic which people outside the key demographic will quite possibly loathe with a passion for it's lack of depth or subtley.
- Joel Fagin
I don't think that's totally true. I'm a gamer, and I'm probably the most passive, non-agressive person you're likely to meet. As for GTA, the beauty of the game was in the design, not the content. Narc had worse, but was horribly made, which is why it started out at $19.99. Because it was a piece of crap trying to use all the flash of GTA with none of the quality. Also, if you play any of the GTA games, you'll realize that a lot of the stuff you're talking about, I.E. gun down innocents, beat up hookers, and kill cops, are rarely, if ever actually required to beat the game. The simple fact is that you're allowed to do it. Whether you decide to depends on you. People tend to overlook this when judging games like this. Also, there is a heavy anti-drug message in the game. NONE of the main characters have ever accepted drugs when offered, and a couple of them tried to get people they knew off of them. There's a lot more to the GTA series if people are willing to get past the other stuff.
Anyway, about this in general. I find CAD alright. But I'm also easily entertained. I thought a lot of the stuff that other people here did was funny too. I think the first strip that Reclamare did was pretty funny. But honestly, I liked CAD's version of his last strip. Why? Because even though , 'Oh look, he hasn't played games. He's going through withdrawls.' is simple, straight forward, and doesn't take much to process, at it's core it's still funny, because anyone who is a gamer knows that feeling.
Gaming comics, even though seemingly popular, are still very hard to make appealing to the masses. Penny Arcade manages it because they mostly mix their game comics with comics about the latest thing happening in the gaming industry, and sometimes things that don't have to do with games at all. (Like FruitF*cker and DivX). VGcats (Which I'm guessing stands for Video Game Cats), is more about the games, but the writer makes his jokes in a way that even if you don't really know the game he's talking about, it's still very funny. I like a lot of gaming comics, but for people who have never played the games, or just play them casually, a lot of inside-joke comics about a game is not going to appeal to anyone who doesn't care about the game. And that's a LOT of people. But I don't think gaming comics are under attack in this thread. Having been around here as long as I have, I know that this is just one of those, 'Hahaha! I did something funny! Look!' threads. So there's no reason to take any of this to heart. You should have been around for the 'I hate spikey hair' thread, brought to us by McDuffies. (Which turned out to be a ploy just to stir people up. McDuffies is good at that, but that's why we love him. ^_^).
Anyway, this is getting long. There's more to say, probably, but I can't think of anything else right now. So rawr. =P
