Penny Arcade Makes Time 100 196
Precision noticed that Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins of Penny Arcade fame have made the Time 100. The writeup talks about Child's Play and PAX and lavishes deserved adoration upon the pair. I've always envied their ability to maintain control over their brand and use it for appropriately portioned good and evil ;)
Good for them (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm a big fan of the brand and PAX, but I really have a hard time finding anything enjoyable about their writing.
Perhaps 1 out of 10 comics are interesting and most often the writing drones on like I'm reading Moby Dick
"I scrolled up and down my Steam library yesterday, listlessly, without so much as a remembered thrill; all I wanted to do was play Blur for some reason, something I hadn't picked up in weeks but whose thirsting fronds were reaching up through some mental fissure. After a few rounds to loosen up, quite organically I found myself in a Party discussing the events of the day. The conviviality and natural flow of the conversation began to disintegrate as the race progressed, slowing and then ceasing altogether, like the dwindling reports from a bag of microwave popcorn."
I saw that in their post yesterday (Score:4, Interesting)
When they commented that they have a bigger voice than Roger because the last time they checked they where above Oprah on the Time top 100 list.
I was like "NO WAY!" so I went, did some fact checking, and then voted to put them up to #1!!
Click the link here http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1972075_1976159,00.html [time.com]
To vote for them!
Re:Childs Play (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow. It's hard to find the words. Yeah, there are reasons to be cynical about corporate charities, like how tobacco company Philip Morris spent tons more on advertising about how charitable it was than on actual charity...
Right, or a great example today I heard on the radio. KFC is trying to raise $8.5 million to donate to cancer research. They're doing this by selling pink buckets of chicken at something like $8/pop, and donating $0.50 of each. This is the typical cynical corporate method of charity contributions: Making their donation dependent on product sales, advertising this fact, and thus trying to directly leverage their "generosity" into increased product sales. I wouldn't be surprised if they expected the extra sales to completely offset the donation itself.
If, instead, KFC just donated $8.5mil directly, even wrote that off their taxes, and didn't spend millions advertising their generosity, that would be fine. Getting some PR benefit out of charity is okay with me.
But dude, you can't let that cynicism blind you to real charity. I don't think you have any idea how hard volunteers for Child's Play work every year.
Yeah, he obviously has no idea what Child's Play is all about. There are a million easier ways to get the same tax benefit.
I have heard nothing, not even a rumor, of any funds from PA revenues being somehow 'laundered' through CPC.
Well I don't know about that, but I have heard rumors [penny-arcade.com] of foul play at the CP auction. ;)
Re:Childs Play (Score:3, Interesting)
The money comes into PA from ads and whatnot, they direct most (if not all) of it Childs Play (therefore writing it all off as a 'donation' to themselves), and set themselves up as administrators (therefore avoiding paying payroll taxes).
Where's your source for this? Everything I've heard about the way Child's Play is set up is that they distance it from PA Inc. as much as possible for two reasons. The first being that they don't want the image of the comic to draw ire towards the charity. Secondly, they don't want the possible collapse of their company to take down the charity.
The *very* broken clock. (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems is easy to be a guru on the internet. You can make lots of weird predictions, and some will be right.
Like this 2006 comic:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/05/01/ [penny-arcade.com]
And this today news:
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/54532/Activision-Bungie-Sign-Ten-Year-Publishing-Partnership [ign.com]
And this part of the reason Penny Arcade is still relevant.. theres a lot of predictions, and some are right.
Re:You want funny? Go to Zero Punctuation! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Popularity contest (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyone know if they fixed the massive flaws from last year that allowed 4chan to precisely control the top 21 entries to spell "marblecake also the game"?
Re:The it's-not-funny-but-we-laugh-anyway loop. (Score:1, Interesting)
I find some of XKCD funny, but I probably find a higher percentage of XKCD Sucks [blogspot.com] funny.
Re:The it's-not-funny-but-we-laugh-anyway loop. (Score:1, Interesting)
People only pretend to like things that are popular with what they consider their peer-group.
Usually things get popular by starting with a single person or small group of people that are influential within that peer group. The rest follow them.
Re:Childs Play (Score:3, Interesting)
You're so full of shit.
One of my fondest possessions is a thank-you card with crayon drawings on it I received from Tulane's Children's Hospital in New Orleans for some video games I sent them through CP a couple years back. The donations get to the kids, and it really does make their lives better.
Re:The it's-not-funny-but-we-laugh-anyway loop. (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe I'm a freak, but I have actually read an excerpt from one of the Twilight novels (I have a Kindle and downloading samples is very easy). It really is as terrible as the uninformed haters make it out to be, possibly worse. I also enjoy many things of dubious quality, my reading, gaming, television and movie preferences would make a critic in the field squeal. Its all about being honest with yourself, and giving things a fair shake. And, I'm sorry, but Twilight is awful.