Recently I became fascinated by reading old journalism from
Tycho Brahe, starting from his perspective on artificial
intelligences. Tycho and Gabriel are the comic personas of
an author and artist doing comparatively gonzo game
journalism for the last three decades.
While I know about their comic from before I knew about
computers - when I thought my Warcraft 3 NE 1v1 ranking was
a serious part of who I was decades ago, I think it is now
interesting to ask why Tycho Brahe - a clear orphan of
Netscape - seems on the wrong side of some picket lines.
If you can imagine objecting to anything that has ever been
done in satire, do not look at the comics. One comes to mind
(well, I can't forget it) about the characters bonding over
the guilt they feel about visiting aquariums for their
sexual attraction to jellyfish. While gratuitously violent,
in my opinion they are not misogynistic at all.
Tycho Brahe in particular, the author character, cannily
scratch-builds and maintains custom gaming rigs, and has a
deep passion for computer hardware old and new. I don't have
a citation, but I believe I came across writing about the
imperative of open source in gaming once.
The pair struggled in their early decades of game journalism
compared to other game reviewers due to their strong
principles, needing to find ways to make their daily bread
other than taking money from the companies they were
reviewing the performance of.
All this said Tycho Brahe bashfully uses Windows, Microsoft
Edge Browser and has written pro-DRM. It's hard for me to
review this reviewer because I can't conceive of knowingly
touching a closed-source operating system or software, or
hence ever interfacing with digital restrictions management.
I feel guilty and morally compromised adding an
@binary-redistributable exception for proprietary wifi
drivers and do not own a phone. I have never played and will
never play any of the games under review.
I've buried the lede. Brahe writes extensively about the
corporate evils of freemium and DownLoadable Content
business models, especially those targetting children
gambling and has no illusions as to whether the video game
corporations are amoral or immoral morels growing on the
decaying body of his life-long love of gaming.
He is scathing about games that increasingly play
themselves, fostering a passive feeling of player
involvement to shepherd their carriers towards the
micropayment business model.
Brahe, like our own smoler anthonyg spoke out against
Wizard of the Coast's water-testing a new Open Gaming
License for the Dungeons and Dragons game rule setting they
own, which was controversial for whether they would be
legally allowed to exercise the dark powers granted them
thereby.
Brahe pioneered and leads the field of tabletop roleplaying
podcasts, which he did for and in coordination with Wizards
of the Coast to popularise their Dungeons and Dragons. He
and his team did this without pay, being allowed to sell D&D
t-shirts to help cover their costs until a published novel
tie-in paid their podcasters.
Their other income appears to be contributing writing and
art to small-time proprietary game companies, and then
promoting the games they have a stake in.
I would like to identify with, then morally improve Tycho
Brahe as a role model.
He writes thoughtful 500 word pieces prolifically on his own
website - should be geminispace or the gopher.
He reviews popular megacorporate proprietary video games for
proprietary operating systems, albeit scathingly. It is a
moral imperative to participate only with freedom-respecting
licenses. Except- it's hard to name a freedom-respecting
game at all. The dwarf fortress alpha, years ago? And even
that's kind of a smol reference point. But this brings us to
He should be writing (collectively, providing art to,
promoting, radio-showing) freedom-respecting game
initiatives (including businesses).
But- but- these joyous freedom-embracing gaming forests,
fjords, skies, oceans and badlands are a wholly virgin
expanse and there is the tinge of melancholia that corporate
reality must die in a train crash to get there (without
Susan).
https://linkerror.com:11175/Eternal/Eternal
