Automatic Concert: Jayhawk Records vs. Dividing By Zero Records

Erik Bates | March 2

I'd like to file an appeal re: Justin Bieber being an R3.

Steve West | March 2

I could not agree more. I'll sign the petition.

Scott Hardie | March 2

I agree; he should be higher. :-P

Erik Bates | March 2

You're lucky you haven't implemented "reaction" buttons on comments.

Scott Hardie | March 2

Erik Bates | March 2

click image to zoom

Scott Hardie | March 2

OK, let me get this all off of my chest, because it's been bothering me for a while.

To be serious: I do think Bieber deserves to be ranked higher, but more accurately, I don't think he belongs in the game at all, at least not yet.

Finding quotes about artists can be really hard sometimes. I do it because it's very satisfying to me to preface an artist's biography with a really great quote, but man, it ain't always easy to find one. So when I happened upon a cache of quotes from major artists praising other artists, I decided to use them all to save myself some time.

The first problem was, a good number of the artists that I found being praised were from pop music, and thus not entirely appropriate for a game that's supposed to focus on rock & roll. I'm fine with stars from other genres who have made rock music (Garth Brooks has, as has Taylor Swift), or even just crossover stars who have a certain appeal to rock fans because they're fun to include (who doesn't love Dolly Parton?). But so many pop-music additions at once created an imbalance; I should have introduced them more gradually. Incidentally, I think there are too many country and hip-hop stars in the game too, but those happened for other reasons.

The second problem was, I have a chip on my shoulder about taking pop music seriously as art (which is ridiculous because it's at least as legitimate as rock & roll), and that's especially true for younger pop stars who haven't been around long enough for us to appraise their contributions to our culture accurately. So when I added this batch of pop stars all at once, I under-ranked the first few, and then I under-ranked the rest to be consistent. As a result, not only do we have this batch of pop stars that don't feel like they belong here, but they're also all annoyingly way too low in the game's rankings. Adriana Grande is equivalent in stature to Blue Cheer or Godsmack or the Chantels? No, no way; even if she retired today, she'd be well ahead of them. So I'm fast-tracking the pop stars' promotions a bit to fix this, but it's still taking a while.

Bieber may or may not warrant a higher rank; we can debate that. But I think we can agree that we'd all be happier if I hadn't added him to the game yet in the first place. :-P

Erik Bates | March 2

We can always count on a well thought out reason for any changes or decisions you make regarding your games. It's always nice to know that it's not just some flippant thing that gets us where we are.

Scott Hardie | March 2

Erik Bates | March 3

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