Mental Kombat Label Contest!

[jahfish]

hey guys, really calm down ....

 

if simon wouldn't have started this contest, he might have done his label himself .... and you'd have to cope with it!

 

also be happy that there were so many nice labels to see ..... it's a real nice feeling to see so much new stuff .... i have a collection of more than 6000 pics, so you can imagine that i rarely see 20 new atari-items at once .... i'd say never.

 

and if you can't stop critisizing after you lost, you should never ever enter a contest again ....

 

that's life.

 

yes, life is hard.

 

and i thought we artists know this best!

[moycon]

Well put Jah

[Atmims]

It's sounds like this contest was a joke to most of you people that say Simons label decision wasn't important. I think the label is important to a game, if it's a good game and has a good label then overall it's even better. The label design was important to me even though it wasn't my game because I would like for once to see a homemade game with a cover that a lot of work was put in to it. The only game labels I know of that use already made artwork are pirated games and I don't think Simon intended this to be like a pirated game.

I knew the enemy mine label was a copy as soon as I saw it but I wasn't gonna mention this on the message board because I didn't think that design would win because I figured it was obvious it was a copy just like Jason's Scanners label. I figured both of Jason's designs were done as jokes and they weren't worth mentioning on the message board. I thought both were funny labels, but in know way should win.

I think you people saying that you agree with Simon's decision on the contest are gonna feel a little stupid when you find out that Simon wouldn't have picked that deesign if he knew it was copied. If Simon picked Jason's design knowing it was copied from Enemy Mine then this contest was just as much of a joke to him as it is you.

Adrian Mims

[Mindfield]

Man, I'd be surprised if we see such a contest again after all this. I'm surprised there are those who feel so incredibly strongly about this. Sure, many of us feel there were plenty of better designs than the one that won -- but then we've all got our own opinions on which ones we personally felt were the best designs, too. That includes Simon. He liked John's winning entry the best, and that's the one he chose. Legal issues and moral compasses aside, John's label struck Simon's fancy more than any others, so that's the one Simon picked and he was well within his rights to do so. It was his contest, after all. If he cared at all about copyright infringement, he would have said something earlier on. For that matter, he wouldn't have specified that he wanted the Atari fonts, name or logo on his design; after all, other than it running on their old machines, the game is nothing to do with Atari proper.

[Atmims]

It's Jason that won, not "John" whoever that is.

[videotwit]

Its funny how most of the people complaining about this are newbies to the board (less than a dozen posts in most cases).

 

All I have to say is give it up, people. This is supposed to be fun. Once a hobby becomes not fun anymore, its no longer worth pursuing, so quit your bickering about which label YOU think should have been chosen, and give some credit to the game designer. He has spent way more effort to produce this game than all the contest entrants put together.

 

In the big picture, does it really matter who won? Or how they won? I think not.

[moycon]

quote

I knew the enemy mine label was a copy as soon as I saw it but I wasn't gonna mention this on the message board

 

You didnt have to I picked it as cool during the first few days of the contest...would've been a perfect time to chime in with your opinion if you felt this strongly about it.

 

quote

I think you people saying that you agree with Simon's decision on the contest are gonna feel a little stupid when you find out that Simon wouldn't have picked that deesign if he knew it was copied.  

 

I'm going to assume (god I hate doing that) That you've spoken with Simon about this and know his feelings towards it all...If not you might feel more than a little stupid calling everyone who doesn't mind the decision a little stupid.

 

In the end we all are going to feel stupid when Al and Alex tell us there will be no more label contests. Sad

[legeek]

jahfish and twit: right on!

 

As someone who entered the contest, it was fun to see all the different entries. Would I have picked a different label? Yes. Would I have picked mine? No, actually! But so what? It's Simon's game!

 

As far as the Enemy Mine image use, yeah it's a grey area, but it's not like this puppy is going to be sold at EB and Walmart.

 

Thanks for having the contest!

 

-le geek

[Atmims]

quote:

---

Originally posted by twit:

In the big picture, does it

really

matter who won? Or how they won? I think not.

---

 

I think it matters who won! If it doesn't matter to you who won then quit commenting because it doesn't matter to you.

All you people that pretend it doesn't matter to you are the ones that turned this into an argument.

 

quote:

---

Originally posted by moycon:

I'm going to assume (god I hate doing that) That you've spoken with Simon about this and know his feelings towards it all...If not you might feel more than a little stupid calling everyone who doesn't mind the decision a little stupid.

 

In the end we all are going to feel stupid when Al and Alex tell us there will be no more label contests. Sad

---

 

No, I haven't emailed Simon and NO I won't feel stupid. I will be suprised though, If I was going to have a contest to have people do a label for my game I wouldn't pick a copy (knowing it was a copy) when there are great label designs that looked just as good and were original.

 

This is a hopeless argument. I'm just waiting for Simon's comments now and that's it. It'll be sad if there is never another label contest because this one was fun. Maybe all this will make the next contest have some rules that'll bring out more original ideas.

 

Adrian Mims

[videotwit]

Adrian-

 

You're missing the "big picture" part of my post. It just seemd to me that by going on and on complaining about who won the contest (and how) that you're seeming like a poor loser.

 

Don't get me wrong -- I am very intersted in seeing fan-designed labels. I have been making them myself for over 5 years now, and was one of the founding members of the

A#1 Fancy Label Club. Originality is important, but we cannot assume anything until Simon puts in his 2 cents (if he even decides to!).

 

After all of this, I'm not sure I'd ever enter any of these contests again (and I am glad that I didn't have time to enter this one). It has the bitter taste of the CGE release garbage that Sniderman had to endure all over it.

 

I think its time for everybody (including myself) to step down off our individual soap boxes and just move on.

[liveinabin]

Hmm, I wish I hadn't asked now.

As far as copyrighted material goes, the brief was on dodgy legal ground anyway, we all know who the Atari logos belong to. So the inclusion of another copyrighted image isn't going to make much difference. Nice design though, wherever the image came from, it was well put together.

[Albert]

quote:

---

Originally posted by twit:

Originality

is

important, but we cannot assume

anything

until Simon puts in his 2 cents (if he even decides to!).

---

 

I'm sure Simon will comment and clarify his decision. I received an email message from him shortly after his post here (the one I had to delete) that he would be considerably reducing his internet usage for the next several days due to the holidays. So it's quite possible he may not even have read any of these messages yet. Hopefully we'll hear from him soon.

 

..Al

[videotwit]

Oooh. I think I sounded negative in that statement, which definitely was not intended.

 

Simon by no means needs to justify his choice -- it was his decision and I respect it 100%. I was trying to express my belief that he shouldn't feel obligated to express an opinion if he feels it isn't necessary.

[ATARIPITBULL]

As far as the copy rights to the label goes, you can all say that simon can pick who he want's, but he cant. when you use a movie poster for a label design, you have to ask for the rights to do so, no matter who you are. I spent a lot of time making my labels, and if a poster wins over the one's I made then that makes me mad and for thoses of you who said that there where no rules, then you know better than that. You can not use other peoples work and say its your own. I liked the label with the picture from the movie scanners, which was not one of mine, but it was a poster scan. If this is the kind of work that Atari 2600 cartridge makers are looking for, then they should say so and save some of us real label makers some time and just scan a movie poster.

[Doc4]

Well, I for one truely appreciate Atmims for sticking up for himself and the rest of us who are not afraid to post our true feelings about this matter. It takes a bigger person to voice his opinon than to suck it up, bottle our feelings and watch as the rest of the world stomps all over us.

 

 

As far as art goes, it costs a good deal of money to hire a designer to come in and create something for you. And Simon was able to round up quite a few illustrations for free, even from some decent designers. But like the movie says "He chose poorly." (Of course I won't be putting that nor any other stolen material for that matter on my game labels.)

 

Simon requested these labels have a certain look to them which means he obviously only had a vauge idea or he would have done it himself. So, as all designers do, they supply other options. It is my experience as a graphic designer that you should never choose your first idea, not only has everyone else most likely thought of it before or simultaneously but it's usually bad. Simon should have at least consulted a designer or two to help choose one. I for one am disgusted by this choice, but I would be more than happy to try again. I felt very pinned in with cerativity on this contest simply because Simon was obviously in search of a Mortal Kombat look-a-like. Which he got. I don't know why he just didn't copy the picture from some webpage of something and doctor it up in Photoshop.

 

Anyway, I am not trying to start a fight with anyone, so don't get mad at me. I just want Simon to know that his cart could have looked so much better.

 

Which brings me to another point. Without attractive packaging it won't be easy to sell this item. The best (latest Atari design) I have seen is the label and box for the new Combat II, now that's design. I would have bought that for nostalgia and great art alone. (It resembles the old Atari packaging to a tee) It doesn't matter if the game sucks or is good. It's Atari and the majority of games have an attention span of twelve seconds anyway. I think I have a total of two games that I repeatedly play, and yes, the artwork is a hundred times this contests winner.

[moycon]

Yawn

[Thomas Jentzsch]

quote:

---

Originally posted by carminethebowler:

It doesn't matter if the game sucks or is good. It's Atari and the majority of games have an attention span of twelve seconds anyway. I think I have a total of two games that I repeatedly play, and yes, the artwork is a hundred times this contests winner.

---

It's very sad to hear that. As a game designer, I would be very frustrated, if it doesn't matter what's inside the cart. With that beeing true, you would see a lot of crap inside beautyful packages in the future and no good games anymore. Sooner or later this would be the death of the homebrew scene at all and then there wouldn't be any new artwork. Do you want that???

 

But thanks to other people, who also like playing the old and new games (I know they are in a minority, sad but true), this won't happen.

 

Perhaps the whole thing should be divided into two seperate groups.

One is the much larger collector group, who prefers looking at a complete collection of nice boxes and labels and the other group contains those people, who still mainly like the Atari the way it was originally meant to be: Having fun playing games!

 

So, if somebody releases something new, he could simply address this mainly to one of the groups and nobody of the other group could argue about bad artwork or gameplay.

 

I don't like the idea of splitting the whole thing, but that's the best way I can think about. Else the minority might disappear.

[moycon]

You just responded to one persons opinion... What makes you think you can split everyone up in two groups based on his one opinion? And it was a valid opinion. Not everyone designs games and knows what game designers go thru to make a game, not everyone plays the games they collect, not everyone designs labels, not everyone likes the same type of games, not everyone cares if a font is used thats not their property (or a picture), not everyone play religiously, some people play to re-kindle childhood memories, some people just like the gameplay,some people like games MIB, others don't care.... Oh jeeze can I stop?

 

I say Simon made his choice its his contest, if he changes his mind, fine. If not...Don't worry about it, your house will still be standing after the fact, your friends will still come around, flowers will still smell purdy, you can still design games or labels and people will still say... "Thats great, you rule dude"...etc..etc....

 

[ 12-22-2001: Message edited by: moycon ]

[Thomas Jentzsch]

quote:

---

Originally posted by moycon:

Oh jeeze can I stop?

---

 

You can I think, I overreacted because I didn't like this guys previous posts.

 

Back to gaming/collecting/artworking/programming...

[Doc4]

your overreacting because you didnt like my previous posts? or because you hate to accept the truth? I think your afraid of making a game that sucks. Anyway, childish remarks aside. (I just had to throw that last one in) I'm sorry you felt that way about my opinion. It wasn't my intention to get everyone a'scrappin like this. And as for some of those last points, I may have been digging for some of those responces. Regardless, I am not happy with Simons choice (AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON"T TELL ME IT WAS SIMONS THIS AND SIMONS THAT AGAIN, I KNOW THIS) and I am not happy with losing. This whole message board wouldn't be in a fight right now if others didn't feel the same way.

 

I love Atari and I don't really care if a label is broken or scratched or ugly or nice, when I buy a game I enjoy looking for the oddities and strange aspects of Atari's history. I also know that when I do find a game that is still in the box the artwork draws me too it more and certainly if I was buying a game for some other recent system I would be very much persuaded to buy something with the help of the advertising. (Isn't that one of the reasons Atari 7800 and Jaguar came across to the public so bad and why Nintendo won out in the end, lack of advertising?) Without the advent of video game rentals thats about all you had, unless it was on an arcade or through heresay, but then you get into the question of not everyone could make it to an arcade. The point is packaging has a lot to with how a game is perceived by the public. And just because Simon is making this game for a limited crowd doesn't disqualify him from that fact. Not every single Atari fan is going to jump out of their seats, throw down fifty bucks and say give me one. But if Simon put a little more effort ito the designing and packaging he might grab a bigger audience and maybe just maybe some company like Activision would stand up and say hey, lets make another Atari game for the hell of it. Then we could sit back and watch Atari go down as the undisputed champion of all video game systems for this generation and those to follow.

 

And yes for the most part there isn't a lot of stuff going on in Atari games,unless your talking Activision games. I know it's harder than hell to write a game on the 2600 and I completely respect the people who do it. But if you spend so much time doing the game why not finish up the total package and make the entire thing look as good as it should, instead I see game designers working so hard on these games, then in a rush to get people to pat them on the back they throw together some label, slap it on the cart and call it a day. I consider that slacking. But like it has been said over and over and over and over, "it's not my contest, Simon had the right to choose, blah blah blah." I'm still in favor of a fan vote, at least that way I would feel more involved in getting Simon a decent label. Not that the label he chose was decent just, for the most part, stolen.

 

Anyway, my apologies for getting everyone upset.

[Mindfield]

quote:

---

Originally posted by carminethebowler:

This whole message board wouldn't be in a fight right now if others didn't feel the same way.

---

 

<quibble>

If everyone felt the same way, there wouldn't be a fight because everyone would be in agreement. We're arguing because many don't feel the same way about it.

</quibble>

 

quote:

---

And yes for the most part there isn't a lot of stuff going on in Atari games,unless your talking Activision games. I know it's harder than hell to write a game on the 2600 and I completely respect the people who do it. But if you spend so much time doing the game why not finish up the total package and make the entire thing look as good as it should

 

I think the point here is that Simon did feel that this label did his game justice in how it looked and represented his game. Whether any one of us thinks it art or artifice is a moot point, as we surely have our own opinions on which label most attracted our eye. The thing is, Jason's label caught and held Simons fancy more than the others did, so that's the one he picked. Had any of us designed a game and held such a contest, we certainly would have done the same, using our own particular brand of judgement, and picked the one that we most fancied. That many of us would have chosen differently is a function of our set of standards and requirements. Those standards are not necessarily Simon's, and it would be arrogant to believe that we could or should impose them upon him just because we think his to be flawed. That the winning label in this contest doesn't fit with some of our criteria on what makes a winning design good or artful is irrelevant. They fit his, whatever they may be. You may feel the winning label demeans its game by the fact that it contains this or that copyright infringement, or that the design is a hackneyed collage of predefined material worth no more than half an hour of Photoshop meddling -- and you're perfectly entitled to your opinion. So is Simon, and this being his contest, he had the right to excersize that opinion and pick the label he liked. You're free to have and even express your opinion. Just don't expect to bring an unbeliever around to your way of thinking just because you're absolutely convinced you have the right of it.

 

Sure, I wasn't all that impressed with the label, but my opinion counts for nothing in the larger picture, nor does it matter. I won't tell Simon he's a yobbo for his decision, nor will I prattle on about how good or bad the winning design is. I have my opinion, but that's all it is: mine. It's neither right or wrong, it simply exists and is of no consequence to Simon, since his is the opinion that matters.

 

Don't get me wrong, I do understand and appreciate your position. Losing to a design that I felt didn't do the game justice and furthermore contained altogether less original material than any other entry was a little disappointing. I didn't care about winning, really, and wouldn't have even said anything if I felt the winning entry was a match for or superior to the other designs -- I love appreciating good artwork and seeing the effort everyone put into this contest; I had just as much fun viewing everyone's entries as I did submitting my own. But seeing that the winning entry was, on the whole, the result of much less effort than everyone else's was a little disconcerting. Still, it's not my place to judge. I leave that to Simon, and if he likes it, more power to him and to Jason himself for winning. I'm sure Jason thought his work good, and I give him full props for the effort. Whatever he did or didn't put into it he nevertheless came up with something Simon liked better than the rest, and won as a result. If for no other reason, he deserves some respect for that.

[Doc4]

well, mindfield I'm with you 100%. I'm done arguing. Simon Has all the right in the world to pick his own label. I would have done the same in his place. Have a Merry Christmas everyone.

 

Atari still rocks, no matter how much I complain about labels.

[Simon]

What the heck is going on here?? I've been away for four days right now, my original post was deleted and there's so much rage about my decision...

 

I didn't read all those posts and I didn't check my mailbox yet (and I don't feel like doing it within 2001 after I got this impression of what kind of mails may be in there).

 

I didn't know that the face on Jason Parlee's label was taken from a movie poster and I don't want any problems in releasing that cart because of using ripped art. I only wanted to get a nice little label for a homebrew-cart. The scene shown on Jason's label fits the most to my vision of the perfect label for my game, but I thought of the label to be totally self-created, just like my game was. HOMEBREW, dudes!

 

My second choice would've been "Mike Tinnes - Submission #1". Anyone complaining about that thing aswell?

 

I'm totally disappointed about the result of this discussion right now and consider to cancel the whole label-project. I will take some time thinking about all those facts and will be back in the beginning of 2002. Fact is that I NEVER wanted to start a discussion about the winning piece, because it's MY game and I spent so damn much time on it. Best thing would be creating a label by myself as I originally planned it...

 

Information for the pals which do care about *THE GAME* and not only the art on the label: the tests using the SuperCharger on a real machine worked fine. Some minor things (PAL-colors, PAL-position on the screen (why does z26 shows different vertical positions in NTSC/PAL while the original machine doesn't?)) are to be adjusted, but the game itself works...

 

Merry X-mas...

[Thomas Jentzsch]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Simon:

I'm totally disappointed about the result of this discussion right now and consider to cancel the whole label-project. I will take some time thinking about all those facts and will be back in the beginning of 2002. Fact is that I NEVER wanted to start a discussion about the winning piece, because it's MY game and I spent so damn much time on it. Best thing would be creating a label by myself as I originally planned it...

---

Don't get disappointed by some peoples posts. They sure don't have ANY idea about the hard time you had making that game. Join the Stella Mailing List, there the people are who do understand.

 

quote

Information for the pals which do care about *THE GAME* and not only the art on the label: the tests using the SuperCharger on a real machine worked fine. Some minor things (PAL-colors, PAL-position on the screen (why does z26 shows different vertical positions in NTSC/PAL while the original machine doesn't?)) are to be adjusted, but the game itself works...      

I wish you could release a demo (if not the hole game) to the public...

[Alex]

Due to techical problems with this thread (a page count problem was forcing an empty page to load), I've closed this thread and continued it here.