# colonialist game space expansionism in dean hall's ion what's going on here? it's like "space games are the new green" (as in ) introducing a light simulated parody / critique involving early access game development practices played out in response on ir fascinating by now class e3 announcement for dreadfully bland sounding new ip "ion" > i want a game that is not a game > ~ dean dayz pimp hall i don't want to build a game. i want to build a universe > ~ chris overfunded roberts of star citizen *slight yawn dean no mountain high enough hall has a poor idea drifting about in ir skull for a new game universe - a simulation mmo ("molyneux-like?")- that despite whatever it says its about only really explores the limitless expansion (greed) of game developers into game space: "(..) peppered with the havens of fortune" indeed as ey puts it one interpretation of ir troubled statement "i want a game that is not a game" is that ion and concepts like it are indeed not games but a mere service for endlessly milking so-called gamer whales - just another deliberately forever-delayed permanent alpha state where shay-dee style devs endlessly display parkinson's law // image: please dean milk my gamer whale nipples even when/if ion is a complete game on launch the ideas behind ion cannot avoid smelling of the limitless colonialist-like expansionism of teh game industry(tm) absolutely everywhere - online / inner space and the alien outer beyond nanodean space station alpha captain's log entry date: 14-07-2050 ssalpha shift no. 323 access level: beige (log marked for deletion review access by senior personnel only / unauthorized access to this file will be dealt with accordingly (via the threat / treat of free steam keys)) ## log begins every single day i spend developing this crapolaware i become more and more certain that this was some kind of macabre punishment. i don't know what i did to deserve being consigned to this glued together ball of orbital wreckage. i may well be a developer but the title brings with it all the prestige and responsibility of some kind of manchild kindergarten teacher it seems not one day goes by in this 16hr dev-hell cesspit without one of these damaged wonderkind in the programming crew having to delete half teh game due to compound errors or beat eight grey scales out of each other from sheer frustration; and this isn't taking into account the fact that even before its left dock the garming universe itself seems naturally bent on erasing our latest waste of space to think nanodean loves to call this dev-hole a "state of the art early access research facility." what research? what facilities? state of which art? i can barely even remember all the droning seminars and presentations they flung at us in nanodean orientation all i remember is just wanting to go back to earth and play some games that actually work if i remember correctly though it was all about the hard hype sell. it's like the new oil - not long after scientists got out into space and everyone got all big on exploring and discovering - you know all that boring star trek bs. so some clever guy discovers steam greenlight which turns out to burn better than peak oil on a good day. the projects developed for that foul orbiting platform are given some fancy title - "early access games" - but the alternative online underground game media term it crapolaware. all the companies and industries wanted to shovel it out asap despite the fact we know about its negative long term effects but that didn't stop us of course since history has proven that putting money before consumers is a great idea devs keep mining and selling it on making enough money that they were able to keep the media regulators of hype sweet with free copies. out here in the frontier of permanent alpha hype space though you can't regulate jack so all sorts of inter-developmental warfare broke out. turns out none other than nanodean was teh big dog able to screw up better and kill off the competition faster and cover tracks quickly and effectively enough to never get caught out on ir endlessly-unfinished bs only one nanodean title has been constructed so far. it was essentially a cyberspace money mining facility but then the great crash happened. it turns out much to everyone's immense surprise that using an extremely volatile hype source which you know little about as smart as it seems - various small consumer based incidents and conflagrations had been happening for years but (so-called) indie'(r) devs were always able to fob off the media to either ignore them or chalk up ir ongoing disasters to one-off accidents or product abuse now when a rickety old hype powered research base sited on the moon implodes and blasted off chunks of raw crapolware end up falling to earth as a rather nasty shower of early access titles and said nasty meteor shower ends up wiping out two thirds of the good will of scientists who have faith in steam greenlight and messing up the games industry planet-wide for the best part of a decade you can't really cover it up or ignore it. you have to pay the price - or at least someone does. unfortunately it turns out nanodean is very good at what we inside devs call smearing the buck - saying (in a now classic phrase of ultra-cynicism) "it's *cough* not about the money it's about our fanbase" sure they paid an utter fortune in moral expenses reparations having to cover media investigations and attempts to shut them down but the money available to such shay dee style devs is just too good and the pie just too sweet to keep ir fingers out of it even if thousands of scientists are lost and the community spirit of several million more near completely destroyed. hype mining refining and use was restricted pending research into the volatility and usefulness of early access hype as a money source. soon a next round of slick trailers for new games came up for grabs and guess who gets the moral rights to freely develop such titles because they already have crapolawares in orbit around viable scientist money sources naturally this pisses a lot of scientists off. millions dye of boredom and disappointment in an internet-scale disaster and nanodean still functions more or less unhindered? old developers who have ir dreams ignored and thousands of scientists hacked on random servers and no-one does anything because of nanodean's rock solid alibi: "we know there are problems but you must understand - we're in early access" potentially interesting game development opportunities come up and no other devs even get a look in because everyone's looking in nanodean's direction? this is without even delving into the dubious policies of hiring professional garming evangelists which continue to this day to keep the hype for early access crapolaware constantly boiling i don't care what they called us back in cyberspace - we're (truly indie) devs of principles and standards. principles which don't promise the earth - the very stars - and deliver only drifting space ashes if you are reading this log maybe you've started to doubt nanodean. that's good. we urge you to look for the evidence that's out there. they deny they cover up with hype sizzle they make scientists forget with every pseudo improvement / pathetic drip-fed update but they can't keep its empty core covered up forever. start using your brain it's exactly what early access devs don't want because then you'll see the cracks and flaws in ir little scheme and once enough people start to ask the hard questions they'll crumble. they'll fail like they too often deserve to and hopefully fall back to earth with humility. and then none of us will have to instinctively have developers carrying around large heavy promises shrink-wrapped in plastic saying "this is teh game you've all been waiting for. honest" ex-dev (robert what) of ss alpha signing off // republic of bob