Echo Chamber

A couple weeks ago I talked about how the Kickstarter to write a fictionalize account of the Fountain War was struggling because it was too ambitious and a little tone deaf: 

Think of it with this narrative: the winner of the war, the side who started the war for all intents and purposes to simply bring low a competing organization, is now promoting a book to glorify their victory at the same time they can whitewash any unpleasantness or missteps under the guise of "fictionalizing" the story so it makes a good read.
On top of all that, continuing the "Grrr Goons" narrative, the target goal of $150K seems like a blatant money grab, overcharging in the kick starter to make EVE players foot the bill of producing what feels like a victory-lap propaganda piece.
From that perspective, again one I do not share, it is not surprising to see the kickstarter struggling.

I want to reiterate that I would like to see this initiative succeed even if the end result is not my cup of tea. I also honestly believe that this is not a money grab by the Mitanni or any of the related individuals at TheMitanni.com.

But the tone deafness and lack of self awareness coming out of that camp via this post by Sion Kumitomo titled "Shake It Off" is almost painful to read. Near the end:

Because you know what? That hurts us all. And you know what else? Mittani will still be here, with the thousands of swarm brethren and the black ships of the Imperial Armada at his back. Your impotent /r/eve badposts won't save you from the wrath of our guns any more this time around than it did any of the others.

You can't disparage the community at large for reacting poorly to a Goons led initiative when you have spent a decade or more building an Us Versus Them narrative in the meta-sphere. Take a look at that paragraph I quoted The attitude in that paragraph is so tone deaf yet no instinct in the writer's body said that in a post trying to take the high road and chastise people for being reflexive jerks it was sorely out of place.

Goons have spent ten years looking down their noses at everyone Not-Goon or not allied so much that they do not know how to engage the community at large as equals. They have spent so much time in their Goon-persona laughing at "fails", "pubbies", and "scrublords" that when its time to take the mask off to treat everyone like human beings they act surprised when the other side can't forgive and forget as easily.

Look at that paragraph I quoted again. In a post trying to change the attitude of the other side it seems very out of place, yet very typically goon, to remind everyone "we're bigger and better than you and there is nothing you can do about it". Its sad really.

I suspect what happened when all is said and done and an honest retrospective can be had, the leaders behind this will realize that they were caught up in their own echo chamber telling themselves how much everyone liked them and how they were capable of anything, and its understandable when you consider all of the successes that goons have enjoyed over the years that one could get caught up in the hubris of it all. But a stark reality check was required that was missed. Someone outside the circle to say "this can't be a goon led thing because people HATE goons and don't trust them... this is not a surprise because you BUILT that reputation on purpose and reveled in it for years".

Rixx Javix was mentioned in the post by Sion Kumitomo in a paragraph that again highlights the need for a good editor over at TheMitanni.com:

Moreover, let's not pretend that any of this controversy is anything other than it is.
It's not "Mittani is making money!" It isn't just CCP that monetizes players, this is something you see fairly frequently across EVE. Rixx Javixx had a gofundme so that he could produce artwork that he's partnered with CCP on and for which he presumably gets a cut. Sort Dragon's gofundme for a new computer so he could keep leading fleets and delivering content had a similar result. Avalloc sells people Bees and Test paraphernalia. Markee Dragon, Mad Ani (who now streams Star Citizen), any website with ads (including CZ, EN24, and this one), server drives, selling IT help, FC's getting accounts paid, workers for alliance interests getting PLEX, and more. The commonality here is that is that someone somewhere is making money. Where is the outrage over these self-interested charlatans?

Rixx was understandably upset about it being implied that he is part of a group of "self-interested charlatans". I think that Sion's writing needed quotes around those last three words to highlight that he was being sarcastic or something, but regardless, this is indicative of how the whole post comes across as a temper tantrum. You'd think someone in Goonswarm would understand that any time you put yourself out there in the public interwebs to expect the slings and barbs of trolls and haters. To rail against it all is really a "Leave Brittany Alone" moment here and a part of me drinks up the delicious goon tears even though I'm sad that the kickstarter itself is failing.

In the end, Sion Kumitomo is right in that the failure is a loss for the community. Hopefully instead of blaming everyone else he and others involved can take a good hard look at themselves first.

NOTE: This post title is a reference to back in 2011 when The Mitanni said in an interview about CSM6:

[Interviewer] 6.) Many community members have said that the strong 0.0 message of the elected CSM members, including yourself, is bad for the future of EVE. How do you respond to such accusations?
[The Mitanni] :Two things. First, the ‘community’ in the context of sites like Eve Report means ‘the eve blog community and #tweetfleet’, which is a niche of the game’s population with an unfortunate tendency to assume that their echo chamber actually represents /everyone/, rather than people who blog about a space game – and eve bloggers don’t seem to have much to do with nullsec.

Icarus

I've never been a Goon hater unlike some others in the community, and indeed on occasion I've complimented them on the blog on the successful empire they have created and maintained. So with that disclaimer in mind, let's talk about the Kickstarter for the Fountain War Book being promoted by The Mittani Media.

If you've been living under a rock, the concept is that the book will be a fictionalized retelling of the war between the Cluster Fuck Coalition (aka CFC, retroactively rebranded as The Imperium for the book) and Test Alliance Please Ignore-led coalition (was it named HERO? I can't recall) back in 2013. By fictionalized, I mean that they will take all the stories and facts from as many sources as they can, including from both sides of the conflict, and massaging it into a novel-like retelling, including smoothing out rough edges like coalitions called "Cluster Fuck" and players called "Big D1ck B00bies" (not a real character as far as I know). The result is something like this excerpt:

 It was coming apart now. All of it… The plan… The months of careful preparation… The whole %&*#ing thing…
Captain Darius Yaaah lowered his body into the pod, feeling the warmth of the semi-liquid amniotic gel enfold his limbs and torso. He gave a final encouraging nod to his bridge crew as the door of the armored capsule swung down to enclose him.
The interior of the pod was dark, but there was no need for lighting here. He wouldn’t be using his eyes to see.
With a series of muffled whines, the manipulator arms of the pod brought the slender interface cables into position, aligning platinum connector ends with matching jacks at the supraclavicular nerve bundle and five other key points in his cervical and thoracic spine.

They are aiming for $150,000 of which 60% is to pay the author Jeff Edwards who is an actual award winning novelist who writes military fiction. Overall, its a very ambitious project.

My opinion on it is a solid "blah". I'd be far more interested in an actual historical retelling from all sides about the war rather than something that turns it into a story. For me EVE is a simulation we all participate in and contribute stories to and the rough edges are what makes EVE real; this fictionalization makes it less real for me, I find it really jarring to read because my mind is always trying to hook it back into the real events. Pure EVE fiction, like the Chronicles and Empyrean Age and Templar One (not Burning Life) I have enjoyed immensely because they are divorced from the simulation we exist in.

I understand the reasoning they may have used in deciding to go with fictionalized writing as it opens up the project to a larger audience that could be turned off by a pure recounting that only EVE players could follow with any success over a whole book. Outside of my rather unimportant opinion, I'd still be happy enough if the project succeeded for the exposure it could give the game. Unfortunately, it still seems like the kickstarter is doomed to fail having only pledged $31 thousand of the desired 150K with 23 days to go. All the prediction websites that analyze these things predict it will not make it.

This seems a little surprising given a smaller kickstarter for A History of the Great Empires of EVE Online last year asked for $12500 and got over $90K in pledges, one would have thought something with the media push of TheMittani.com and all the endorsements from CCP and others with a recognized author could have made a solid push for their goal, but something happened along the way.

I speculate that the big albatross around the neck of this campaign has to be the absolute tone-deafness of it all.

As I said at the beginning, I'm not a Goon hater but if I was just even a little bit, this kickstarter would set all my flags a-fluttering. Think of it with this narrative: the winner of the war, the side who started the war for all intents and purposes to simply bring low a competing organization, is now promoting a book to glorify their victory at the same time they can whitewash any unpleasantness or missteps under the guise of "fictionalizing" the story so it makes a good read.

On top of all that, continuing the "Grrr Goons" narrative, the target goal of $150 seems like a blatant money grab, overcharging in the kick starter to make EVE players foot the bill of producing what feels like a victory-lap propaganda piece.

From that perspective, again one I do not share, it is not surprising to see the kickstarter struggling.

All that being said, I think the project is too ambitious. The goal is so high because 60%, i.e. $90,000, is needed for an advance for the author. While I appreciate getting a well known and successful author to write your story can be seen as a victory, in this case it has only contributed to the failure. I think they might have been better served trying to find an author for $40,000 who is perhaps not as well know but capable of turning the history into a story, and putting the kickstarter at a more modest $100,000 price tag. Maybe it would not have helped but right now it seems the famous and more expensive author is not helping either.

In the end, I still hope against all odds the project succeeds in some form or another.