skarai 2009-03-12 22:20:25

Serious face went to town :|
In there! He met a clown!
The clown smiled and laughed, danced like he didn't have a worry in the world!
:|
How do you laugh and smile like that? said Serious Face
While leaning forward, the clown answered
"I want to die"

Chakra-X 2009-03-12 22:20:34

Tom was just laughing at himself.

The joke is not on you. Tom, and the rest of the staff and Luis-like people take the site seriously. They created the costly trophy system FOR quality flash animations and games, and that says a lot. They even give out cash prizes that would reward those who put effort on their submissions (but many times effort=/= monthly award).

But this is a site of EVERYTHING by EVERYONE, which is what makes Newgrounds unique. Yeah it can be frustrating to see smut or bullshit in the spotlight, but if we don't want that, we might as well just post on DeviantArt (....er, usually...You know what I mean).

And what did you expect from the Newgrounds award show? I thought it was pretty good for a couple of guys in an office. The "YouTube Quality" would not have been a problem if they did not compress it as much, but they too must conform to a reasonable file size limit.

Tom made jokes and acted a little goofy sometimes because that's who he is, and approached his site in a tongue-in-cheek manner. It's like you said, the is a site where a professional-level frame by frame animation is just as capable of getting on the front page as mostly-static hentai images. You make it sound like they just quickly whipped up the video for the hell of it. They did not make one last year, so it shows that they care even more this year.

Video editing, 3D modeling/animation, green screen effects, and other work went in to that video, so besides the joking manner of Tom, I do not know why you find the video to be disrespectful. But you have to remember what the goal and presentation of this particular site is.

Perhaps as time goes by, Newgrounds will continue to shift more in the artist's favor rather than the drooling masses craving cheap video game parodies and hentai

midimachine 2009-03-12 22:25:13

Nice job on RDTSBWTR, man. People would have to be proper stupid not to bid on that shit.

Honestly, I don't take this place seriously at all. From my point of view as a musician it's not really worth putting my very best work up here where it will almost certainly fade into obscurity within a matter of hours. Also the whole Creative Commons "People are legally allowed to take your work and do whatever they want with it for free as long as it's still here" thing is a turn-off for submitting anything I would ever consider for commercial release. It's a good feeling when someone enjoys your music enough to use it in a flash project, though :D

Ansel 2009-03-12 22:25:14

Good points there, bro. I do agree with most of it--I feel like this site is always kind of pandering to the lowest common denominator, always stooping down to satisfy the majority of users. That's pessimistic and probably untrue, and I know it's necessary and not entirely a bad thing, but yeah when Meetnfuck Nascar Driver is on the frontpage next to something I made or you made or someone else made, I feel like it lowers everyone's expectations.

Everyone says it, and everyone else says it's not true, but I really do feel like the quality of submissions and users is declining. Probably not true, but LEFT4LOL won daily first place, out of how many submissions put up that day? I keep coming back to it and bitching about it, but it's the perfect example of unfunny, tasteless jokes, low-quality artwork and video game humor outing other original projects that, while they may not have been better done (they were) they were more deserving of the award.

LEFT4LOL is one of the ugliest flash movies I've seen recently. Horrible, reused drawings, shitty tweened lipsync, and terrible attempts at framebyframe make it almost physically painful to watch. The mediocre voice acting and awful jokes are an assault upon the ears. I almost closed the window multiple times while it was running. And yet, the 9's and 10's continued to pour in, complete with unintelligible, gushing compliments about how funny it was, and even how "grate" it had been animated! And this movie, that wormed its way into an award and drew yet more idiotic viewers to the site, was put on the frontpage. A decision was made to promote it further. This is business, and I am completely aware of the benefits of promoting more popular material, but it was saddening to see it given prime real estate on a website seen by thousands.

On a side note, the guy who made it is a colossal ass.

Tom's started doing his weekly posts of movies that fell under the radar (a wonderful idea, by the way) and one of the sections is on movies or games that "didn't make it to the frontpage." And why didn't they? Because they were passed up for LEFT4LOL, for Meet'n'Fuck Nascar Driver. I don't want Tom to starve, and I certainly don't want this site to go under, but again and again I see more deserving work outscored by shoddy, cheap laughs.

I don't blame the staff for it -- the entire premise of the site is still focused on user moderation -- but I DO blame them for continuing to encourage that kind of mindset, that KIND of moderation. There's no way for them to change who visits the site or who it appeals to, or to change how people vote, but I remember when the frontpage was a kind of sacred ideal for me, something I aspired to achieve. It happened, but it wasn't quite how i imagined it to be.

Tom, if you read this, you're a great guy and I still love your site--I just don't love all of the people on it.

Ansel 2009-03-12 22:25:37

wow, haven't written anything like that in a while

l-smel 2009-03-12 22:35:13

good thing you realized your mistake before it was too soon, or you mighta gotten a bunch of angry flamers.

anyhoo, you fell into my trap and responded, so im still here. i said "unless you have anything to say"

ha

joabos 2009-03-12 22:39:51

You speak so much truth, it brings a single lonely tear to my eyes. So much truth...What a speech...

WAaAzZAaA 2009-03-12 22:45:41

You have read my every single thought on this matter.
except i dont make games, so i dont exactly FEEL like you do.

Glaiel-Gamer 2009-03-12 22:45:53

To an extent I agree with you, it is kind of degrading to see porn stuff on the front page when you know the author doesn't put much effort into that type of stuff, yet receives more views than stuff of true quality. Tom's getting a little better in the showcasing of that stuff though. "Adult" use to be on the main bar of the site, and "Forums" use to be a text link. He switched that around a few years ago.

Yet part of what attracts so many people to the site is how laid back the admins are. They can take stuff seriously when they need to (such as in the nomination process of awards, and review monitoring, and monthly voting, and especially monitoring stolen content), yet they also have a sense of humor which attracts people to the site. They can relate to the admins, they aren't just no-name corporate heads, and as a result people can feel like they actually know the people who run the site. It's a much more personal connection than say, the average viewer has to Kongregate's Greg Loire. Who outside of the people who talk to him about business stuff actually feel like they know who he is?

Granted, Kongregate feels a little more mature than newgrounds, but at the same time it isn't as personal.

Ansel 2009-03-12 22:55:44

you need to get on aim again someday

midimachine 2009-03-12 23:05:35

"woah I bet musicians play by a totally different set o rules."

We don't play by anyone's rules. Not even our own.

midimachine 2009-03-12 23:15:59

Oh yeah but seriously the audio portal dynamic is lightyears apart from the flash portal and lightyears behind in some regards. A lot of competitive zero-bombing and bitching and moaning for pretty much nothing in the end.

Though like I said, it's good when people genuinely enjoy what you do and for me it's a proper nice feeling when people dig my stuff enough to use it in a flash project but so far I've only had that pleasure once. Well, twice now :D

Ansel 2009-03-12 23:46:17

everybody uses aim, bro

seriously, LOTS of people

Starogre 2009-03-12 23:54:03

everybody uses aim, bro

seriously, LOTS of people

and left4LOL was by some other weird person who i don't know. oney made left4speed

Ghostdemon 2009-03-13 00:07:14

Well.. at least Newgrounds is still around to this day... I'd prefer Newgrounds over something like Armor Games where they crank out a game every week (no offence) People make games to their own liking (to a certain extent) so you never know what to expect next. "Everything by Everyone" isn't exactly true since about 1/4 to 1/2 of members are actually animators, the rest being spectators of other peoples work *cough*me*cough* Sure Newgrounds audience is somewhat made of 13 Years Old but they aren't all (well almost fully but except for a few) idiot who mash 5 as soon as they see another Awesome Parody or something with Naked people in it.. I can't be bothered to continue...

Ghostdemon 2009-03-13 00:09:04

Sorry for the double post but I forgot to say. I felt like using quote marks..

"All the Frontpaged Animations are great but the ones you'll never see are better"

Ypok 2009-03-13 00:14:55

I think it would be cool if NG hosted some more contests like they do at AlbinoBlackSheep. The movies that would come in for a contest with a theme like "going out of your mind" or something might be abstract enough to give NG a little more professional feel and scare off the hentai/ vgparody kids if you know what I mean. If the non-artists see a site full of original content that they really don't understand, they'll be more likely to go to a less-professional looking site.

sucho 2009-03-13 01:07:21

if it was professional, it wouldn't be everything by everyone.

its a double-edged sword to be sure, but i don't know if i'd like it any other way

Celtic-Tiger 2009-03-13 01:48:20

Yes, you are right. Some of your games have been immature. But not that immature.

That's one thing I'm annoyed about. See, Newgrounds was blocked from my school's IT lab. I a bit miffed by this. See, When in my IT class, I can use Newgrounds as a resource for great free music, and tutorials on game development.
But then I look at the front page, like it is today, and am reminded why this site should be blocked from any respectable business and establishment.
See, every now and then, some God-awful flash makes it to the front page, for us all to see. Do I really need to watch, "Lin's Dick?" No, I don't.

Frankly, I see a growing debate about Newgrounds coming to the apex soon. It shall climax, and Newground's future is uncertain.

Will Newgrounds continue to be a website where clever artists struggle to compete with Hentai and dating sims?
Or will the artist simply pack up their bags, and leave for another website, that shall undoubtedly rise to replace Newgrounds?

That's what I'm worried about.

ZekeySpaceyLizard 2009-03-13 02:01:58

AHhahahhHAHahha

oh god you people are so naive god damnit I love it so much