Question that were never asked to us, that are relevant to the conversation.

Why are you working with Colombia?

Colombia is a developing economy and has begun investing seriously in high tech job like media production. Colombia has excellent tax credits when it comes to media production, especially when it comes to the hiring of young workers. It’s a great investment opportunity for everyone.

But specifically when it comes to video games, Colombia also has a graphic style that is both unique, but approachable to the western world. The countries culture is a blend of an extremely diverse group of people but hasn’t really reached mainstream acceptance in North America.

Despite this though, Colombia isn’t able to support its own indie game culture internally. There simply aren’t enough game consoles or personal computers that can support game makers. As such projects like TFYC allow them to gain access to the North American market, get more experience in the market, make contacts, and allowing them to have an easier time making future games.

Was working with South Americans an issue for Gamergate.

Despite it being clearly listed that our production company is in Colombia and Lola Barreto announcing the project, no member of GamerGate has commented negatively on the production staff being from Colombia. And several has asked if they could do interviews with Autobotika’s staff, and several have asked how their style will affect the work.

Our issue with #GamerGate was how it affect developers in the indie scene. Inevitably speaking a South American production company is going to have less access to media through conventions due to the cost of travel and devaluation of their dollar. This makes it difficult for them to be part of the North American indie scene. Combine this with cultural barrier and the inability to hire proper PR professional and you can see that South Americans are at a disadvantage especially when there is an in crowd giving preferential treatment inside the circle.

Isn’t it more important for countries to focus on lower income job.

Yes but…

People in lower income bracket inevitably require more government support, in the form of government services. Despite the tax credit provided by the government Autobotika adds more to the tax base, than most manufacturing job. The largest expense in video games is labour, which is invested locally. There are very few equipment, material cost in this sort of a production that Autobotika hasn’t already covered. Video games in general are an excellent export to raise tax revenue which can be spent on social services internally.

We don’t see it as taking money away from social services and low-income jobs, in point of fact members of TFYC can donate their profits to not for profits programs that focus on that. It’s building a base for employment in the country to raise the tax base.

Can you talk about Feminism in Colombia and why it wasn’t reference in the project?

Generally, it’s important to understand that gender norms differ from region to region. This controls how women present themselves. In Colombia, violence is a much more present reality
with 50 per cent of guerrilla combatants being women (http://www.gsdrc.org/go/display&type=Document&id=4286). This kind of harassment and violence was deemed to overshadow TFYC’s message of inclusiveness. Especially since because of the lack of police presence and a greater level of violence it would overshadow the very real problem that exist in the North American game industry. We actually did want to engage in discussion about harassment in the industry, but the level of harassment is completely different from country to country.

The internet could be a very positive step towards education, organization and participation in a meaningful society. - Noam Chomsky

Buy stuff here - http://the-fine-young-capitalists.myshopify.com/

Our world is changing. The events of Gamergate have shown both how diverse the gaming community is, and yet how insular. As a wise troll once said “Many desperately want to believe media has no impact on their worldview. But we are not force-field covered islands. Media affects us all.” and we all have a responsibility to make sure it reflects the diverse nature of our culture. And it’s this lack of representation of characters in our media that erases the identity of so many people. It was with this sentiment that Not Your Shield was formed, and it is with that same sentiment that The Fine Young Capitalists is announcing an art project to help to bring an end to this lack of representation.

Using minority artists in the developing world we will engage with anyone who is a member of Not Your Shield and create a portrait of them as a powerful figure. Anyone can submit and idea and we will choose the top 4 unique portraits and get professional concept artists to create art depicting this character in their setting.

As a moral crusader said “One of the most radical things you can do is to actually believe women when they talk about their experiences.” But that not only applies to woman but also racial minorities, sexual minorities and gender minorities. The experience of the disabled is just as interesting as the able bodied. We must listen to them so they can create the actual stories they want, and not what the white majority is saying they should represent.

The art will be sold and all profits for the sales will we used by The Fine Young Councilors a charity to create awards that will be given out to the graduating class of Video Game Design schools. These awards will be given to graduates of their programs that focus on making the diverse games.

We can all work together to change this world. But it can only work if you Listen and Believe in these individual work, if you allow them the freedom to create their and vision. And that’s what we attend to do.

Let’s create design to show that anyone is welcome in gaming, but more importantly let’s show the world how diverse our hobby can be. Apply using this form and let’s making something incredible that show how welcoming gaming can be.

If you could please tell your friend, tell your enemies and of course tell 4chan, we’d sincerely appreciate it. The Fine Young Councilors is a registered Non-Profits and as such are legally required to tell you where your money is being spent, so let’s keep this whole process open and transparent.

FAQ

Is TFYC a registered Charity?

The Fine Young Councilors is a registered non-for-profit foundation in Canada and as such is able to give money to other not for profit groups.

Where will the profits go?

We have spoken with multiple Video Game design schools. All profits will go into diversity awards, to be given to a member of the graduating class to help make their first game.

Does the person have to be a member of Not Your Shield?

As amazing as it would be to do portraits of Annita Sarkeesian no it’s only open to not your shield members.

Can I be the person the portrait is of?

Yes as long as you are a member of not your shield.

What fictional settings can the member be in?

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Cyberpunk, it’s all open.

I have a character I’ve already developed and illustrated and was wondering I can submit it?

Yes, feel free to include any links to your previous work and we’ll do our best to work with you.

No it’s like completely done, can I just submit the design and you sell it to raise money for the charity?

That’s amazing! Email support@thefineyoungcapitalists.com a link to it. Keep in mind the final image has to be at least 18x24 at 150 DPI.

Can the art be sexualized?

Yes! But tastefully!

Can my work depict violence or gender based violence.

Yes!

If you’re feminists why are you allowing sexualization and violence?

Because both are part of the human condition and it is not our place to police what kind of stories can be told.

Can the art be pornographic?

No we’d prefer to leave pornography to the professional. That is why we worked with Mercades Carerra on the Porn Charity.

Can my work incorporate IP that I do not own?

Not with out written permission from the original creator.

How much will the posters be sold for, most of your other posters are pretty expensive?

Excellent point, none of the posters will be sold for over $20 not including shipping, and many will probably be sold for less.

Will you include past posters

Yes, but they will be identical in price to what they were during their Indiegogo Campaigns.

Did you consult with the creator and member of #NotYourShield

Yes, we consulted with them, and they said it was fine.

There is only so much surrealism you can take in your daily life. TFYC is quickly bringing me to that limit. But before I step off the deep end let me help #Gamergate with one last thing.

The issue that you guys/girls/otherkin/whatever are having problems within the video game journalism industry is something called “Kingmaking.”

So let’s get some history in 1983 there was something called the “Video Game Crash” also known as “Atari Shock” in Japan. It was for lack of a better word a massive recession in the video game industry that happened between 1983-1985. The video game industries revenue basically went from $3.2 Billion to $100 Million over the course of two years.

This was caused for a bunch of reasons, the largest one was that the industry got flooded with poor quality games, that saturated the market. The major reason for this was that so many games were being made, that the majority weren’t worth buying. And even games that were marketed well and should be good games like PacMan and E.T. were subpar. This eroded consumer confidence, preventing the market from growing and caused the crash.

This is why the first Nintendo in the USA was sold with something called a R.O.B. which was a robotic toy that was attached to the machine. This made it look less like a video game console and more like a toy. Yes part of the key to the first Nintendo’s success was to make it not look like a video game console. To prevent another video game crash, Nintendo actively worked with third-party software developers to allow them to make games but under Nintendo’s terms. Each Nintendo Cartridge has an authentication chip which would interact with the console,  this was called the 10NES and would prevent games that Nintendo had not approved from running on the console.  

Every video game console, since the Nintendo has integrated some type of content management system or DRM to police what software would run on their device. This artificially increases the barrier to entry to make a game on the system, as a method of protecting the consumer from poor games. It’s not perfect of course but arguably speaking there is less shovel ware on a console then there would be on the Apple Store.

So the PC doesn’t have any of this content management system stuff. Anyone can make a game on the PC, some of which are great, some of which are horrible. Because the barrier to entry is so much lower, most indie developers start there. The problem is being found in the market.

Now the previous KingMaker for the PC gaming scene was something called Steam. Steam is a digital content delivery service, I.E. a digital store. It used to be getting on Steam was a big deal, and it acted as gatekeeper to getting your indie game sold. This was good and bad, as many good games never managed to get on Steam for a variety of reasons, and a few horrible games managed to get on Steam for very bad reasons.

Steam is slowly opening its’ gates to allow more games on the system. In the coming years, Steam will be transitioning to an open gate policy, or for their system to be seen as a platform for any game designer to host their game. This has the potential to cause another indie game crash as the market gets flooded and consumer’s can’t find the quality among the crap.

The last KingMakers left are the journalists, with such a giant market they have the ability to push eyeballs to your product. To use their audience to make your game a success or a failure. What #GamerGate is about, is the general public becoming aware of the backroom deals of the last kingmakers in the indie video game market. And showing how a small group of friends have a remarkable amount of pull over what get’s made and where it is discussed. Gaming journalism has responded by attempting to discredit the public. Which is an interesting strategy to say the least but has successfully avoided discussing the real issues.

For the people still reading, anyone that is worked in media production has probably fallen asleep at this point, as this isn’t news. If you enjoy sausage don’t watch it being made. If you want to pretend that all you have to do to be a success in the gaming industry is to make a good game, please don’t ask me my opinion on Santa Claus. The fact that no one has mentioned the subtitle of TFYC’s name and how appropriate it is to the production of media has always confused me. In the end this is not a business that attracts people with integrity.

Both gamers and journalist you are both about to enter a time that could be very bad for both of you. The last time there was no gatekeeper for the videogame market it was destroyed. This time it will not be the entire video game market, AAA development will always go on with it its’ multimillion marketing budget, but there is the possibility of what could be a real indie game crash, and one that the industry may not soon recover from. You are having the discussion of what the relationship between journalist and developer should be, before Steam opens the gates and all hell breaks loose.

In the end, what TFYC was supposed to be about, was creating an alternative stream for people to make media, that was not profit driven, and was based around giving exposure to the new artists, and having the fans share not only in the process but the money generated. It was a good way to give a small number of underrepresented people the option of showing their ideas. We expected light media coverage, we got a media blackout and criticism from a kingmaker.

I would suggest the journalists and the gamer public actually discuss the real fucking issue about the indie game scene. Because if we don’t come to some answer there  won’t fucking be one.