penny arcade, authenticity, and branding

Yesterday morning, I downloaded the demo of Penny Arcade Adventures: Episode One: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness.  Then I purchased the full version.  Then I played the whole thing before I went to sleep, told at least 5 people how much fun it was, had a long conversation about how it was accessible*, in relation to my recent post on gaming and exclusivity, and woke up this morning wanting to play it again.

This post is going to be able the game, yeah, but more importantly it's going to be about authenticity, in an odd way.

Penny Arcade is an absurdly popular webcomic, it has a colossal audience, and it has an untold amount of influence in terms of the videogaming media.  This includes PAX, a hugely influential convention, and Child's Play, a charity that, frankly, is the only piece of evidence you need to throw in the face of someone who says young people today only care about themselves and their toys.

We're talking about a pair of guys, and the company that is built around them, who are best known for brutal sarcasm, frank appraisals of fail, and a great collective sense of humour.  And although anyone successful is accused of selling out, I think they've remained very honest and very connected with the dynamic that made them famous.  This is despite massive amounts of money, creating promotional content for major studios as a kind of side business, and now, creating their own game.  

When someone starts out as a critic of sorts, then moves to being a collaborator with the large, supposedly evil companies, then begins creating in the medium that spawned them, it usually does not go over well.

Authenticity, in my conception, is more accurately described as the ability to grow and evolve without making your audience feel as though you have betrayed them.  That feeling of betrayal is simple enough to understand - they have been using allegiance to your brand as a sign of their intended persona.  They associate with you because you help define them clearly to others, whether this is conscious or not.

The short version is, people like brands because they want to be seen as like that brand.  Lots of people want to be associated with the what the fictionalized Gabe and Tycho represent.

There are many reasons the PA guys are seen as remaining authentic, and I could reference the tendency of the target market to accept corporate success as a goal, or the particular brand of sarcasm, etc.  But the two main things that come to mind are quality, and what seems like a complete refusal to consider compromise on core values.

By and large, everything that comes out of PA is good.  Varying degrees of good, sure, but none of it feels like an out and out cash grab, because it is 1) absurdly niche, and 2) totally willing to bite the hand that feeds.

That willingness to bite is the refusal to compromise I was talking about.  They will shit on your brand, the game you really needed to be a blockbuster, your promotions, your screenshots, whatever you happen to do that will offend them.  And they will smile as you take your business elsewhere, because, from what I've seen, they won't work with you if you suck anyways.

What I'm trying to say is there is a certain brand of antisocial, unreasonable geekery that is integral to a brand like Penny Arcade, with that level of scope, maintaining the qualities that make people everywhere in their niche, want to be associated with them.  Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness is a lot of fun, and it's a great game, but really it's impressive because nothing was toned down, nothing was taken to an extreme.  It was faithful.  Barely anything switches from one medium to another and remains faithful. [There is another post in here somewhere, I'll find it.]

The funniest part is, I don't think any of this was intentional.  This was, for lack of a better word, an authentic representation of the personalities behind the comic, not a strategy.

*[In relation to my post on accessibility, this game still does what I was complaining about - it's major reference points in game play are those great old adventure games, like Final Fantasy.  It runs on more or less the same mechanics.  But it was fun for someone like me, because, well, I loved those games.  And it transcended them because the writing, the art, and the humour were very, very original.  Go Play It.  You'll probably like it.]