Monday 14 December 2015

All the kings' hubris


TheMitani, TheMitani sat on the wall,
TheMitani, TheMitani had a great fall;
and all TheMitani's ships and all TheMitani's yes men
couldn't put TheMitani's empire back together again.

Ah dear reader, this is not a post about the imminent demise of the Goons - that would be premature.

Nor is it indulgence in schadenfreude - for that would be unbecoming of a gentleman such as myself. In addition if the words of the demise are premature, so would be the freude not?

No, no - this is in fact a post about the hubris of men and mice Goons.

All of EVE's a stage and all of us merely players. We have our pods and our blogs and hubris is found in us all.  Of course all are not equally newsworthy blogworthy.  And like the force, the hubris is not equally strong in all of us.

Currently Goons however seem to exude both characteristics in spades.

Pay special attention dear reader for hubris of this magnitude is rarely seen outside of the laboratory.

As if the world was in need of yet another example, the Goons went and proved Joseph Goebbels correct (again!) in that “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

As with all the dark arts though, there is always a toll to pay.

Whereas Goebbels for all his faults were a master of the craft, the Goons proved to be mere middle management.  In this instance they failed to read the caveat buried in the fine print: Care should be taken by the feeble of mind lest you yourself come to believe the Big Lie...

Not only this, they also missed the very important qualification to the Big Lie right there in the main text:
"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie."
I.E. not in RL

And boy did that come back to byte them.

I find the rate of change of sentiment in favour the grrr Goons camp astounding.  The primary driver of this of course is the failed larger than life wtf were you thinking kickstarter.  

Somehow big fishes in the small pond of a niche MMO intergalactic spaceship game, thought that their influence and power transcended the ether and extended into the realms of real life.

The same real life where the subscriber base of EVE-online are cowboys and doctors and lawyers that actually practise law and such.  Subscribers with lives and dreams, mouths to feed and bills to pay.  Subscribers that might have funds for a kickstarter, but not a kickstarter like that.

Very telling was the reaction of the Goon (and TMC) leadership.  As resentment built, clumsy marketing attempts gave way to equally clumsy damage control tactics thinly disguised as "opinion pieces"

This culminated in TheMittani's final capitulation in which he superficially took personal responsibility but sought to lay blame on anyone and everyone except he himself. Actions that did nothing endear him to the community.

To add insult to injury prior insult, the inimitable Sion Kumitomo not having learned his lesson waded in with a narrative as to who is or who is not a community.  

As if the self same real life subscribers that rejected all his prior spin regarding the kickstarter of hubris would suddenly do an about turn and give a damn as to whether he thinks subscribers should be allowed to read eve reddit or not!?  

 This after he came out with gems like:

Yes I agree dear reader, truly bizarre.  In this instance I offer some advice courtesy of the Iron Lady (even though I doubt it would take...)
 "Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.'
~ Margaret Thatcher

One wonders if there can ever be any comeback from this. As befits reasonable people reaction was swift, and a host of blogs kindly pointed out the error of their ways.

Players are leaving Goonswarm, Corps are leaving Goonswarm, so are sky-marshals.  

I'm not advocating that this is the end of Goonswarm.  I do get the feeling that this is the beginning of a decline though.  Actual demise?  Not so sure.

Even here I am ambivalent.  They do provide fabulous entertainment to us all and "sermon" material for the rest of us hubristic bloggers...

It would befit us all though to realise that there is a divide between my Absence_gets_podded_every_day_and_comes_back_for_more EVE fantasy and my ugly middle aged 08:00 - 17:00 man must work to eat reality.