Confessions Of A Save Scummer | Rock, Paper, Shotgun
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Confessions Of A Save Scummer
on March 1st, 2015 at 5:00 pm.
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The current game is not saved.
Do you want to save the game before you load another game?
Save scumming is where something happens in a game that you don’t like as a result of your actions, and so you load an earlier save for a chance to undo it. It’s cheating, in other words – and depending on who you ask, mainly cheating yourself.
I can sympathise with that viewpoint. What do games matter if you’re simply going to keep your fingers between the pages and flick back any time you don’t like the consequences? There are a lot of games I love specifically because of the cascading failures your incorrect decisions create – whether it’s losing beloved soldiers in XCOM or .
But there are other games, too. Games which turn me into the storyteller from Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, where something goes wrong and I think, “Hang on, wait, that’s not right.”
For years, the Championship Manager series was one of those games. You don’t directly control your players during matches, but set up tactics and match plans and then watch the results play out, taking into account your decisions, your opponent’s decisions, and a certain amount of natural random chance.
Just like real world football, the results are therefore occasionally infuriating, with unlikely upsets and freak comebacks. Even if nothing out of the ordinary does happen, it’s often hard to tell how the decisions you made beforehand – to play a 3-4-2-1, or to focus on possession, or to drop your captain – actually affected the outcome. There’s too much happening to trace causality.
In this situation, I can’t help myself. A result goes wrong and I reach for that load game button. Earlier versions of Championship Manager were fine with this, while later editions started forcing you to save before loading – which in turn prompted me to simply start alt-F4ing to force quit the program instead of giving in. Today, in series continuation Football Manager, you’re given the option mentioned above. Do you want to save the game before you load another game? The answer is still, usually, no.
Am I cheating myself? I don’t think so. I don’t even feel like I’m cheating.
When I play games, it’s very rarely about testing my mettle against the machine. I’ve little interest in overcoming prescribed challenges set for me, and even less so overcoming obtuse systems for the mere sake of achieving higher numbers than an opponent. My interest in playing games is mostly for the stories I anecdotes I can share with friends, write about on here, or simply tell myself out of a sense of comfort.
When I’m playing Football Manager I’m in cahoots with the game to tell myself a story, and I have a particular story in mind I want to tell. It tends to involve years-long careers spent developing youth teams into international superstars, re-living a youth spent watching Manchester United’s own once youthful, homegrown team. That’s a hard story to tell if you’re being sacked for being rubbish. The incentive is therefore there to wipe away certain losses and to re-play particular games till I massage my tactics into something that works. It doesn’t mean I cut loss away completely – I’ll let the occasional cup final go astray, and allow my side to drop a few league places, so long as the overall narrative remains and I can continue fiddling with the parts of the systems I most enjoy, like .
In the games I play without save scumming – which is all of the others I play, really – I surrender more control to the machine because I trust it more to generate stories that I’ll enjoy. In Football Manager I suspect I’m more likely to be baffled and frustrated.
As an experiment however, I decided in my current Football Manager 2015 career that I wouldn’t save scum. Not even when I got defeated by Luton in the FA Cup and I was Manchester United. Not even when I followed a successful first season (3rd position in the league) with a disastrous second (17th by November). Not even when I was sacked.
The result is certainly a more varied experience. I’m now into the fourth season and the manager of Bayern Munich. They hired me after they were inexplicably “flattered” by my desperate, unemployed job application. Their decision paid off at least as I’ve just won the Bundesliga in my first season, and reached the finals (and lost the finals) of the Champions Cup and the German Cup. I’m feeling things I don’t normally get from the game: regret at decisions made, loss at the young players I signed and left behind, and a sense that the world the game simulates is larger than I am, as it now exists separate from me. Also: schadenfreude, as Laurent Blanc, who replaced me as manager at Man Utd, was sacked also at the end of his first full season.
Is this better than it was before? I’m not so sure.
My experiences are arguably more authentic, because I’m not acting as a script doctor at every turn, and am embracing fully the systems the designers have created for me. It’s certainly taken me to places that I would not have gone of my own accord.
On the other hand, I’m not enjoying the game anymore than I did before. That I won the Bundesliga legitimately doesn’t improve my enjoyment of the story that I’m crafting. It’s different, not better.
Sometimes different is a good thing. I’m going to continue this career in the same fashion and see what successes and losses, firings and hirings, come my way. But I’ll probably also start another career soon, and I’m betting the answer to the question up top will be the same as before: no.
This article was first published as part of, and thanks to, .
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Bishop149 : &All those posthumans, constantly knocking on our doors pushing their philosophy upon us. . .& on
cyrenic : &Can't find the link (appears to be broken on the official site), but there was ...& on
Empathy Kill : &I preordered it! I preorder just about every game (only the really good ones anyways). ...& on
Grizzly : &Hasta la vista, baby.& on& b4-i-4get: Scarecrow for Nestle Birds?
b4-i-4get: Scarecrow for Nestle Birds?
What does Nestle India want to scare? The birds off its corporate logo? Check out what Nataranjan Bohidar reads between the lines.
By Nataranjan Bohidar
Can’t say about Nestle S.A. but Nestle India may be going through its most schizophrenic phase ever. Appointing a creative consultant called “Scarecrow” simply takes the cake – made with Nestle MILKMAID, perhaps, now that the Company is into confectionary, when news as interviews last came in! What does Nestle India want to scare? The birds off its corporate logo? Sounds a bit like the forest department in a country or the environment ministry appointing “AXE” or better still “PODU”, which among our tribal communities is short for slash & burn! The public sector may well be excused for not estimating the image impact, such as we pardon our tribal brethren for not connecting podu cultivation to overall environmental degradation. But brand sensitive Nestle?
Hands off and hats off, of course, if this has the nod of the bosses in Vevey. Because, if the best ad agencies of the world aligned with the Company globally cannot solve Nestle India’s creative problems, well, then welcome “Scarecrow”! It was the company’s pride once that if you took roughly 35 Nestle brands to a country and factored in about 85 years of Nestle operations in 145 nations, Nestle India would always have close to half a million brand marketing experiences to bank on at any given time.
Clearly not enough for India! Basis the recent census, that’s only 0.00036 ideas per capita. Too few, in the local company’s view, in this viral age of social networking that’s taken mass customisation simply, or not so simply, to dizzying heights altogether. No? Particularly when compared to a promised investment of a staggering Rs.19/- per capita planned for next year! Can’t make a co-relation? Well, all Nestle India has to do is raise prices by a mere 5 paise per product it sells in India and hold it for a year to be able to fund the so called
bullish investments it promises to make in the coming year in
“ factories, capacity increases and new technologies”. For this it needs ‘Scarecrow’? More likely a scare to take it out of deep ennui set around a myth – an old Indian rope trick that has transcended into a rope-a-dope trick – that the Indian consumer of Nestle is reluctant to pay 5 paise more per person per day for the exquisite products it buys from the Company, because of no other reason than that s/he is an odd kettle of fish! (Now there’s a new visual that the Company may consider once the birds have flown leaving the local Indian counterpart an empty nester!).
But seriously, is “Scarecrow” expected to brood over a full fledged marketing services department that I inherited and a full fledged advertising unit that I created and a full fledged Communication Department that I launched for the first time in the history of the Company in India? Or is it going to impart soaring lessons to a once battle ready adult mother bird that appears to have regressed into a fledgling?
If it does not scare that bird and its chicks away in the first place…squawk!
So, what’s the brief going to be? Please help our advertising to take wing without scaring the pants of our blue eyed trainees, wet behind the ears, because our communication induction programme is just not in place! See, how we cannot spell confectionery right! (Aside: is that confectionery or confectionary, man?) And that milk factory we have up North in what’s that place, Monga or Moga , please check out the correct place with our production manager, will you ? Well, what can we do to increase sale of powder milk among the farmers there who supply us liquid milk in the first place? They are a rich lot you know…How about painting every farmer’s house blue with the Nestle EVERYDAY logo? Great idea!
You know outdoor is cheap in the hinterland and we are a bit tight on budgets. But no worries, we’ll protect your 15%, okay? Or will that be 2% for your creatives on all media spends and remaining 13% to the AOR who will buy the media? But because the walls of farmers’ houses cost nothing in media terms, well, you’ll just have to give us the designs and we will get it painted ourselves…but, of course, the logos are with us!…That’s right! But you can give it a great slogan, no? Just make sure it’s in the local language…Punjabi or Gurumukhi or whatever…find out from the Nestle CERELAC guys …they are doing this all the time, in 16 Indian languages…so, if you have a great slogan for powder milk or dahi we can take the campaign all-India. Oh, no no, not dahi …that will have to be in Marathi…are there any farmers in Pune whose derelict walls we can paint? …or near the factory…there’s bound to be prosperous farmers thereabouts…oh, but that’s a co-packer …so, forget it….or, wait, we’ll get back to you on that later …ok?
Also, could you audit our ads for us, too? You know, compile all the ads on a disc…this I need urgently…Vevey’s asking for it…so can you do it quickly …no , no …don’t contact our aligned agencies for this …it can take ages …and will never come…you just buy it off the market ..yes, yes, Ad Index will do …buy off our ads and tell them not to put the Ad Index logo on it…or take it out ..how long will this take? Really urgent, this! Top priority, theek hai?
Just avoid that Cup-o-Noodles ad in it …that’s right …ha ha …imagine a couple of kids carrying hot water in flasks to eat instant noodles on a picnic in a jungle…Are they going on a trek or are they going on a noodle eating trip? I mean, where’s the convenience? Why wouldn’t they just carry hot food instead …if they can carry hot water…Then there’s that splash in the end in really dirty brown mucky water in the jungle with Cup-o-Noodles in hand … the cues are totally wrong …so forget that ad …just compile the rest..
Speaking of MAGGI…it’s just MAGGI, o.k., not Nestle MAGGI …never make that mistake.. Why? I’ll tell you why … in fact, why don’t I come over and make a presentation of our brand architecture, the worldwide standardisation of colors, logos, categories, brand names, descriptors, and the birds in a nest…little nest, you know…that’s what Nestle means…in German…or is it French?…well, you know Switzerland is a big country …I mean, it’s a small country geographically but is hugely influenced by its neighbouring countries…that’s right , neutral during the war and all that…you know the history…400 years of peace…impressive , hahn? ..achha, so we’ll send you there for a junket if you do good work …ahem…ahem…perhaps organise a w.w. seminar at Rive Reine…how would you like that?
But we also need this
name for a new MAGGI flavour we are launching …so, you have to conduct that contest …of course , response will be huge …we did that many years ago when we launched MAGGI only…..we asked for names …huge response…and then we called the brand MAGGI ..after Jules Maggi, founding father …very creative it was ! Now, you handle this contest…no no, TOMATO TANG kahan chalega …in fact , nahin chala…it cannibalises our ketchup sales …but you don’t have to come up with a brand name ..yaar…that will come …woh ayega…we have more than 35000 brands around the world and still counting …tum sirf contest ke entries handle karo…samjhe…ya, ok, we’ll pay per prospect…per hit , if you like…
What ? Sevian in soya milk …kya abhi jaga hai ya soya…..woh
soya project kab ka soya hua hai…was shut down ages ago, man…bahut laphda tha , boss! But keep generating ideas …who knows what may work…No no no , this Deepika NESCAFE thing …don’t touch ..so what if she is not doing the brand ambassador thing as defined in your classic promo books, bhaiya…woh sab chhodo … bhool jao your MBA tembia …I tell you don’t fix what’s working …all the hip gyration during coffee preparation…its doing wonders… of course we lose sales in the summer months ..but we pick it up in the winter months, na…so business as usual… hai ki nahin…
Then we have the press …you know very nosey…chirp chirp…we use them only for product launches…current-news walla funda…taaza front page …full page we could afford in the past …ab quarter chalata hai…paua…kuchh strip shrip…kuchh arcane publications…and we use T.V. for regular advertising ..trp trp…and we don’t care for edits…paid or not … I know, I know…totally lost opportunity…we really wanted to slip some news out about how unhygienic is the daily
milk supply in our cities and how mother’s ought to turant switch to Nestle tetra PURE MILK…well, what to do… there was this chap here earlier , in my place, so headstrong…he wouldn’t do it and he wouldn’t allow anyone else to do it either…saala bada saadhu ban ta tha…he put out a Press Policy that stopped everyone and anyone from talking ‘officially’ to the press except himself and his boss, the Market Head…real chalu.. Real duffer, if you ask me… added no value for 8 years …so we asked him to quit …and true to form we took his nest away …you know, this house… the Company had loaned him money to buy a house…so, he built it ..and just when he was ready to move in , with his family…da baangg! we had him put in his papers…so he builds the nest and we get to lay eggs in it…serves him right!
Communication was in a mess then… much better now… we allow more people in the Company to talk to the Press…didn’t you read how one junior guy told this national newspaper off
when it tried to pry into our Nutrition Programme in colleges.. “we cannot give you details of our programme because it will adversely impact the competitive position of our Company”, he was quoted…solid, boss…kya maara…then he resigned , of course…pata nahin kyon…must have got a higher package elsewhere for his amazing communication effort… about our strategic CSR…we have a reputation for that ..HBR padho, sab samajh jaoge ! It’s nothing short of a miracle what we have done in Punjab. You can organise a media visit there…yes, yes, another good idea!
So, don’t worry about this controversy that “Scarecrow” will scare away the Nestle birds in its logo…we’ll fix the guy who started this …Incidentally, how did the press get to know that “Scarecrow” has been appointed Nestle creative consultant? Oh, you squawked, did you? Well, don’t do it again …without my written permission, ok…we have a Nestle India Press Policy, you know…its our NIPPle contract…allows us to show just as much as we like… no more, no less.. all in writing, proof read by me…Next time media wallahs call, on a slow news day, just avoid, or direct them to me.
And yes, before you go, you can look after our in-house magazine, VARTALAP…yes Nestle VARTAPLAP, but with a small Nestle on top, or on the side…not too big..HQ is very sensitive about associating the world wide NESTLE bird-nest
visual id with every this or that publication…but we use it discreetly, sort of, because we so value internal communications…or should that be communication? You figure that out….the singular plural angular stuff…okay!
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Nataranjan Bohidar is a Sr. Management professional with 35 years of positioning experience. He held key integrated marketing and communications positions with reputed companies like NESTLE India, Bennett, Coleman & Company and leading American collaborations in the automotive industry.
Views Expressed here are personal. HE MEANS NO OFFENCE TO INDIVIDUAL OR COMPANY, ONLY TO SYSTEMS & PROCESSES OUT OF WHACK! Mail
for BACK perspectives & more. BACK = (B)rand, (A)dvertising, (C)ommunication, (K)angaroo. Or just follow this column exclusive .
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Can Notplace / May 1,
what absolute rubbish! Nestle is the most multinational of multinational companies in the world..98% of its revenues come from countries other than its home country Switzerland..how can it make such an elementary error? i suggest the agency change its name to “robin” or “pigeon” or sparrow” or “cuckoo”…anything but “scarecrow” !
Watcher / May 3,
Ronnie Bohidar, I have absolutely no relationships with any present Nestle people or their associates – but in my purely personal capacity I strongly believe you have gone way over the top with sarcasms about your ex-company which you yourself have actively contributed to leading at a senior level within Nestle India.
Your commentary is not in good taste. Not very becoming of you. LAck of grace – why? Just because you left (had to leave) from there,leaving few to miss your departure?
natbohi / May 5,
Dear Watcher, Why not have the guts to reveal your real self/name? Appears you know me from somewhere..so are you one of the ‘birds’ the ‘crow scared’? It takes courage to be proud of the Company one has contributed to create and some more courage to correct that very Company when it may be going wrong…Nestle India needs such courage, not fence sitters and voyeurs!Write to me in detail, Watcher…i promise to keep the secret of your identity safe…Here’s mine :
natbohi / May 5,
Hello,Can Notplace…not sure how Nestle’s multinationalism is connected with changing the agency’s name…unless you mean that some cultures may be sensitive to co-relations such as “scarecrow” & “birds”, while some may not..and that multinational Nestle should be sensitive about such cultural differences…well, i think someone in Nestle India didn’t make the association… or was complacent because no one really ever finds out who appoints whom what why and where to do advertising duties for Nestle…What do you think ? write to me in detail:
natbohi / May 5,
Dear Ankita,
Thank you for writing to my id !i thought it would be best to reply here so everyone who is interested in the issue can be informed in one go.i know…so, teachery ..but what to do ..aadat se majboor! I hadn’t touched on the subject in our classroom because the article in HBR on strategic CSR
by Michael Porter & Mark Kramer did appear in DECEMBER 2006 but i got to read it only in late January…Sorry for being such a late laid back latif!! But i wrote back immediately my concern/s and ..can you believe it …HBR, true to the great publication it is , actually responded saying they will publish my letter, concerning corporate schizophrenia,
in their JUNE 2007 issue…LOL, YOU MAY SAY…BUT TRUTH is that Mike’s & Mark’s article raked up such a huge global debate on the subject that letters were flowing in from all over the world …so i had to wait …i was in the queue, so to say, b4 they found space for my letter! Go ahead, read them both now…the primal article , ‘Strategy & Society:The Link between Competitive Advantage & Corporate Social Responsibility’, HBR
DECEMBER 2006 and my letter HBR,JUNE 2007, page 136, to which both Porter & Kramer have responded…Once you’ve read them ask me to tell you the follow up i did with Warren Buffet!Have fun…
nataranjan bohidar / August 3,
Trust the Americans to update us about Nestle in India!Go to page 99 in William H. Avery’s amazing rendition titled,”China’s Nightmare, America’s Dream, INDIA as the next Global Power”. This is what he writes,”The Swiss food giant Nestle has planned to open,by 2012, a research centre in Manesar, south of New Delhi,to develop food spcific to Indian tastes”…So, when is the inauguration? Also, please see my para 3 above…IS THIS NESTLE’S PROMISED EL DORADO FOR INDIA? More about Nestle India’s Nineties foray into Indian foods,some time later!!
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