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Insomnia | Books

Unread postby icycalm » 04 Apr 2011 14:27

http://insomnia.ac/books/

So this is my little burgeoning publishing house. Now let's see how many of those deadlines I'll manage to keep, lol.
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Unread postby icycalm » 01 Dec 2011 21:59

As you may have noticed from the frontpage, the first book is now ready and available for pre-order. Please note that from now on the entire process is out of my hands, so do not bother me with questions you may have on the sales end of things. I just sent the complete Word document to my parents in Athens (who own a publishing house), and that is the end of my involvement with the project -- the actual printing, sales and shipping part will be handled by people on their end. And no, there will be no "combine items to save on shipping"- or "buy 3 get 2 (lol)"-type deals. The price is a flat 25 euros inc. shipping worldwide for every book published by Insomnia, regardless of size (we are selling ideas here, not potatoes). If we end up releasing Edge- and Famitsu-style magazine versions of review anthologies (as I plan to at some point), those may carry different pricetags, but for everything else this is the deal.

Now on to the Genealogy.
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Unread postby icycalm » 01 Dec 2011 22:05

And before anyone asks, no, none of the missing essays from Volume I, nor the rest of the Genealogy, will ever go online, and only perhaps 3 or 4 essays from Volume II. Also nothing from the philosophical books, apart from the two sample essays I've already published. As for the Videogame Art books, you can expect maybe 50% of the first volume to go online, and nothing from subsequent ones.

I am paying something like 4,000 to 5,000 euros per title to get these published (excluding something like 6-7 euros per copy on shipping...), so I'd like to make at the very least that money back, and as soon as possible, thankyouverymuch.
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Unread postby icycalm » 02 Dec 2011 04:34

The first volume, by the way, includes several articles not listed in the current contents sidebar of the Volume I articles (those pages need to be updated...) One of the most eye-catching ones is titled "Why I Am The Best Videogame Player In The World" lol. If you think you can take a crack at that start a thread in the theory forum and tell us what you think. It's really not that hard to figure out, as long as you are not an aspie.
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Unread postby icycalm » 28 Dec 2011 17:01

Below are the final contents of Videogame Culture: Volume I, with links to each article's respective forum thread, to facilitate discussion among those who're going to read it. Comments on the book, as a whole, on the other hand (and the second volume, when it comes out), should be posted here:

http://culture.vg/forum/topic?f=16&t=2526


VIDEOGAME CULTURE: VOLUME I

Preface [ > ]

The Stupidest Word in Videogames [ > ]
Arcade Culture [ > ]
In the Name of Consistency [ > ]
Reviewing Ports and Compilations [ > ]
Sequel: The Videogame [ > ]
No More "Parodies" [ > ]
On "Value" for "Money" [ > ]
"Can Games be Art?", and other Childish Nonsense [ > ]
Message my Ass [ > ]
On Role-playing Games [ > ]
The RPG Conundrum
The Nuts and Bolts are as Important as the Ones and Zeros
The Videogame News Racket [ > ]
Does Anyone Hate Anything Anymore? [ > ]
Non-games are for Non-gamers [ > ]
Casual Reviews are for Casual Gamers [ > ]
Mini-games are for Mini-gamers [ > ]
On Complexity, Depth and Skill [ > ]
The Second Stupidest Word in Videogames [ > ]
On New Games Journalism [ > ]
Leave Ranking to the Experts [ > ]
Beyond the Videogame News Racket [ > ]
How Good Exactly is Perfect? [ > ]
Cocksucking Videogameland [ > ]
Basic Instincts [ > ]
On "Emergent" Game Behavior and other Miracles [ > ]
On Insects and their Laws [ > ]
The Simulacrum is True [ > ]
A Gamer's Guide to the Internet: Prologue [ > ]
Hardware Porn: Prologue [ > ]
A Brief History of Cutscenes [ > ]
On Action and Reaction
On "Pluralism"
The Myth of Independence [ > ]
On Mane Streems and Niches [ > ]
On Why I Am The Best Videogame Player In The World [ > ]
On Why Scoring Sucks And Those Who Defend It Are Aspies [ > ]
On the Relative Irrelevance of "Balance" [ > ]
Bad Try, So No Cigar
Reviewing Textures [ > ]
On Narrative Delusions [ > ]

(And, as always, if there's no thread and you have something to say, you should start one.)


Comments on the Genealogy, on the other hand (which is also going to be coming out any day now), both as a whole and the individual essays, should be posted here:

http://culture.vg/forum/topic?f=16&t=2270

And comments on Videogame Art: Volume I, which is next in line to be published, should be posted in the individual review threads if you are commenting on an individual review, or here if you want to comment on the book (and project) as a whole:

http://culture.vg/forum/topic?f=3&t=2508


The publication schedule for the art criticism and theory books, therefore, is currently looking like this:

Videogame Culture: Volume I
On the Genealogy of "Art Games"
Videogame Art: Volume I
Videogame Culture: Volume II

And once these are out of the way, I'll start thinking about publishing the philosophical ones.
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Unread postby icycalm » 23 Jan 2012 02:09

So I just sent off the Genealogy as well. I've put a tentative date of February 15 on it, but chances are good it will be out before that. And all four of the main videogame books can now be pre-ordered from the online store page:

http://culture.vg/online-store.html

which looks like shit because I just threw it up in like ten minutes. I'll be properly formatting it later this week probably, and adding this quote by Lichtenberg at the top:

Let him who has two pairs of trousers turn one of them into cash and purchase this book.


And here are the final covers:

Image
Image
Image
Image

Well, final, except for the back cover to the Genealogy, in which all the text is a bit squashed up (and the Homer quote is not properly formatted, it needs to be in two lines, not three...), but I have the cover guy working on fixing it as we speak.

What else?

Yes, something I've also mentioned in one of the essays, but it bears repeating here as well. No one besides me currently realizes the vast impact that these books (plus the philosophical ones) are about to have on the course of the intellectual endeavors of mankind, but I'll try to give you a rough idea. Basically, within the next few years:

1. The four main videogame books will be taught as the gospel in all university Game Studies programs in the world. Those professors who for whatever reason fail to use them, and prefer to use, oh I don't know, Jesper Juul's or that Bogost moron's or Sirlin's lol, or whoever else's books instead, will find themselves being continually challenged and ridiculed by their own students (and especially the smarter ones), who will have found out about me from the internet and also told all their friends (something which, by the way, has already happened in at least one instance, which I linked somewhere in the reaction thread but can't seem to find it at the moment).

2. In addition to the above, the Genealogy will become the number 1 text in all kinds of art studies. Film, painting, music, you name it; the Genealogy will become mandatory reading in all kinds of art theory and art history courses once the old guard has gone through its inevitable denial phase -- and perhaps being phased out themselves.

3. Orgy of the Will will become the number 1 text in all university philosophy programs, overshadowing everything, even Zarathustra (quite against my wishes, this last development, but it can't be helped).

4. And in addition to that, my books on Nietzsche and Baudrillard will become the number 1 scholarly/interpretative works on these two philosophers in any university philosophy program that involves them (and all of them should involve them).

5. And in addition to all the above, Orgy of the Will will have a tremendous impact on practically all the natural sciences, the humanities, politics, etc. To give some examples from the natural sciences, consider that there are still no physicists who understand the philosophical implications of quantum mechanics, which I can explain in a couple of paragraphs. Or take medical professionals, who, when asked for their opinion on the matter, reply that immortality appears like an eventually achievable goal. Or take physicists again, with their "singularities", "double arrows of time" and other such idiocies. Not to mention psychoanalysis! which still doesn't realize that its number 1 concern should be the fight against ressentiment, and so on and so forth.


So, essentially, as long as some sort of freak accident involving killer comets or infected monkeys or whatever does not occur on this planet within the next few years, we will eventually get to the point where it will be impossible to go more than a few steps in any field of intellectual endeavor without at the very least someone recommending you one of my books, if not outright ordering you to fucking read them. And to get back to the videogame books, which are the closest on the horizon, my plan is as follows: all four of these books will be out by early summer at the latest. By that point I will have made a list of all the luminaries of the videogame industry, the usual suspects: Gabe Newell, the Bioware dudes, CliffyB, etc. -- several hundred, if not a couple thousand names. And then these dudes will be receiving a package in the mail from me that will include all four of my books, a free lifetime subscription to Insomnia, and a graciously written cover letter. Because I'll be damned if I am going to wait for the Gamasutra fuckfaces to mention my name to these people: I am just going to take matters into my own hands here too and see what happens. And what I think will happen is that before long you'll be seeing "CliffyB" etc. browsing the forum alongside you, and the Gamasutra fuckfaces will find it impossible to ignore me when all the industry's big names are talking about me in all the trade shows and conventions. -- Or at least that's my plan, at any rate, and I have a lot of faith in it.

And at the same time with all the above, I'll start getting in touch with Japanese publishers to translate these books, and then all of Japan's videogame industry will be getting their packages in the mail too, etc.

There's a slight snag to this plan, concerning money, however, because each of these packages will be costing me upwards of 50 euros inc. shipping, so if we are talking, say, 3000 people, that would be like 150,000 euros lol which no way in hell I can afford any time soon, but I'll start slow with a few packages a week (I'll have someone in my parents' publishing house take care of this), and work my way forward as sales of the books pick up and I can afford to increase the rate at which I send them out.

And there will be a similar plan with the philosophical books involving academic journals (mainly IJBS), and perhaps also art critics etc. as far as the Genealogy is concerned. We'll see. And at any rate, if anyone thinks this is too pushy (not that I care what anyone thinks, but just sayin'), Nietzsche had started to do pretty much the same thing a few months before he lost it. He had just been discovered by the Danish critic Georg Brandes, who was the first to teach Nietzsche's philosophy at a university, and he asked him to recommend to him several European intellectuals of the time, from Russia, France, etc., and also for their addresses, so he could send them his books and try to get some attention for his work -- attention which both the journalistic and academic establishments had been denying him for a decade. So there's nothing strange or abnormal with what I am doing -- I am just probably going to be doing it much more forcefully and methodically than anyone else, as is my style.

So, that is all for now. Buy these goodamn books. Read them. Think about them. Above all, enjoy them. And then talk about them with your friends and come back here if you have questions, objections, or any pertinent observations.
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Unread postby icycalm » 11 Feb 2012 21:21

The Genealogy has been pushed 10 days back, to February 25. For release date updates, etc. the place to go to is the online store page.
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Unread postby icycalm » 10 Apr 2012 21:07

IMG_6144.JPG

DSC_0043.JPG


Going simply by the pictures, I think it looks great (note there was a last-minute cover change, which I've still not updated the site with...) Can't comment on the quality of anything else (paper, binding, etc.), since I've yet to receive my copy, though I should be getting it by the end of next week (I told them not to send me a copy until all current orders have been fulfilled, which happened just this week). It's 416 pages, with 80+ pages of new material (35 of which are taken up by the scoring article alone). I ended up removing a couple of articles from it (the difficulty, fun, etc. article, the "social" issues article, etc.) because it would have ended up prohibitively large and expensive, but they'll make it onto the second volume whenever the fuck I get around to finishing it.

Don't ask about the Genealogy, though. I haven't even seen a picture of this yet, and several people have even received their shipping notifications. I don't know what the hell is happening over there, and there are so many people involved in the entire process, that I've given up bugging them and trying to find out. They are like me, in this respect, I guess. They get the job done, in the end, but sticking to any kind of plan is out of the question for them.

Once the initial rush of orders for each book is fulfilled, though, things will go a lot smoother, because the entire shipping process should be handled by a single person, as long as there is enough stock available (which there will be). We are shooting for a 1-2 week delivery time, and we will achieve it eventually, but for the time being, if you want to get your hands on the books, my advice is: order early, and be patient.
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Unread postby immersedreality » 11 Apr 2012 00:30

I've noticed the print on the bindings are flipped from what is typically seen elsewhere, reading from bottom to top instead of top to bottom. Was this an intentional design choice?
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Unread postby icycalm » 11 Apr 2012 21:35

Good call. To answer your question: apparently yes, but not by me. I approved the covers for publication, but the issue of the orientation of the spine text never entered my mind. So I did a little googling and found this:


http://typophile.com/node/65375

Wikipedia: "In the United States, the United Kingdom and Scandinavia, titles are usually written top-to-bottom, and this practice is reflected in an industry standard;[18] when the book is placed on a table with the front cover upwards, the title is correctly oriented left-to-right on the spine. In most of continental Europe, the general convention is to print titles bottom-to-top on the spine."



http://psyglass.net/?p=164

Now let’s take the book from the shelf and lay it on the table. Here we see something. When the book lies face up, we see the front cover and which one book it is. However, when we put it face down, the Continental method has a clear advantage – the text on the spine is easy to read and we still know which one book it is. The English method presents us with a back cover and an upside-down name on the spine. Therefore, with the same quantity of symbols on the book, the cover of the Continental book carries more information and is more convenient – on the shelf and on the table.

But wait – is this always true? If I use single books, it is very much so. But put ten books in a pile on the table, like usual, with the face up. Now it is more convenient for the text to go the English way, so we can see straight where the book stays in the pile. The books are in a chunk, so I don’t care about one book facing down with an upside-down name on the spine. Are you following? We arrive at the conclusion that Continental format of the text on the spine is more convenient for single books, and the Island format – for books piled one over the other.

Here we reach the question: what does it tell for the way they are used, for the needs and habits of people, the fact that books are usually used singularly or, the reverse, in a group. What books do you read one at a time? You take it off the shelf, carry around, put here and there, read in bed, on the bus and so forth? Or – the easier question – what books do you read in a chunk, several at the same time? Well, obviously these are books you read selectively, only in parts, making connections between, with a topic in mind. With a specific problem. Like in the university, for example – if I have to research the problem of aggression, I would take at least five or six sources, put them on the desk, and start scanning them. It is the problem that guides me, not the content of the book. I am not interested in the whole book, the author’s logic, etc. I am only interested in this particular problem. That is why we can call this type of reading “problem-oriented”, or pragmatic. The last word might have already rung a bell and a small neuron thread in your head might have linked it to your notion of “English” and “American”.

On the other hand is reading a book from cover to cover. Indeed, it is possible for pragmatic books as well (textbooks, science books, manuals), but is mandatory for literature. When we read fiction books, we immerse in the work from beginning to the end. This is absolutely necessary in order to fulfill the author’s intention and to relish his art. For crime stories – still more. So, if our readers use more often literature than pragmatic books, it is better to publish books in the Continental manner.

This string of reasoning leads to the simplistic conclusion that in Great Britain and USA (plus the Netherlands) people read more pragmatic books – textbooks, science, manuals, guides, encyclopedias, how-to books. On the Continent people read more literature. Pragmatic books are read in a problem-oriented way, with more sources at a time; literature is read in a content-oriented way, one book at a time. In the first case it is more important to be able to read the spine text when the book is in a pile with others, face up. In the second – it is more important for the spine text to enable book recognition in all positions – alone.

Finally it came to me that this hypothesis is easy to check, and I searched statistics of book publishing in USA and Europe. What it showed – for 2004 in the US literature had a share of between 1/4 and 1/3 of published books. In Europe – it is way over 50%. Well! I wouldn’t shake my head – I’ve had enough already of these books!



So I don't know what to say. All I know is that since several hundred books have already been printed and shipped, I really don't have much choice in the matter anymore, and obviously all future books by Insomnia will have to follow the same format, for better or worse.
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Unread postby icycalm » 14 Apr 2012 19:37

I finally got the book. My assessment of the overall print quality is ****. More on this later.
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Unread postby icycalm » 11 Jul 2012 22:17

An update on the status of the Genealogy, because I've received a few emails about it. We don't have any copies of it right now. A few dozen copies were sent out back in February, when the book came out, but none have been printed since because we were concentrating on fulfilling the Videogame Culture: Volume I orders (which we did, to the point where the book is now in stock for the foreseeable future). In the meantime, however, the printing press we were contracting for the job closed down, at least temporarily, because of Greece's well-known financial issues. They may open up any day now, and that's where we've been for the last couple of months: basically waiting to see what they will do. The alternative is to move to another press, of which there exist many, but I am trying to avoid doing this as it would mean that the new copies would not match the old ones 100% in quality of paper, ink, cover, etc.

So, the "order shipped" notification email is automatically sent when your book would have gone out if we had had any copies. Since we don't, you should interpret the email to mean that you have been placed on a waiting list, and should keep an eye on this thread for the real shipping date. I'll let you know when the situation has been resolved.
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Unread postby icycalm » 20 Oct 2012 00:46

And here's the latest news from the book front:

1. Videogame Culture: Volume II is, believe it or not, finally done. I actually sent the Word document on Monday, and the layout should be ready in a week or so. That's why I decided to unearth my US 360 and donwload the entire contents of the XBLA store; I've done nothing since Monday but play games all day lol. The thing was a huge weight on my shoulders, and anyone who's ever tried to write even a 2-page review should be able to appreciate how much effort it would take to write 800 pages of theory (which is about what the two volumes together should clock in at). So I won't be making the October 25 ship date, but copies should start going out in the first couple of weeks of November -- which is pretty close, by my standards at least.

2. However, in order to get this done so quickly, I had to put the Videogame Art book on hold. It was a tough decision, because I really wanted people to read the reviews before the theory that is based on them, but ultimately I think I made a wise choice. The problem with the Videogame Art book is that it is impossible for me to finish many of the reviews without replaying some old games, or trying out others which, though I am not actually reviewing them, are somehow related to the games I AM reviewing. So for example the Power Stone review is done, but I still need to play the original Smash Bros. for a little bit to confirm a couple of suspicions that I have, and until this is done, I can't finalize the Power Stone review, capish? And the problem is that I don't have an N64 with me right now, nor the appropriate display to connect it to, and I don't play games on emulation except if the emulation delivers a better experience than the original hardware, something which occurs in extremely few cases (like the GBA for instance), and certainly not in the case of the N64. And there are countless other games in which I am in the same predicament, so I decided that, in order to not compromise with the quality of the book, I'll put out Videogame Culture: Volume II first and finish with the theory (which was actually much easier to write on a logistics basis, since I didn't need any gaming hardware to do it), and hold off the Videogame Art reviews until they are done. -- WHEN exactly they will be done? I've put a tentative December 15 date on them, which should give me enough time to have some of my older systems shipped over to my current location, or perhaps buy a couple of them again or something. In any case I'll keep you posted.

3. New copies of the Genealogy have been printed and sent off to most of those who had the book on backorder. There still remain a few orders unfulfilled, because the print run was small, but give it 2-3 weeks or so and we should have plenty of copies. Again, I'll keep you posted on this.

4. Videogame Culture: Volume I is still in stock and will be so for the foreseeable future.

And that, for now, is all. I can't wait to get all books out and start sending them in packages to all the world's most prominent game developers. There'll be quite some fun to be had when this happens.
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Unread postby zinger » 23 Oct 2012 09:18

お疲れ様! I'll be making this my Christmas holiday reading. Can't wait!
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Unread postby icycalm » 23 Oct 2012 21:07

Darn! I just came across some coverage of Unreal Engine 4, and there are a couple of quotes from Epic dudes in there I could have used as intros to some articles in Volume II. Check this out:

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/05/f ... /?pid=2549

Stu Horvath wrote:But paradigms are shifting: Cheaply developed mobile titles and an unforgiving economy have cast doubt on the future of the blockbuster game. Why go big and risky when you can be safe and profitable? Unreal 4 is Epic’s answer to that question. With it, the company is staking its existence on a bold prediction: that the future of the industry depends on ever-more realistic visual spectacle.


Look fags and corporashun-haters: a sprawling, hated corporashun is "staking its existence" into championing the future, while all of you wretched little worms would have us go back to 1975 because the future frightens you.

Stu Horvath wrote:It’s late February, a week before the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, where Epic will be unveiling UE4 for the first time outside of the office. Reps from Microsoft, Sony, Nvidia, and the most influential game developers in the industry will be seeing the demo behind closed doors; the NDA-only affair will be Epic’s first and best chance to convince them that the future of gaming is unlike anything they previously imagined. “There is a huge responsibility on the shoulders of our engine team and our studio to drag this industry into the next generation,” says Cliff Bleszinski, Epic’s design director. “It is up to Epic, and Tim Sweeney in particular, to motivate Sony and Microsoft not to phone in what these next consoles are going to be. It needs to be a quantum leap. They need to damn near render Avatar in real time, because I want it and gamers want it—even if they don’t know they want it.


Because they are too stupid to know it before someone has thrust it in their faces and shoved it down their throats. And then 2D, or third-person, or turn-based, or anything other than first-person free-roaming role-playing will go the way of silent, black and white movies.

Stu Horvath wrote:In other words, Epic has seen the specs of proposed new consoles and is actively lobbying for them to be more powerful. It could be a bad sign for the industry if new, relatively underpowered consoles make an appearance at this year’s E3 consumer show (as is popularly rumored about Sony’s PS3 successor, the alleged specs of which leaked in April).


Hey look, internet, icycalm at the dawn of the last-gen saying the same thing that the people on the cutting edge of game design are saying at the dawn of the next-gen:

http://insomnia.ac/commentary/not_powerful_enough/

Dated September 2006, bitches!

Anyone who has the SLIGHTEST negative thing to say about hardware power (i.e. about GAME power) is NOT passionate about videogames (and consequently about art -- I am looking at you, Baudrillard), end of story.

Stu Horvath wrote:Here’s what the Unreal guys are hoping will singe the eyeballs of executives, hardware engineers, and game developers when they see it at GDC: A heavily armored demon knight sits frozen to his throne in a ruined mountain fortress. As he awakens, lava begins to flow around him and flames engulf the world. A magma vent spews a column of smoke and smoldering embers. He stands, sending up showers of sparks that dance, fall out of focus, and fade into ash. The knight hefts a massive hammer that glows with an inner fire. As he stalks down an empty corridor, a deep rumble sounds and masonry falls from the ceiling—this is no mountain but a volcano on the verge of eruption. When the knight steps outside, we see a range of snow-capped peaks in the far-off distance, rendered in stunning clarity. Behind him the volcano belches black smoke, while burning embers mix with swirling snowflakes.


In previous engines, one floating ember was enough to slow performance considerably; a shower of them was impossible. With Unreal Engine 4, there can be millions of such particles, as long as the hardware is potent enough to sustain them. Game developers overuse features of every new engine, because they are suddenly so easy to implement. In the original Unreal Engine, for example, the ability to render colored lighting led to a rash of games that employed the effect. The same may prove true for UE4′s particle effects, for better or worse. (“Mark my words,” Bleszinski says, “those particles are going to be whored by developers.”)

In one 153-second clip, the Epic team has packed all the show-off effects that have flummoxed developers for years: lens flare, bokeh distortion, lava flow, environmental destruction, fire, and detail in landscapes many miles away. Plus, it’s breathtakingly photo-realistic — or would be if demon knights were, you know, a real thing.


Jesper Juul says hi lol.

Stu Horvath wrote:In June, UE4 will be revealed to the gaming public. The reactions will likely be as spontaneous as staged lighting effects used to be. It’s all pre-scripted at this point: Fanboys will wet their pants, contrarian analysts will wring their hands, message boards will explode in either fury or collective orgasm. In all of the clamor and fanfare, though, the simple truth will be lost. Epic has redefined gaming before, and with Unreal 4 the company is doing it again.


Because the truth is that Gears of War is one of the greatest videogames ever made -- a truth lost in the flood of hatred of effeminate males against anything that displays the slightest hint of masculinity in it -- but a truth which was recovered and reinstated in my Genealogy and my Gears of War review.

Stu Horvath wrote:But here at GDC, the engineers and executives don’t gasp or cheer—these are hardware guys, after all. They came to see the future, and having seen it, they walk out of the room with disbelieving smiles on their faces. They have a lot of work to do.


And guess what, this work has nothing to do with "independence", but with the most extreme kind of DEPENDENCE of AN ENTIRE ARMY of artists, designers and engineers. With CO-OPERATION. With COLLABORATION. With RESPECT towards your colleagues and coworkers and REVERENCE for a goal that can only be achieved by all of you WORKING TOGETHER TO ACHIEVE IT -- and this "everyone" INCLUDES the people who WILL STAKE THEIR ENTIRE FORTUNES ON YOUR WORK BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE IN YOUR VISION EVEN MORE THAN YOU DO, and the PR people who will TRY TO COMMUNICATE THIS VISION TO YOUR AUDIENCE IN ORDER FOR THE AUDIENCE TO SUPPORT IT AND THE FINANCIAL BACKERS TO CONTINUE BEING ABLE TO FINANCE YOUR EFFORTS. Do you get it now, fags and pseudo-industry analysts? Do you get it now you fucking flatline braindead subhuman scum?

But the most amazing thing about all this, is how the vision of the greatest game designers utterly coincides with my theory. See also the Star Citizen thread where I quote Chris Roberts saying more or less the same things. No other theory or attempt at theory can explain what these dudes are trying to achieve -- indeed, every other attempt at theory VILIFIES the GREATEST GAME DESIGNERS as EVIL, SOULLESS, GREEDY, TALENTLESS, INCOMPETENT AND UTTERLY LACKING IN VISION AND INSPIRATION. In other words, all other attempts at theory apply to the greatest game designers all the attributes they should be applying to "indie" and "art" game designers -- all other attempts at theory, in other words, have done nothing but stand the truth on its head with an astonishingly accurate consistency.

But look again at the greatest game designers, and you will see that every single one of them feels exactly the same way I feel. And the bottom line of the theory is that everyone who doesn't feel this way is either not passionate about videogames, or is an inferior lifeform, or both. And since anyone not passionate about videogames (i.e. about art) is an inferior lifeform anyway, it all amounts to the same thing in the end: inferiority. So there's only me, the greatest game designers, and the people who play and love their games: only WE can be said to be human today to any significant degree. Everyone else is simply not human. TO PREFER 2D TO 3D IS NOT HUMAN, GET IT? And the same goes for every other artistic advance.

Anyway, the future is in good hands, because everyone worth anything will be educated by my books. I'll now go see if there is still time to add a couple of quotes to the second volume.
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icycalm
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Unread postby icycalm » 23 Oct 2012 21:21

I wrote:But look again at the greatest game designers, and you will see that every single one of them feels exactly the same way I feel.


Which makes sense if you consider that the greatest game designers are the greatest precisely because their work pleases the Overman -- and HE is the one who determines what is "great" and what is "wretched" for future generations, as Schopenhauer has explained. So it all works out perfectly in the end lol. Everything else is turbulence, or "The Intelligence of Evil". Google it if you don't know what turbulence is. See, it was no accident that I studied aerospace engineering.
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icycalm
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Unread postby icycalm » 24 Jan 2014 19:00

Starting today, and over the next few weeks, I will be posting some of the first few essays -- maybe 5 or 10 of them or so -- from Videogame Culture: Volume II on the frontpage. Here is the first one:

http://culture.vg/features/art-theory/o ... ocess.html

The book is mostly done, but I am going to delay it as long as necessary to ensure that Videogame Art: Volume I (and maybe even Volume II) comes out before it. It will just be that much easier to fully understand the theory if you've read all the practical examples first, and I want the chronological order of the books' publications to reinforce this.

By the way, there are still a few people who have ordered but not yet received their copies of the Genealogy, and I am still struggling to resolve this issue and fulfill all orders. I do however expect the book to be in stock again soon, and for the foreseeable future. For the time being, however, this is how things stand with book availability:

Videogame Culture: Volume I - IN STOCK
On the Genealogy of "Art Games" - ON BACKORDER
Videogame Art: Volume I - SPRING 2014
Videogame Culture: Volume II - SUMMER 2014

For more updates keep an eye on this thread, and refrain from emailing me if all you want to do is ask for more updates. When I have news, the first thing I will do is post them here.
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icycalm
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