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State of Insomnia

Unread postby icycalm » 30 May 2006 16:11

I am going awol for a few weeks. I'll be checking in whenever I manage to find any "Hot" "Spots". Might even update the site if I find the time.

Hopefully there won't be any new spambots registering. If there are please treat them with dignity and respect.

Take care of yourselves, and each other.
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Unread postby Chuplayer » 30 May 2006 17:17

See ya later, alligator!
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Unread postby shinjuku0069 » 30 May 2007 23:31

Hey icy! Congratulations to go living in Lyon :lol: I' m from this city so I ' m quite sure you' ll enjoy La capitale des Gaules ;)
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Unread postby AlphaONE » 01 Jun 2007 15:35

I hope you have a nice trip :D
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Unread postby icycalm » 01 Jun 2007 17:06

Well, this thread is from May 2006, when I went on some other trip... can't even quite remember where that was.

But thanks all the same!
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Unread postby icycalm » 07 Feb 2012 21:53

So here's how things stand at the moment. I am currently recuperating from the last two months, in which I did a shitload of work (writing, rewriting, correcting, etc.) on my first two books, one of which is now out, and the other of which will be out shortly. Now, I have about a dozen reviews in the pipeline and about as many articles, on top of at least 20 to 30 Videogame Art reviews (several of which are already half-written) which I'll be publishing in the next couple of months, in the run up to the publication of the first volume of the book itself. All of that stuff should start hitting the frontpage starting next week, perhaps as early as Monday, depending on how I feel, weather conditions and the like. I am currently holed up in a little apartment in the Alps, snowboarding, swimming and writing, so by the time I quit this place at the end of the season all of the stuff mentioned above should be out and published.

On the subscriber front, the site just passed 100 active subscribers today (101 to be exact), which you can see here. Of course you have to subtract the 11 staff accounts, but that still leaves you with 90 subscribers, and people are signing up all the time, so we should hit the 100 milestone in the next few days, couple of weeks at the most. What's great about this is that people keep signing up even though I haven't posted anything new in weeks -- but there's so much awesome new stuff anyway, that people understandably want to read it. And as time goes by the incentive to subscribe will only increase with all the upcoming content. I even envy these dudes, who get to read dozens of new Insomnia essays in a single sitting. But that's what happens when you are the editor -- you can no longer be the reader :(

So that's it for now. Start checking the frontpage beginning next week, and I guaranteed you'll love what I've got coming up for you.
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Unread postby icycalm » 16 Sep 2012 02:58

So the lengthy hiatus is finally over with this cool little update, which also inaugurates the Companies section of the Archive:

http://culture.vg/archive/companies/tha ... mpany.html

If you love videogames you will link this page whenever you see thatgamecompany being mentioned in any way, shape, or form.

Note that all archive and index pages are publicly viewable, since their main purpose is, after all, to link to proper articles and reviews anyway. However, contrary to my policy up till now, none of the publicly viewable pages will be marked as such anywhere on the site, because doing so would burden the site with unnecessary text or images. Subscribers can see everything anyway, and as for the rest... just click around if you are in any doubt as to whether you can see a page or not. If you are not willing to support the site, it's not my priority to improve your browsing experience. I'd rather have a pretty site instead.

Also, because there have been fuckfaces claiming that the site is "dead" or whatever -- I am in the middle of writing and publishing 4 books containing upwards of 1,200 pages of unprecedent videogame theory and criticism, all of which, when published, will be essential reading for decades and centuries to come. Insomnia is, by an unspeakably vast margin, the MOST PRODUCTIVE publication in the history of the artform, compared to which NO ONE ELSE IS REALLY WRITING ANYTHING, LOL. I realize you fuckfaces can't tell the difference between criticism/philosophy and the gutter scribblings that everyone else is churning out which doesn't even last beyond a few days, but even you should be able to understand that when a man is putting out 4 books in a fucking year, it is understandable that he might not be able to update his site with the same frequency as before. It's not even a matter of finding time to write new stuff: believe it or not, I already have between 50 and 100 articles/features/reviews on my hard drive, both by me and several others, which simply need to be formatted and posted. And every other week I get at least one or two more. So, save me your envious finger-pointing and take a good look at the mirror, and at your pitiable writing output that no one will ever give a fuck about, before you attempt to question the quantity or frequency of my output, or anything else for that matter.
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Unread postby icycalm » 07 Oct 2012 04:31

In the last few months I have come to blows (virtual blows, at any rate) with practically every one of the main contributors to this site: Recap, Cacophanus, the Scathing Accuracy guys, dudes in the Reviews forum, etc. -- not to mention how many bannings I've handed out to average Joes in the forum. And all the people I HAVEN'T banned, have let me down in one way or another.

So let me be perfectly clear about this: I despise all of you and I view you as subhumans who are fit for nothing and deserve everything you get: IGN, Euromoron, the hobags, the aspies, the weeaboos, the New Games Artfags, crocks of shit in tin cans: you are perfectly worthy of all of that -- it was all created BY and FOR you. I've come extremely close to shutting the site down and putting the extra time in surfing or whatever, but I am still holding back because I still enjoy creating it, despite all. Nevertheless, the idea that you are even ABLE to still view my site, despite all the barriers I've erected, does not quite sit well with me, so you can expect the barriers to rise in the future. One idea is to double or triple or quadruple the subscription fee (and the book prices, by the way). The New Scientist charges upwards of 150 a year (and their content is usually recycled quasi-scientific tripe), so I don't see why I shouldn't get a little closer to that to keep even more of the riffraff out. Another thing I could do is take away everyone's posting privileges, so that people will be able to read the site but not interact with it, like in the good old days. Anyway, we'll see. The disgust sits so heavily on my palate right now, that I find it hard to even bring myself to VISIT my own site. I feel disgust by VISITING MY OWN GODDAMN SITE. I have all this ton of cool shit to update the frontpage with, but the disgust keeps me from doing it. It's fucking unreal.
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Unread postby icycalm » 07 Oct 2012 17:54

P.S. I don't really despise all of you. I only did so last night because recent events made me want to murder someone (or better yet, entire subhuman demographics). I in fact like many of you and appreciate your contributions, and you know who you are.

Nevertheless, the fee increase is something I am seriously considering. The new site's one-year anniversary is coming up in less than a month, the last two videogame books are a few weeks away from being sent to the printers -- at which point the site's prestige will skyrocket to fucking unimaginable heights (considering that in the last book I literally solve EVERYTHING) -- so it may be time to make this little club a little more exclusive. We'll see.
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Unread postby icycalm » 07 Oct 2012 21:22

So, to get back to the issue at hand, I have decided that by November 3, 2012 (Insomnia 3.0's one-year anniversary), the subscription fees will at the very least double, and the book prices will also probably be hiked up a few euros. Between now and then the last two videogame books will have been published, and there will also have been a shitload more content posted on the frontpage, as I will sit down and clean up and update the site to my satisfaction. I am posting this as a warning to those among you who are not so well-off: take advantage of it, if you must. (Though if you deem that 10 or 20 or even 100 euros a year either way to spend on your favorite artform is too much, you really shouldn't be into videogames at all. This is a serious piece of advice from me: If you want but can't afford a subscription to this site you shouldn't be on the internet at all, let alone playing videogames, but out there looking for a job.)
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Unread postby icycalm » 08 Oct 2012 02:39

And the Subhuman Saga posts, initially made in this thread, can now be found here: http://culture.vg/forum/topic?p=18288#p18288
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Unread postby icycalm » 12 Oct 2012 18:31

So, after some email exchanges with a few people, I have decided on the following course of action. Subscription fees have been raised by approximately 50% (to 35/30 euros) instead of simply being doubled. I am trying to balance my desire to avert more Lord Knight/Carceri-type incidents by compelling people to VALUE their accounts here a bit more, while at the same time not unduly penalizing well-meaning kids for whom 10 extra euros actually means something. And the way to do that for uncouth idiots who only value money is to keep raising the fees as high as they will go.

To balance this out, however, there is now an option in the store to get all 4 videogame books plus a one-year subscription (or subscription extension, for those who already have accounts) for €115, which works out to 20 or so euros cheaper than buying everything separately:

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

This move is meant to entice all those who bought subscriptions but few if any books -- and there are quite a few of those. But if you do this, you are guaranteed to get banned pretty quickly if you post, or, even worse, to fail to follow everything I am saying even if you don't. Because, at the end of the day, dudes, the books are more valuable than the site! How hard can that be to understand? Printing something is a lengthy, costly business -- so of course we are going to print only the very best things! The same goes for the reviews. The ENTIRE review contents of this site do not come ANYWHERE NEAR the insight found in my GTAIII, or Halo, or DMC, or Civilization reviews. And all reviews of their sequels and imitators will be based on those extremely lengthy, extremely detailed initial reviews. And yet the Videogame Art book is by far the last one people seem to bother to order.

Anyway, I've said my bit, and the rest is up to you. I just want to be clear on the fact that I have no interest in answering questions or discussing games with people who haven't read everything I've written.
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Unread postby icycalm » 14 Oct 2012 21:50

Here's a little taste of what's coming up on the frontpage soon:


REVIEWS
Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword, Portal, Portal 2, God of War, Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, Demons' Souls, Dark Souls, No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Light Crusader, The Terminator (1992), Street Fighter IV, Blazblue -Calamity Trigger-, The King of Fighters XII, Metroid Prime, Max Payne 3, Pikmin 2, Wolfenstein, Fracture, Diablo III, El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron, Agarest Senki, End of Eternity, Deus Ex: The Conspiracy, Spelunky (2012)

FEATURES
The (Real) Revolution Starts Now, Interview: thatgamecompany wants to turn you into Scum, Internal Consistency in Storytelling, Why Videogame-to-movie Adaptations Generally Suck, An Insider's Account Into the Videogame News Racket


And this is by no means all. I have literally three to four times as much stuff sitting on my hard drive right now, but it's very hard finding the time to format anything and post it on the frontpage. Features are generally easier (and even those take half an hour minimum to proofread and post up), but reviews can take anywhere from an hour to even two or three depending on the length. If I could get someone else to do this work for me we could have new stuff every day to read, but I just don't feel comfortable trusting anyone with access to the site's backend, on top of which I wouldn't trust anyone to format the page well. So we are all just going to have to be patient, once more, as usual with every aspect of this site.
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Unread postby icycalm » 26 Jan 2013 18:29

I am looking for two people to join the Insomnia staff as news editors. Joining the staff means a free lifetime subscription, all books published by Insomnia for free and access to the Staff forum. Payment will be modest along the lines explained here:

http://culture.vg/forum/topic?f=13&t=4053

Essentially, the equivalent of a free game now and then as a pat on the back for your efforts.

The point in all this is to take off my hands some of the news reporting, so that I can concentrate on editing and posting the absurd backlog of reviews and articles (more than 80 at this point) that has been accumulating on my hard drive over the past year. I have had people offering to do the editing before, but I am not willing to trust anyone with such a delicate and demanding work. It will only happen after I am dead, and I've bequeathed the site to someone. Until then, I am the only who will be editing stuff here. So if you want to help relieve my workload and see new stuff on the frontpage, news reporting is how to do it.

If you are interested send me an email at icycalm@culture.vg and I'll give you all the details. Your qualifications are your internet posting history. Do you have your own gaming site or blog or Twitter account, etc.? Do you have any forum accounts on videogame sites, and have you racked up many posts? All these are signs of being passionate about the artform, and the more of them you show me the more confident I'll feel in letting you in to my little club. Preferential treatment will also be given to Insomnia subscribers (if you are already a subscriber you are essentially in), but it is not necessary to be one to apply. So just send me a quick email expressing your interest, and we'll take it from there. There's no closing date for this "application process". It will end when I have found two people I am happy with.
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Unread postby icycalm » 29 Jan 2013 04:26

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Unread postby icycalm » 06 Feb 2013 16:10

Just a quick word on the status of the News forum. First, if you haven't read the previous update in this thread yet, read it now. Second, the plan is working great and I am especially glad to see that many people are contributing far above the minimum amount of one post per week. Insomnia's news forum is already the best videogame news service in the world and I still haven't leveraged the entire forum userbase yet. Which brings me to my next point, which is that there are still, unfortunately, plenty of people who can't be bothered to contribute anything, even though they are here every day reading up on everyone else's contributions. I've already deactivated 5 accounts on this score, and will keep doing so until every regular forum reader is also a regular news poster, so if you still haven't contributed anything start now otherwise you will be losing your account the very next time I see you online -- no kidding. There are at least 10 more candidates for deactivation I have in mind, and I am just posting this to give them a chance to stay here.

As for the banned users -- soon enough I will be unbanning everyone, so don't worry: you'll soon get your chance to join in or lose your account too.
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Unread postby icycalm » 17 Oct 2013 14:56

Haven't posted anything on the frontpage in ages because I've been too busy with philosophy, but that's about to change once I update the philosophy site later on today. Expect a flood of new reviews and articles soon. It's just been piling on my hard drive all these months and now I intend to clear it.
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Unread postby icycalm » 19 Sep 2014 04:48

There is now a link to Insomnia's Steam group/Clan page from the frontpage of the site, just below the book showcase. Credit to ronan for making a kickass logo for us, based on the font used on the covers of my videogame books.
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Unread postby icycalm » 17 Oct 2014 05:07

So the books have sold enough so far to cover the costs of printing them, and then some. At the same time, the publishing model that I chose for the philosophy site -- of making the book available for free, and charging for forum access -- has been working nicely, so I made the choice to make all the rest of Insomnia's books also available for free. There will also be printed copies of everything (as well as cheaper iPad/Kindle versions and the like, eventually), but whoever prefers to read in his web browser will have that option too, and without having to subscribe to the site at all. All of the other content, both on the frontpage and in the forum, will still be subscriber-only though. But I want the books to serve as guardians and filters at the gates of both my sites. Whoever wants deeper engagement with me and the communities I am building, on videogames and philosophy respectively, will be able to examine my ideology in detail before deciding whether to step inside.

What this means is that both the first part of the Set Theory essay and the "Metagame" essay that just went online are now publicly viewable, and that within the next few weeks all the rest of Videogame Culture: Volume I and the Genealogy will be available online (as well as all the Videogame Art reviews, when I get around to updating them). Videogame Culture: Volume II should be done by new year's eve at the latest, and with that videogame theory (and therefore art theory) will be over. I am sick and tired of all the hacks and pseuds and posers, and even plagiarists, lately, and I am determined to sit my ass down and finally get it done, so we can put all of that wretched past behind us and start building a better, glorious future, beginning from this very site.


P.S. The handful of remaining stock issues with the Genealogy should be cleared up soon. I'll email everyone concerned when the time comes, to make sure they'll be at home to receive it when it's supposed to arrive.

P.P.S. The version of the "Metagame" essay on the frontpage is much expanded compared to the rough draft I posted in the Strategy forum a few weeks ago, so take a look at it again even if you have read that.
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Unread postby icycalm » 16 Mar 2015 15:50

Sup dudesters and dudettes. Been busy the last couple of months, so I haven't played any games or written anything game-related or updated the site, etc., but I am getting a yearning for some gaming, so I'll be making a comeback in the near future, hopefully. Maybe within the next couple of weeks. Too many things I left undone that I would like to apologize for: my 1-article-a-day promise, the 4 "indie" game reviews that people bought me the games for, the RPG idea, the Cosmic War idea, and so on. Sorry for letting everyone down on all this stuff, but life happens, and so on. My aim is still to deliver on all these fronts, to one extent or another, but since my books are still not done, I am harnessing my energy/creativity for that purpose. So when I return, the first thing I will do is post a new Videogame Culture essay (or, more likely, the completion of a half-finished and half-published one), and take it from there.

Part of why I am lagging behind all my videogame goals, especially in the criticism/theory space, is because I no longer feel any urgency to complete my projects. There is literally zero development happening in this domain when I am not writing, so I don't see any reason to rush myself. I couldn't rush myself even if I wanted to anyway, but at least now I can dispense even with the guilt that I am not rushing. I mean it's not like people are dying in the streets because I still have things to say that I haven't said.

At one point I entertained the idea of publishing a couple of pages with one-paragraph summaries of all the forthcoming essays, just in case I die or something before I finish them, but it will spoil the dramatic effect of reading the actual essays, so I am holding off on it. Another idea I entertained is writing the last essay, the one about crying, but that again would have the same effect. So what if it takes a couple years more before all the essays are done? That would still be well before my 40th birthday...

(And by the way, I have already told Qpo the essentials of the crying essay on Mumble, so there's that. But I doubt he would remember them...)

So that's it for now. I really miss playing with all y'all on Mumble, and I am looking forward to rejoining you there soon. Also, my thanks to everyone who's been keeping the News forum alive all this time. I'll make sure to repay the favor when my life settles down a bit and I find the time.
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Unread postby icycalm » 12 Jun 2015 03:23

Here's what my plan for the summer is:

Write exclusively Videogame Culture and Videogame Art essays. Write as many of them as possible to get as close as possible to finishing up all the remaining books. I want all the books to be out by the end of the year at the latest, and the earlier the better. I'd love to have them done by summer's end, but I will settle for at least one of them, and the other by Christmas.

The only exception are the reviews of the games that people bought for me. I think it's Red Seeds Profile, Dragon's Dogma, and those four quasi-"indie" games on Steam. Maybe one or two more games, I can't remember, I'll have to check. I'll tackle all these games one by one, in my own time, and post the reviews when I am done. But apart from that, it's full-on book-writing from me, while at the same time trying to clear as much of my backlog of other people's good reviews I've come across.

And that's the plan for now.
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Unread postby icycalm » 29 Apr 2017 02:35

From Discord:

I wrote:Frontpage's back in business with a Quantum Break review
I took a break 1) for the holidays, and 2) to let my GOTY article sink in
But now I am back in business
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Unread postby icycalm » 24 Jul 2017 00:18

From Discord:

I wrote:Orgy update: http://orgyofthewill.net/
After 6+ months of work I've got Insomnia back on track, and I am about to focus more on Orgy for the next few months
I still have tons of plans for Insomnia: Uberust, Cosmic War, the GOTY feature, the Best Player contest, more VGART and VGCULTURE essays, etc.
But none of them is a priority, and I will simply be working on them whenever the mood strikes me
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Unread postby icycalm » 14 Aug 2017 13:04

The reason frontpage updates have stopped for several weeks now is because I've been working on a new PA site (and game) called Cosmic War, and will soon start work on a new Rust site (and game) called Uberust. However, the Cosmic War site is almost ready to be officially unveiled, so Insomnia updates will resume after that, for at least a few weeks, before I take another break in order to make the Uberust site.
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Unread postby icycalm » 05 Oct 2017 14:56

From Discord:

I wrote:Horizon Zero Dawn review up: http://culture.vg/reviews/in-depth/hori ... 7-ps4.html
After a 2+ months' pause, to build the PA site and events, Insomnia's back
I will try to avoid a pause when I develop the Rust site and event...
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