Theory

[LaserGun]

I would probably use "artdyke" myself lol

[chb]

This is definitely the funniest article on the website. It probably wasn't necessary to waste so many words on that dumb bitch but it was definitely a very entertaining read. I'm especially fond of this little nugget:

YES, BECAUSE WE NEED TWO-BIT HOBAGS TO TELL US ABOUT MANHOOD. SHE HAS NOW BECOME AN AUTHORITY NOT ONLY ON VIDYAGEAMS -- BUT ALSO ON MANHOOD. AND I AM AN AUTHORITY ON WOMANHOOD -- JUST WATCH ME MENSTRUATE. AND MY DOG IS AN AUTHORITY ON THE HUMAN CONDITION. WOOF! WOOF!

[icycalm]

I would probably use "artdyke" myself lol

Adopted! From now on I'll be referring to "artfags and artdykes" so as to be an equal opportunity offender. I think that should make everyone happier.

[Nervicide]

Artskank is the term usually applied to her kind. Great article, I wonder if she learned anything from it. Slim chance she did, her brain probably registered the entire text as cuneiform script.

Did this article attract the number of hits you thought it would? or did it surpass your expectations? Links to it are surely spreading like wildfire as we speak.

[trickmasterG]

Icy, you say at the end of your Hobag article that because of women's inherent disinterest to video games the will be unable as a group to follow us into the future of digital realms. I would really like to know what you think the implications of this will be. How will this be different in the past, where man would leave comfort to discover, explore, and ultimately conquer unknown lands? In every instance woman would soon follow after as civilizations were formed, because they were absolutely necessary for the continuation of the people. As one does not need a corporeal form to inhabit a digital realm, will women become totally unnecessary because their essential function (childbirth) will be rendered useless? I could see women making the argument the other way around stating that it is men that will be worthless, but since exploration is alien to the female nature they would never even begin the journey.

My instinct is to recoil at this idea, to throw down my controller, and try to forget these electronic continents, but if this is indeed the future of humanity than I have no other choice but to embrace it.

[Taylor]

Why would anyone name their site "Sexy Videogame Land" anyway?

That just screams: "Hey guys I'm a girl who plays video games."

"Guys I'm a girl who plays video games"

"Hey"

"I'm a girl"

"Hey

"Hey"

[Marble]

Hahaha, I just took at look at that Third Strike review on Action Button. The second screenshot isn't even Third Strike, it's Second Impact.

The paragraph about Street Fighter II not being played for the right reasons just screams "Hey everyone! I just realized how awesome fighting games can be when I was playing Third Strike yesterday! Someone even told me what mix-up and cross-up mean! And since I've never realized these things even existed before now - I can assure you that this game is definitely the deepest out there!"

As for your article Icy... it was beautiful.

[zinger]

The reason, therefore, that men are so easily seduced by virtual worlds whereas women are generally indifferent towards them (and in fact usually fail to even see the point in them), is because man's vital function, war, can be just as easily performed in virtual worlds as in the real one (and in fact even more easily there), whereas woman's vital function, childbirth, cannot be performed in them at all.

I guess nursing a baby is about as easy to simulate in a game as war is (The Sims?). Wouldn't that be seducing enough? Care to elaborate?

[DeadAurum]

[double-posted]

[DeadAurum]

All quotes are from dear Leigh:

We've got way too many games designed by people whose primary hobby in life was Dungeons and Dragons or strategy board games -- yeah, yeah, I know, go ahead and add your obligatory comment defending the artistic value of these pursuits as if we aren't suffering from an excess of their influence.

lol

Thanks to everyone for your contributions, thoughtful comments and participation in the discussion! You guys are the best, and all of you are cleverer by far than one of me.

Cleverer? I'm interested in your thesaurus, seems much cleverer than mine! Maybe you deserve an English grammar book, though.

Another element these games --and this trailer -- share is that all of the gameplay is very visual and very kinetic. Reflecting on his own childhood, Ueda has said he was "interested in things that moved."

She stresses the "gameplay" from the trailer! And I think I may agree, it is indeed more visual and more kinetic than anything I've ever witnessed!
Even the Ueda quote embedded here is...interesting. Maybe it moves.

[Bradford]

The reason, therefore, that men are so easily seduced by virtual worlds whereas women are generally indifferent towards them (and in fact usually fail to even see the point in them), is because man's vital function, war, can be just as easily performed in virtual worlds as in the real one (and in fact even more easily there), whereas woman's vital function, childbirth, cannot be performed in them at all.

I guess nursing a baby is about as easy to simulate in a game as war is (The Sims?). Wouldn't that be seducing enough? Care to elaborate?

I took Icy to be using the term "war" broadly (i.e., synonymous with the concept of conflict); thus, war is not being simulated in video games, it is real. Note also in the quote above that Icy didn't actually say anything about simulating war, he said it can be "performed" - I thought that was intentional. Therefore, real war can occur in a simulated place. A simulation of childbirth could perhaps be experienced in a virtual place, but for obvious reasons, a real childbirth cannot.

[icycalm]

I guess nursing a baby is about as easy to simulate in a game as war is (The Sims?). Wouldn't that be seducing enough? Care to elaborate?

Look at it this way: a man would, as a rule, be perfectly happy to spend his entire life inside a virtual world. A woman never. At the highest stage of simulation (i.e. videogames) the difference between real war and simulated war is almost negligible -- whilst the difference between real childbirth and simulated childbirth remains tremendous. Besides, man is very happy to take regular breaks from reality in order to indulge in his warmaking instinct; woman, on the other hand, has no time to waste in such matters -- her entire being, all her efforts are continually directed towards the requirements of childbearing: she must find a man, secure him via marriage, then secure all the other things proper childraising presupposes: a home, a steady income, etc. Any time spent in virtual worlds is time taken away from this extraordinary enterprise which constitutes her fundamental mission. All the while a man would be perfectly happy lying on some beach in a pacific island paradise, surfing all day, playing games with his friends, and banging the occasional slut he meets at random nightclubs.

I took Icy to be using the term "war" broadly (i.e., synonymous with the concept of conflict);

Yes.

thus, war is not being simulated in video games, it is real.

No.

Therefore, real war can occur in a simulated place.

Yes, but only if the mortality of the participants is linked to that of their virtual doubles -- an absurd undertaking that only terminally bored beings would ever contemplate.

A simulation of childbirth could perhaps be experienced in a virtual place, but for obvious reasons, a real childbirth cannot.

Correct.

[icycalm]

Did this article attract the number of hits you thought it would? or did it surpass your expectations? Links to it are surely spreading like wildfire as we speak.

Not really. I mean many people have read it, including a great percentage of the journ-lol-list crowd, but they are all doing their best to arrest my inevitable rise to fame. I mean look at this shit:

http://zerolightseeds.wordpress.com/200 ... ce-things/

A few weeks ago I was linked to this blog entry on Insomnia. At first, I felt compelled to write a response to it, but so ridiculous was the article that I couldn’t come up with anything beyond “What. The. Hell?!”… because how exactly are you meant to respond to such irrational, misogynistic vitriol?

I was able to ignore it for the most part because it was all too crazy for me to take seriously, but it kept being brought up in conversations that I had with friends and other game writers. The people I spoke with all voiced their frustrations at the piece not so much because they disagreed with the ideas in Kierkegaard’s rant, but because he did it in a way that now makes it impossible for anyone to criticise a female game writer without being associated with his hideous diatribe.

There are valid criticisms to be made about everyone’s writing, and there are plenty that can be made about the writing of many of the women who work in the industry. Not everyone is going to like Leigh Alexander’s work; not everyone is going to be a fan of Tracey John, and there will be people who don’t like Nadia Oxford’s writing. There will be people who find me intolerable. I think all writers should be kept in check and be called out when they’re doing a particularly bad job, but Kierkegaard’s method isn’t the right way to do it. If anything, he has been completely counter-productive because now, anyone who has legitimate criticisms of well-known female writers like Leigh Alexander won’t be able to voice their thoughts without conjuring thoughts of Kierkegaard’s needlessly abusive and highly sexist opinion piece.

So that’s one small step forward for Insomnia in their page hits for this month, and one giant leap back for games writing. Thanks, dude. You’ve ruined it for everyone.

KISS MY ASS YOU FUCKIN' LITTLE FAGGOT! IT'S NOT MY ARTICLES THAT ARE TAKING GAMES WRITING BACK -- IT IS YOUR VAPID BABBLING AND GAY WHINING!

"Giant leap back for games writing", lol. GIANT LEAPS FORWARD IS WHAT GAMES WRITING IS TAKING WITH ME. IMAGINE HOW DECADENT AND RETARDED YOU HAVE TO BE TO VIEW THEM AS LEAPS BACK!

[icycalm]

Icy, you say at the end of your article that because of women's inherent disinterest in video games they will be unable as a group to follow us into the future of digital realms.

I never said that. Try reading the relevant passage again, paying attention to my exact words and not hallucinating anything.

As for the rest of your post: it is best if we pretend you never wrote it.

[Nervicide]

Not really. I mean many people have read it, including a great percentage of the journ-lol-list crowd, but they are all doing their best to arrest my inevitable rise to fame.

Indeed they are, for example, Kieron Gillen over at Rock Paper Shotgun has this section called sunday papers where he links babble from other sites/blogs once a week. I have never seen a link to Insomnia, and as we know from the rllmuk encounter (last posts) the man is well aware of you and this site.

Clearly you're not in his circle jerk agenda, lol. Which is for the best I recon, no need to associate Insomnia with RPS.

A few weeks ago I was linked to this blog entry on Insomnia.

And how the hell can anyone call your article a "blog entry", as if it's at the same level with their meaningless blogoroid banter. Yeh.

[Archonus]

The only reason no-one accuses Icy of misandry is because he's male.

Sounds kinda sexist to me...

[Scriabin]

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/burle ... nded/52345

[icycalm]

Impressed only by female bylines who, in the course of their writings, convincingly conceal their sex, Kierkegaard (no, not that one) ascribes the "surge" of female games writers to the nerdy male hormones that employ (read: pursue) them. The fairer sex's aversion to big-tittied warmongers, in the meantime, can be chalked up to her biological imperative to birth children -- the "pussy" made literal and metaphorical, apparently.

http://delicious.com/url/d2c8fdb89b1eff ... 52e3348c90

A pretty decent summary of the article.

[Pedestrian]

On the subject of war in games versus childbirth in games:

The goals of war are destruction, domination and mastery. These things are easily possible in games, and have been for some time.

The goal of childbirth is to create something which has the potential to be as complex, or more complex, than yourself.

This is presently impossible in videogames, and will remain so unless certain advancements are made. Said advancements would have other consequences at least as earth-shattering as their implications for video games.

[icycalm]

We are all ears, dude. What are these advancements that you speak of? Note that if you are just puffing hot air it might be better not to say anything and just let me delete your post (and this reply).

[icycalm]

Also note that...

The goals of war are destruction, domination and mastery. These things are easily possible in games, and have been for some time.

... the first thing you mentioned actually ISN'T possible in videogames. And the "have been for some time" comment is pure pseudointellectual fagotry. For how long have they been possible, idiot? Maybe since the beginning?

The goal of childbirth is to create something which has the potential to be as complex, or more complex, than yourself.

lol. You've never heard of a genius giving birth to a moron, have you?


Anyway, I would suggest that you do not post any more in this thread, since you are already one stupid remark away from getting banned. I really hate it when two-bit morons sign up here and try to pass off their shallow ramblings as profound wisdom, even going as far as to adopt my writing style or even some of my actual phrases. Get a fucking personality, for christsake.

[icycalm]

Better than those women who climax are those who give the impression of climaxing, but maintain a sort of distance and virginity beneath the pretence of pleasure, for they oblige us with the offer of rape.

Another "misogynist", lol.

[Molloy]

That's a fantastic quote. I look forward to working that into a polite conversation next time I'm in the company of someone who'd be horribly offended.

[Beakman]

Liking flOw as a journalist but not as a player? what the fuck? In her mind someone HAS to be dishonest to qualify as a journalist.

I wasn't familiar at all with this girl journalism bullshit. I'm really shocked that such people with no honesty at all (and who fail so bad at hiding it) can make a living through journalism and have so many regulars in their websites. And that is not taking into account that they can't write a coherent sentence for shit.

Why so many people are arguing about sexism here? If they believe in equality why they are not bitching about these girls getting jobs only because they have boobs?

[NighAligned]

Hello icycalm,

I've made it about a third through your Nietzsche section of the recommended reading list (I just finished Twilight of the Idols, about to start on the Anti-Christ), and your articles are making a lot more sense to me now, especially this one. What little academic commentary I've read on Nietzsche—I try my best to stay away from it nowadays—always seem to dismiss his ideas on women as "outdated," or a weakness in his philosophy. And at first, I doubted myself because, on the contrary, nothing in Nietzsche's writings had me nodding my head more in agreement than those sections on women in Beyond Good and Evil. It's just very heartening to read your article and witness a serious thinker who doesn't cave into this shallowness.

As for the charges of misogyny and "shallowness" against you, I couldn't help but be reminded of a hilarious moment I recently had, while reading Walter Kaufmann's translation of Beyond Good and Evil section 238:

To go wrong on the fundamental problem of "man and woman," to deny the most abysmal antagonism between them and the necessity of an eternally hostile tension, to dream perhaps of equal rights, equal education, equal claims and obligations—that is a typical sign of shallowness, and a thinker who has proved shallow in this dangerous place—shallow in his instinct—may be considered altogether suspicious, even more—betrayed, exposed: probably he will be too "short" for all fundamental problems of life, of the life yet to come, too, and incapable of attaining any depth.

And then Kaufmann's footnote immediately follows: "Fortunately for Nietzsche, this is surely wrong." He even goes on to cast doubt on Nietzsche's other ideas because of this! At that point, when Nietzsche basically called out this type of thinker from beyond the grave, I couldn't help laughing aloud. Of course, women are more superficial than men by instinct. It's one of the most obvious things anyone can see. If someone doesn't have the courage or the sight to see it, how the hell can he trusted in other problems?

Besides, I don't think Nietzsche was saying that it was necessarily a bad thing that women are more superficial and more concerned with appearances than men by instinct. He's just saying that this is the way women do things, it works, we men even like that about them, and that "modern ideas" and education are going to ruin it by turning women into men. And the fault lies mainly with the weakness, the degeneration of instinct, among us men; because a woman's fear of and respect for men was what kept that superficiality within bounds. At least, that's my partial understanding so far from what I have read (I haven't gotten to Human, All Too Human yet, which is where I think you got that opening quote from).

I think your article was mainly expressing your contempt at the superficial shit coming from most women game journalists trying to appear profound, when you're concerned about knowledge and they aren't. Of course, there are some women, like Clare Edgeley that you mentioned, who overcome their shallow instincts through their passion for a subject. Finally, I think your last point was that women are not interested in video games because it does not contribute towards actual power, which a woman needs if she wants to have and raise children—it was traditionally attained by attracting and securing a powerful man through charm and appearances. But the feeling of power, of victory and defeat, can be experienced in video games, which is enough for some modern men, who are primarily driven by the instinct for war. Have I gotten this mostly right?

Anyway, I want to show my gratitude to you for opening my eyes to Nietzsche and the value of trusting my own instincts. It's so nice not to be "objective" all the time.