Theory

[icycalm]

I gave them this:

http://www.rllmukforum.com/index.php?s= ... &p=5865216

And the owner of the board repaid me with this:

Best comedy poster in ages.

And a typical user comment:

If I didn't know any better I'd think everyone into philosophy was a massive prick right about now.

I can't comprehend how little you actually SAY Icycalm... I've actually just taken the time to read through today's meaty posts, and it really is all a pile of fucking wank. I read it, I understand it perfectly, but of what use is it? How can you justify the importance of anything you write, other than to justify your own strange existence?

Most of what you write is true, but most of what you write is also devoid of any interesting thought processes or analysis - being nothing more than random theories glued to anything you think fits. There's no depth or skill in your analysis - you're like a student who hasn't yet grasped his subject; you know, and yet you don't understand. Or at least you don't understand enough to bring new thought into play, to manipulate and combine ideas to form something entirely fresh and exciting.

It's just rehashed - dull dull dull - and you clearly fail to realise that a fair amount of people here including myself are reasonably well versed in academic bullshit... We're not stupid, we're just a tough audience that you don't have the skill to impress. Your 'essays' however has 'Jumped up wanker who's just done an A-level in philosophy' written all over them.

It is a very old and sad (or comic, depending on your viewpoint) story.

Learning to pay homage.-- Men have to learn to pay homage no less than to feel contempt. Anyone who breaks new paths and who has led many others onto new paths, discovers with some amazement how clumsy and poor these people are in their capacity for expressing gratitude -- and how rarely gratitude achieves expression at all. It almost seems that whenever gratitude wants to speak, she begins to gag, clears her throat, and falls silent before she has got out a word. The way in which a thinker gets some notion of the effects of his ideas and of their transforming, revolutionary power, is almost a comedy; at times it seems as if those who have felt this effect actually feel insulted and as if they could express what they consider their threatened self-reliance only by -- bad manners. Whole generations are required merely to invent a polite convention for thanks; and it is only very late that we reach the moment when gratitude acquires a kind of spirit and genius. By then, there is usually also someone who becomes the recipient of great gratitude, not only for the good he himself has done but above all for the treasure of what is best and highest that has gradually been accumulated by his predecessors.

[JoshF]

You got burned by the creator of Spider-man and Venom in: Maximum Carnage. Damn.

[Worm]

The "Xboxification" thread was rather depressing as well.

http://www.rllmukforum.com/index.php?sh ... try5857575

This guy Malstrom already surfaced in the "lol" thread, but "sob" is my reaction whenever his name is mentioned. The thing is, if you actually read the articles, you'll see that all of his comments on design are aligned towards what makes for good business. He may indeed be spot-on about the economics, but obviously knows nothing about why people who actually play these games enjoy them and want to see them progress.

Actual Malstrom quote: "There is no such thing as a retarded customer." Sure, if all you care about is making money instead of, you know, good games. This attitude is far more cynical and insulting towards games than any criticism on this site. Yet, because he comes across as "anti-hardcore," people love to trot this rubbish out so they can take those awful, awful elitists down a peg.

[Magnum Apex]

I've been quietly reading some of the posts in those threads, and clearly the greatest obstacle preventing a discussion of the actual topic at hand (be it game reviews or "Xboxification") among some of the people involved is reading comprehension. I don't think any of the people that are angrily, dismissively and disrespectfully replying against your posts has stopped to think about what you wrote, instead letting their imaginations take liberties to morph what you've said. I can now see why you sometimes go to great lengths to elaborate on certain topics, as there are many people that just reply to your posts and argue about things you didn't say. You talk about streamlined game mechanics between console ports of PC games, someone replies on your lack of understanding of economics and reaching to a wider audience; you talk about the necessity of different actions being mapped to different buttons in the case of adventure games, and someone replies assuming you've said every action needs its own button for every game of every genre, and that the harder the controls are the better.

I'm not familiar with that website though, probably because I'm not in games journalism. Do all those guys work for game publications and review our games, write up features, previews, etc.?

[icycalm]

Quite a few of them do -- in the British press. Not the stupidest ones though. The actual hotshot journalists do not dare attempt to engage me in discussion, because they know they'll be demolished. At most they might pipe in with a couple of timid silly comments, get rebuked, and then remain on the sidelines watching*. The idiots ARE also being demolished; they are just too stupid to realize it.



*see Steven Poole and Kieron Gillen in the game reviews thread, as well as Taurus -- a guy who Ollie tells me used to be an editor at Edge. The only hotshot reviewer who carried himself well in that thread was Stuart Campbell (=Rev), who basically just read everything and didn't say anything.

[Evo]

That review thread on rllmuk seems to be gone.

If it never reappears, do you mind repeating some of the things you discussed in that thread on here, icycalm?

[icycalm]

MAN, those asshats! The best thread they ever had and they delete it! It must have been the shame of having an outsider call them stupid for 40 pages. They finally decided they couldn't live with that! Thank god I had saved that one big post of mine, but there were several others I could use. Does anyone know how to use Google's cache to get a copy of the entire thread?

[raphael]

I don't know any easy way. You have to pick them one by one and randomly.

I managed to get 25 pages before google start freaking I may be a spambot and blacklisted me. Got almost everything from page 18 to page 41 in Mac OS webarchive format. I'll try to do more once google cools down.

[icycalm]

Thanks for the effort. Let me know how it goes. Note that there's a lot of good stuff before page 18 as well. I think I joined the thread in the third or fourth page...

[Evo]

You joined on the second page I think, I have 3rd and 13th page saved, just trying to get some more. A lot of them are available in the forums search function as cached, but most of the ones cached are from around page 30 to 40.
Have pages 42/43/44 now.
Page 24 with Icy's "Genre Tree"

[watatatow]

Yeah, last night, I tried getting as much as I could too. Some pages, as noted below, are incomplete... at least I presume so, because they're the last page displayed.

PAGE 2 (Incomplete)
PAGE 9

PAGE 11
PAGE 12
PAGE 18
PAGE 19

PAGE 20
PAGE 21
PAGE 22
PAGE 23
PAGE 24
PAGE 25
PAGE 27
PAGE 28
PAGE 29

PAGE 30
PAGE 31
PAGE 32
PAGE 33 (Incomplete)
PAGE 34
PAGE 35 (Incomplete)
PAGE 36
PAGE 37
PAGE 38
PAGE 39

PAGE 40
PAGE 41 (Incomplete)
PAGE 42
PAGE 43
PAGE 44 (Incomplete...?)

Also, I've got everything from the first 12 pages on paper. I'm currently typing out the posts I found the most interesting (that can't be found in the above links).

If there's any earlier post you want that you vaguely recall, just ask and I'll look for it.

[icycalm]

Thanks for this!

Also, to answer Evo's prior question, all the subjects I discussed in that thread will be fully developed in the future, and published on the site and/or in the upcoming two books. I am getting really close now, so it shouldn't be much longer.

[EightEyes]

MAN, those asshats! The best thread they ever had and they delete it!

Bummer. I'd been enjoying following that thread, and even applied to join the forum so I could participate in it. My membership isn't approved yet, and the thread's already been purged!

[Bradford]

That was a great thread - I was enjoying it too. It was simultaneously fascinating and excruciating. One of the more interesting sidelights of it was how increasingly childish the responses became, even as Icy's posts became less confrontational over the course of the thread. That isn't at all remarkable for the majority of the posters, but I was surprised to see people like Poole, a 'serious' book reviewer who presumably has a professional reputation that he would care about, as well as some self respect (whether well-placed or not), acting as ridiculous as the common forum monkeys. Obviously, Icy really got under his skin.

I am very much looking forward to the next article over here related to this stuff.

[watatatow]

Yeah. It's because of crap like what happened back there that I hardly ever participate in serious discussions nowadays.

Anyway, here are some earlier bits of the thread that I liked/was intrigued by:

It only makes sense if the people only read reviews about games that they immediately identify as a genre they like -- which may very well be the case, but it doesn't speak well of the open-mindedness of consumers, or diversity of the industry, if that's the case

There's nothing to say about the "diversity of the industry". When people speak of diversity, on pretentious sites like Gamasutra, et al. they are just filling the air with fluff. Videogames are not films or novels -- they belong to specific genres and subgenres, just as real-life games do (ball sports, gymnastics, track & field, board games, card games, etc.) Diversity then always exists WITHIN genres, and that is where people should look for it. Genre invention is something that happens unexpectedly, and there is no reason for anyone to waste time worrying about that. Besides, once a genre is invented, it simply slides in along other genres and should be treated in the same way as them.

There is a single exception to all the above, the kind of game which I like to call the "Cinematic Videogame", but no one is making those yet, so there's no reason to worry about that for the time being. Once such games start coming out, it will be perfectly valid to allow amateur and casual players to review them, in the same manner that Orwell recommends amateurs reviewing novels. Technical games, however, should always be reviewed by experts, just like technical books.

Are you suggesting that films and novels don't belong to specific genres and subgenres?

I don't understand what your term 'cinematic videogame' refers to. Could you elaborate, and explain why you think it's exempt from your rules?

I'd like to answer the above two questions right now, but I wouldn't be able to do that to my satisfaction (and to yours, I should think) without writing several thousand words more. So I'd rather wait until I am ready to do the subjects justice. I realize this is not exactly good forum etiquette, and perhaps I shouldn't have thrown those comments out since I am not prepared to elaborate sufficiently on them, so I apologize for that.

Are you still trying to get a clearer definition of this hypothetical type of game, icy? Or is it only a matter of writing it down? Because I'd definitely like to hear more about it sometime.




----------

And if the reader isn't a fan of FPSs, they'll be put off of a game that isn't very much like other FPSs, based on the reviewer's opinion. That would be shit.

I don't see why. All genres contain a few oddball games here or there. Senko no Ronde is a shooting game that plays very differently to most shooting games. Pikmin is an RTS that plays very differently to most RTSes. The expert will point this out in his review or draw the appropriate comparisons, and the reader will be informed accordingly. In the end, his review will STILL be more worthwhile than that of the casual reviewer who got into games last week, and who necessarily approaches each and every game as something that suddenly fell from the heavens, completely unconnected from history and genre evolution.

I can't stand all this genre stuff.

Judging games based on how well they fit with long-standing genre conventions absolutely kills games that have the temerity to do anything new or different; which break conventions or straddle multiple genres. Y'know, the really interesting stuff.

I am an expert on shooting games. I was also the first person in the world to give a glowing review of the groundbreaking Senko no Ronde, which plays almost nothing like a shooting game, or any other game for that matter apart from Spacewar! or Star Control:

http://insomnia.ac/reviews/naomi/senkonoronde/

Pikmin is also among my top 5 favorite RTSes. Et cetera, et cetera.

If the expert is intelligent and open-minded, there is no danger of genre-straddling or genre-breaking or genre-defining game falling by the wayside. If the expert is stupid and close-minded, well -- stupid and close-minded fail at whatever they do, so there's no point in discussing them.

I can't stand all this genre stuff.

Agreed. Because it leads to lazy check-listing from the reviewer, rather than a clear-headed appraisal from scratch.

I can point to so many examples to the contrary it's not even funny. You must be reading the stupidest, most close-minded experts. In fact, the truth is that when something truly new comes along, it is the expert who will be able to better appreciate its novel features -- exactly because he is so well acquainted with many examples that have very little novelty in them. The guy who has only played one or two RTSes will not be knocked out by something like Pikmin as the guy who has played a hundred of them. He might not even notice the novelty at all!

I guess the reason most people have a negative stance against experts must be of a defensive nature. Experts make people feel inadequate; as if the value of their facile and coarse opinions suddenly comes into jeopardy in their presence -- which it does. But at the end of the day the question is: do you want to learn something about these darn videogames you are playing, or do you just want to feel good about yourself and the opinions you already hold? -- Meh, I already know the answer.

Not much to say here on my part, but it's a good counter-argument to that "expert=narrow-minded" populist bullshit.

----------



The two posts below lead into page 11 and 12.

Weirdly, I agree with most of that.

Well, the people who were jeering in this thread will find nothing weird about you agreeing with me, since they dismiss both of us as "elitists" or whatever.

What I find interesting is that the very same people who whine like babies whenever someone from the mainstream press slags off their little hobby, are the first ones to cry out "elitist" at whoever tries to approach it with a bit more rigorousness and seriousness.

Though I find the broader critical argument not entirely accurate. Not to me specifically but in the fact that you can't truly have a universally brilliant work. As someone, somewhere, will always fucking despise it, for perfectly legitimate (though subjective) reasons.

You CAN have universally brilliant work. Just ask Shakespeare. As for the fact that "someone, somewhere, will always fucking despise it" -- that's true enough, but the point is that "universally" here does NOT refer to every single human being, but to every single INTELLIGENT human being. It is a complex issue and Schopenhauer has already explained it much better than I ever could:

When the reader takes all this into consideration, he should be surprised, not that great work is so late in winning reputation, but that it wins it at all. And as a matter of fact, fame comes only by a slow and complex process. The stupid person is by degrees forced, and as it were, tamed, into recognizing the superiority of one who stands immediately above him; this one in his turn bows before some one else; and so it goes on until the weight of the votes gradually prevail over their number; and this is just the condition of all genuine, in other words, deserved fame. But until then, the greatest genius, even after he has passed his time of trial, stands like a king amidst a crowd of his own subjects, who do not know him by sight and therefore will not do his behests; unless, indeed, his chief ministers of state are in his train. For no subordinate official can be the direct recipient of the royal commands, as he knows only the signature of his immediate superior; and this is repeated all the way up into the highest ranks, where the under-secretary attests the minister’s signature, and the minister that of the king. There are analogous stages to be passed before a genius can attain widespread fame. This is why his reputation most easily comes to a standstill at the very outset; because the highest authorities, of whom there can be but few, are most frequently not to be found; but the further down he goes in the scale the more numerous are those who take the word from above, so that his fame is no more arrested.

We must console ourselves for this state of things by reflecting that it is really fortunate that the greater number of men do not form a judgment on their own responsibility, but merely take it on authority. For what sort of criticism should we have on Plato and Kant, Homer, Shakespeare and Goethe, if every man were to form his opinion by what he really has and enjoys of these writers, instead of being forced by authority to speak of them in a fit and proper way, however little he may really feel what he says. Unless something of this kind took place, it would be impossible for true merit, in any high sphere, to attain fame at all. At the same time it is also fortunate that every man has just so much critical power of his own as is necessary for recognizing the superiority of those who are placed immediately over him, and for following their lead. This means that the many come in the end to submit to the authority of the few; and there results that hierarchy of critical judgments on which is based the possibility of a steady, and eventually wide-reaching, fame.

http://insomnia.ac/essays/on_criticism/

Well, I know literature professors that despise Shakespeare but espouse Proust.

And? Are you trying to imply that it is impossible for stupid people to become literature professors?

So even that level of academic criticism there is a huge amount of diversity in terms of opinion.

There is no "huge amount of diversity" in terms of opinion regarding Shakespeare. He is universally acclaimed as a genius, and his work is hailed as one of the crowning achievements of human civilization. This, of course, was not always so. However, after a sufficiently long amount of time, and through the process Schopenhauer describes, it has become so.

There is no such thing as objective truth when it comes to the quality of an entertainment.

No one is talking about objective truth here. Objectivity is anyway an illusion. What we are talking about is superior taste. Here's another quote for you:

Most people think of sensibility or taste as the realm of purely subjective preferences, those mysterious attractions, mainly sensual, that have not been brought under the sovereignty of reason. They allow that considerations of taste play a part in their reactions to people and to works of art. But this attitude is naïve. And even worse. To patronize the faculty of taste is to patronize oneself. For taste governs every free -- as opposed to rote -- human response. Nothing is more decisive. There is taste in people, visual taste, taste in emotion - and there is taste in acts, taste in morality. Intelligence, as well, is really a kind of taste: taste in ideas.

http://interglacial.com/~sburke/pub/pro ... _Camp.html

[icycalm]

I was surprised to see people like Poole, a 'serious' book reviewer who presumably has a professional reputation that he would care about, as well as some self respect (whether well-placed or not), acting as ridiculous as the common forum monkeys. Obviously, Icy really got under his skin.

That must have been part of the reason the thread was deleted, I am sure. They never delete threads over there, and certainly not 40+ page threads which everyone had been posting in for days. The only way to explain the deletion is if those involved (including Poole, Gillen and several of the moderators) felt it would be better for their reputations if we all pretended the discussion never took place. Funnily enough, Orwell would have had something to say about that too!

Are you still trying to get a clearer definition of this hypothetical type of game, icy? Or is it only a matter of writing it down? Because I'd definitely like to hear more about it sometime.

It's all a matter of writing everything down. There's only a couple of questions that are still giving me trouble, and they are only tangentially related to videogames.

[icycalm]

http://www.rllmukforum.com/index.php?s= ... &p=5876673

Pickford, stop being a baby and bring my thread out from wherever it is you've been hiding it.

[icycalm]

I don't care, Insin. I want to read the thread. As for the ''icycalm nonsense'', that's obviously part of the thread I want to read.

I don't see why the tread can't be returned for us to read at least. Locked or whatever.

Seriously, this is getting stupid now. The thread has been removed because John is embarrassed by some comments he made. Big whoop. Deal with it. If we want to read the thread, we should be able to. If there's a moderation issue surrounding icycalm's behaviour (and I make no assumptions), then deal with it. I consider that a seperate matter, though, and that's not what i'm talking about. I'm talking about the thread, and I want to read the thread.

It isn't John's thread. This forum isn't his personal magazine. The content in there was made by us, and we have a right to see it.

http://www.rllmukforum.com/index.php?s= ... &p=5884965

I love it when an established forum member rubs the nose of the higher-ups in their own shit. This guy should just swear off that place and get an account here.

On another note, some of those guys have insane post counts. 30,000 posts, 40,000 posts -- fucking 70,000 posts! And despite all this blabbering they've been doing for close to a decade now, they have yet to figure out a few elementary facts about genres, criticism, art, or whatever. And by the looks of it they never will!

[Evo]

When do we get to see the quantum mechanics of reviewing?

[icycalm]

The article will be called "Acquiring Taste". It will be in here:

http://forum.insomnia.ac/viewtopic.php?t=2526