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The internet reacts to Insomnia articles...

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Unread postby icycalm » 22 Mar 2012 09:33

http://www.reddit.com/r/ludology/commen ... rt/c3nomkx
http://www.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comm ... at/c3njy12
http://www.gamers-odyssey.com/forums/sh ... php?t=2116 (Some funny parts in there, for those who speak Greek)


Jack wrote:does the insomnia.ac guy dream of electric smug


http://twitter.com/#!/fnool/status/164747975728443393


http://www.the-ghetto.org/forums/index.php?topic=2323

Sam wrote:Icycalm taught us that if you are an expert above experts, you can rate anything against anything, even apples against oranges, and especially videogames against videogames, and if that is possible then every videogame in existence can, if you are expert enough, and we are, be arranged in linear order from worst to best.

That is what we are doing in this thread.

We start as so:

Infinite Undiscovery <<< Um Jammer Lammy

No arguing, this is my post so my expertise decides. But if you post, you can add one game to the chain:

Infinite Undiscovery <<< Deux Ex <<< Um Jammer Lammy

No arguing, vide supra. Eventually we will have categorized every console, personal computer, mobile and newgrounds game in existence. Then, any arguments in this forum about which game is better than another can be solved with simple reference to this list. And not just in this forum, but in any forum, review or news site on and off the internet.

This is basically the most important undertaking in the history of the artform, so I urge you to participate and take it seriously.


lol good stuff


http://sakurina.tumblr.com/post/1718930 ... de-culture
http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/ ... me/c3q4r14
http://spinksville.wordpress.com/2012/0 ... ment-17422
http://blog.retinadesgastada.com.br/201 ... 1330016505
http://www.angryjerk.net/forum/viewtopi ... =5283#5283
http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/ ... od/c3r36td
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmes ... age=25#487
http://magik.livejournal.com/254022.htm ... 4#t2252614
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/rfn/29305
http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/ ... ge/c3sqqn0
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/forums/ ... #post94208
http://insomniac-gamer.blogspot.com/201 ... 4710323719
http://shoryuken.com/forum/index.php?th ... st-6545927
http://raydere.tumblr.com/post/18051308 ... ed-you-too
http://raydere.tumblr.com/post/18058333 ... lm-i-would
http://www.therabbit.it/s/554
http://videogamegeek.com/article/8581445#8581445
http://www.fantasystrike.com/forums/ind ... ost-173720
http://www.fantasystrike.com/forums/ind ... ost-173984
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/1 ... ent2790447
http://videogamegeek.com/article/8632709#8632709
http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments ... ne/c3xdnn7
http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/bad ... rice/post7
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 71#p774771
http://www.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comm ... ad/c3zd1r5
http://club.tgfcer.com/viewthread.php?t ... id13477649
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmes ... ge=76#1513
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 04#p775604
https://plus.google.com/108071125271654 ... YfcMEzEg5z
http://youchew.net/forum/index.php?/top ... p__4056004
http://chanarchive.org/4chan/v/39538/fo ... #132546332
http://chanarchive.org/4chan/v/39538/fo ... #132546494
http://chanarchive.org/4chan/v/39538/fo ... #132546953
http://chanarchive.org/4chan/v/39538/fo ... #132550106
http://boards.420chan.org/pss/res/165196.php#165745
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/-there- ... nt-4327922


yarles p wrote:The beaten-into-the-ground argument about 'emergence' is this tendency taken to the Nth, where the the inability to understand the interactions governing a complex system is perversely elevated into a virtue in a system's developer. The people who throw their hands up after reading Ulysses don't go on to write books about it. The people who throw their hands up after playing Mafia apparently think that they can. It's gross.


http://pldevelopment.blogspot.fr/2012/0 ... -what.html

The other emergence article he links is mostly rubbish. It's not good enough being simply "against" the concept, without being able to clearly explain why; this is almost as bad as being for it -- and perhaps even worse if your arguments against are stupid.


http://leelaughead.com/2012/03/20/on-th ... ws-racket/

This subhuman is all over the place. He pretends to lament the videogame news racket while demanding "objective" criticism and speaking sympathetically about that Gerstmann moron. He doesn't appear to have played any games or care about them at all, and all he seems to be doing is mixing and matching random opinions from random sources to form his random and utterly nonsensical non-views.


And that's it for today, folks.
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Unread postby icycalm » 24 Mar 2012 22:26

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/20 ... ournalism/

Just some random dude from the internet wrote:Hey Erik! I really like your thoughts on this whole thing. If you are interested, check these links out, it might give you more perspective on why more and more gamers are being disconnected from the gaming sites, and especially gaming review sites.

http://insomnia.ac/commentary/the_video ... ws_racket/
http://insomnia.ac/commentary/beyond_th ... ws_racket/

If the site is down, try it again later. Cheers.


He recommends my writings, while at the same time praising the Forbes' moron's ridiculous views on the matter. HEY IF REVIEWERS DIDN'T RATE GAMES THEIR WORTHLESS REVIEWS WOULD SOMEHOW MAGICALLY IMPROVE, OR AT LEAST THAT'S WHAT I THINK, AND SINCE I'VE NEVER BEEN INVOLVED IN REVIEWING IN ANY MEANINGFUL CAPACITY, I SHOULD KNOW RIGHT. I MEAN OBVIOUSLY EXPERTISE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT AND ALL IT TAKES FOR SOMEONE TO BECOME A MASTER CRITIC IS TO REFUSE TO SUMMARIZE HIS VIEWS. AFTER ALL, EBERT IS A GREAT MOVIE CRITIC AND HE DOESN'T RATE MOVIES. OH WAIT.

But fuckfaces will be fuckfaces. First it was that Tim Rogers idiot who was supposed to be the savior of videogame journalism, then that Yahtzee moron, then the hobags, and now it's some yuppies on Forbes who know less about games than the kids that hacked this site. Which fad will be next? Tune into your favorite videogame trash forums to find out.
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Unread postby icycalm » 03 Apr 2012 19:22

http://icycalmwatch.tumblr.com/

I was very excited when I first saw that. There's nothing I want more from the internet right now than a site dedicated to taking my theories seriously -- written, of course, by people who are CAPABLE of doing that. However, as I found out within seconds, that page is nothing of the kind -- just yet more inbred internet dweebs regurgitating the same tired misunderstandings that I link in this thread, in forum after forum after forum all across the internet and back around again.

I mean, he says a sprint race is simple, lol, whereas the most complex videogame yet made is only about A BILLION TIMES SIMPLER THAN A SPRINT RACE lol. Videogame Theory Understanding = 0 -- it's back to MGS plot interpretation for you, kid.

There's just no getting anywhere with these people -- precisely because they are not people.
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Unread postby SriK » 03 Apr 2012 19:35

The author of that blog is probably this guy from the TIGSource forums. He's one of the people who was arguing against me the most during the recent Tale of Tales thread you linked earlier. The way he calls you "Toni Zirbas," the weird grudge against Baudrillard, the claim that games are only made of "tests," and the general writing style give it away.
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Unread postby icycalm » 03 Apr 2012 19:53

And let me give him, and all his other subhuman brethren, yet another little lesson that will go right over their simian little heads. Take, for example, the second little thingy he scribbled in his little blog (since we've already laughed our asses off at the first one):

http://icycalmwatch.tumblr.com/post/203 ... -emergence

Here's a quick test that can serve as a quick evaluation of this thing:

Is this thing still going to be getting linked, say, five or ten or twenty years down the line? My emergence essay is several years old, and it's still getting linked every other fucking day -- so is the above little post going to OVERSHADOW it at some point in time, given that it supposedly "deconstructed" it?

The very notion is ludicrous! His post contains no explanations of anything, and merely perpetuates some of the very mistakes and obscurantisms that my essay cleared up, and BECAUSE of which it's STILL getting linked all these years later -- so the answer is a resounding NO. And when the answer is no, it means that you've produced a WEAK piece of writing, and that the time you put into it would have been better spent EDUCATING YOURSELF in order to UNDERSTAND the piece of writing you tried to attack and FAILED. Or at least, I don't know, exercising or something, travelling, hitting on girls, whatever -- IMPROVING yourself in some way, instead of scribbling bullshit that no one will care about a couple of days after you scribbled it.

So THAT is how good writing is done. Right now, my Emergence essay is the number 1 essay IN THE WORLD on this subject (including proper scientific papers). If you are not capable of writing something that COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY REPLACES IT on the number 1 spot, you are better off not writing anything at all. For even if you DO manage to point out one or two errors in it (which no one, please note, has so far managed to do), your article will STILL refer back to my essay IN ORDER TO MAKE ITS POINTS, and hence will still help perpetuate its influence, an influence which your nitpicking will not in any way manage to diminish. Only when your essay completely and utterly DEMOLISHES the essay you are attacking (as my Simulacrum essay, for example, did to Juul's book), will your reference to the other essay NOT contribute to its spread and dominance.

IS ANYONE GETTING WHAT I AM SAYING HERE?

I guess not. So it's back to wasting your pitiable little lives scribbling nonsense that no one will ever care about beyond the few lols you are giving me and my readers in this thread.
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Unread postby icycalm » 04 Apr 2012 20:21

So this is how good writing works:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread. ... st36476205

guidestone wrote:The whole "emergent gameplay" thing is nonsense.
http://insomnia.ac/commentary/on_emerge ... _miracles/



http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2012 ... t-22722292

Sam250 wrote:The best article I have read on arcades and arcade culture and the qualities of arcade games is this big piece from 2007:

http://insomnia.ac/commentary/arcade_culture/

His section on why arcades live in Japan but not the west goes further then Crawford's explanation. It starts:

"The official explanation for why arcades are dead in the West is that the consoles killed them. This is what most people will tell you.

But if this is the only reason, then why are arcades in Japan still alive, and in certain genres (fighting, shooting, rhythm) even thriving and leading the way? Consoles mauled arcades in Japan too, but they didn't quite manage to kill them dead. Why is that?

Some of the more knowledgeable people will have an answer to this. Arcades are still alive in Japan, they will say, because of the way cities are laid out, with game centers to be found in every sizeable neighborhood, next to coin laundries, subway stations, etc. Students and salarymen have developed a habit of going to the arcades before and after school or work, and during breaks, and they are the ones who sustain them. In the US, in contrast, arcades are usually in malls in the middle of nowhere, forcing people to go out of their way to reach them.

Now this explanation certainly accounts for the larger part of the US, but it doesn't account for European cities, which have more in common with the tight layout of Japanese cities than with the downtown/suburbia model of many American ones.

So let me provide the last piece to this puzzle."



Half a decade on and these articles are still being linked, with an extra couple thousand views from these two links IN THE PAST COUPLE OF DAYS ALONE. Now add those up over half a decade... whereas the Ars Technica scribblings will be forgotten in approximately 24 hours lol, and will NEVER BE LINKED AGAIN.

Do you see how it works? Insight will NECESSARILY be linked, because it is unique and irreplaceable, whereas everyone is perfectly capable of manufacturing his own nonsense, so there's no reason for anyone to link yours; when the time has come for the subhuman to vomit his junk-views, he can just as well vomit his own (and claim, moreover, the "originality", i.e. the starting from zero, which is so precious to subhumans).

Except, that is to say, if your nonsense is exceptionally absurd and idiotic -- more so than everyday, garden variety nonsense. In that case, it will be linked and become widespread. If, for example, you say "THOU SHALT NOT KILL", that is so astonishingly absurd and idiotic, that it is bound to be repeated, out of sheer incredulity, if nothing else. But if you are simply mangling science or philosophy or whatever, you don't stand a single chance, since everyone else is mangling them too, so you've got loads of competition, you see.

So in the end, it is the extreme views which go further, whether of intelligence or stupidity -- as is, after all, only natural, and to be expected.

extreme (adj.)
from Latin extremitatem (nom. extremitas) "the end of a thing,"

Extremes “opposite ends of anything” is from 1550s.


http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?ter ... in_frame=0
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Unread postby icycalm » 06 Apr 2012 21:14

http://www.1up.com/news/ea-named-americas-worst-company

Nachtritter wrote:Of the bigger, more popular, ad-based video game online publications, you should read this:

http://insomnia.ac/commentary/the_video ... ws_racket/

It's from four years ago and yet, incredibly relevant.


William_Usher wrote:Excellent read. It basically confirmed everything I mostly already knew about the industry. My frustration is simply that the guys who should be doing their job to make the necessary news noteworthy are just doing the drone-act like the article pointed out.

It's frustrating because all these big gaming sites were the first to ridicule gamers with pointless "entitlement" editorials as opposed to investigating the problem that spawned all the outcries. And you're right, that article is still incredibly relevant to today's pathetic video game journalism racket. That's what makes it so freaking sad.


Imagine how uneducated these dudes have to be, to find it extraordinary that an article is STILL relevant after 4 fucking measly years. How about two-and-a-half-fucking-thousand morans? But the morans are not responding. They are already way past their attention spans.

In other news, the fuckface mentioned earlier (the inbred one) deleted his blog lol. Smart move, but still funny after all the fury and the posturing. Too bad I didn't copy-paste any of his asinine dribble for the instruction of future generations.

And some more lols on Twitter via RPS:

https://twitter.com/#!/AlphaProspector/ ... 4298598401

AlphaProspector wrote:The church of icycalm got new adepts in RPS: "so you can augment their gameplay with musiclisten and artlook."
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Unread postby ronan » 07 Apr 2012 17:28

It is still possible to read the inbred guy's blog thanks to Google's cache. It appears that he had tried to react to your comments before deleting his blog. I am attaching the htm file for reference, if you are curious.

inbred.zip
(10.58 KiB) Downloaded 1723 times
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Unread postby icycalm » 17 May 2012 13:56

http://www.the-ghetto.org/forums/index. ... 8#msg40938

Eammy wrote:The guy with the sunglasses is icy:


Image

That's fucking hilarious. And that last line is completely me. You should do the adventures of icycalm or some shit. I'll pay you the same per comic I pay for the articles. You can like dumb down the articles to internet level and add a little bit of story to make it more palatable to the fuckfaces. And if someone who can actually draw decides to help at some point, he could redo the comics you've already done. If you are up for it send me the next comic via email and I'll give you access to the staff forum so we can discuss/modify them there.
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Unread postby icycalm » 30 May 2012 17:18

http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/ ... le/c443lqa
http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/ ... _a/c44mb92
http://vidya.jawlz.com/viewtopic.php?id=60
http://archive.foolz.us/v/thread/133648083/#133651538
http://archive.foolz.us/v/thread/133648083/#133653370
http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments ... if/c44ow1n
http://www.reddit.com/r/PS3/comments/mx ... 11/c34s8wn
http://proclick.olinko.net/view/aRE
https://twitter.com/#!/geno/status/187700081179377664
http://www.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comm ... _in_japan/
http://www.reddit.com/r/SRSGaming/comme ... ersist_in/
http://s7.zetaboards.com/the_cara/topic/8671510/1/
http://www.cinemablend.com/games/It-Off ... -486557287
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?t ... #msg713584
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/8910316#8910316


http://threedifferentways.tumblr.com/po ... icle-about

Keri wrote:Early morning distraction. A 2007 article about arcade gaming and why it is flourishing in Japan while necrotic and decayed in the United States. Totes mundane. Right?

Only the skilled may live — the rest will die.

This harsh statement may as well have been engraved above the entrance of every arcade joint that ever existed. It is a direct consequence of the arcade industry’s business model, and forms the core of a formula around which all arcade games are built. It is responsible for the magic of arcade gaming.


Original article: “ARCADE CULTURE” by Alex Kierkegaard.

There is an esoteric lesson in this article. One that sat smugly across the table from me and dared me to do something about it.

Maybe it won’t hit you with the same impact. But I regard it as good reading.



http://fabiusmayland.blogspot.de/2012/0 ... eries.html

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... -495610400

Wyvern Lord wrote:The problem with articles like this and the "artgame" crowd, which encompasses Jonathan Blow, Jason Rohrer, etc... is their limited conceptions of art -- they are unable to conceive of art beyond the elements of aesthetics (i.e. graphics, sound) and story and even here only a certain style of presentation, one that offers the pretense of deep, existential truths via obfuscation, qualifies as "art". Thus, they ignore the mechanical aspect of a videogame as irrelevant to the artistic merit of a game (or worse, praise simplistic mechanics as a requirement for artistic greatness).

Braid was an interesting puzzle game with unique mechanics and pretty backgrounds, hideous sprites, a vapid and irritatingly self-important narrative, and no sense of tension or sustained interest because the rewind mechanics sucked it all out. For the definitive review of the game:

http://insomnia.ac/reviews/xbox360/braid/page_01.php


http://www.reddit.com/r/ludology/commen ... ed/c4bd30l
http://myswordisunbelievablydull.wordpr ... mment-9840
http://www.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comm ... ex/c4brvi7
http://archive.foolz.us/v/thread/135708903/
http://archive.foolz.us/vg/thread/1450037/
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread. ... st37023411
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=61817
http://brokenforum.com/index.php?thread ... post-95186
http://badgame.net/index.php?topic=6812.23480
http://badgame.net/index.php?topic=6812.23520
http://thiscageisworms.com/2012/04/18/o ... mment-1394
http://www.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comm ... me/c4h86gu

The next one is particularly stupid:

http://www.mediumdifficulty.com/2012/04 ... criticism/

He basically says that the future of games criticism should be aspies making videos on YouTube lol. He links my Emergence essay somewhere in there too, for God knows what reason, since he is obviously too dumb to understand it.


http://videogamegeek.com/article/9065428#9065428
http://shoryuken.com/forum/index.php?th ... st-6897885
http://www.gamers-odyssey.com/forums/sh ... post123771
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showth ... t403285688
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/928326-d ... g/62711259


anna anthropy wrote:it's weird when people actually call me "artdyke" in seriousness cuz that's something icycalm called me that i appropriated


https://twitter.com/#!/auntiepixelante/ ... 1278053377

Andrew VandenBossche wrote:The google results for "icycalm" are like a devastated wasteland of traumatized forums and incomprehensible idiocy.


https://twitter.com/#!/MammonMachine/st ... 4041877505


http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 71#p793971
http://forum.seanmalstrom.net/viewtopic ... 053#p29053
http://superfani.com/2012/05/08/why-ind ... mment-8248
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread. ... st37031877
http://www.fysiker.net/2012/03/spillkri ... ke-11.html
http://www.fysiker.net/2012/04/spillkri ... ke-14.html
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/ ... 6#14257740
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/p ... 12#4988312
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?t ... #msg734114
http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/ ... _nonsense/
http://www.devils-shadow.com/forums/un- ... post511206
http://forums.officialnintendomagazine. ... 3#p3595153
http://www.gamedev.net/topic/625333-cla ... try4942942
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussi ... -may-2012/
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showth ... t404019232
http://techreport.com/discussions.x/229 ... 000#640000
http://www.eventhubs.com/news/2012/may/ ... =2#c359143

And here's a dude on Kotaku calling himself "FieryTurbulent" and posting lost of links to Insomnia amdist bad parody of me and my arguments:

http://kotaku.com/people/jackflack6/

He seems to be completely serious about it too. "Calm" on the Ghetto is much better.
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Unread postby icycalm » 10 Sep 2012 12:18

http://archive.foolz.us/v/thread/154318852

Hexagon wrote:So, from this point forward, is all of /v/ gonna pretend to have always hated Cave Story? Just like with Half Life 2?


http://archive.foolz.us/v/thread/154318852/#154328897

Note that before my review, I had never seen anyone say the slightest negative thing about this game. Now every other person says it's bad. What changed? Did all these guys suddenly go back and play the entire history of side-scrollers, in order to develop the taste to realize that Doukutsu Monogatari is shit? Of course not -- they are too busy posting on internet message boards to find the time to do that. They were bleating that it was great before because everyone else was bleating so, and they are now bleating the opposite because they heard a Great Man say so. See Schopenhauer for a detailed explanation of how this works. The trick is to ask these people, who appear enlightened now, to comment on a game that the Great Man has NOT yet commented on, and then you'll see what's what.

By the time this generation of retards is dead the only opinion on this game being cited, and the only review being read, will be mine, if anyone even remembers the game at all. And it will be the same with every other game.
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Unread postby icycalm » 10 Sep 2012 13:21

Two quick examples from the same thread:


http://archive.foolz.us/v/thread/154318852/#154320303

Cave Story IS a mediocre game though. There really isn't anything too special about it. I never understood why /v/ likes it so much. I can see why they like Charles Barkley Shut Up and Jam Gaiden, but Cave Story? Not at all.



http://archive.foolz.us/v/thread/154318852/#154320786

How many other GOOD adventure/platformers can you name? That aren't slow clunky shit.


Turrican, Flash Back, Prince of Persia, Black Throne, Demon's Crest, and possibly others I cannot think of at the moment or that I don't know. Cave Story didn't excel anywhere, the platforming was dull and the gun combat was dull.



The Barkley game is even worse than Doukutsu, and Turrican was shit on release (I could barely stand to play an hour or so of it), let alone today. Their ragging on Doukutsu therefore deserves to hold as much weight as their praise of these shitpiles: none at all.
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Unread postby icycalm » 10 Sep 2012 13:43

It's amazing how you can practically see Schopenhauer's theory working in real time. Every day that goes by all that revolting drivel that was scribbled about the game before I weighed in on it becomes a little more forgotten, and my comments a little more widely disseminated and adopted, while the gears on which this process is based, and which were described by Schopenhauer, keep turning merrily on like clockwork. There's really nothing that can be done to stop this process (outside of nuking the planet from orbit perhaps), and all the lies and swearing that the retards throw my way to counteract the effects of my comments only serve to hasten it. The best solution, which is the one instinctively adopted by the journlolists and pseudo-academics, is really silence, but even that will only work so far.


http://insomnia.ac/essays/on_reputation/

Schopenhauer wrote:and when a man of eminent merit appears, the first effect he produces is often only to pique all his rivals, just as the peacock’s tail offended the birds. This reduces them to a deep silence; and their silence is so unanimous that it savors of preconcertion. Their tongues are all paralyzed. It is the silentium livoris described by Seneca. This malicious silence, which is technically known as ignoring, may for a long time interfere with the growth of reputation; if, as happens in the higher walks of learning, where a man’s immediate audience is wholly composed of rival workers and professed students, who then form the channel of his fame, the greater public is obliged to use its suffrage without being able to examine the matter for itself. And if, in the end, that malicious silence is broken in upon by the voice of praise, it will be but seldom that this happens entirely apart from some ulterior aim, pursued by those who thus manipulate justice. For, as Goethe says in the West-östlicher Divan, a man can get no recognition, either from many persons or from only one, unless it is to publish abroad the critic’s own discernment:

Denn es ist kein Anerkenen,
Weder Vieler, noch des Einen,
Wenn es nicht am Tage fördert,
Wo man selbst was möchte scheinen.


The credit you allow to another man engaged in work similar to your own or akin to it, must at bottom be withdrawn from yourself; and you can praise him only at the expense of your own claims.

Accordingly, mankind is in itself not at all inclined to award praise and reputation; it is more disposed to blame and find fault, whereby it indirectly praises itself. If, notwithstanding this, praise is won from mankind, some extraneous motive must prevail. I am not here referring to the disgraceful way in which mutual friends will puff one another into a reputation; outside of that, an effectual motive is supplied by the feeling that next to the merit of doing something oneself, comes that of correctly appreciating and recognizing what others have done. This accords with the threefold division of heads drawn up by Hesiod3 and afterwards by Machiavelli4 There are, says the latter, in the capacities of mankind, three varieties: one man will understand a thing by himself; another so far as it is explained to him; a third, neither of himself nor when it is put clearly before him. He, then, who abandons hope of making good his claims to the first class, will be glad to seize the opportunity of taking a place in the second. It is almost wholly owing to this state of things that merit may always rest assured of ultimately meeting with recognition.

3 Works and Days, 293.]

4 The Prince, ch. 22.]

To this also is due the fact that when the value of a work has once been recognized and may no longer be concealed or denied, all men vie in praising and honoring it; simply because they are conscious of thereby doing themselves an honor. They act in the spirit of Xenophon’s remark: he must be a wise man who knows what is wise. So when they see that the prize of original merit is for ever out of their reach, they hasten to possess themselves of that which comes second best—the correct appreciation of it. Here it happens as with an army which has been forced to yield; when, just as previously every man wanted to be foremost in the fight, so now every man tries to be foremost in running away. They all hurry forward to offer their applause to one who is now recognized to be worthy of praise, in virtue of a recognition, as a rule unconscious, of that law of homogeneity which I mentioned in the last chapter; so that it may seem as though their way of thinking and looking at things were homogeneous with that of the celebrated man, and that they may at least save the honor of their literary taste, since nothing else is left them.



So you see, theory is by no means "unpractical", as the rabble likes to think. Theory, when it is correct, actually works! In other words, is by no means "theoretic" -- it is the most practical thing that exists. It is practice raised to the nth power. The most practical human endeavor is -- theory. (Just as the highest theoretical goal is -- good practice.)
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Unread postby icycalm » 30 Oct 2012 21:21

https://twitter.com/RevStu/status/263342241744052225

Rev. Stuart Campbell wrote:Even a clock that's a ranting loony tells the right time once every few years: http://insomnia.ac/commentary/the_video ... ws_racket/


And even a fuckface who's uneducated and stupid can see which clock tells the right time once every few decades.

Also from that thread:

Martin Coxall wrote:@RevStu problem with the “everyone is corrupt” mindset is that is serves the genuinely corrupt well, tarring everyone with the same brush.


SteveEustice wrote:@Grabcocque @RevStu spot on Martin. The only way to improve things is proper differentiation between good and bad guys ie name the bad guys


Journalists are the bad guys, and critics and philosophers are the good guys. It's in the article, moran.

Basically some journlolist fuckface said something about some other journlolist cunt or whatever, and then someone got fired or something, and all the journlolists and the journlolism-watchers on the planet have been scribbling more pages in the last few days than there were at the library at Alexandria trying to figure out what happened. And of course my essays on the subject are being linked to hell and back, because they explain exactly what happened, even though they were written half a decade before it happened. It's called "theory", fuckfaces -- you might want to look it up between rounds of your hysterical, mindless scribbling.

And here's the Reverend Stu pouring his life down the drain investigating the minutiae of the actions of worthless creatures that no one will remember next week, instead of opening a proper goddamn book, even at such an advanced age, and trying to educate himself:

http://wosland.podgamer.com/the-wainwright-profile/

And he calls ME a "loon". But is there anything crazier than to take any interest at all in such a matter in two thousand fucking twelve, when the situation has already been analyzed to hell and back and all the answers already exist, much less scribble a fucking dissertation on the matter?

But we are talking about the Rev Stu again, who plays Espgaluda II on the iPhone, "hates what videogames have become" because patches are automatically donwloaded now instead of the player having to search for and apply them, thinks that the uneducated moron Orwell was "the smartest, most perceptive writer who ever lived", and actually gives a shit that some subhumans were crushed while watching some subhuman sports event in 1996 lol. He is, in other words, a journalist, which according to the dictionary of the Subhuman language means "an idiotic, uneducated scribbler".

http://www.retrogamer.net/forum/viewtop ... =2&t=21031
http://wosland.podgamer.com/i-hate-what ... as-become/
http://wosland.podgamer.com/no-justice-for-the-96/

There's someone lolling at you over here, my dear Rev Stu, and I am afraid it is the Overman.
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Unread postby icycalm » 30 Oct 2012 21:41

But at least he had the guts to link me, which is way more than can be said about most of his colleagues (who even copy their terminology from me, by the way lol):

https://twitter.com/expdotzine/status/2 ... 6879768576

exp. Magazine wrote:We've been happy to link insightful commentary on the whole games "journalism" racket but we definitely draw a line at Alex Kierkegaard.


In Human:

We've been happy to link insightful commentary on the whole games "journalism" racket but we definitely draw a line at the most insightful one.


Can you say "fuckface", fuckface?
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Unread postby icycalm » 31 Oct 2012 00:20

That article was written in March 2008, almost five years go. Do you reckon that any of the articles written on this matter in the past few days will still be getting linked in 2017? The question itself is ludicrous. None of these articles will be getting linked next month, never mind in five years' time. Wanna know which article on this subject will still be getting linked in 2017? This one:

http://insomnia.ac/commentary/the_video ... ws_racket/

And this one:

http://insomnia.ac/commentary/beyond_th ... ws_racket/

And in 2022, and 2027, and 2032, and as long as there exists videogame journalism in the known universe and there still remain lifeforms who wonder why it's so shit and what can be done about it. It's shit because it's journalism, and what can be done about it is to open up a word processor and do better -- like the person who wrote those articles and founded this website did, and still does, to stunning effect. Everything else -- every other hope, thought, idea, feeling and reaction -- is subhuman.
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Unread postby icycalm » 01 Dec 2012 23:16

http://www.sydlexia.com/forums/viewtopi ... 651#366651

Vert1 wrote:http://insomnia.ac/commentary/for_artfags_only/

http://insomnia.ac/commentary/on_the_ge ... art_games/

Not sure why you care to go to that. You should print out the content of those two links and drop them off at the museum. See what happens.

I remember when The Museum of Science and Industry Chicago had every game system ever made for people to look at and play when I was pretty young. There was no pretentiousness of the art movement or the health movement. Those were better times. Got to play Saturn Bomberman and Garou: Mark of the Wolves for the first time -- all on the actual systems, no emulator crap.

The question I have is whether this NY Museum will showcase Mature rated games for the public and assert that content of violence, nudity, etc. is acceptable for anyone to play because it is art. Will the ESRB 'M' rating be nullified??


A little later in the thread someone posts this:

http://www.sydlexia.com/forums/viewtopi ... 697#366697

Greg the White wrote:As much as I hate the Penny Arcade guys these days, Tycho had a great quote that went something like:

"How could 100 artists working on something for three years produce anything other than art?"


Raphael was an artist. By this reasoning, if Raphael made scrambled eggs, this means that scrambled eggs are art. Is everything an artist makes art? Stay tuned to the Subhuman Channel to find out!

The subhumans have all the answers right in front of them (the two Insomnia links), yet continue to seek the answers of philosophy, not in philosophers, but in comedians or fortune-tellers or fucking gypsies or some shit.
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Unread postby icycalm » 02 Dec 2012 10:07

http://archive.foolz.us/v/thread/164936163/#164939327

>>164938936
Icycalm thinks Far Cry 2 is a 5/5 game lol, fuck that idiot.


Have you noticed how everyone on /v/ now says "indie" games are shit? Or are you too young to remember that I was the first person in the world to speak out against them (World of Goo review, May 2009), and now everyone's simply parroting my views?

Did you notice how popular opinion on DMC3 has done a complete 180 after my review? Not a single person in the world has ever had anything bad to say about that game, and DMC1 had been all but forgotten, but a few weeks after my review and people are already equating 3 with 2 and even dismissing all the sequels as a hack's attempt to follow up on 1!

Or how 1CCing was viewed as elitist before I taught people otherwise? Or that playing "for score" and being "competitive" were seen as the pinnacle of being hardcore, before I explained to people that they are in fact the pinnacle of utter indifference towards the artform?

Did you know Dwarf Fortress was a 1-star game? Hurry up and tell all your friends so that you can pretend it's your own opinion and that you've had it before reading my upcoming review! Also, that Wolfenstein 3D is a 2-star game, Doom is 4/5, and Far Cry 2 is not merely a 5/5 game but the second best game ever lol, sandwiched right between GTAIII and Halo. True story. Hurry up and tell your friends since you've got nothing better to do in this life than spread around the Overman's opinions!
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Unread postby icycalm » 26 Jan 2013 01:01

This is beyond hilarious:

http://archive.foolz.us/q/thread/389237/

There is now a little movement gathering steam on 4chan to ban the Insomnia url, and even the mere mention of my name. Basically, Insomnia gets linked there I'd say an average 10-20 times a week, and at least once a month there's a giant thread with hundreds of posts exclusively about the site. This is exactly how it would be in every videogame-related site on the internet if the owners had not been aggressively banning users, deleting threads and comments, and making it perfectly clear that all Insomnia-related discussion is sternly frowned upon. All this is well known and documented. The funny part is that EVEN 4CHAN, from where NO SITE EVER GETS BANNED, is actually considering banning Insomnia! Oh subhumans! What would we have to laugh at in this world without you!

Try to understand their problem. Every time they have an "RPG" thread someone links my essays (and usually more than one person). Every time they discuss videogame journalism, someone links my essays. Every time they discuss review ratings, or "emergent" nonsense, or "indie" tripe, or anything whatever really on which I have weighed in, someone links my essays. This is exactly what would be happening everywhere by this point if the internet was indeed the "utopia of free discussion" that subhumans fantasize that it is. But it is not free because the sites are actually owned by people, and these people influence what can and cannot be discussed there. The only place where you can have some semblance of freedom if you are not willing to start your own site is 4chan, AND EVEN THEY ARE NOW CONSIDERING BANNING INSOMNIA LOL.

It's absolutely mesmerizing to watch the subhumans run around their little maze in real-time. "What absurd reaction will the subhumans concoct next in their hopeless attempts to stifle progress?" Not even the greatest genius can foresee this! I mean look at this shit:

http://archive.foolz.us/_/search/text/insomnia.ac/
http://archive.foolz.us/_/search/text/icycalm/
http://archive.foolz.us/_/search/text/%22culture.vg%22/
http://archive.foolz.us/_/search/text/% ... egaard%22/

Dozens upon dozens of pages of search results, and every post leads to a page if you press the "View" button at the top of each post. The entire videogame internet would look like this by now if not for the moderhation antics of the site owners! And yet what good does it do? My articles are STILL the most widely linked and read on the internet! So go ahead and ban Insomnia from 4chan for all I care, dudes. All you are going to accomplish is to make your subhumanity even MOAR obvious to my readers, and make my site even more seductive as a result of being the only videogame site to be banned from 4chan lol.

And what did I do to deserve all this attention? I just explained a handful of (ultimately simple, once they have been explained to you) things about videogames. But I guess that's all it takes to become as hateful as the Devil as far as subhumans are concerned lol.
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Unread postby icycalm » 30 Jan 2013 19:17

http://www.brainygamer.com/the_brainy_g ... 0fe31a970c

Daniel wrote:One need look no further than culture.vg to see the best way to approach writing about videogames. Any other path will lead you to a dead end. You may not like icycalm's character or the way he has treated those you like and respect, but don't let that blind you to the insight. Seriously, don't. If you care at all about videogames, and not just about sounding intellectual about them, you'll eventually have to deal with what this guy is saying (and probably sooner than you think). So you might as well get started now, Michael.


Diogo Ribeiro wrote:What? Insomnia? Hahaha. That Kierkegaard guy is precisely about sounding intellectual about games. Most of his "essays" are about quoting a critic or philosopher, then reapropriating their argument for his own cause, then insulting everything else that so much has uttered the word "videogames". Look, I agree with him that indie games and creators often get too much credit (see above my comment re: "art games"), and that it's become fashionable to sound intellectual about games as of late to the point where we misrepresent games altogether by talking about them as if they were something else, but the guy is despicable not to mention full of himself. The insight would be much more poignant if every word was not covered in bile.


Daniel wrote:Icycalm will never not have his detractors. But I don't think you're making a strong case for not reading him. (Maybe on your website? I searched but didn't find anything.) In fact, I don't think ANYone ANYwhere is making a strong case against him. (If you know of some, please let me know. I would love to read it.) Instead, most people are content to call him despicable, misogynist, insane, etc. and dismiss him because of that. It's fine if that's the kind of person you want to be. But I hope someday those up to the task will encounter icycalm without the moralizing. Whether they end up being for or against him, it doesn't matter. Merely the act of reading his words (and the words of the philosophers he quotes and reappropriates, lol) without prejudice and with intent to learn, will take videogame criticism to previously unseen heights. As I said, everything else will lead to a dead end.

But, contrary to what you say, the insight would not be more poignant without the bile. The "bile" is an inescapable part of icycalm and his insight is nonexistent without it--it becomes just another drop in the tide of words spewed daily on the internet. The question then is: are you strong enough to handle the bile or not?


Note that the article these comments are attached to is titled "Emotional experience through a gameplay world". And since all experiences are emotional in one way or another, it's real title is "Experiential experiences through a gameplay world". Or "Emotional emotions through a gameplay world". And if you don't want to be a dumb and pretentious fag about it, you could just simply call it "Emotions in a videogame world". Or just simply "Emotions in videogames". But then I guess you wouldn't sound smart to other effeminate neckbearded shut-ins like yourself, would you?
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Unread postby icycalm » 14 Feb 2013 16:49

When a thread on Spelunky devolves into people arguing the spelling of fagot, you know an icycalm review has been linked:

http://asfm.freeforums.org/spelunky-t1300.html
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Unread postby icycalm » 05 Apr 2013 16:21

For whoever's in the mood for more 50-page icycalm threads:

http://archive.foolz.us/v/thread/183760413/

There have been more, but I've been too busy to bother linking them here. I did read this one though, and I just want to reiterate that a good half of what is posted in these threads -- especially about my life -- are outright lies. And there's no way I could ever hope to point them out one by one, since the subhumans are manufacturing them faster than I could refute them. There's this guy for example (it MUST be a single person), who goes around every thread on /v/ in which I am mentioned and claims that I sent a lawsuit to rllmuk to take down a thread. Utterly random shit like that which couldn't even be falsification -- sheer invention. And he has said this so many times by now that he probably even believes it. So if you actually care about this sort of thing take care. If something you've heard about me bothers you, start a thread and ask me. (A catch-all "icy rumors" thread in Off-topic will do.)

I can't wait to see what happens when the philosophy site launches (which will be any day now). There won't be a single board on 4chan where they won't be talking about me. Well, maybe the Pokemon one. At least until I post my Pokemon review, that is.
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Unread postby icycalm » 30 May 2013 15:48

Another 50-page /v/ thread on yours truly:

http://loveisover.me/v/thread/191987070/

As for the dudes posting screencaps from Insomnia in this thread and others, I have this to say: thanks, dudes. Nothing would be more beneficial to me, both in regards to my cause and financially, than having a bunch of dudes go around the internet posting screencaps from my site and stirring up gigantic threads. Indeed, I would give free subscriptions to anyone who would do this for me. Send me links to a couple hundred threads you've made on different sites within the space of a couple of days and I'll give you a free one-year subscription. (Well, it won't be free since you will have paid for it with your time, but you get my point.) My email address is icycalm@culture.vg
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Unread postby icycalm » 30 Jul 2013 04:26

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_ ... _Wikipedia

If I had to come up with an image to convey the feeling the above link gives me, I would have to go with "a bunch of people debating whether to go inside their tent or stay outside, while standing in the way of a tsunami".
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Unread postby icycalm » 30 Jul 2013 04:58

It's hilarious how the guy who is defending me is referencing utter nobodies like Carless, Yip, Sketch, etc. to support me. All these losers do not have a single sentence between them that can touch any random sentence I throw out in my forum on any given day lol -- but on Wikipedia they are regarded as authorities because they have puffed each other up over the years into a "reputation". That discussion is a damning condemnation of groupthink: the nobodies trying to figure out if the genius is "worth citing" by... consulting the opinions of the "least nobodies" among them -- all of whom, if the Wikipedians actually bothered to email them today, would certainly reply that I should not be cited -- because I am not a nobody like them.

Even more hilarious is that I am actually more well known than ALL of the losers that are supposed to be supporting my credibility TOGETHER. Nobody online knows who "Simon Carless" is (just go to any videogame forum and start a thread about him, and you'll see), but everyone knows me. And the same is true of all the rest. That's how far removed from reality -- what is happening RIGHT NOW -- the Wikipedians are. The same is true of all my articles. No one else has been discussed as widely as me in the field of videogame criticism and theory, but who knows how many years it will take for Wikipedia to catch up to this simple fact.
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