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Insert Credit

Unread postby icycalm » 06 Dec 2008 04:05

... is back, after a short interlude.

http://www.insertcredit.com/

I missed Brandon's little newsbits.
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Unread postby icycalm » 06 Dec 2008 04:11

There's one thing about that website I'll always be jealous of: it's much more upbeat than this one. When I set out to make Insomnia my first goal was to improve on IC in every way, and I believe I succeeded, and to a great extent -- in all respects except this one.

I know the reason for this, of course, and there's really nothing to be done about it. Oh well!
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Unread postby icycalm » 15 Aug 2009 14:32

Another one bites the dust.

Brandon Sheffield wrote:Hi pals. As you may have noticed, over the last several months, insert credit has become kind of a quiet place. Poor Ollie has been trying to keep it up all by himself, and it's become a bit robocentric in here. The fact is, I can't really commit the time to insert credit that it deserves, because of my full time jobs at Game Developer magazine and Gamasutra, and my freelance game script writing I do on the side.

The front page has crickets chirping, the forums are totally busted, and everything's outdated to the extreme, so I've made the extremely painful and depressing decision to close the site, and make it an archive of the past. That is to say, the site will be closed to new content until such time as I can really dedicate myself to it, but you will be able to still see everything that was here. To do that, I'll have to update the features and reviews pages properly, and get everything in order, which I will do over the next month or so. Maybe a bit more, because I've chosen to do this as I undertake a super ambitious project of epic epicness (it's not that epic). Also, in order to not have the site die with a wimper, I plan to force myself to post properly like I used to until the site goes bye bye, so that the final news page isn't too depressing. We may also switch the site over to wordpress in the process, in case it ever decides to see life again. So, that's what you can expect from the site for the next little while. I'll update this post with the RSS feed once somebody tells me what it is!


http://www.insertcredit.com/archives/002646.html
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Unread postby icycalm » 21 Feb 2010 15:50

http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopi ... 054#699054

TORUMASUTA wrote:Fuck you guys. We had an unspoken rule: we don't talk about Brandon. Now I feel all misty-eyed about Insert Credit, and how magical that experience was.

Not the forums, mind you. The forums were great, but the site itself, the news. That was an experience. Every post was a window into some perplexing, constantly shifting meta-dimension of video games that hadn't existed for almost a decade. Back in "the day", you'd see two or three pages of the monthly video game rag you and your friends read about how Japan totally had these awesome fucking things that you would never see, and those thumbnail-sized screenshots were all the insight we had into another dimension. The Internet both gave and took away, because while there was humanity's most powerful creation, with the sum of all human knowledge, immediately at your fingertips at all times, it rendered all those dreamlike concepts into concrete terms. I spent a summer imagining what Front Mission on the SNES was like, based on one paragraph of text, one screenshot, and one picture of the actual cart--which turned out to be for a different fucking cart entirely, but Amano art was often techy enough that you believed it.

In five minutes I could download the Front Mission rom and play it myself, five more minutes would let me play it in English, and five more minutes would let me play either the DS or PS1 remakes. Ostensibly better, but the Dreamtime was dead.

Insert Credit, though, Insert Credit was 100% Dreamtime. If Japan was no longer dreamlike, they dug deeper, telling you about the independent gaming scene across the Pacific. Once that stopped being dreamlike, they reported on the independent Korean gaming scene. Everytime they revealed something, they had something deeper and stranger and more magical to show you, until finally the fount of all magic just kind of... stopped, and then we had to rely on Complete and Utter Fags (no homo) to deliver news to us that passed as semi-interesting. Websites that invoked nostalgia as a buzzword, with none of the actual nostalgic feeling. Game reviews which took a photo of a corpse and added the caption: "Lifelike! 9.5 out of 10!!!!" People reporting on feelings without form, or form without feelings.

I mean, hell. Being a website on the Internet used to stand for something. Icycalm, much as we disagree with every fucking thing he's likely to ever utter, is a hell of a lot closer to that feeling than any of the Web 2.5 gaming "news" sites are going to approach.

Brandon and early IC, though. That was like plugging into the Dreamtime again, and now that Brandon has a life (or something?), it doesn't seem like anyone else is capable of stepping up to the plate. It's all either regurgitations or exclamation points.
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Unread postby icycalm » 29 Apr 2011 20:05

This is amusing:

http://insertcredit.com/rebirth/

I wonder what Brandon's up to this time. Most likely nothing, as in all the other times he's promised to relaunch the site in the past half decade, but if he does end up doing something this time it will be quite interesting to see what that will be. The thing is, I can probably predict what that will be, and with clinical precision, even. He can't go the intellectual route any more (which, by the way, despite of everything I have against IC, his site actually started...) because he has decided to avoid acknowledging my existence, and it's impossible to go that route without me. The only realistic route left for him therefore is the, let us call it, "upscale specialist blog" route -- which is fine and all but not really exciting any more.

But like I said, what probably happened was that he suddenly became nostalgic about his news-posting days, threw that splash page up while still within the grip of his nostalgia phase, and is now past that phase but simply too lazy to log into his ftp account and take it down.
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Unread postby icycalm » 01 Aug 2011 01:37

http://insertcredit.com/2011/07/25/the- ... t178864458

elend wrote:Oh please. Viedogame reviews are sooo boring. I want to read about the background, the things surrounding the games, the feelings, the crazy people...


I wrote:I.e. about what I call "industry, shmindustry" trivia. And you've certainly come to the right place! No one knows more about this stuff than Brandon and co., not even Wikipedia!

As for videogame reviews being boring, that's because you're been reading bad ones. Either that or you simply don't care enough about games. For if you did, it would be THE TRIVIA that you'd find boring, and not the careful analyses of the works and the artform that you love.


I wrote:So how about an article on Itagaki's taste for shades? Or Nagoshi's solarium schedule? Or Miyamoto's choice for garden fertilizer? "Insert Credit to Continue with Boring Industry Trivia" 9, 8, 7, 6, 5,...


My commentary on the rubbish-posts that the new IC is throwing up is either devastating or flat-out hilarious, and sometimes both. I don't think another site has ever been so utterly demolished in its own comments as this one, and a couple of people seem to be following my lead -- quite apart from the IC regulars who I must be seriously influencing, otherwise there's no explaining the massive upvoting that my earlier posts have been attracting. (See here, for example: http://insertcredit.com/2011/06/20/jour ... ame-redux/ and here: http://insertcredit.com/2011/07/11/the-world-warrior/ etc.)

"Truth" I think is Josh, by the way.
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Unread postby icycalm » 03 Aug 2011 03:07

If not Josh, it might be Macaw. A comment about Sword Maniac gave him away, I think.
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Unread postby icycalm » 19 Oct 2011 21:39

http://insertcredit.com/2011/09/22/who- ... t206086801

108 wrote:oh, i'm not saying the core industry has died recently. i'm saying it's always been dead.

what i'm saying is that all of us -- social gamers and "core" gamers alike -- should probably just be reading books.

more on that -- in the next piece!


Yeah, Tim. Can't wait for the next piece to hear how art peaked with novels or cooking guides.
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Unread postby icycalm » 09 Jul 2012 20:52

And just when I though IC couldn't fall any lower:

http://insertcredit.com/2012/07/06/intr ... m-podcast/

A podcast (in Human: random chatter): the last resort of people who have nothing left to give, but who still feel the need to give it.

Even worse, this one sounds dumb even by podcast standards:

Alex Jaffe wrote:The premise is simple: instead of rambling tangentially on a single topic for ninety minutes or two hours (or three hours), we bring you ten talking points relegated to no more than six minutes each, making for sixty minutes of lucid, juicy content. Any time left over at the end will be designated for a rapid fire lightning round, as our panel attempts to quickly address as many quick questions as possible before the final buzzer. We’re pretty proud of how it’s been turning out so far!


Just to make 1000% sure that no subject is explored in even the slightest degree of detail.

As far as videogames go, apart from me, the internet is well and truly dead now. Too bad I am too busy surfing to write anything right now.
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Unread postby earthboundtrev » 28 Aug 2014 22:05

http://insertcredit.com/2014/08/13/the- ... dit-again/

Brandon's rebooting Insert Credit again:

Brandon Sheffield wrote:I will admit the last reboot didn’t exactly go as planned. While the idea was solid, and we were initially enthusiastic, we petered out pretty fast after those first few months, and most of us didn’t post many articles thereafter. We had a few great ones! But in the end it kind of fizzled.

So then came the podcast – we’ve done it for two years, now. It wound up becoming the focus of insert credit for some time, and people quite liked it! Recently though, we’ve been thinking about what we want from this. If we’re going to invest time in it, the audience needs to build, so we thought about a few ways we might do that without changing things too drastically, or making it too much work for ourselves (because if it becomes a lot of work, we just won’t do it – that’s what happened last time). Here’s what we’ve come up with – we will roll this all out slowly, and it may change somewhat, but here’s the current plan.

1) Scaling down. insert credit will just be brandon, tim, and frank. There will be guests, but in the way that Idle Thumbs is just those guys, insert credit will just be us guys, content-wise. This is more of a conceptual change than a structural one, but since we all live near each other, this also opens up the kinds of things we can do.

2) The insert credit audio show. This replaces the podcast, and will eventually have a better visual component, while still having an audio-only version. Since we’ll now all be able to be in the same location, we can slowly make the livestream and video component more interesting – watching talking heads is not very engaging. We will also not talk over each other or have lag anymore, because we’re in the same room! That’s nice. The format will also change – it will be looser than the initial 10 question/6-minute format, with the intention of building some articles out of the audio content over the period of months, kind of integrating the whole thing.

3) The insert credit video show. Though all the names are subject to change, this will be a livestream in which we play through games we think are interesting. We’ll play all the way through them, in installments, and the only rule we’ll have is that one person in the group knows the game well, and that person is not playing. They’re more of a coach for the player(s).

4) Article content. Articles will remain! Tim and I both have articles we’re ready to put up, and just haven’t yet. But much more interesting than that will be our formspring (or spring.me) integration. We plan to have a field people can fill out to ask us game-oriented questions. We will go through these, pick the best ones, and write responses to them in article form. As mentioned, the audio show will also influence some article content – building lists of best games over time, or weaving together narratives.

That’s pretty much the plan, overall. A new version of the site is currently being worked on to reflect these changes, and we’re pretty confident this will generate a lot more interesting content than we had before. This should also more closely integrate the audience with the whole experience. Many of you have known or interacted with us for years, and we’re hoping this will bring everyone closer to the experience.

There will be some growing pains, to be sure, but please bear with us as we gradually turn this into a bigger and better thing!
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Unread postby earthboundtrev » 18 Nov 2014 14:06

http://archives.insertcredit.com/features/familiar/

Brandon Sheffield wrote:Then it hits me...I’m in it. This was the feeling. Not just the game, but the environment, sitting on the easy chair wearing the sweatpants I just slept in. Not going to the bathroom even through I really have to pee, because I want to beat this damned game. Realizing how well the game was designed brings up that old feeling of excitement and discovery. What the hell happened to Video System anyway? Do they still make games?

I’m worried about nothing. This is undoubtedly what enlightenment feels like. I’m remembering every good time I’ve had simultaneously, and projecting them into the future. I wonder if this day will be one of those I recall years from now.

You can go back. Don’t let them tell you otherwise. It’s there, you just can’t try overly hard for it. The world has to agree with you first. And when it hits you like a wave, don’t question it. Just ride it to completion. Life can wait!

I encourage you to dig out your NES or your Genesis and find a day to just isolate yourself and play. Don’t worry about what you have to do tomorrow. Go get yourself some candy and a soda. Go call up your pals and play through Double Dragon 2. No matter what happens…it’s good for what ails you.


I remember icy mentioning this article on the Insert Credit comments as the best Brandon Sheffield's written, so I read it. You all should too if you haven't yet.
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Unread postby icycalm » 18 Nov 2014 16:42

And now he's turned into yet another mindless podcast-churning machine...

http://culture.vg/features/commentary/k ... ereotypes/

George Smith wrote:The Frat Boy

The Frat Boy loves podcasts, because they allow him an opportunity to sit around with his like-minded coworkers/frat bros and be obnoxious jerks on the company dime. "I'm not being a drunken idiot! I'm generating dynamic multimedia online content!"


How the mighty, etc.
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Unread postby icycalm » 11 Jul 2020 01:10

The IC forum is back: https://forums.insertcredit.com/

I posted quite a lot about it in the Discord, and I'll copy-paste that stuff here later. For now I will just say that, after watching the place for a couple of weeks, I can say with certainty it's far inferior to what it used to be. It's been back for over three months too, so it's not a matter of patience until it regains its former glory. It will never be anywhere as good as it was. The old IC would not ban anyone unless you trolled them hard for weeks or months, and the new bans people within a couple of posts merely for not being leftists. It's a better place than Select Button, but that's not saying much. Any forum is a better place than Select Button, SB is at the very bottom of the barrel. And with the new content being exclusively boring podcasts that no one in their right minds would listen to, they have no hope at all of attracting the kind of experts (among them myself too) that made the old forum what it was. Everyone has moved on, and Brandon is not giving us any reason to return. So all he has is a forum for obscure stuff that's obscure because it deserves to be, not because it's too good for the masses. Stuff like the Simple Series games [ > ] and Taito X-55 [ > ] are too crappy even for the "mane streem". They are not cool hidden gems that the new IC is uncovering, they are TRASH THAT DESERVES TO BE FORGOTTEN. Now, if he had a cool forum with cool info, it would be okay to have these threads on these crap obscure things in there; they would be a nice spice on top of a hearty meal. But this spice is now the ONLY thing the forum has, that and pseudo-intellectuality that you can get elsewhere (SB has way more than IC, which is why it's so much worse).

In sum, I wish he hadn't tried to resurrect his forum. It's like endless sequels that get progressively worse and worse because the soul is not in the creators any more, it has left them, and now they are empty pathetic husks desperately trying to reignite the old flame. Let it die for god's sake. Your fucking site is depressing, Brandon. The disgusting frontpage with the flood of asinine podcasts is depressing, and the stupid forum where 40-year-old men-children obsess over crappy shit that no one cares about is even more depressing. Will you still be running that shit when you are 50? When you are 60? You will still be obsessing over Simple Series shovelware at 70? While utterly ignoring, not only the NEW good stuff, but even the OLD good stuff?

The modern IC is a parody of what the old IC was. And it is now more clear than ever that the old IC was great because of people like me contributing to it, not people like Brandon. There's a good connection to be made here with what happened with Roosh's forum, but it would go over the head of most of this site's gamer readership so I'll keep it to myself.
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Unread postby icycalm » 24 Mar 2021 17:21

The new Insert Credit frontpage lol: https://insertcredit.com/

Image

It's the exact same content as before, the stupid podcasts, but simply with a facelift. That facelift is pretty much exactly what Action Button looks like, the homosexual gamer's idea of "punk". So that's what IC has finally degenerated to: 100% fag hipsterism with titles like "Sonic the Hedgefund" and no actual game content at all. The podcast titles may as well all be Select Button thread titles. That's what 2021 IC is: Action Button x Select Button, the worst parts of two of the worst vg-related (distantly related) sites on the internet.

How the mighty have fallen... So depressing to look at what used to be an inspiration 20 years ago.
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Unread postby icycalm » 02 Jun 2021 19:09

Image

These are the top (non-stickied) threads in the IC forum right now (the stickied ones are worse).

I can’t even muster the enthusiasm to click on any of them.

Do you even game bro...

“Show me anything Sega”...

:facepalm:

At least it’s better than the frontpage.
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Unread postby icycalm » 09 Jun 2021 11:03

let's fix videogames
https://forums.insertcredit.com/d/797-l ... videogames

You fags couldn’t fix a sandwich if they put you in a Subway store.

get rid of artificial hardware requirements, the technology is there to bring games to almost any device


They lack the most basic understanding of computing. What they are saying is something only a grandma would say. In the old IC you could say a lot of stupid stuff, but you couldn’t get away with something THAT stupid. A bunch of people would have jumped on you and shut you up. Now all those people are long gone, and the fags remaining are free to go full-retard 24/7.

Nu-IC is everything that was bad about OG IC, without all the good stuff. Absolutely everyone who knew anything about games is no longer there and did not return for the revival, while Brandon, who never posted in the old forum, is the most prolific poster there now. It’s as if all the old great forum content was repulsing him, and only now, when there is no good content, he feels comfortable enough to post his non-gaming rubbish.

I dare say Nu-IC might be even worse than Select Button. It’d be a tough fight between them for worst site in 2021. Though Tim’s Patreon might have both of them beat.

I literally cannot name a worse site than these three. Any random gamer’s free blog that was abandoned after three posts contains more knowledge and passion.
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Unread postby icycalm » 09 Jun 2021 11:13

They’ve been talking about “fixing videogames” for nearly 20 years now. When will they fix them? Do they plan to keep whining all the way to their graves? They will be 50 years old in a few years. 60 a little later. And they’ll still be whining that Call of Duty and Mario are not “meaningful experiences”?
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Re: Insert Credit

Unread postby icycalm » 14 Jul 2021 11:09

Insert Credit now hosts Marxist book clubs.

The Marx Thread
https://forums.insertcredit.com/d/843-the-marx-thread

https://forums.insertcredit.com/d/843-t ... -thread/36

Gaagaagiins wrote:I feel like even Marx would be shocked to the extent workers have been pushed while still yet not banding together into mobs to drag bosses out into the streets to beat them to death.


icy is banned for wanting to exterminate subhumans, but "Gaagaagiins" is welcome for wanting to exterminate "bosses".

The entire forum is a dumpster fire. I no longer even skim threads with promising titles because there aren't any.
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Re: Insert Credit

Unread postby icycalm » 08 Dec 2021 20:53

Insert Credit's Game of the Year 2021
https://forums.insertcredit.com/d/1141- ... year-2021/

They've never heard of TaleSpire or Starbase or Humankind or the new Makaimura. It's like looking at an alternate universe: just throwaway J-games and "indie"-games. They even cite Steel Assault lol. Truly a different species of life.
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Re: Insert Credit

Unread postby icycalm » 01 Jan 2023 16:20

IC posters realizing their forum's boring lol: https://forums.insertcredit.com/d/2284-on-mega-threads

Syzygy wrote:On Mega Threads

The question was raised as to whether we should let the forum’s longest-running threads like currently playing, new games, etc., continue indefinitely or not,

Pros: a single thread to “follow”, easy to find, builds up a sort of tradition
Cons: nearly impossible to find older posts / conversations in them, increasingly daunting to newcomers, huge infinite scrolling tends to have technical issues

What do you think?


Too stupid to think of making a separate thread for each game. Even worse, that wouldn't help much because they give all threads pretentious random titles, so even if there is a thread on a game you want to talk about, you might have trouble finding it, causing you to make a new thread on it. These are all issues I solved a good 17 years ago, and they've learned nothing from me. Still the same garbage content in 90% of threads that Select Button has (the two forums are practically identical), and now that they've chased away all the cool OG posters with high IQ like me, all they're left with is the pretentiousness and shit taste.

And to think that 20 years ago I used to look up to these people.

They're basically dead now. They have no idea of roleplaying, Star Citizen, FP4Xes, or anything good in contemporary gaming. And they're only in their late-30s and 40s. I can already see them in their 50s and 60s, still in these depressing, shitty forums posting in five-six giant-ass threads as if it's a chat server, still obsessing about some lame Saturn or "indie" game and lamenting "the state of the INDASTRY!!!" while the rest of us are jacked into mindboggling VR masterpieces. What an insane level of genetic failure.
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