Death comes to us all

[icycalm]

http://insomnia.ac/commentary/death_comes_to_us_all/

I want this thread to be about cool independent (i.e. non-profit) gaming websites that are dead, dying, or that have recently wisen from the gwave. In the couple of weeks since I wrote this little article, two of the sites I mentioned have been showing signs of life, which could very well not be a coincidence, seeing as they had previously been dead for a couple of years. Marco is apparently in the process of setting up a fresh installation of WordPress (is all the old stuff going to be wiped? -- not that there was much mind you, but still, I was fond of what there was):

http://www.dontpressstart.com/

and jiji has made a couple of updates to his linklog (see upper right corner of the frontpage):

http://www.namakoteam.com/

Meanwhile, as noted in the Postback thread, Recap seems to be in the process of installing a (lol, Japanese) version of WordPress:

http://postback.geedorah.com/

His forums seem to be gone, which, if true, would really be a crime against (videogame) humanity!

Meanwhile, IC is still dead, save for that one recent news snippet which I passed on to them (and which Recap passed on to me, neither of us receiving a link back for our effort, but what the hell -- it won't be the first nor the last tactless affront that we've had to put up with from the IC crowd).

I think it is a good idea to make a little bit of noise about these sites that we like and enjoy visiting. People often don't understand this, especially those who've never created anything in their lives; but a few encouraging words from a stranger can go a long way towards sustaining one's -- often ultimately futile -- creative efforts. Let the artists say what they will: deep down, the real reason any of us do anything that is not directly related to survival or domination is to share it with like-minded people (and ultimately dominate them, lol, but that's another story). The modest displays of gratitude and respect with which one's audience repays one for the effort one has put into something, is the real reward for him who does anything not out of "want, hunger, or else some form of greed", as Schopenhauer put it, but out of love for the subject.

[Recap]

Didn't I dominate everybody out there yet (...)?

Laughs. The Word Press thingie is not mine! It's by the new hoster for Geedorah, who has that as the "error" page. I'm afraid I'm at least a couple of weeks away before going back on-line. In case I can solve the domain issue, I want to do it along with a brand-new edition.

Thanks for the concern once again. I'll be posting here any related news whenever they happen.

Meanwhile, IC is still dead, save for that one recent news snippet which I passed on to them (and which Recap passed on to me, neither of us receiving a link back for our effort, but what the hell -- it won't be the first nor the last tactless affront that we've had to put up with from the IC crowd).

In this case, I'm sure it's for the no-links-to-scanned-material policies. Seems retarded not mentioning Recap there, though, maybe the poster is a newcomer. Not anything that I care of, anyway.

[icycalm]

Didn't I dominate everybody out there yet (...)?

You have indeed; they have just not got the memo yet.

In this case, I'm sure it's for the no-links-to-scanned-material policies. Seems retarded not mentioning Recap there, though, maybe the poster is a newcomer. Not anything that I care of, anyway.

My name should at least have been a link to my frontpage. That's how things work where I am from. As for you, I guess their excuse could be that your site is offline, but again, you should of course have been at least mentioned. On the other hand, the way I just quoted you in my initial post might have escaped from someone who wasn't paying very much attention... And yeah, I don't care about this either; Insomnia is past the point where linkage from any specific site has any appreciable effect on long-term traffic; but this is simply a matter of principle. And Ollie Barder is not a newcomer. He had been contributing to IC for quite a while before I came along: he really has no excuse. Oh well. Serves me right for bothering to inform him in the first place. I certainly won't make that mistake a second time.

[Recap]

I agree, you know. I wonder why you do still care about IC, though.

[jiji]

I appreciate the mention here and in the article. The recent linklog updates were due to the first gaming-related news in some time that got me excited enough to post. I'm fairly detached from gaming right now, and have been finding creative outlet elsewhere (mainly with photography, which is exercising parts of my brain I didn't know I had and connecting me with new people all the time).

The Simple 2000 series on PS2 had been driving a lot of my interest in writing about games, and when it died in favor of the less interesting (to date) Simple DS series, I lost a lot of interest in keeping up with D3. Plus, I often feel that I don't have much to say about gaming anymore, when Koei games are one of my primary interests.

I guess this is my concession speech. ;)

I have been enjoying some SSF2 HDR, MGS4, and Panzer Tactics here and there, however, and I'd like to grab that latest US Nobunaga's Ambition release.

[icycalm]

Hey, welcome back. Strange to hear that the DS Simple games are not attracting your interest. You'd think that D3's publishing model would have worked better on something as, let us say "quirky" as the DS, rather than the PS2.

I guess this just proves once more how useless most of the DS's hardware gimmicks are.

[icycalm]

I added this quote to the beginning of the article:

"Every day thousands of sites die out on the Internet. What applied in the case of living beings over the course of evolution is continuing now in that of digital, genetic, cybernetic artefacts, doomed to disappear in droves to leave only a few of them, or their distant descendants along the digital chain. And we are only at the dawn of this ruthless selection process. In the order of artificial beings, we are at the stage occupied by bacteria in the order of life."
--Jean Baudrillard

[Cacophanus]

My name should at least have been a link to my frontpage. That's how things work where I am from. As for you, I guess their excuse could be that your site is offline, but again, you should of course have been at least mentioned. On the other hand, the way I just quoted you in my initial post might have escaped from someone who wasn't paying very much attention... And yeah, I don't care about this either; Insomnia is past the point where linkage from any specific site has any appreciable effect on long-term traffic; but this is simply a matter of principle. And Ollie Barder is not a newcomer. He had been contributing to IC for quite a while before I came along: he really has no excuse. Oh well. Serves me right for bothering to inform him in the first place. I certainly won't make that mistake a second time.

I credited you in the post specifically though:

"Thanks to Alex Kierkegaard for the heads up."

I've added a link to insomnia in any case.

[icycalm]

Well, thanks. Like I said, it was no big deal anyway.