gamengai

[icycalm]

gamengai (I presume GP wants it written with a lower-case 'g') is one of my favorite game-related websites. If you've never heard of it, shame on you. This thread will be devoted to linking, and perhaps discussing, its various updates.

Saimatsu Dai Cave Matsuri
http://www.gamengai.com/bn_inf.php?type ... d=1645&l=e

An awesome write-up of Cave's latest festival, full of insightful observations, witty commentary, and several pictures of frothingly desirable stuff.

[icycalm]

I just dropped by the gamengai forums after god knows how long, and man, the spambot situation there is something else. I mean WTF, Paul is supposed to be a programmer, and he can't even figure out how to install an anti-spam mod on phpBB? Even I figured that out eventually!

[zinger]

Heh yeah. There's seldom any spam though, just a shit load of suspicious users. About eleven thousand, more specifically.

[icycalm]

http://www.gamengai.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2799

That's it, I think I am through with browsing gamengai. The dude is just depressing. Every. Other. Fucking. Post. is about how he is too old to play this or that game, doesn't have the time, etc. etc. Fucking stop trawling the internet all day and posting boring depressing bullshit and you'll make the time to play a game or two now and then. Jesus Fucking Christ. I would honestly rather read the comments of a young enthusiastic idiot than some dude who is too dumb to stop fucking whining and start managing his time more effectively. Ideally though I would rather not read anything and play some goddamn games. Now if only I had some of them with me lol!

[icycalm]

Apparently there's some major changes going on at gamengai and GP sent an email to some users about them. If anyone has it, post it here so we know what's going on.

http://www.gamengai.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3169

[Gamengai] GP's real life curve ball.

If you received the email a few hours ago, then you know the current situation. There is little I can do to help so the only thing I can offer is my sympathies and wish GP luck in his life.

Those of us who have been using GP's services will now need to find an alternative. Since Gamengai has served me perfectly well the entire time, I was and still am ignorant of the competitors available in the market. Can anyone offer suggestions as to the next best one after Gamengai?

What there isn't a competitor of is Gamengai's Alerts function. I would be absolutely devastated if that was gone. I rarely even use YJA's search field anymore because of Alerts. It's so useful that, among the lavish praise I heap upon it, I once (half-)jokingly said to GP that I would be happy to pay, say, a monthly subscription for it. Looks like that might become a reality (or financed by donations as per email).

Just to further clarify and drive the point, I really do not want to see Alerts gone and I will do everything in my power (e.g. probably mostly financial) to see it continue to run.

[zinger]

[...] So, after over 7 years of annoying other bidders in Japan, I will have to shut the gamengai Yahoo proxy down. I will let the bid script run until next Friday (exactly one week of today). After that, it will not be possible to make any bids. Also, I'd like every one to start making their shipping requests (and also note that I've got a lot going on, so it might take a bit). Any remaining balance will be refunded.

I know this sucks for you guys as well. It's not an easy decision. As much work as it is, it's always been a fun thing to interact with everyone that has used my services. It's pretty hard to think of life without the proxy, to be honest. But, I need to embrace the next stage in life.

I would like to keep the alerts going, and allow you guys to find what you want and use a competitor. The main site as well I would like to keep going if possible (I assume someone uses it). Ideally I will move it to a cheaper server, and pay for the site via the alerts and/or donations, but that's all TBD. As long as I have my Linux machine in Tokyo, the alerts will run. [...]

[icycalm]

Thanks, but why not post the whole thing? I am interested in learning what the "real life curve ball" is.

[zinger]

I wasn't completely comfortable with sharing his personal details with people he was not addressing specifically. Didn't consider it relevant either. It was just typical boring economical or job and family related issues anyway, nothing exciting really.

[icycalm]

Ok, fair enough.

[icycalm]

Still, if anyone has the email and is comfortable sharing it with me, they can email it to me and I promise to not share it further. It's true what you say about this stuff not being particularly exciting, yet it is still interesting to me all the same. I'd pay real money to learn about Recap's life, for example, even though I am sure it's nothing too exciting either. Same with Randorama and the rest. It's hard to explain where my interest comes from, but I've been following these people and their sites/forum accounts for a long time, so I guess I am invested, to an extent, in how their lives turn out. For all our differences we have a great deal of similarities too, and that's really what makes them interesting to me in the end. I learn from their mistakes and I share a little in the pleasure of their successes. When Rando talks about all the arcade games he played, it's like I am there playing with him all the games I didn't play. When GP talks about his marriage drama, I get an idea of how my life might have turned out if I had stayed in Japan and/or married early. And so on and so forth. These are the most interesting personalities in videogame culture, so I have a natural interest in them as in all things that pertain to this culture.