Have I mentioned how much I like this yet?

No? Ok. I like! Top work.

 

You really aren't helping things, man. I would go so far as to say that oewarj's last post, riddled with inaccuracies and fallacies as it is, is better than this one. At least try to approach him with some modicum of respect and actually address his points.

I wasn't actually intending to help anything any more than your gifgasm blowouts but fair do's, point taken, man.

The problem is, you're having a one way discussion here. It vaguely looks two way because you're getting responses but the responses consistently boil down to repeated dogma or just plain "lol".

That you have a tolerance for trying to snap or reason with that level of dogmatic adherence is a credit to you, I fear my tolerance for such a discussion has long passed. The tedium of being expected to nitpick the minutiae of fundamentally flawed arguments in order to "win" the future (!) has grown more tired than ever before and the distaste a lot of this discussion has left in my mouth has, indeed, reduced my tolerance for the same old points worded differently to a point where yes, I should just step out.

Whenever any point is either just plain ignored or responded to with a Zirbas quote or, even more idiotically, a plain "lol" it's hard not to respond in kind when at that stage.

So yes, you're right. It doesn't help. It doesn't really hurt either (beyond clogging up one more post in this clusterfuck of a thread) but regardless, I have little more I can say on the subject that hasn't been repeated ad infinitum and any posts I do make are likely to be venting my frustration over the same ground being gone over again.

they wouldn't need to use the indie label at all

Nobody needs to use the label. People choose to label themselves such. Even, yes, when they have runaway successful phenomenal games.

Odd, isn't it? Anyone would think your rules don't apply to the world. Oh.

Just like we don't call the original game developers "indie," even though their budget are fractions of what it takes to make a cutting edge game currently

Yet a lot of them self applied other similar labels to themselves, bedroom coder or suchlike. Odd, isn't it? Anyone would think your rules don't apply to the world. Oh.

They receive a low rating because they failed in comparison to the great video games that have already been released.

...drawn from a small pool of games and hardly de facto standards. What you seemingly fail to understand is that Zirbas is not the font of all knowledge nor the final arbiter of what is good and what is not good. Which is lucky considering he's actually not anywhere near as knowledgeable as he likes to make out.

Which sort of means that the only thing Zirbas' ratings are worth is to get an idea of what Zirbas does and doesn't like. Beyond that, they're fuck all use or worth in the grand scheme of things.

"lost to time" lol. This isn't like Rembrandt's works dude. Its called getting an emulator. What a ridiculous argument.

Ah yes, if only videogame preservation was that simple! We'll just get an emulator!

Facepalm to aisle 2.

Elevating something means devaluing its competitors.

It must be nice to live in your simplistic world. Actually, no, it probably wouldn't.

But anyway, Insomnia has published positive reviews on Ancient Domain of Mystery, Touhou Bunkachou: Shoot the Bullet, and such games made by a really small development team (which, by your definition, is considered indie). Yet, Icy has stated his hatred for the indie label. What are you to make of this scenario?

That he's an idiot! Huzzah!

most people already agree with icy's ideas anyway, excluding only his assertions that indie games are "degenerate" and the "scourge of gaming."

Sorry to pluck this out and I know Derek mentioned it earlier but I'd love to know where the foundation for this claim is.

If we're referring to his views on art games...

If it's within TIGS then it's a self selecting group. And even then, to be fair, the amount of art/experimental games created in this very forum makes me uncomfortable with this line of discussion. (Not that you shouldn't criticise them but that people are willing to handwave away an entire subset of the members work as inferior or boring so easily which is precisely what agreeing with Zirbas entails*)

If it's the front page then it's a small minority of incredibly vocal people (ring any bells?)

If it's out there in the great wide world I'd find a safer bet in saying that it doesn't really hold up at all. The majority of people don't make the distinctions you do.

Flower is a game. Limbo is a game. They're not art games - they're just games. They're also both games that sold copious amounts to the general public. You can either read this, as Zirbas does, as an infection and blight upon the master race of gaming or you can go with the far more rational and realistic view that people do want these things. People generally don't mind these things. And any alarmist bullshit is just that. Pretty much every site I visit outside of the indiesphere doesn't tend to carry these art/not art arguments beyond the occasional snipe here and there. It's just generally accepted that these are part of what gaming is now and it would seem, judging by sales, that the public are pretty happy with that. Their value judgement doesn't tally with Zirbas'. Most critics value judgement doesn't either.

So no. I don't think most people do agree with Zirbas on this. I'd say most people don't give a flying shit about the is it/isn't it art/is art a rubbish argument and it's only a minority of people who argue the either/or and frankly, anyone making games shouldn't care about them unless they're making games specifically for them. Which people do. Which is nice because it leaves us with a fantastic and varied game-o-sphere to play in.

Most people don't share his views of masterworks. Most people probably haven't even heard of what he dribbles on about (worth noting that's not a value judgement on said works, just a "be careful with your words").

Most people don't believe complexity is innately superior to simplicity as a goal for games.

And the biggy? Most people don't believe you should compare Gears Of War with Johnny's Slow Piano Music Platformer. They're big and smart enough to be able to judge relatively. That's perfectly fine. Because all these things are just games it doesn't automatically follow, as Zirbas would have you, that therefor small just game 1 should be compared to massive just game 2 with megabudget. Most people would realise that's stupid.

I'd also argue that most people are happy and content to let people just do without them having to aspire to being the greatest or to compare themselves with said alleged masterworks. If someone wants to aspire to be the best, fabulous. If someone just wants to tinker and do, then that's ok too. That's kinda the fucking point of being indie, yeah? That you can just do. Any critic that makes a judgement based on "does sketchgameA compare with massivegameB" is, with all due respect, a fucking idiot.

And of course, most people don't agree that it's ok to call journalists ho bags because you didn't like some words they put down about videogames

So can we please stop claiming "everyone agrees with Zirbas" or "most people agree with Zirbas" at least until statistically, we're somewhere close to that being truth? And especially when "agreeing with Zirbas" is generally agreeing to limit the scope and scale and progression of games to a narrow route as judged by self elected gamearatti?

*you can't really separate what Zirbas thinks from the derogatory remarks as the derogatory statements are integral to his points.

Whilst I'd disagree, being slightly less horrible whilst still being horrible isn't exactly a trait to defend regardless.

He's a bigot. One who is entirely intolerant of those who do not share his opinion is a bigot.

But then almost everyone would be bigoted to some extent.

For instance, I am intolerant of people who think rape is OK for no other reason than that they don't share my opinion on the subject of rape.

As Dustin said, I think that's perfectly fine don't you?

Compare and contrast to calling people subhumans , various different definitions of scum/alleged lesser beings, calling women who dare to write about videogames whilst acknowledging that they are, indeed, women in their writing - calling them a profanisaurus worth of sexual slurs, compare to the constant usage of faggot or sexual slurs. Compare to the constant train of abject hate speech that gets vomited onto the page by Zirbas to "I think rape is actually quite a bad thing and shouldn't be tolerated"

I get the feeling the latter isn't really that problematic and you're gonna be just fine. The Zirbas stuff though? That's just vile and absolutely should be called out for the vulgar attitude that it is.

I don't care if he once had a lucid thought about a videogame, that shit is bang out of line.

He's a bigot. One who is entirely intolerant of those who do not share his opinion is a bigot.

I'm sure he'll make some demarcation between actual real use of words and some invented subhuman deflection dictionary usage but it's pretty abundantly clear that he is, to all intents and purposes, a bigot.

In fairness.

Erm, you do know what a bigot is, yeah?

All the while failing to even recognise the merits of Insomnia as a work in itself.

Over 5 years of spewing hate filled, ill informed, bigoted, misogynistic, homophobic rubbish onto the internet from Zirbas, the fantasist.

I think we've established already that most people recognise that particular achievement.

No dear, the future isn't at stake. You big old flouncy drama queen. Aww, bless.

And I like how you don't dispute that Zirbas is a misogynistic, homophobic fantasist. Which is probably for the best, eh? Y'know, considering that's laid bare for every person to see.

then I don't see why "lol arguing on teh internet" is supposed to somehow devalue what's at stake here.

Fuck all is at stake here, you complete tool.

That you somehow truly believe that a misogynistic, homophobic, racial stereotyping (isn't Japophilia brilliant?), ill informed and slur filled load of old twaddle that can only prove itself somehow even remotely correct by circular logic and the application of completely irrelevant philosophy quotes as spouted by a complete lunatic and fantastist deserves anything but pointing and laughing at is completely beyond me.

But by all means, you Zirbas supporters have your fun. I haven't stopped laughing for 200-odd pages of your mania and abject idiocy so far.

How is "prog" rock a better example than grunge? I don't even know what it is. Most people don't know what it is. Everyone knows what grunge is. Get it?

Yes, those 40 years worth of prog rock records and multi-million selling bands, crucial in one way or another to the evolution of 20th Century music would obviously be less well known than grunge.

No, wait. Hang on. The other one.

Anyway, prog brings me out in hives and makes me want to kick a rockist so I'm out of this part

I thought we'd established 100 or so pages back that Cap'n_mophead is Tony?

Despite his insistence that other people use terms correctly, icycalm can't even define art for himself in any useful way

Ah, c'mon Derek. That's not fair. You know full well he'll just redefine anything until it makes him right. Art, sex, anything.

Random Observation: I notice when I am loaded on cough syrup and cold medicine I swear a lot more.

Fuck, I better fucking well keep away from that shit then. That could be bastarding dangerous.