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[mirosurabu]

eva_ should be banned guys.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

totally.
a massive argument thread is not the way to do that. it makes people on both sides look like petty, squabbling dicks. maybe it even puts people off entering in to the community at all, on occasion.

the best way to do this - rise above, create and post about high-quality, excellent art games (or whatever the particular subject may be)...
lets see some posts about games, rather than posts about arguments about games?

i imagine it's probably easier and more satisfying to argue for some people, however!

two problems with that

first, i'm already making a game full time. i spend most of my energy on it. as i mentioned, i write on forums to relax, to recover my energy so that i can work on my game further. i know that this differs between people, and that some people are drained of energy rather than invigorated by posting on a forum, but it is personally how i relax. after a few posts to tigsource i'm ready to continue my game even more! see this page for my game's progress: http://rinku.livejournal.com/ -- you'll note that i've worked on it every day for the last year and a half, without missing a single day. so again, i don't post in forums to 'be productive', obviously it's not productive! i post in forums to relax so that i can be productive, to take a break from being productive.

second, i'm not arguing against anyone in this thread. i'm trying to discuss icycalm's ideas, not trying to convince anyone. discussion is what i'm after, not rearranging other people's beliefs. i want to hear what others think about icycalm. unfortunately a lot of people choose just troll the post with image macros instead of discussing him, or to argue that he's not worth arguing about (isn't that kind of weird? isn't that what you're doing: making internet posts and arguing against me about how it isn't good to make internet posts and argue? trying to convince me that it isn't worth doing even after you just said that you can't convince anyone of anything in a forum argument?).

[Fallsburg]

eva_ should be banned guys.

I'm really trying to think of a reason to disagree with this, but I can't.

[eva_]

eva_ should be banned guys.

oh sorry i offended you!!! hey guys i want to stop a trhead cos it involves some internet guy that says fagot a lot, lets get back to discussing how jumping works in platformers lol!!

[Dustin Smith]

icycalm isn't worth discussing, he's a vindictive pseudo-intellectual asshole that leads a miniature cult due to said pseudo-intellectual assholishness. I venture people follow him for his method of delivery more so than any ideas he may entertain.

[eva_]

look seriously there is no harm at all discussing anything. might as well close every single thread in the forum

[JoGribbs]

icycalm isn't worth discussing, he's a vindictive pseudo-intellectual asshole that leads a miniature cult due to said pseudo-intellectual assholishness. I venture people follow him for his method of delivery more so than any ideas he may entertain.

Yet here we are ten pages in.

[moi]

both lolher and icyclam are media whores, probably future media moguls.
Right now they're monopolizing everyone's attention over nothing interesting.
in the middle of this maelstrom of shit, a dark figure sits, calmly stirring his tea.

Also:

Now, I want more cactus comics.

[eva_]

no need to be so hostile here, i was just suggesting perhaps discussing the games rather than the "battle" between two people's opinions.
but if you want to turn even that in to an argument, then go ahead - relax away at my posts... i'll be leaving this thread now

yeah right

--

i bet it'd be half the amount of pages on this thread if people would just leave it alone and let people discuss normally on the stupid semantics or somthing, what harm does it do? sorry does it hurt your intelligence so much , just read the sections above "general/indiegames", there's a reason its down all the way here

the community i was involved in BROKE APART because the humor discussion boards closed down just because the mods thought it's too immature and that they should get to making games. just delete the spam posts and move the fuck on

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

"no need to be so hostile here, i was just suggesting perhaps discussing the games rather than the "battle" between two people's opinions."

didn't intend to be hostile at all, it's just annoying that i was trying to discuss something peacefully here and about half the posts are people jumping in saying it shouldn't be discussed. who gives them the right to decide that? if they don't want to discuss it, fine, just don't post in the thread, but leave the people who do want to discuss it alone, it's not hurting anyone. it seems like this happens in every single discussion of art games, and it gets annoying after the 100th time, so i'm sorry if i felt snappy just because you were unlucky enough to be #100

[s0]

so i absolutely agree that you can't convince anyone of anything if they already decided against it. but i do feel that you can influence people who have not yet made up their mind, or people who are just coming into the community who have no opinion yet on art games, people who may have never even heard of art games.

The specific problem with that in regard to "art games" is that it's hard to "sell" them to to most people. I mean how are you going to explain to someone with a background in AAA mainstream gaming how games that aren't "fun" (in the traditional sense) or technically impressive can be good too?

Icycalm and people who think similarly to him are in the easier position because their arguments amount to "art games aren't fun, therefore they suck".

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i'm not sure, but i (and most of the people who like experimental games) did come from an aaa mainstream game-playing background too, right? the main selling point to me works like this:

icycalm feels that games as they are now are pretty good. almost everyone who wants to explore other types of games feels that games as they are now are pretty bad.

so the easiest "sell" would be to people who are unsatisfied with the mainstream games industry. this can be for any number of reasons: too many sequels, not enough change and innovation over the years, etc.

to me, the main reason i feel that mainstream games aren't good is because they aren't fun (so it's the same argument in reverse). i play these 50-million dollar games and don't have fun with them at all, or very very little fun. the games that i actually do enjoy are few and far between. so obviously they must be doing something wrong for me: not just the execution, but the basic formula. by experimenting through experimental games, perhaps we indies can find games that i'd enjoy more than the boring formulas that exist right now.

icycalm often talks about how indies have never played classic games like mario 1 or megaman, and that if we did we wouldn't make such horrible games. but i think it's exactly because we have played classic games that we want to make new types of games, because we remember how experimental games were back in the 80s, and miss the variety. i miss having 50 different genres (formulas) on sale at once, instead of 5 formulas. therefore, i don't just want to revive those old 45 missing formulas, but invent 50 new formulas. others can then revise them after we discover them.

[s0]

so the easiest "sell" would be to people who are unsatisfied with the mainstream games industry. this can be for any number of reasons: too many sequels, not enough change and innovation over the years, etc.

(etc.)

Yeah, for me the reason for turning to indie games was a combination of being dissatisfied with the stuff coming from the AAA industry (I actually have very specific issues with these games, but I've discussed part of that elsewhere already) and lack of variety as well as a simple case of tastes branching out as I got older/more experienced with games. I still play a lot of "mainstream" games (though mostly not big budget ones) and I play indie games in addition to them, I don't really differentiate, TBH.

I generally like both well-made traditional games as well games that focus on innovation/experimentation. I don't really understand why we can't have both types and why people like Icycalm think one of them shouldn't exist.

[TeeGee]

Ha ha ha, oh my, you almost made me write a long post there, Paul. Fortunately, I've managed to get a grip on myself in time . In short:

About this thread:
- Material you linked is very agressive in tone and warrants strong response.
- Art discussion in general seem to always end up like this. You said it yourself. So why start another one?
- People are rightfully bored of this topic, so don't expect too much constructive stuff.

About the topic:
- All forms of "art" get questioned and discussed all the time. And it's okay. If anything, it proves their significance.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i actually didn't mean the topic to be about art games, but rather about icycalm and rohrer event and their particular discussion topics. which were (for example):

- whether refining formulas (as the mainstream games industry is doing) is actually better after all than them being innovative. this may not be new to everyone, but it's actually new to me: i've never seen anyone argue *against* innovation in the mainstream games industry before, and have a somewhat reasonable argument for their position.

- the idea that rohrer agrees with icycalm about everything except the harsh language. maybe he's just trying to be polite there, but if this is true this means that rohrer himself agrees that the purpose of games is to be challenging and fun and not to try to mean anything to anyone. if this is true this is an interesting development for anyone interested in rohrer's games / career.

[cynicalsandel]

My problem isn't in refining games, but rather sequels that claim to refine, but are more or less carbon copies. (At least in my eyes)

For examples, I feel Uncharted 2 improved greatly on the original game. I think the story, gameplay, etc. were are improved. However, Call of Duty seems to just keep making more games just for the sake of making more games. I rather enjoyed Call of Duty 4, but didn't enjoy any of the Call of Duty games that came after it. They didn't refine the game, it seemed more like they just put on a different coat of paint.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

there's also the issue when sequels are worse, or when a formula is refined in the wrong direction. good examples of that to me are the zelda series: i felt that except for majora's mask, the 'refinements' on the original zelda formula largely made it worse, not better. that's one of my main motivations for working on my current game, to take the *original* zelda formula of the first game and revive and revise that, instead of what i see as the corrupted zelda formula of games like ocarina of time, wind waker, twilight princess, etc.

[TeeGee]

I think we need a bit of everything. A bit of carbon-copy sequels, a bit of significant improvement sequels, a bit of innovative stuff, a bit of completely crazy stuff. It creates a balanced culture.

We need the mass market mainstream to have something to be "indie" from.

[s0]

refining formulas (as the mainstream games industry is doing)

I'd be more than happy if that was actually the case, but what the mainstream industry (and I'm taking about the big AAA developers here) are doing isn't "refining". They're dumbing their games down with handholding mechanics in an effort to appeal to the lowest common denominator of casual gamers and litter them with boring, unnecessary cutscenes in an attempt to mimic Hollywood action movies. Single player AAA games have stopped being about "plain old fun" several years ago and have become something yawn-inducingly dull instead.

[cynicalsandel]

We need the mass market mainstream to have something to be "indie" from.

This. If it wasn't for the mainstream industry angering me so much, I wouldn't have found indie gaming. So, even though I hate the way the industry is... in a way I can't.