icycalm preaches to the choir

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icycalm
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icycalm preaches to the choir

Post by icycalm »

hey guys

I recently wrote up a rather long piece on my website regarding arcade games, and the way I believe they are meant to be played. I figured some of you would be interested in this:

http://insomnia.ac/commentary/arcade_culture/
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Post by Twiddle »

and Recap from Postback
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Re: icycalm preaches to the choir

Post by Ed Oscuro »

If you've never been inside a Japanese game center, and if you are not old enough to have seen what Western arcades looked like in their heyday, you will perhaps find it difficult to accept this claim that I am about to make here. Besides, I don't have any relevant statistics to back it up, and though I could certainly do some research and come up with some myself, frankly, I have better things to do with my time.
This is never the correct way to start an article

Second paragraph:
... some lifeless movie tie-in, or some dull sports franchise, or some bloated 3D platform collect-a-thon, or ...
Bloated...like this paragraph. Get to the damn point. Judging from the title of this topic, I guess you weren't expecting people to disagree with you. An article should have some better basis than merely rehashing "common sense."

Further down, I spot a strangely placed section heading (or maybe just a stray exclamation of LOVE):

"Why are arcade games so good?"

Well, gee, are they?

They're not, actually. They're different. Most arcade games could've had better assets (2D art, music, hardware design) with a larger budget, but with that budget comes feature creep and - pretty soon we're back to today's games. So the state of arcade games is due on the one hand to the state of the technology, and the competitiveness/income of the industry on the other.

I agree with the floor space as competitiveness, but that's just obvious - competitiveness is a feature of any market in our world's economy. Console games have to vie for shelf space. In both cases you can have an amazing game get a low print (or production) run and see large demand which is never met. Big companies use their muscle to protect their position and that has the effect of squeezing the other players out (SNK never really did get a grip on the piracy issue, although arcade operators loved the MVS concept). Peculiarities of the market for arcade games versus console games can change the balance somewhat, but the core dynamic isn't changed.

So, sorry to say but I think that article is pretty much worthless. :(
Last edited by Ed Oscuro on Mon Jul 09, 2007 3:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by mannerbot »

I only read half of it. I always thought you were a sensible poster, I didn't realize you were such a douche bag.
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Post by Ed Oscuro »

mannerbot wrote:I only read half of it. I always thought you were a sensible poster, I didn't realize you were such a douche bag.
Nah, Icycalm's no jackass...excluding some weirdness that cropped up months ago about somebody at another forum forcing people to do things. This is pretty much the standard Forums post from an armchair economics expert who discovered some fundamental truism and decided that it would shake the world if they let other gamers know about it.

I saw lots of these over the few years I was really active at Digital Press - contributed to a bunch as well, god forbid. To be fair I consider myself an "armchair economist" as well, although I've actually studied the subject a little.

Also, I don't think anybody has definitively answered the question of whether older games on smaller budgets were better than today's games on huge budgets. Only by posting billions of empirical studies will we ever chip away at this age-old mystery! ;)
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Post by Never_Scurred »

I didn't finish it, you probably put in some stuff about raping babies and drinking herpes, but I wouldn't have known. We get it, you are an japan obsessed arcade fanboy.
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Post by mannerbot »

Of course they were. Pong was totally amazing.
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Post by shoe-sama »

Hey what about the arcades in like USA or something where only lame totally unskilled people play some overhyped fighting game that everyone else is playing.

Not that fighting games don't require skill but lol
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Post by Dandy J »

LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
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Post by shoe-sama »

Anyways summary.

Arcade games are awesome console games tend to be overhyped pieces of crap.

20 pages of reasoning

yay
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Post by Rob »

The one thing I didn't like was the mentioning of Ico and Rez so close together, but I only read about 10%. Ico is like a warm summer day, Rez is like waking up in a pool of vomit.
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Post by Specineff »

^^^ Yeah, but the trip was totally worth it.
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Post by jp »

Heh, tough crowd.
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Post by Pirate1019 »

It didn't even hold me for three paragraphs.
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Post by DJ Incompetent »

Before the further spiraling to the essay fights, groupthinks, nitpickings, what-have-you...



I really like the message of this piece. I like the detail spent in driving the point in as many ways as possible, and in your style, done with balls utilized & intact.


It sucks hard the intent of the message will probably be totally lost to silly quibbles and counterpointing on grey-area statements and where one or two exceptions are to the true-but-general classifications made on gamer cultures and their industry. I feel bad, man. This is one of those works so many people on all fronts should come down from their towers and ascii-horses to read in-full and think to themselves peacefully for a bit before counterattacking for the sake of essay-combat or reading their own posts.




This thing would have better impact in a printed magazine with picture spreads and other illustrated professional things; at least during your on-location examples.


I would smile much if this front-paged digg one day... it is deserving, but naive to hope such impossible things...

my respect to the work, icy.
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Post by Ed Oscuro »

DJ Incompetent wrote:This thing would have better impact in a printed magazine with picture spreads and other illustrated professional things; at least during your on-location examples.
It would've had an impact alright, with people canceling their subscriptions in droves and other editors fleeing to other magazines.

Thankfully here we can give some positive (I hope) suggestions so that horror scenario doesn't come to pass. I don't mind reading something that's not well written when it's free, but if I pay for it, oh hell no.

p.s. in case you were thinking that people are forgiving of errors in gamer magazines, you should check out this current Digital Press topic
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Post by icycalm »

jp wrote:Heh, tough crowd.
Indeed. I seem to be getting a much better reception in some large mainstream forum than over here.

Will the wonders never cease!

edit:
And I am glad you enoyed it DJ. As for everyone else: I welcome your comments and I thank you for taking the time to make them.
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Post by PFG 9000 »

The concept of the article intrigued me, but some of the bold, blanket statements (especially those against games like Devil May Cry 3, Ico, and Rez, which are all respectable games at the very least) robbed me of all the interest I had in finishing the article.

Yeah, it's sad that arcades are so unappreciated today. But this idea that modern console titles are by-and-large crap is, well, crap. I was never much for elitism. If you can't make your point without a deliberate attempt to insult other people, you've failed before you began.

...Though your gracious acceptance of criticism is noble.
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Post by Twiddle »

PFG 9000 wrote:...Though your gracious acceptance of criticism is noble.
he sure has changed a bit from the cave fund thread
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Post by CIT »

mannerbot wrote:I only read half of it.
Never_Scurred wrote:I didn't finish it
Rob wrote:I only read about 10%.
Pirate1019 wrote:It didn't even hold me for three paragraphs.
PFG 9000 wrote:robbed me of all the interest I had in finishing the article.

So basically, what you people are saying is that you have literally no fucking clue what you are talking about.
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Post by Ed Oscuro »

CIT wrote:So basically, what you people are saying is that you have literally no fucking clue what you are talking about.
It's the Internet, people state the obvious sometimes.

At least I trust those people wouldn't write an article with that failing.

The bigger story here is that the writing style needs a bit of work to be engaging. I'd say start by looking through it and seeing what is not really relevant and cutting that out. What's up could be a rough draft.

Of course, then there's the other stuff I talked about.
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Post by Ceph »

It's too long / drawn out. If a point can be made with one page, one shouldn't write ten. That's an important lesson; otherwise readers will lose interest and simply stop reading.
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Post by bay »

icy, thanks for taking the time to write this piece.

everyone else with an opinion, grow balls and start a website to put your writing out for critique. :P
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Post by mannerbot »

CIT wrote:So basically, what you people are saying is that you have literally no fucking clue what you are talking about.
Yes, you absolutely have to finish a pile of shit before you realize that it is, indeed, a pile of shit. However, in this particular instance, I value DJ Incompetent's opinion so I'll come back to this article some day and finish reading it.
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Post by Twiddle »

CIT wrote:So basically, what you people are saying is that you have literally no fucking clue what you are talking about.
On determining who actually has no idea of what they're talking about, I think you've got the wrong people.
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Post by seattlexc »

I agree with you that arcades (whether in Japan today, or the US 15 years ago) offer something modern gaming can't, but I think its more of the environment then the types of games. To me, being in a loud noisy room full of arcade cabs and people with the same passions for games as you is really a great experience.

I still play the hell out of my xbox and Dreamcast, but there is just something about the arcade experience that's special to me. Hell, I'm trying to make a trip down to Portland, OR (several hours away from Seattle) with some of my friends just to check out Ground Kontrol, a retro arcade/bar.
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Post by Ghegs »

I'm going to have to agree what most people have said already. The article is too long, it presents personal opinions as god-given facts, and has an overly elitistic flavor.

The "Let's go to a japanese arcade"-bit felt like nothing more than the writer wanting the reader to know just how many japanese games he knows in an effort to gain credibility. It was a bit weird reading how Gradius V is a "genuine arcade game" when it actually has those (unskippable, even) cutscenes which were complained about in great detail earlier.

Also, the irony is overwhelming:
icycalm wrote:the hordes of uncouth, uneducated retards who practically live in videogame forums across the internet, grouping themselves into rival camps of fanboys, unquestioningly loyal -- like dogs -- to a single hardware platform, genre or developer
...and then the rest of the article groups the writer as an arcade-game fanboy, claiming arcade games are superior to all other games, bar none.

Which brings us to the other relevant topic, whether other games are total crap, utterly easy and don't take any skill like it's presented here. This could easily evolve into a 20-page discussion about what different types of gamers are there, what types of games each type likes, and does it really matter anyway as long as nobody's getting killed. Suffice to say the view presented in the article is horribly one-sided and inaccurate. Like it's often heard here when somebody claims shmups aren't difficult "Post a score or GTFO", it's just as easy to say "Beat Ninja Gaiden Sigma in Master Ninja/Beat Thresh in Quake/Get #1 World Ranking in Ridge Racer 7 or GTFO".
Last edited by Ghegs on Mon Jul 09, 2007 7:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Rob »

CIT wrote:
Rob wrote:I only read about 10%.
So basically, what you people are saying is that you have literally no fucking clue what you are talking about.
I commented on the 10% I read. Way to quote out of context.
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Post by Daigohji »

Shmups forums Rule #13: When the first person to reply in a thread makes a scathing remark at the OP's expense, the rest of the community has permission to beat the shit out of the OP without fear of repercussion.

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Post by mannerbot »

You know what icycalm, I'm gonna go ahead and apologize for my earlier comments. I had the same issues with it as Ghegs, and that's why I didn't make it past the intro at first. Having read the whole thing, I dig it. Indeed, only the strong survive, whether that be the players or the games themselves; a fact that I hadn't fully realized before reading this article. Once you get past the elitest drivel it is good stuff.
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