Quote from: J Arcane;449645I know I'd have a hard time getting any real gaming if I thought my fellow gamers were all secretly plotting the next Holocaust.

That's hilarious. Only because some of my fellow gamers are actually plotting to prevent the next Holocaust.

Quote from: GameDaddy;449648If you do something first, before anyone else does it, you are elite... retard.

In our social circles we were the first to adopt RPG games.

See what I mean about the baggage? In this case it's cultural instead of emotional, but it tends to produce the same results. Disharmony, dischord, and chaos.

Okaay....

Yesterday upon the stair.

Quote from: GameDaddy;449653That's hilarious. Only because some of my fellow gamers are actually plotting to prevent the next Holocaust.

:teehee:

You're probably my favorite poster here.  Never change, man!

Edwards reminds me a lot of a certain far-right Satanist I've encountered online on a political site, who makes a lot of good points, but combines them with lies and half-truths in his overall plan is to encourage the disaffected into depravity.  Likewise, Edwards laments the decline of naked succubus pictures in his scheme to get everyone RPing the neckfucking of decapitated cabinboys.

Quote from: Cranewings;449612I think popularity by virtue of greatness is the new culture, which is a good thing, and has killed the idea of a hopeless self contained underground.

That may happen sometimes, and I can't fault it. But more often, I think the you have branding by virtue of niche. What would have been the underground becomes the marketplace. What would have been an emergent scene coming up with its own criteria for evaluating success becomes a mad scramble for whatever dollars are available at your point of entry, without having to particiate or develop within your scene. I see that in games, comics, music, film and graphic art. I don't know much about underground literature and even less about body art.

The underground wasn't hopeless. Underground movements get a little self-defeating at the end of their life cycle, as the members who can sell out. And there's a lot of baggage with that term that may as well be dispensed with. I'm not against people making money with their art. But when they do, and they need to produce to make money, as opposed to having something to express, then they're sell-outs and hacks, however you look at it. They can still be enjoyable, but they have to leave the underground.

I can't say if I think all this is bad or not. I'm not sure we can see the back edge of how the internet is going to affect these things. I definitely think we've lost something, but I also think there's usually something else coming soon.

I don't really think the assertion needs defending at all.  It's pretty self-evident if you're actually aware of the wider culture as it has evolved, especially in the last ten years.

The echo chamber effect of the internet, as well as it's tendency to exaggerate culture accretions by necessity in the post-Google, post-SEO environment of it, has served to reinforce a culture that focuses on collective memes and stock genre ideas as an easy means of identification.

"Ooh, this has zombies in it, it must be cool!" is a statement I have seen, more and more, as time has gone on, and the very idea of it is so ghastly I scarcely know where to begin.  It is not just self-aware and self-referential, it is uncaringly so, it knows it's shit, and easily manipulated, and revels in it.  

It is a culture of endlessly crawling inside one's own ass.

It goes so far as to create a reflexive anti-reaction to the few things that come along that aren't so easily codified.  When a game comes along that doesn't easily fit, that can't be easily described as "X genre/film/game meets Y genre/game/film", it's met by a profound bafflement and often derision for failing to meet expectations.

Alpha Omega, to take an RPG example, isn't an especially creative game, even, but it's one that stands out in my mind where, for the sole crime of not being immediately and obviously categorizeable, was roundly mocked in this sphere and others for daring make such a huge fuss and hype of something that didn't immediately trip all the current geek buttons.  The wider audience even attacked it's pre-release hype for not being something it never claimed to be (for some idiotic reason film nerds were convinced it was somehow about Cloverfield, and so for no reason at all, what was a clever little ARG unveiling the game setting piece by piece got attacked by "exposés" from Internet Matlocks for daring to actually be what it was about all along.)

It happens in video games as well.  Sure a handful of critics will praise the hell out of a game like Shadow of the Colossus or Psychonauts, but does it actually sell? Fuck no.  

Give us guns and spaceships and elves and steam-powered robots and we're fuckin' there, but dare not take our carefully selected and pre-defined categories of acceptable desire into account and you'll be lucky if you're not broke in a week.

Oh, and this...

"...Nobody watched TV anymore by then anyway, at least the big three, ABC, NBC, and CBS. I only watched it to see if they would accurately depict RPG gaming. It didn't even come close. It was instantly recognized in our circles for the mainstream anti-D&D propaganda that it was.

Everybody was cruising to the tune of the cable channels, and the hottest shows were on HBO... and the best music, with scores of new bands, were being viewed on MTV, and the second breaking in the monopoly of the record companies was initiated in 1980 and was really gaining power in 82."

For you young people out there, be aware that GameDaddy's definition of Everybody and Nobody might apply to himself (I doubt it) but little else in there has any connection to reality.  The hottest shows were on HBO?  HBO had movies, stand up comics, and boxing.  That was it.

QuoteFor you young people out there, be aware that GameDaddy's definition of Everybody and Nobody might apply to himself (I doubt it) but little else in there has any connection to reality.

I pretty much assume this a priori with any of his posts.

There's a big difference between the echo chamber of the internet and the actual culture in which works of art (some of them games) are being created and experienced. The internet's reaction to things is not Geek Culture.

The last ten years is far too recent and too short a time to talk about as a culture, and also has no relevance to Edwards' lament, since things like the segregation of nudity from from fantasy art were all firmly entrenched before the twentieth century ended.  The only thing new that I am aware from approximately the last ten years is the hypersensitivity to anything that could be described as terrorist violence.

Nuh uh, party foul.

You asked me to defend my statment, I did so.  You don't get to suddenly switch theses in the middle of the argument as excuse to ignore the post.

Further, cause and effect, baby.  Culture begets culture begets culture.  It all goes back to the same well, and the same source problem that goes deeper than some tits and cunts, and has continued to worsen over time, largely as a result of the greater interconnectedness of culture.

I think you've rather misunderstood what Edwards is really getting at in his piece if you took the point as solely about succubus titties.

Quote from: Esgaldil;449662Oh, and this...

For you young people out there, be aware that GameDaddy's definition of Everybody and Nobody might apply to himself (I doubt it) but little else in there has any connection to reality.  The hottest shows were on HBO?  HBO had movies, stand up comics, and boxing.  That was it.

Hrmmm?? For the young ones here a better comparison would probably be having HBO in 1982 is like having Netflix, On Demand Video from Cable, and TiVo now.

It was a world of difference in quality of programming options available, and it even got better, HBO rolled out more channels, and kept adding special interest cable channels as well at least through 1985.

Quote from: J Arcane;449664I pretty much assume this a priori with any of his posts.

Incorrect as usual, as I was recalling all of the gamers and game communities that I knew then, and remarking on their preference and habits as well as mine.

I think my dog is smarter than you.

Quote from: GameDaddy;449668Incorrect as usual, as I was recalling all of the gamers and game communities that I knew then, and remarking on their preference and habits as well as mine.

I think my dog is smarter than you.

Does the dog talk to you?  Does it tell you to kill the president?

Quote from: misterguignol;449669Does the dog talk to you?  Does it tell you to kill the president?

Dogs don't talk, they bark. She's smarter than you as well.

Quote from: GameDaddy;449670Dogs don't talk, they bark. She's smarter than you as well.

Does she know the secrets of Tesla's free energy system?