Selfsurprise

I thought this thread might generate some strong opinions, but you might of just taken it to its extreme logical conclusion Helio... Let me just say that this thread wasn't an attempt at advocating the notion of "gaming culture", merely that it was an acknowledgement of the perception of what apparently constitutes gaming culture. I'm just as troubled by the atomisation and commercialisation of identity and political orientation as you are. What I perhaps failed to do was give the topic a question to contextualise the points I was making. Do you think "toxic gaming culture" (whether you recognise it's existence, or even the pretext of it's existence, or not) somehow manifested within the demographic, before the kind of self-serving and unkind geopolitical landscape of the last ten years became de rigeur? Or was it simply a very evident early symptom of a much broader trend towards insular national and conservative tendencies? This topic was partially inspired by a short but thoughtful book I read recently called The New Philistines by art and culture journalist Sohrab Ahmari, a writer that I'm rather fond of despite what I imagine are quite stark differences in mine and his artistic tastes and beliefs. In the aforementioned book he effectively accuses a lot of contemporary artists, gallery curators, theatre directors and dance choreographers of producing work that deliberately utilizes ugly and inept tropes in order to tow the ideological line of institutional critique and racial/sexual identity politics - and in doing so undermine and belittle what he feels are fundamental liberal values regarding individuality, the notion of the sublime, the transcendent, and more besides. The part of me that feels a strong attraction and empathy towards so-called "de-skilled art" (think the use of found objects, the human body, participation and mundane materials in many of my favourite artists and genres works) laments Ahmari's negative reception of the sort of modern art I invest much of my time and interest in. Part of me remains suspect of Ahmari's motives for defending what he regards as Western achievements of self-expression and valuing of individual dignity, which isn't surprising given his childhood growing up in Iran, especially in regards to how he and his family were treated before moving to America. At the same time, I admire his interpretation and even find myself concurring with it it at times. When I'm looking at the works of contemporary artists I'm fully aware of the ideological and institutional underpinning, the historical and influential circumstances that allow and encourage such work to exist. But I'm personally able to surpass much of the authoritarian reading of an artwork and reach my own conclusions, partly through my familiarity with the art worlds and art markets strategies, as well the strong neo-liberal bias that infuses much modern art reception and presentation. Unfortunately for a large number of people unfamiliar with the historical and commercial contexts of art galleries and the financial/political pillars supporting it, the "jargonisation" of modern art has rendered it suspect in the eyes of many. The British tabloids have convinced enormous swathes of the working classes that art is nought but a cynical asset for rich people, parasitized by an equally opportunistic class of professionals who believe-in what they publish about as sincerely as anyone unlearned in the theoretical language can fathom. What depresses me is that Ahmari might be right about the complicity of artists in a morally indefensible artistic complex. I try my utmost to demonstrate the inherent value and imaginative scope of art in opposition of/or despite of the aforementioned complex, but it's rare to find someone willing to understand or even try to understand the disconnection.

I gave this wonderful track by the electronic composer Carl Stone a thumbs, from a channel I've recently fallen head over heels in love with titled Name Less. An early ambient piece of his that is glorious in it's subtly shifting tonality. Sounds extremely pretty yet haunting at the same time. X2Mr6VoFIeo

(I've slightly toned down my 2017 resolution to create a new thread literally every day. In between working and scheduling some time to play 3.5 ed. D&D with my budskies, I thought it wiser to scale it down to at least three new threads every week. I like the idea of generating more discussion and content for the occasionally sedate pace of the forums, but I figured I should cut myself a little leeway...) Sorry to bring up what might be a rather heavy and contentious topic, but it's something I've been wondering about and talking about with like-minded gaming friends this week. You probably couldn't of failed to notice the election of Donald Trump in last years American presidential race, or if you are British like me or otherwise a fellow European you might of noticed a worrying rise in rhetoric-centric, divisive (and if I'm totally bluntly honest, usually very right-wing) identity politics in our region of the world - though for the sake of fairness, I feel I should point out that left-wing identity politics often drags the debate down to an overtly suspectly pedantic and futile critique of race, sexuality, and everything inbetween. The less said about Putin the better... As I'm pretty certain that the majority of you play computer games, you probably have some strong opinions on the rather unfortunate associations that lumber gamers of all stripes, particularly in regard to their conduct online. When people talk about so-called "toxic gaming culture" they are often referring to the variations of un-PC attitudes that characterise the more unfavourable stereotypes of gamers. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that, statistically speaking, the largest demographic of card-carrying self-identifying Gamers are usually young, white and male, arguably leaning towards heterosexuality and atheism/agnosticism. Whether your own political leanings chime with some of my annoyingly leftist views or not, I think most people would reach a consensual view that it's almost a depressing inevitability that among this demographic there will be very vocal pockets of homophobic, misogynistic, racist perspectives, alongside other kinds of -ics and -isms. I would still would defend gamers from this overwhelmingly negative appraisal by arguing that the worst of the culprits are few and far between, but by the nature of their staggering ignorance tend towards being the loudest members of their imagined community. For years now I've often been amazed by how gaming culture seemed to somewhat act as bastion for people disenchanted with the political and/or cultural status quo - especially, as a self-confessed giant art nerd, the extremely knee-jerk traditionalist hostility towards contemporary art by many gamers; I always thought that much of the new media/installation/relational art of today worked well alongside an appreciation for computer games! Some of those might of been well-meaning, maybe tired of the neverending (and often unintelligible) institutional groupthink-ism that informs current social debate. Maybe I was just naive or unaware of the broader tensions between a deeply flawed neo-liberalism and this decade's rise of divisive identity politics, but from my perspective I could almost be duped into thinking that society at large is catching up to some of the worst elements of the "toxic gaming community". Anybody else got any thoughts on this (admittedly nebulous) context? I'm sorry if my politiocal views have rubbed anybody up the wrong way, or you just feel bummed out by my commentary.

Well it's 2017, and I'm leaning towards the idea of making a new thread daily - or at least as "daily" as I can manage, it might end up bering bi-weekly the way TalkTalk has been ballsing up my internet recently. Partly as a tiny self-imposed challenge to keep me invested in the forum, and a way of engaging with something on my days when I've achieved nothing except having gone to work and not immediately and instinctively gone on a spree killing - or maybe I've just got fuck all else going on. I've had this idea for a topic rattling around in my head for the last few days. You know how a lot of websites have "like" or "favourite" buttons? What was the last thing you "hearted-the-everlasting-crap-out-of" on any site you choose to peruse? It can an image, video, song, quotation, an update, post or blog entry, etc. literally anything on any site with approval functions - like Tumblrs heart symbol below updates that allows you add stuff to your likes list. Would you also be so kind as to briefly explain why you liked said thing. This thread idea is admittedly a little nominal but I wanted to start my avowed New Year's Resolution on a positive note. The last thing I liked was My Amp Goes To 11's Top 11 Posts of 2016, because I'm a titanic art nerd. I'm also inordinately fond of odd-numbered "Top [###]" style lists. Here's three of the artists featured that particularly caught my eye. Matthew Day Jackson, Odalisque (2015) Romain Langlois, Space Attraction (2015) Yuichi Ikehata, Fragment of LTM4 (2014, estimate)

What are you talking about? Peter Nomanski's work on post-modern existentialism is truly amazing. Suspicious literary ribaldry aside, I must of been one of the few weirdos who actually thought No Man's Sky was sort of alright. I only played it five times for about several hours at a pop admittedly and it soon became a little tedious. If only the in-game inventory didn't affect literally everything you do! Not being able to interact with alien NPC's or those monoliths unless you have an open slot is as baffling as it is exasperating. Although I can admire the procedurally generated planet-hopping crux of the game (the idea ferments with possibility, and in a better game could be paradigm shifting) I feel like it would of been better for No Man's Sky if there were, instead, several dozen or so preset planets with wildly different ecosystems and local activity, injected with their own distinctive atmosphere instead the billions of inevitably hodge-podge sparsely inhabited iterations of the same model.

Happy rotation around the solar system everyone! The only resolution I could think of this year was to attempt to create a new thread for the forums everyday. Would this be as terrible (and drunken) an idea as I suspect it is?

I have to fight my anti-social urge by decrying all invitations to take part in wedding ceremonies are inherently selfish and inconsiderate ;p That might just be the 2016 part of my brain talking though. I'd imagine anyone who was going to go out on New Year's Eve will probably have done so, regardless if they were attending a wedding beforehand. I'd be somewhat nonplussed if someone commandeered my holidays like that - and I say that as someone who stopped in this year.

HFi4v8o5gfk Just fair warning, this marvellous nonsense is loud.

d-ELscUeY-Y Might as well bring this up and generate more toxic hatefulness to round-off a terrible year :3 Whilst I've not personally (and blessedly I guess!) played any of the titles therein, I'm legitimately amazed by how sub-par that Umbrella Corps looks. Not just for the wilfully generic visuals that have a fascinatingly faux-asset look about them, but for the fact that he single player campaign is apparently and quite literally just one of the multiplayer maps - repeatedly. You have to admire the utter gall of Capcom for setting the yard-stick so low.

I wasn't going to do this (because I didn't want to seem pushy, obsessive or weird) but about a week ago I posted a thread about adapting books into games which unfortunately hasn't garnered a great deal of interest. I didn't want my swivel-eyed ramblings on the ten books I wrote to be a total waste of effort, so I sincerely hope nobody minds if I repost this here where someone might enjoy reading it. If there are any mods reading who don't approve of my actions please feel free to delete or edit this post as you see fit. Becky Chambers, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet Proposed Genre: Open world sci-fi RPG with strong dialogue/social dynamics Comte de Lautréamont, Maldoror Proposed Genre: Survival horror where you take on the role of the antagonist H.P. Lovecraft, The Colour Out of Space Proposed Genre: First person walking simulator/investigative horror Alain Mabanckou, Memoirs of a Porcupine Proposed Genre: Fantasy RPG with a gameplay emphasis on ritual and magic Ryu Murakami, In the Miso Soup Proposed Genre: QTE adventure/interactive story-driven game Katie Skelly, Operation Margarine Proposed Genre: Indie beat em' up/miscellaneous Paul Stonehill & Philip Mantle, Russia's USO Secrets: Unidentified Submersible Objects in Russian and International Waters Proposed Genre: Atmospheric first-person walking simulator/point n' click game Dylan Trigg, The Thing: A Phenomenology of Horror Proposed Genre: Survival horror with a strong literary emphasis Various Authors (edited Heather J. Wood), Gods, Memes and Monsters: A 21st Century Bestiary Proposed Genre: Irreverent but thoughtful point n' click game Marie-Louise von Franz, Alchemy: An Introduction to the Symbolism and the Psychology Proposed Genre: Myst-style first-person puzzle game

"It's a bit like Voldemort, from that movie, Game of Thrones..." Off-topic: I like what you've written in your location text Glue Man. GLUE MAN AWAY! [/remains stuck to the ground] On-topic: I mostly agree with what Jim has to say about emulation and it's apparent association with piracy. I'm actually less invested in playing old games so you might be tempted to think that I'm indifferent to the fate and latter manipulation of said old games - but I really believe it does matter. Much of that sentiment can be attributed to Ross Scott's commentary on the lack of a shelf-life for games that require a server to exist at all, his videos on the subject have convinced me to become an advocate of not killing games, and some of that belief transfers over to the galling lack of self-awareness and acquisitive restraint on Nintendo's part. Nintendo might have litigation on their side but they certainly don't occupy the ethical grounds of this debate, but who needs values when you have money!

Binky Binky Binky... How this crusty old suburban walrus has missed you... :'c But seriously though dude it's nice to hear from you! I'm glad your absence has been due to properly positive reasons. I'm pleased that your band seems to be garnering a name for itself.

Skyrim today, I had the day off and I lost track of time by quite a wide margin.

The Celebrity Grim Reaper has certainly been a busy boy this year.

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4lT8aIPqdSM I can't think of any genre better suited for Christmas Eve than black metal.

It's just your natural allure Helio. Your sexual magnetism is so palpable that it turns game NPC's self-aware and uncontrollably aroused by your presence to the console/computer.

That is legitimately weird. I've not played this game myself, is there some of secret world/magic realist sub-narrative that I'm not aware of in the titles lore? Is it an in-game nightmare of one of the characters or something? None whatsoever. It follows cop during his investigation of local bombings, triad and disappereance of protagonists father. And then said mission- its actually part of investigation. No nightmare sequence, no logical explanation whatsoever- its like devs tought "fuck it, we want some dragons in it" and didnt even bother making it a nightmare sequence That's almost impressive, just lobbing a dragon in without context or even a pretext for subverting said context. The devs were probably like "WE ARE ARTISTS! WE LIVE BY DIFFERENT RULES..."

I think suggestion so far is the one proposal that would keep the overwhelming majority of fans content. No reason why there can't be two branching series of what is essentially the premise of Ross talking about games and being dashingly handsome in the process.

I'm on tenterhooks with the anticipation of what happens next!

A bad internet service provider has kidnapped you?! I'm sorry...

Banned for simultaneously being an agelast and having an avatar with two people in it that seem weirdly familiar yet I don't know where I've seen them before.

Okay. Especially in regards to my previous post and the sentiments contained therein. Had to edit my post because of this...

^ That's one of my alltime favourite lines from Futurama.