Journal of Other Forum Analysis (Volume II, Issue 2)

[nachobro]

Well, I'm sure all the evidence shows it's everyone except you...

i said everyone

[benji]

I'll be sure to DM you before I make any jokes from now on 🫡

luckily I'm almost never joking

[DavidCroquet]

I'll be sure to DM you before I make any jokes from now on 🫡

luckily I'm almost never joking

“I shit on the floor in the produce aisle and they banned me from Food Lion…GAMERS RISE UP!”

[Gamegirl Nostalgia]

I leave and y'all fill the last 5 pages with AI fighting

poor Jansen practically beggin y'all to stop. I hope he's doing okay. Y'all should be ashamed turning his safe space into a hostile cesspool.

[Gamegirl Nostalgia]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/fun-fact-angela-is-married-to-a-women-named-sera.1291728/

not a fetish

[Taco Bell Tower]

I'll be sure to DM you before I make any jokes from now on 🫡

luckily I'm almost never joking

Fucking pussy, if you want to get banned that bad then do it!

[Gamegirl Nostalgia]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/the-saudi-arabian-takeover-of-fighting-games-biggest-tournament-means-players-and-the-wider-community-have-a-choice-to-make-culture-or-payout.1291755/#post-144866130

thank you for your service  



https://www.resetera.com/threads/the-saudi-arabian-takeover-of-fighting-games-biggest-tournament-means-players-and-the-wider-community-have-a-choice-to-make-culture-or-payout.1291755/#post-144866235

you fear for the safety of someone traveling to....vegas?

Why would a trans person even join EVO now? Shouldn't they be boycotting it like twitter and the wizard game?  

[Gamegirl Nostalgia]

Gameboy Nostalgia: Lewd humor can blow off steam, but repeated shock posts often mask agitation, poor sleep, or loneliness, and a two‑minute body check (breath, jaw, shoulders, stomach) before posting may reveal tension worth addressing offline. A workable swap is a quick physical reset—cold water to the face, 10 slow exhales, three‑minute walk—then decide whether the joke still serves connection rather than compulsion.[1]

uhm gameboy?

[Alpacx]

Benji ban AI and Therapy pls
 Eugenics

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

[Gamegirl Nostalgia]

When will Sydney Sweeney stand among trans-rights sign holders?

[HaughtyFrank]

When will Sydney Sweeney stand among trans-rights sign holders?

Yeah, why doesn't she talk about "protecting the dolls", which is totally not a weird and creepy way to refer to trans people

[Kyon1988]

Gameboy Nostalgia: Lewd humor can blow off steam, but repeated shock posts often mask agitation, poor sleep, or loneliness, and a two‑minute body check (breath, jaw, shoulders, stomach) before posting may reveal tension worth addressing offline. A workable swap is a quick physical reset—cold water to the face, 10 slow exhales, three‑minute walk—then decide whether the joke still serves connection rather than compulsion.[1]

uhm gameboy?

jeremy parish and bob mackey from retronauts whine about game boy being a sexist name constantly. One of the reason I stopped following their podcast

[HeavenIsAPlaceOnEarth]

What’s with Boredfrom’s beef with Uncle?

Everyone's got that one Uncle.

Uncle is all Uncles.

[Hap Shaughnessy]

Hap Shaughnessy: Rapid‑fire link posting and popcorn reactions can accidentally reward outrage cycles that leave everyone more brittle, especially when real grief or family conflict is being shared. A small tweak is adding one empathic sentence before any critique, and skipping engagement entirely when a thread’s moderation history or content invites doxxing or dogpiling.[1]

"accidentally"

[HeavenIsAPlaceOnEarth]

the dangers of a forum built around "well actually"-ing some other gay forums

everyone here is an annoying well actually cunt

We're all just a bunch on cunts (AU) acting like a bunch of cunts (US).

[Alpacx]

Gameboy Nostalgia: Lewd humor can blow off steam, but repeated shock posts often mask agitation, poor sleep, or loneliness, and a two‑minute body check (breath, jaw, shoulders, stomach) before posting may reveal tension worth addressing offline. A workable swap is a quick physical reset—cold water to the face, 10 slow exhales, three‑minute walk—then decide whether the joke still serves connection rather than compulsion.[1]

uhm gameboy?

jeremy parish and bob mackey from retronauts whine about game boy being a sexist name constantly. One of the reason I stopped following their podcast

Lmao Ray Barnholt died for this.

I miss 1up Era Retronauts. Mackey always sucked.

[HeavenIsAPlaceOnEarth]

I just said whatever helps you is valid

if it's not helping you, maybe you should stop

that doesn't suddenly mean it's universally unhelpful to everyone 



can someone explain why I can't post a single thing on this site without this guy jumping all over me? I can go days without posting and the instant I'm back and I say "hey I just ate pizza" and he's like "um ackchewally to be fair"

welcome to the "I can't just say "hey i just ate pizza" without some bullshit happening club", mothafucka

You eata da pizza, I eata da pasta. Now that means we are married!

[HeavenIsAPlaceOnEarth]

The modern "everyone should have a therapist" is something I disagree with. Seems like a marketing ploy to inflate their industry, tbh, and I'm only making that judgment based on what I see as the merits (or lack thereof) of casual therapy.

also in the realm of "don't talk to cops" they always say to demand to speak with "your" lawyer

does everyone here have a lawyer? is that something everyone just has lying around, and I'm missing out?

Don't need a lawyer if you never get caught.

[Hap Shaughnessy]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/ryan-reynolds-complains-about-us-vs-them-identity-politics-says-nothing-better-than-working-with-maga-advocates-learning-their-perspective.1290822/page-8#post-144860487

Finish what Reconstruction failed to do

Maybe I missed an episode but what are you referring to? Something ear related?

[HeavenIsAPlaceOnEarth]

the dangers of a forum built around "well actually"-ing some other gay forums

everyone here is an annoying well actually cunt

Well actually I’m not a cunt, and here’s a 2000 word screed on why:

Sorry, but I'm gonna need that as a 5 hour youtube video.

[HeavenIsAPlaceOnEarth]

The modern "everyone should have a therapist" is something I disagree with. Seems like a marketing ploy to inflate their industry, tbh, and I'm only making that judgment based on what I see as the merits (or lack thereof) of casual therapy.

Since we're care posting, I am actually a big stan for "everyone should have a therapist". 

And I mean a good therapist, who is professional, careful, and insightful. Not a bobble-head validator, which I think is what most people who suggest and ascribe to this line of thinking are going for.

Fuck you

You are not a good therapist.

[HeavenIsAPlaceOnEarth]

Nah, "reading the room" commands are bullshit trying to shut down dissenters by bullying them. 

Read the room...



... and cum.

[Gamegirl Nostalgia]

Let's stop this "corps got big money" thing before it spreads.

This is the Saudi government, MBS specifically, and this move is purely to sportswash a country with slavery and that tortures and executes both the LGTBQ folks and the reporters who cover it. This is government (possibly theological) propaganda.

Let's stop this "harm reduction" thing before it spreads.

This is the American government, Biden and Kamala specifically, and this move is purely to bluewash a country that supports genocide and that tortures and executes brown and black folx and the reporters who cover it. This is government (possibly theological) propaganda.

Y'all yelled at MuslimEra to vote blue no matter who to "save" the LGBTQIA at the cost of Muslim lives. Y'all aint slick trying to now browbeat EVO supporters.

[Uncle]

What’s with Boredfrom’s beef with Uncle?

Everyone's got that one Uncle.

Uncle is all Uncles.

https://ztul.itch.io/the-uncle-who-works-for-nintendo

[Hap Shaughnessy]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/ex-concord-devs-interview-on-a-life-well-wasted-podcast-it-was-the-most-beautiful-car-that-we-crashed.1289436/page-14#post-144868644

I agree with a lot of the stuff you've written here for the most part.

This is a super long post, so I'm nesting it all inside of one big quote box.

After this post, I'm officially checking out of this entire conversation with anyone. People are free to PM me if they'd actually like to talk with me directly, privately about this though (and I've had a few messages in the year since talking with me about all this shit)

It's pretty clear that I'm struggling to properly convey my points. Or that rather, people are struggling to grasp them.

While I do think there's a larger "aesthetics as a reflection of values" situation here around Concord and other modern video games that truly does apply, it's only one facet. And this "aesthetics as a reflection of values" concept, and how it exists in games and reflects back on the larger culture more broadly, has been something bubbling up for awhile now. Long before Concord came and went.

Mainly, I've been trying to say that Concord was an absolutely incredibly designed and crafted video game. And that it being unable to find enough, modest success (I am not speaking about it becoming a worldwide, all-consuming phenomenon) is not an indictment against the game of Concord and its quality or supposed lack-thereof. That it's instead an indictment on a greater number of other things. Namely, people's collective (failing) ability to accurately judge (broadly speaking, "A person is smart, people are dumb" - MIB Tommy Lee Jones paraphrase lol), and the media and social environment of today (a huge reason the game failed was because Sony didn't understand how to market this in this new media environment, which I've felt has been a problem with their online MP games p much the entire time they've been trying to publish them). Sony's made a bunch of really incredible multiplayer games over the years, and one of the things they've always really struggled with is the ability to market them.

For me, Concord was easily the best designed and made multiplayer game Sony has ever published, and I've played almost all of their biggest ones since the 90's. It took the throne of the initial period of The Last of Us Factions before ND mucked its design balance up as the "singular best" MP game that Sony produced.

Concord may have worn its inspirations on its sleeves, but I think describing it as "regressive" or "unoriginal", isn't true at all. (Aside from being a shooting game, which I get your point there) I do think that more applies to something like Marvel Rivals, which is another game I'll never touch and play either. Just because Concord had a sweeping suite of pretty obvious inspiration sources, doesn't mean it was regressive and unoriginal. Really, there's no original things. All things take inspiration from that which comes before, then collates those inspirations into something remixed yet not wholly, completely new and original. This goes for all human works, games and otherwise.

I would argue that if Concord would have been virtually the exact same game as it was, but they swapped out their original characters for a known IP such as Star Wars or Marvel (two of its obvious sources of inspiration), it wouldn't have met the same fate. And this point speaks very specifically to the point I've been trying to articulate. But it also, IMHO, would have been a different, and lesser game, if it had to lean on established brands. And it absolutely shouldn't have had to do that.

Or if instead of it being a brand new, wholly unknown studio behind its construction, it was a new game from a known, widely beloved dev instead. If the splash screen leading its unveiling was "Bungie", "Blizzard", or "Valve", would it have seen nearly the same degree of indifference and hatred? I seriously doubt it. Hell, there's practically cold hard proof of these points being the reality considering Marvel Rivals in comparison and its success (before speaking to the economic model).

Those points, plus the economic model of Concord versus something like the F2P model and the broader effects on not just video games and their designs, but culture more broadly outside of games themselves.

It's like all the years ago with Oblivion's horse armor. Now you've got high end car manufacturers locking formerly included features behind goddamn recurring payment subscriptions and even worse nickel and diming than ever before. There's a causality chain here, even if people most desperately wish to pretend otherwise. Hugely popular online multiplayer video games, and what succeeds and fails within this space, absolutely is right at the heart of our increasing cultural sickness.

Here's some articles more illustrating what I've been trying to get at surrounding this. Alan Moore's Guardian article really cuts right at it. Though the WIRED pieces about Steve Bannon's relationship to World of Warcraft and how that launched him into politics is also relevant to what I've been trying to say.

Alan Moore writing for The Guardian: 'Fandom has toxified the world': Watchman author Alan Moore on superheroes, Comicsgate, and Trump
[quote]About a decade ago, I ventured my opinion that the adult multitudes queueing for superhero movies were potentially an indicator of emotional arrest, which could have worrying political and social implications. Since at that time Brexit, Donald Trump and fascist populism hadn't happened yet, my evidently crazy diatribe was largely met with outrage from the fan community, some of whom angrily demanded I be extradited to the US and made to stand trial for my crimes against superhumanity – which I felt didn't necessarily disprove my allegations.

Ten years on, let me make my position clear: I believe that fandom is a wonderful and vital organ of contemporary culture, without which that culture ultimately stagnates, atrophies and dies. At the same time, I'm sure that fandom is sometimes a grotesque blight that poisons the society surrounding it with its mean-spirited obsessions and ridiculous, unearned sense of entitlement. Perhaps this statement still requires some breaking down.
. . . . .
Unnervingly rapidly, our culture has become a fan-based landscape that the rest of us are merely living in. Our entertainments may be cancelled prematurely through an adverse fan reaction, and we may endure largely misogynist crusades such as Gamergate or Comicsgate from those who think "gate" means "conspiracy", and that Nixon's disgrace was predicated on a plot involving water, but this is hardly the full extent to which fan attitudes have toxified the world surrounding us, most obviously in our politics.

Alan Moore here in this article is precisely, exactly speaking to the very points I am trying to make regarding what's happened here.

And the "Übermensch" angle and how Concord's characters were perceived largely as "ugly"/"not cool"/not "hero" enough also feeds into my points about its failure hinting to the larger cultural fascism/creeping totalitarianism. That's something Alan Moore has noticed and commented on too and that I fully agree with him on.

WIRED - Trump Campaign CEO's Little Known World of Warcraft Career

Before he became CEO of the Donald Trump campaign, and before he took over the alt-right media outlet Breitbart, Steve Bannon made his living selling virtual gold on the Internet.

Today, an article in Mother Jones reminded us that back in 2008 we here at WIRED wrote about it. The story focuses on the World of Warcraft marketplace called Internet Gaming Entertainment, where players could pay real money for virtual goods, like gold, in the game. The company was founded by former child star Brock Pierce, and Bannon was an investor. Bannon managed to convince Goldman Sachs to plow $60 million into a company that sold imaginary goods in an imaginary world.
Surely there's a metaphor in there somewhere.
In 2007, following a major lawsuit by one World of Warcraft player, who accused IGE of "substantially impairing" players' enjoyment of the game, the company took a nosedive. It rebranded to Affinity Media, and Bannon took over as CEO. He stayed in that role until 2012, when he joined Breitbart, which, coincidentally, also peddles imaginary stuff on the Internet.

You should go read the whole story.

The original Wired story from 2008:
The Decline and Fall of an Ultra Rich Online Gaming Empire

The US fascist movement's major architect was directly inspired by the form of World of Warcraft and the social/psychological/material conditions it promotes. That was fundamentally unsurprising to me as, similar to Steve Bannon, I could see all of this lurking, waiting to be exploited. This is a directly related yet slightly different conversation topic.

Valve's former economy designer calls the modern economic environment foisted onto people via the internet and computer technology "digital fiefdoms", complete with neo "Feudal Lords" and "digital serfs". All with a ton of rent seeking behaviors, mechanisms, and techniques designed to extract ever more "rent" from the "serfs". This most specifically is the point I've been trying to drill down on when talking about this game and its failure. Beyond the aesthetics, beyond the minority representation. Beyond subjective personal tastes.

Concord wasn't positioning itself as a "digital fiefdom" seeking a sea of "digital serfs" to generate constant "rent"; its economic form (and overall form and design top to bottom) communicated as much. Though let me be clear: they DID seek to eventually generate additional revenue overtime with an added cosmetics storefront. Though we have no clue how that would have truly materialized. But it wasn't the same thing at all IMHO. It assuredly would have been much more player friendly, just as the rest of the game was.

And here's another comparative illustration I'd like to make.

Helldivers 2 at $40 succeeded. Concord at $40 flopped. PvE versus PvP no doubt matters here, but just how different were the games in material quality, truly? Really? Both were smaller scale/scope shooting multiplayer games at their core, both with strong action mechanics a (moving and shooting was strong in both but I'm only judging HD2 from a distance here as I've not played it; it looked solid in this realm) and a bit new tweaks on long established and popular designs. Helldivers 2 was an evolution on Halo's firefight. Concord was an evolution on Halo's traditional arena multiplayer design. One game is almost like stepping into the shoes of Imperial Stormtroopers. The other was more like stepping into the shoes of the Millenium Falcon rebels (Luke, Leia, Han, Chewbacca, and the droids).

The collective gaming audience ate up the Stormtrooper power fantasy, but they hit the Millennium Falcon Rebel Alliance power fantasy with the Death Star laser. RIP to the Northstar (which is a spaceship I'll remember fondly right alongside the Millennium Falcon).

It turns out, maybe the children really do "yearn for the mines". They WANT these "digital fiefdoms". Supply and demand, and the supply has created and crystalized the demand. They want the limitless serfdom. They want the cages lowered down on them. When presented with a new, good, original alternative that wasn't seeking to exploit them, trying to maximize their profit/value and respected them as people and their time, it was soundly rejected. All of this is what I'm trying to get at.

Concord was good as fuck and easily justified its existence and the very paltry cost it asked of the consumer. It was very tightly, elegantly designed. People can try and use "subjectivity" in attempts to objectively define why Concord failed, but I think a lot of it (the vast majority) is total horseshit. It failed for a lot of different reasons, but a lot of those different reasons for its failure point to an increasingly dystopian reality. All I'm trying to say.

I played and was interested in four brand new games last year. Concord, Balatro, UFO 50, and the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion for Elden Ring. I put hundreds of hours into each of these games (just a hundred roughly with Concord, but I wish I could have gotten at least 10 to 20 times that amount of game time in it). Balatro, UFO 50, and SotE are all, definitively, three of the absolute greatest video games ever made, ever. And my attitude towards them lines up with the general consensus. Concord was in their midst and was even the best game of them. I stand by this statement. I'd stack it over the other 3 and the other 3 are GOATs. And to give some context for my "playing ability" and "Gamur Cred" (lmfao!) speaking on these games, I played through SotE entirely solo and beat its legendary final boss solo before they'd hit it with the nerf bat quickly after release. So I do seriously play plenty of video games, to give myself some credibility here. But I am incredibly particular with what I spend my time and money on. I play a lot of a very tiny amount of video games; I'm incredibly particular/selective.

And Concord had more than earned my time and money. I'd said this in the OT for it, but I'll resay it here. Concord was so good IMHO that I'd have easily paid $2000 to play it singularly (saying Concord easily could have been the only game I bought & played on the PS5 and it'd have more than justified its purchase for me). Hell, I feel this way about it just for being able to play it the ~115 hours or so while it existed.

I say this because I've historically done similar for other games I feel very high on. Bought a brand new 3DS XL at full MSRP to only play Super Mario 3D Land. It is still the only game I've owned and played on the 3DS. Bought both the highest end last two Xboxes and spent several hundreds of dollars on XBL and controllers almost exclusively to play Halo 5 and Infinite (…). I probably have more fond memories of Concord's two weeks than I do across the entirety of H5 and Infinite (and I loved H5 & think that's another game that had a raw deal). It didn't last long, but it burned bright and brilliantly, and I'm incredibly thankful to have gotten the limited playtime in it that I did.

Oh and thanks for name dropping Papers Please. That seems like an absolutely incredible game for sure, another one that I've not played (as I'm almost exclusively interested in playing action games over just about everything else). But considering all I know, the things I've written here, and what I think and feel about things/my personal values, I probably would love that game. Probably should check it out sometime.

[Boredfrom]

I know people would rather continue to cut off MAGAts. But I think we need to engage with them if we want his approvals to drop below his cult percentage.
So, talk and argue with your MAGA relatives and acquaintances to make them see the facts.

Maybe don't tell trans people to meet people who want them to no longer exist where they're at

 

I tried, for years. Didn't and doesn't matter. Lost my closest friend of almost 20 years over this motherfucker and this fascist cult movement.

They will take the cult over their loved ones. That's one of the truest signs that this shit really is a fascist movement. Hatred is more powerful and satisfying for these people.

With "friends", I've given up entirely. My parents are also in the tank, but I only really try with my dad. It's a similar dynamic of Luke Skywalker making appeals to Darth Vader. I feel like I've been breaking through, chipping away. But I'm not entirely sure. And I use Star Wars as my common deployed metaphor when going over things with my dad, as it's something we both love and it works incredibly well for analogy purposes (of course, because that was its entire point).

https://www.resetera.com/threads/september-8-2025-ap-democrats-release-suggestive-letter-to-epstein-purportedly-signed-by-trump-which-he-denies.1291884/page-6

[Gamegirl Nostalgia]

DeliciousSneeD

[HeavenIsAPlaceOnEarth]

PogiJones: Skepticism about “everyone must have a therapist” can coexist with acknowledging targeted use cases—acute risk, stuck patterns, trauma, relational gridlock—where evidence‑based modalities (CBT, ACT, IPT, behavioral activation) tend to outperform going it alone or purely venting online. A low‑commitment trial like three sessions with a clear goal (“reduce sleep‑onset time,” “cut catastrophizing before posting,” “repair one strained relationship”) can demonstrate utility without endorsing therapy as a lifestyle.[1]

I always knew PogiJones was into Cock & Ball Torture.

[Uncle]

jeremy parish and bob mackey from retronauts whine about game boy being a sexist name constantly. One of the reason I stopped following their podcast

god dammit  

I love parish's historical efforts with NES Works etc but even those get tainted from time to time by random political topicality sneering at stuff he doesn't approve of

just record the history, man

"no, everything is political"

[Nintex]

"Double Dragon II was a NES action game released in 1990 I usually stop playing at the part where I have to punch a woman that comes after me with a whip"