I'm still here! Already started my rebuttal, gonna take some time to find the actual meat in there that warrants a response amidst all the mindless text.
Here are my initial thoughts;
* Basically all those rhetorical tools I mentioned have been put to use. Some will will be listed below along with other quick observations.
* John Lucas is attempting to box in the argument and force me to argue on his conditions by trying to force the parameters through "banning" certain words and definitions from the debate, elevating himself by stating his superiority without ever presenting why he is actually superior. Textbook so far.
* John Lucas doesn't "believe" in architectural variables, some resulting in varying degrees of ease or difficulty in development.
* He doesn't "believe" in demographics.
* He refuses to take a proper stance on a couple ethics questions and instead dances around the subject and deviates into long-winded philosophy which doesn't pertain to the matter in any meaningful way.
* He links a bunch of unrelated youtube content to undeline opposing arguments to arguments I never made (the commercial bit is the main culprit here).
* Due to my harsh language, I've made him all but come out and expose his Messiah complex, it's actually scary to witness.
* He thinks, apparently in all sincerity, that everyone should have the same taste in gaming as him, including me, a staggering show of incredible elitism.
* Some of his main points are in direct contradiction to another (examples will follow later in a more elaborate post).
* He thinks that the development cost of a game is affected either way by how many copies you print... no comment needed there.
* He basically turns some of my points around, such as the blind leading the blind, effectively stooping to "I'm rubber, you're glue" tactics. Grand.
* He gives me a proper new-age psych evaluation, in which he concludes that I am traumatized and depressed.
* In his fascinating inability to miss nuances of any kind, he doesn't realize that there are always more than two options.
* He's a master at the strawman.
* He takes some of my actual arguments, churns them around a bit and then comes out of a long-ass linguistic tunnel with a conclusion "defeating" an argument I never made, or an unrecognizable version of it at least.
* He claims that he and his disciples are the only ones gifted with the ability to see the industry for what it is, he's basically claiming sole subscription rights to reality.
* He's labelling me as a mere "hater".
* He is directly opposed to variety in software and wants everyone to make Nintendo-like games.
* He's dooming Sony and the Xbox brand throughout but he doesn't seem to know why, he's simply echoing the others saying the same on the boards.
* He has, like I said he would, simply postponed the revolution.
* He backs up his mostly philosophical arguments with obviously made-up and anecdotal "conversion" stories, including ones about himself and even states that I will soon convert.
* He goes on a long rant on why he didn't post here for a few years, constructing a saintly persona from a low-ish background that has defeated the odds all the while deflecting how someone doesn't have any time at all to write a single word on a forum they used to love despite working mostly on the internet. Basically, he's making himself a Nintendo personified, or Jesus if you will.
* He uses the same effects and tools as religious zealots.
* He's dodging the issue of poor current sales and even suggests that the sales aren't poor.
* He believes that Nintendo are the ones who set the standard in the industry, but he also says that everyone else refuses to follow this standard, inevitably making it not a standard by the very definition of the word (this is just one contradiction but among the worst of the bunch).
* A vast amount of the text is subjective philosophy and has no worth in sales discussion.
* Even the points that aren't philosophical of nature are twisted so they become such, leading to extended sections of meaningless monologue discussing nothing on the core matter.
* He still has no explanation for how developers will save money making games for a HD console (with a similar CPU structure to the 360 and PS3) and seems to believe that lower power consumption in chipsets means that the price of developing textures and other visual bits for them is lower. Yeah.
* He belittles my implication that Nintendo are simply a company that wants to turn a buck by himself insisting that everyone else is evil and don't care about their jobs or their customers.
* He's telling me of all the things I "can't see", much like I said he would.
* He constantly makes references to the past that have no place or relevance to the matter at hand, a simple excuse to go into meandering sections on gaming history and how glorious Nintendo are and always have been.
* He has forgotten that the Gamecube and N64 was pretty much irrelevant and maintains that Nintendo has carried the industry since they started and to this day.
* He purposefully makes his lists of examples long enough for them to digress and reach semi-relevance for comparison, at best.
If you take your time and read his post after reading my bits on his rhetoric, you're in for a shock. A lot of you think he's a great debater and has a lot of knowledge. The bits where he actually attempts to venture into the land of cold, hard brass are where he really stumbles, yet he pretends to be well versed on the topics.
The entire post is, as I said, mostly comprised of rhetorical antics and acrobatics, he constructed the sphere like I said and uses all the regular techniques.
I'm gonna make two posts as an answer, one will be wholly dedicated to exposing the transparent techniques John Lucas uses to try to elevate himself while circumventing the actual arguments and the other will be a more direct answer to the post (already started it), the relevant bits anyway, I won't play his game and be forced to deviate into the rhetoric wasteland where he wants the duel to play out.
I realize that the wall of text must look impressive, and it kind of is, some parts are actually pretty good. That's only the surface though, I'll try to expose the entrails so people can see what's what.
John; as fun as it is when people drive all their arguments down "memory lane", you have to realize that there will be a perpetual red light at an intersection somewhere along the line; the point of crossing for "reality check boulevard", it is quite frankly amazing how incredible deluded you are and I have now decided that all this is merely a theatric show to get attention, I refuse to believe that anyone in the world, even on the internet, can be this lost in themselves and have such amazing tunnel vision while thinking they see everything.
Essay Pro