Fuck this place

[zbandito]

bwahahahaha

[amanset]

I swear, every forum I've ever used that the Rev has been on he has done this at some point. One has to wonder if there is anywhere on the internet that he is comfortable with beyond his own forum.

[disciple]

Can someone outline, in a clear, steady voice, what exactly pushed him into leaving? All I'm getting from this thread is a load of white noise about Grid Wars and C&D orders.

Is it because he defended Grid Wars - due to it being free - and then got leapt on for it?

I don't think anyone knows. If you look at the post timings it's not the Out Run thread, also Stu's said it wasn't the hypocrite thread since he wasn't even aware of that.

The only real clue is in the thread title 'fuck this place', presumably he reckons the board's at fault though beyond that there just doesn't seem to be 'owt specific.

[CharlieF]

The reason *I* always rated Stu, and still do, is the fact that he sticks to his guns. I don't think he deliberately tries to be different or controversial; he just *is*. He puts his case well, and he stands his ground, and whether *you* think he's right or wrong, he's entertaining, and his stuff is always thought-provoking. People have different viewpoints.

Couldn't agree more.
Damn shame he's leaving.

[gravy]

Can someone outline, in a clear, steady voice, what exactly pushed him into leaving? All I'm getting from this thread is a load of white noise about Grid Wars and C&D orders.

Is it because he defended Grid Wars - due to it being free - and then got leapt on for it?

It may be my fault, he sent me a slew of snotty PM's about this post:

http://www.yakyak.org/viewtopic.php?t=55874&start=111

The short and long of it is he took -great- exception to me pointing out this was now the few pieces of work he actually gets paid for. I thought it relevant given the "socially-dysfunctional retards" label his was pinning on people for not appreciating the stuff he does for free.

It's the 2nd time I've done it and the Rev likens it to (and I'm paraphrasing here) "laughing at cripples in wheelchairs for not being able to walk". That as well as calling me a "cunt", "arsehole" and saying I "ranked alongside Jim Davidson"

I'm sure most people are aware but the place's that the Rev can find work writing about video games has, over the years, dwindled to very few. He feels it's because he sacrificed his career to stand up for what's right against a "bunch of greedy thieving lying cunts".

That's a point of view.

For my money the drive for attention and the inability to differentiate between the good and bad types is what has fucked The Rev out of a career.

His reaction to all of this Gridwars hoohah is a case in point. Given his closeness to the situation he Rev has an excellent perspective on a series of events that's likely to have a huge implication for hobby coders distributing free games. A well written article about the situation would be saleable. And if he couldn't sell it's another piece unpaid he can stick on http://www.worldofstewart.com. It's doing something positive.

Instead he chooses to host GridWars on his site and practically beg them to sue him. It's a game that MS's lawyers have issued a cease and desist letter to the original author regarding its distribution. How's that going to end then? I honestly believe he wants MS to kick off and won't be happy until strung up on a cross shouting "Look at me! Look at me!"

Which I pretty much said in the PM exchange also pointing out he was the last person that'd I take lessons off about how to act towards other people on the internet, that the solution to many of his problems lay in his own hands and that if he didn't like people taking the piss out of him he should stop being such a cunt. What's good for the goose etc

I wouldn't mind him staying but I don't think he'll be back, an almost pathological stubbornness is at the core of his personality and as Rod_s pointed out there's plenty of previous examples where he's flounced off of various other fora never to return.

And was I out of order? For others to say really. I didn't think what I posted was that bad was surprised about the tirade it triggered. But there you go.

As I said, it's for Stu to say why he left but taking into account the agitated tone of his PM's I wouldn't be surprised if the above factored in

[PeeknPoke Lee]

I liked Rev since Amiga Power days.

I like a bloke who can at least stand up for what they believe in - either being right or wrong.

And he was the only person on here who gave me some shit for being a Minter fanboy (or something).

I didnt like Cannon Fodder II

Anyone that visits the locations of Trashman in real life cannot be all bad

so Rev, carm down me old fella. You love us really.


Lee

[Acronym]

Can someone outline, in a clear, steady voice, what exactly pushed him into leaving? All I'm getting from this thread is a load of white noise about Grid Wars and C&D orders.

Is it because he defended Grid Wars - due to it being free - and then got leapt on for it?

I think he just got fed up of getting abuse from certain quarters every time he posted. Grid Wars and the Outrun thread are probably the straws that did for the proverbial camel, but it's been happening for ages.

[defsdoor]

I like reading Stu's posts - sometime I agree with him - sometimes I think he's just being an antagonising pillock - but I'd like to think that he does it with a twinkle in his eye. He can't be that angry really can he ?

He's like a trampoline with a pin in it.

It's a shame that theres little opportunity to be paid for writing about computer games today. Theres plenty of magazines still on the shelves though so there must still be opportunity - maybe it's more about who you know and who you get on with than the quality of your writing.

But a writer's gift is a writing gift - there no reason to limit yourself to one subject. And Stu doesn't on his website (and yes I have read it all and it is generally a good read) so if writing is his joy I am sure he could earn good money just from submissions (have you read some of the dross in the papers ?).

Any way Stu - I don't know you - I've struggled to find a picture of you other than the pimply one holding up the world but please don't think that there is a lot of real intent in anything that is posted by the majority of people here. It may be a case of giving as good as you get but I don't believe theres any dislike or malice really and I am sure that although you would get a good piss taking if you were to bump into these guys in the pub, after a couple of minutes what everyone shares would be the real conversation and thats a love of games, both (particularly) old and new.

Don't go - if nothing it's entertaining

[aureole]

Can someone outline, in a clear, steady voice, what exactly pushed him into leaving? All I'm getting from this thread is a load of white noise about Grid Wars and C&D orders.

Is it because he defended Grid Wars - due to it being free - and then got leapt on for it?

I think he just got fed up of getting abuse from certain quarters every time he posted. Grid Wars and the Outrun thread are probably the straws that did for the proverbial camel, but it's been happening for ages.

The impression I got, I don't think it's really much to do with Grid Wars at all. I think it's the fact there's a few issues that are pretty much guaranteed to come up if he posts, regardless of what the thread's about.

[Yak]

I think a lot of the hostility towards the Rev originated with his repeated behaviour of trying to make out that anyone who disagreed with him was somehow stupid or retarded. It is quite possible to engage in discussion and hold opposing viewpoints whilst still maintaining a degree of civility, and the Rev simply seemed to be incapable of doing that. He always had to be Right, everyone else was Stupid.

If there was hostility towards him it was as a direct result of *his own behaviour*. He chose to behave in a deliberately abrasive manner, and then got all upset when people were abrasive back.

The moral of the story is, it seems to me, is if you can't take it yourself, don't dish it out then.

[grue]

The moral of the story is, it seems to me, is if you can't take it yourself, don't dish it out then.

I can think some situations that this won't apply

[Rev. Stuart Campbell]

All right then. Popped by to read some PMs, so I might as well have a final final word, just to clear up the speculation and correct a few untruths. As I said before but evidently people couldn't be bothered to read, it's nothing whatsoever to do with the Grid Wars 2 thread. (Although the sheer lazy idiocy displayed in that one was a bit of an eye-opener. Two fucking sentences, you morons. Still, that'll teach me to stand up for a fellow forumite and his excellent and popular game against poor, victimised Microsoft, eh?)

A while ago, I happened to reveal in a PM to gravy that as a result of the actions of Future Publishing, I was in some fairly serious financial difficulties. The company had (well-documentedly) illegally reproduced a large quantity of my work on a huge scale - almost 1,000 individual instances - for profit and without credit. I took them to court, but earlier this year lost on a procedural technicality despite Future not contesting the actual allegations (they spent far more on lawyers looking to exploit such loopholes than it would have cost them to just settle the case), and the judge awarded costs against me somewhere in the region of £30,000. Naturally, since Future also controls 90% of the videogames-magazine business and blacklisted me from writing for any of their publications, this made things pretty rough from a career/earning a living point of view.

Now, I'm neither looking for sympathy over this situation nor asking anyone to lend me £50 till Giro day. I knew the risk I was taking when I stood up for what was right, and that's the way the dice have landed. I got myself into this situation and I'll get myself out of it. I'm a resourceful guy, the bailiffs haven't managed to get their hands on my stuff yet, and things are currently starting to look a little better.

However, it was a little dismaying to find this situation being used to make cheap, petty, spiteful shots in unrelated and trivial internet forum arguments. I both take and dish out plenty of abuse in forums, that's all fair game. But I've never once in my whole fucking life used privileged, private information disclosed in confidence about someone's personal circumstances to have a nasty little dig at them because I had no other answer to an argument. Nor have I ever betrayed such a confidence to other people known to have a grudge with the person in question with so that they could do it too, as gravy has.

I was rather shocked at this development, since I wasn't aware of any problems between the two of us - we chatted perfectly amicably at the forum meet in Bath a while back, and have bantered and argued seemingly amiably enough on the forum itself - and PMed Gary about it. I didn't quite "call him a cunt", as he misleadingly suggests - what I said was

"I just don't get why you, from a somewhat more comfortable position, feel the need to be such a cunt about it."

His response, as he's intimated above, was "You're such a cunt anything I do is justified".

(Extraordinarily, the provocation for this mean little outburst was apparently me telling someone who'd waded into a perfectly nice Out Run thread with some gratuitous personal abuse to piss off, before getting back to some friendly chat with everyone else.)

In one of the PMs I've had about this business, someone whose name I obviously won't reveal described gravy thus:

I've always suspected he was a bit of a cunt - often, a lot of a cunt - but I was just starting to mellow a little and give him the benefit of the doubt. He can be a nasty fucker, though. One of those toxic types who loves to sniff out and exploit perceived weakness - probably to distract from the gaping holes in his own soul.

That seems pretty on the mark to me (and I apologise to that person if, ironically, they're upset at me quoting them, albeit anonymously). What really took me aback - and I'm speaking as someone, remember, who has people call him all the names under the sun pretty much every day - was the sheer disproportionate malice of it all. To use such personal information in such a nasty, spiteful way - in a thread where all I'd done was briefly bat away some tossy little troll, nothing to do with gravy whatsoever - genuinely shocked me, and I'm a miserable old misanthrope who isn't often surprised at the innate scumminess of humans. And I figured, "Y'know, I really don't need this kind of additional grief in my life right now. I think that's enough".

So yeah. I'm poor and in debt and short on opportunities to get out of it, and gravy's nice and happy and has plenty of money, so he thinks it's okay to mock and gloat and crow about that and get his mates to join in, because he's a smug, complacent wanker and it's an easy shot. And hey, it's a free country. I can't stop him. What I can do, however, is not be here to read it, so I'm choosing not to be.

Be assured that this is my very last word here on this or any other subject. Despite the cowardly jibes of a handful of posters to the contrary, I won't be back. The amount of support in this thread has been rather unexpected and a little bit heart-warming, so thanks for that to everyone who said something nice, particularly the people who said "I don't often agree with him but it's good to have him here anyway". But I have a life to retrieve from the abyss, and there are more productive things to be doing with my time than hang around here having some nasty, vicious arsewipe taking kicks at me when I'm down. I answer to my conscience for what I do, and I sleep very well. I hope others can say the same.

Cheers,
S.

[Samus]

It is quite possible to engage in discussion and hold opposing viewpoints whilst still maintaining a degree of civility, and the Rev simply seemed to be incapable of doing that. He always had to be Right, everyone else was Stupid.

Really? I've had a few many page disagreements with him, but they've mostly been nice, constructive, helpful and to the point. I think the last time was regarding Zoo Keeper in his own forum, and he was dead right. The last one where he used rough language towards my opinion was in the old Edge forum, and I can understand why.

[Yak]

It is quite possible to engage in discussion and hold opposing viewpoints whilst still maintaining a degree of civility, and the Rev simply seemed to be incapable of doing that. He always had to be Right, everyone else was Stupid.

Really? I've had a few many page disagreements with him, but they've mostly been nice, constructive, helpful and to the point. I think the last time was regarding Zoo Keeper in his own forum, and he was dead right. The last one where he used rough language towards my opinion was in the old Edge forum, and I can understand why.

Whereas the last time I had any exchange with him in here he couldn't even refer to me without larding his post with completely unnecessary personal insults. And I am certainly not the only one to receive such treatment.

All I'm saying is that there is a *reason* he is disliked by some people, and that reason is entirely of his own making.

[amanset]

I didn't quite "call him a cunt", as he misleadingly suggests - what I said was

"I just don't get why you, from a somewhat more comfortable position, feel the need to be such a cunt about it."

In what world is that not calling someone a cunt?

Anyway, I will admit to anti-Stu bias. Frankly I've had enough bother from him on Edge, RLLMUK, his own forum (where he managed to ban me for the crime of disagreeing with him - no swear words or insults or anything from me, just disagreement) to know that generally he brings it on himself. For example arguing with him about smoking in pubs is akin to banging your head repeatedly against a brick wall, he simply refuses to even consider the opinions of others.

However I am a nice chap and I am sure Stu is really, it is just his internet persona has somewhat run away from him. I don't like to see anyone leave a forum, even people I don't like, as I feel that their posts still add to the general feel of the place and, frankly, you need people you disagree with to open your eyes to other possibilities.

So with that in mind I do hope you get out of your current situation, Stu (although I am not sure if you will read this). As someone who's life has quite spectacularly fallen apart over the past couple of years I know you'd have to be a real cunt to wish such things on other people.

And if I am really honest, I do hope that you get regular work in the area you love soon. I don't really know you as a journalist - I read you on Digitiser years ago but you wrote for Edge before I started buying it and I never read Amiga Power - but I am pretty sure that if you could be doing that regularly a lot of the more extremely caustic side of your forum posts would disappear.

So good luck and maybe we'll see you back here when your life is a bit more in order.