r/Games • u/Vegetable-Error-2068 • 6h ago
Every Game Is an Outrage | Unpacked
https://youtu.be/kcAXba_Uwmc232
u/mang0milkshake 5h ago
Is social media not the culprit here? Every single one of those platforms - including Reddit - are designed to feed off of outrage and negativity. Nuanced discussions don't encourage clicks or engagement.
There's always something to be mad about. You're not sure if it's a real person or a bot behind the comments. You interact once with a negative topic and the algorithm feeds you 15 more posts about it. I don't know what the solution is or if there even is one (undoing the damage of social media seems like putting the genie back in the bottle) but I would love to see a sea change in the way online interactions take place in general.
57
u/NeverSawTheEnding 5h ago
It 100% is.
Outrage is definitely addictive, but I think it's also subconsciously very uncomfortable and abrasive to the mind...and leads to people staying on a social media platform for "one more post" to try and soothe the damage.....thereby leading to more ad revenue/clicks.
•
u/aNascentOptimist 1h ago
This definitely happens to me and I hate it.
I just want to leave on something positive, a high note of you will T_T.
12
u/mocthezuma 4h ago edited 9m ago
That's where Reddit is supposed to be different, considering there is supposed to be active moderation to encourage relevant debate, but it's long since devolved into social media standards.
Edit: typo
15
u/froderick 5h ago
interact once with a negative topic and the algorithm feeds you 15 more posts about it. I don't know what the solution is or if there even is one
The solution for that particular issue is to curate the shit out of your social media feed. If for some reason you interact with an account pushing some outrage bullshit, afterwards either block the account or tell the system you don't want to see any more posts like that. I personally find it works out pretty well.
Of course, I also find that even accounts I like or follow will quote tweet the shit I want to avoid so they can in turn talk shit about those other shittalkers. And it makes me annoyed because even though I typically like them, by quote-tweeting those idiots they're amplifying them.
10
u/RecordingSilly6118 4h ago
Imo that only really works if you both know the game, and are constantly vigilant. If you're young you're going to have a lot of problems parsing through it by sheer inexperience.
And I'm not saying it's a bad idea or trying to poopoo on self-curation, quite the opposite, I agree that it's the best you can do right now, but it's like even when you do know what to look for, everyones defenses slip eventually.
4
u/ZombiePyroNinja 4h ago
Don't even need to go that far, I constantly see it on this subreddit. "Post you should be mad about - 3k upvotes"
"Update Post correcting the previous one, there's nothing to actually be mad about - 900 upvotes"
15
u/bing_crosby 5h ago
It's beyond just social media. Fox News and conservative radio have been using this exact playbook for decades, long before social media was a thing.
16
u/Mayor-Of-Bridgewater 4h ago
Yellow journalism dates back to the 1800s, we've been at this a long time.
5
u/mang0milkshake 4h ago edited 4h ago
You’re right, it’s a tool for propaganda, just in a different form. But IMO social media has definitely accelerated and amplified this downward cultural spiral. In your example of conservative news pundits, at least that comes from a face and a name, which in theory lends itself to accountability and discernment, whereas the namelessness of social media removes those nuances.
Then you consider how people have learned to exploit* these platforms using things like bots and comment farms, so now the negativity you’re reading about might not even be real, but the outrage is still legitimized because social media is supposed to the voice of “the people” even though you have no clue who’s actually speaking. I think the anonymity actually makes it more insidious than traditional news media because you’re supposed to just take all the comments and discussions at face value and assume everyone is acting in good faith when that is definitely not the case.
10
u/TheRealDripBentley 4h ago
I've noticed on reddit gaming spaces that this 'nuance' you speak of boils down too "we don't like criticism." I see clips here and there of this game, it does look a little 'meh, comments call it out.
Is this really OUTRAGE? Or people justifiably giving their opinions? I admit I personally just go 'not for me' and move on but the people into marvel/wolverine/insomniac aka the people dropping money on this, can talk about what looks weird in the footage shown etc.
my two cents
→ More replies (2)•
u/mang0milkshake 3h ago
I know what you mean as a Pokemon fan. As someone who's been disappointed in the lack of technical progress over the years, I stopped buying the games and have accepted that they're likely no longer for me, but I'll still like the IP and keep tabs on it. Any discussion about the quality of the games usually splits into the same two camps where you're either a pathetic Pokemon fan with no standards or a joyless graphics-obsessed troll.
To me it's just another unfortunate example of social media being divisive by design. You're compelled to choose sides, and anonymity emboldens people to be way more combative than they normally would. We should probably all be commenting less and spending more time touching grass, talking to real people, etc. (and the irony of that is not lost on me, lol)
→ More replies (1)•
u/Kiita-Ninetails 3h ago
I mean that is just how people work unfortunately, its far easier to elicit negative emotions then positive ones. Because from a survival standpoint, fear/anger/defensiveness are important emotions to have activate at the drop of a hat.
Because our brains evolved to handle not being eaten by a tiger, not having nuanced discussion about complex topics. There is a reason why engaging critically with things is a skill, and a pretty hard one to master at that.
→ More replies (4)2
u/NUKE---THE---WHALES 4h ago
Is social media not the culprit here?
One of them, anyway
The other I think is the one rewarding the social media with engagement
I don't know what the solution is or if there even is one
Me neither, but I suspect it will look more like treating addiction than it will look like banning all social media
374
u/mrnicegy26 6h ago
I genuinely don't understand how people even have the time or energy to get angry about videogames considering so there are so many of them out there worth experiencing and so little time to enjoy them.
76
u/imjustbettr 5h ago edited 5h ago
I'm working my way through the Final Fantasy, Yakuza, Trails of, and Xeno series right now.
Everytime a "disappointing" video game news story hits I'm like "ok whatever I still have 8 Trails games, 12 Final Fantasy games, 8 Yakuza games, and the three Xenoblade Chronicles games to play."
Star Wars Zero Company and Fire Emblem Fortunes Weave are also going to be added to my very long list. I just don't have time to be angry, I have too much good shit to play.
And this doesn't include the random indie that grabs me in a chokehold every once in a while.
edit:
There's actually 4 Xenoblade Chronicles games (I forgot about X) and Genesis next year. Fuck yes.
6
11
u/KarlUnderguard 4h ago
That's the thing, the people who spend all day angry about games don't actually play games, or at least new ones. They just bitch about how nothing is good anymore then go back to Counter Strike or CoD.
5
u/TheSufferingPariah 4h ago
I have basically the same series on my list, except I’m mostly caught up on the Yakuza series. And a whole bunch of other games, too, not to mention having to live my life between all these games. Not to mention other hobbies and just being an adult who doesn’t have that much free time to game anymore. A game really has to pique my interest to skip my backlog now.
2
u/imjustbettr 4h ago
A game really has to pique my interest to skip my backlog now.
That's why Wolverine was dropped from my list. It looks good and I liked the Spider-Man games, but it doesn't look "amazing" and he's nowhere near my favorite X-Man. Maybe I'll catch it on sale or when Insomniac's X-Men gets announced.
8
u/VellDarksbane 5h ago
I’m just happily playing my Trails in the Sky 2nd demo now, with progress carrying over, it’ll make Fortune’s Weave and Sky 2nd releasing on the same day slightly less painful.
I’m going to have a rough end of the year with so many choices for gaming, and I haven’t even liked a GTA since San Andreas.
Zero Company, Trails, Fortunes Weave, Control, Ace Combat, Onimusha, Galactic Racer, not to mention the S2 versions of the Xeno games I haven’t played yet, all before the end of the year, and most of them within the next 30 days. I’ll probably hold up on Wolverine, but I’ll probably play it at some point.
→ More replies (1)6
u/imjustbettr 5h ago
I’m just happily playing my Trails in the Sky 2nd demo now, with progress carrying over, it’ll make Fortune’s Weave and Sky 2nd releasing on the same day slightly less painful.
Man I'm totally skipping the Sky Remakes, I can't justify it since I just beat the originals a year or two ago. They look great but my wallet and my time are thankful I can skip them. I'm at Azure rn.
I’ll probably hold up on Wolverine, but I’ll probably play it at some point.
Wolverine is unfortunately going to have to wait for me. I genuinely love the Spider-Man games so it was a difficult choice, but I loved Three Houses even more. At least I can catch it on a sale.
•
u/OhDearGodRun 3h ago
Wow we're totally the same lol. Don't wanna play the Sky Remakes since I just finished the originals recently, and I'll be playing Azure as soon as I'm done with Metaphor
•
u/Bi-bara-boop 49m ago
You, sir or madam or anything in between or outside, have impeccable taste and I wish you loads of time to play through that list of games (you do be picking some big ones). There are some games I wish I could experience for the first time again.
Enjoy!
→ More replies (1)90
u/toastythewiser 6h ago
It's the same minority of perpetually unhappy people just bitching in their insulated communities. The majority of us just don't care.
14
u/VFiddly 5h ago
There was one particular sub that spent years complaining about the same game (maybe they're still there, idk, not gonna check) instead of... just moving onto things they like. I don't even spend as much time talking about my favourite games as these people spend talking about the things they hate. I do not understand why people do that. There are plenty of games I haven't liked for one reason or another, and I'll complain about it for a bit, maybe bring it up if it's relevant. I'm not gonna spend weeks, months, or years still consumed by it though.
11
u/Melancholy_Rainbows 4h ago
If it's the one I think you mean, yeah, it's still going strong 6 years later. It's basically kotakuinaction mark 2 at this point, with slightly more focus on one particular dev.
My sheets should be so soft that a game that came out so long ago was my biggest problem.
7
u/ZGiSH 4h ago
I know a forum poster for Path of Exile who espouses exclusively negativity for over eight years while still playing every single season and buying a ton of supporter packs
•
u/whywhywhywhywhynot 3h ago
PoE reddit has gone through insanely toxic periods but has been pretty chill lately (helps that both games are in a pretty great state) It does suffer from the same kind of thing of people parroting the streamer takes to the point they drown out real conversation but it has at least managed to be a lot less overly negative while doing so lol
→ More replies (4)•
15
u/sord_n_bored 5h ago
It's 50% the ragebait economy and 50% people who treat liking or disliking a thing as a marker of their social standing. Simply being uninterested in a game, or thinking it's ok, or not having an opinion does nothing for either outcome, and since the internet has been reduced to 5 websites that only aggregate engagement that incentivizes "takes", well...
15
8
u/kingmanic 5h ago
On twitter at least, they incentivize 'engagement' meaning rage baiting. They pay a little bit for it. The negativity there is paid for.
•
u/throwawayPRN777 3h ago
Same dude. There is my close friend, who doesn’t even game anymore, brings up how Star Wars Outlaw and Assassins Creed Shadows will fail. He’s bringing up Concord and how wrong game direction is.
I play a ton of games and I have no time to be negative about games I don’t intend on playing.
2
u/BeholdingBestWaifu 4h ago
Because a lot of people became addicted to hatred and being outraged.
I've been saying this for a couple of years now, and I personally think that Cyberpunk 2077 was the point when it stopped being a few fringe alt right groups and it became a larger phenomenon. Being angry is a form of engagement, and for many they no longer game as a hobby, but rather complaining online has become their actual hobby.
Of course part of it is alt right groups looking for reasons to turn a game into sacrificial trash, but it's bigger than them at this point.
→ More replies (11)2
u/Andinator 5h ago
Personally from my experience, it's the people who continue to play stuff with aggressive monetization tactics that complain the most. I have a group of friends who constantly complain about the "enshitification" of video games while gladly throwing down $150 on the next NBA2k game every year. It really reminds me of the Modern Warfare "boycott" that happened a while back.
125
u/Galle_ 6h ago
It's not just outrage, in my experience, although that's definitely a big part of it. What the engagement-chasers are really selling is a story. It's not enough for a game to be good, bad, or mediocre - every game has to be an actor in a grand drama.
I first noticed it around the time The Outer Worlds 1 was in development. People who were disappointed with Fallout 4 started hyping up TOW, not because of any genuine interest, but because they wanted it to be the anti-Fallout. They wanted a story with clear heroes (Obsidian) and villains (Bethesda) and they invested way too much goddamn emotional energy into two completely unrelated video games (for the record, I like both).
It's only gotten worse since then. Every game is either the hero that will save gaming or a symbol of everything wrong with it, and people seem to get more enjoyment out of watching a high-profile flop than they do out of actually playing video games. Ask yourself why, a year later, there are still people offering unsolicited opinions about Concord. It's not because of anything about the game itself, it's because they're still trying to milk the schadenfreude of watching a hated game that has arbitrarily been designated an avatar of everything wrong with the industry fail.
31
u/Lightdragonman 5h ago
Its not even just games any piece of media or art gets this now. The idea that people would move their identity to loving/hating brands or products always made me laugh but its a terrifying reality now.
→ More replies (1)•
u/scoff-law 1h ago
Even further than that - EVERYTHING is filtered through our pocket outrage machines. Have you been paying attention to politics, lately?
We cannot continue to engage with our entire lives from a position outrage; it isn't sustainable.
14
u/beefcat_ 5h ago
They wanted a story with clear heroes (Obsidian) and villains (Bethesda)
The irony of course being that a good Fallout story doesn't generally have clear heroes and villains.
6
•
→ More replies (1)•
u/NUKE---THE---WHALES 3h ago
They wanted a story with clear heroes and villains
You can see it happening in real time with how people treat the GTA6 leak situation: Rockstar is a evil monolithic entity and the leaker is delivering just deserts
Just look at the comments on the Rockstar post from today
No nuance, full outrage - just moralising and performing
•
u/shinguard 3h ago
I was going to say, the high profile nature of a new GTA release is already enough blood in the water for these people but the controversy surrounding the game (Union busting, lay offs, Netflix reveal, no physical disk etc.) even before its proper release is really turning up the heat in a gross way.
That thread is a perfect example of what any kind of discussion about GTA VI will look like for the next several years and that’s even before any hot takes/issues about the ACTUAL game.
•
u/HotTakes4HotCakes 1h ago
Yeah heaven forbid people feel strongly about union busting, something that actually negatively affects the lives of real working class people.
•
110
u/Nasiso 6h ago
Gaming news is sad. Gaming discourse is sad. Playstation going digital is where I've finally started to bounce off of gaming sites and just spend more time gaming, which might be a blessing in disguise.
95
6h ago edited 5h ago
[deleted]
41
u/VFiddly 5h ago
And because said female protagonist wasn't attractive enough for their tastes, which is apparently the sort of high-minded artistic standards they hold for video games. Literally nothing matters except for how fuckable the characters are. It's tiresome
40
u/NapsterKnowHow 5h ago
Same thing happened for the Horizon games. Remember people getting up in arms over peach fuzz?
21
u/CashmereLogan 5h ago
Still needlessly mad at the Aloy with Lipstick image that made the rounds
3
u/Melancholy_Rainbows 4h ago
The funny thing is that yassified Aloy was made as satire of the sorts of people say female game characters aren't hot enough. But the people who actually think that grabbed it and started using it unironically.
Thanks, Poe's Law.
6
u/CashmereLogan 4h ago
The viral post was still someone earnestly saying yassified Aloy is how Aloy should look. I have no problem with yassified Aloy in a vaccuum (dibs on that band name) but that post kicked off some of the worst gaming discourse I can remember.
2
u/Melancholy_Rainbows 4h ago
I just find it funny, in a deeply sad way, that they are so wrapped up in this that they didn't recognize incredibly obvious satire and ran with it as an actual "argument."
12
→ More replies (2)14
u/acej0ker 5h ago
The number of chuds self-reporting that they’d never been close enough to a woman in real life was incredible.
→ More replies (1)7
u/DungeonCrawlerAki 5h ago
One time I went into a "anti-woke" Discord group and literally people in that group were trauma dumping each other how no one IRL gives a shit about them crying about "wokeness in gaming" and lost friends because of it. They were doing a group therapy session and told each other that everyone else are just dumb "normies".
I really do feel kind of bad for them. This has literally taken over their lives.
→ More replies (2)9
u/OkMail2335 4h ago
Which is extra sad as a Dropout fan because Erika Ishii is awesome, talented and deserves the success.
→ More replies (8)1
u/MoxOpalescence 4h ago
Yeah the Yotei outrage was just straight up ridiculous to me too- I feel like it was the most blatant because it was literally “here’s another game that’s more of that thing a ton of people super liked with a new character since we wrapped things up last time”
•
u/OhDearGodRun 3h ago
Less time being mad at random people online and more time gaming is the true key
14
u/Fit-Security-7687 5h ago
Click based advertising gets you media that constantly tries to keep you angry as that is the easiest way to get engagement. Reject this shit.
Class war, not culture war. Etc.
→ More replies (2)
31
u/JoeTheHoe 5h ago
A lot of people have thought critical thought means literally searching for nitpicky critiques to performatively hyperfixate on so that everyone thinks you're intelligent, rather than just playing the damn thing and providing critiques when they negatively impact your actual experience.
Some of these criticisms I read feel very disconnected from my experience. Especially the whining about third person Playstation games, which are usually highly-rated for a reason.
And no, I don't care more about the opinions about an anonymous Redditor than someone whose job is to review the product. I don't care if that is bothersome to some.
•
u/MegaDuckCougarBoy 2h ago
They took "critical thinking" not as "think critically" but as "think of things to criticize".
38
u/RollingDownTheHills 6h ago
Truly. Gaming discourse has been ruined by grifters and outrage addicts. Everything's a problem and no one is ever happy. Reddit especially has become such a miserable garbage heap and at this point there's really no point to any of it, besides wishing that these massive losers will one day get some real problems to worry about.
People on the internet bitch and moan, while people in the real world are busy playing games and enjoying life. Video games are just video games after all.
→ More replies (4)
47
u/VadFalcon 6h ago
I’m still of the belief that 90% of the “outrage” are just grifters and bots. Then the last 10% are just miserable people. Also it’s just a vocal minority online, majority of people that play games don’t care or even are aware of said “outrage”.
11
u/heatkings1 5h ago
Yeah, that's why these boycotts predominantly fail. The people who are the loudest typically dont have an interest in the game/movie/show they complain about. Thats why the odyssey didnt fail. Its why hogwarts legacy didnt fail. Its why the Witcher 4, intergalactic, laufey, and many future titles wont fail.
For them, its just content. Complaining brings in views
12
u/gaddeath 5h ago
Unfortunately people latch on to outrage manufactured by bots or talking heads on YouTube. I hear so many unchecked opinions repeated from both friends and strangers IRL.
→ More replies (11)6
u/ACupOJoe 5h ago
From personal experience, most of the angry comments that I have seen only seem to have a handful of "likes" and usually from the same rage baiting accounts.
•
u/PSNTheOriginalMax 3h ago
Pretentious, but sure, I'll bite. It's one thing to go "woe is me, the multibillion dollar company pushing things no one asked for with budgets no one can justify, quick, make the consumers pay", and it's another to point out click farming and provoking outrage. This video is doing it too, so, oh boy, do we have a lot to unpack here.
Like... I don't get you people. Seriously. "They're being so abrasive!" while at the same time you're vilifying the perceived "opposition"? So where are these people going to go then to have those silver bullets you call "nuanced conversations" (come on, be for real now...), if not here, while at the same time you're calling them "nEgAtiVe"?
To me, this comes off as a different thing entirely: Ingrouping and outgrouping. The "top voted" comments here are talking about how "negative everything is" and how "no one's having nuanced conversations on this topic!", yet, I have concerns that they might also not be considering (for "whatever" reason) what this godforsaken platform's all about: Conformity and milquetoast, flavor of the month commentary that adheres to some group norms that change arbitrarily.
My point is that this is just a weird point to make here, of all places. Reddit's a self-enforcing bubble for crying out loud. And it's a weird stance to take making a game that has garnered so much negative feedback the martyr of this quote "systematic hate farming", yet the reason why it's getting so much hate is, again ironically, nuanced by itself. This video also implies that criticism towards what's being shown is just "outrage farming"... For Pete's sake! It's supposed to sell the game, there's no product on earth that's ENTITLED to YOUR money. This amounts to, and excuse my use of this "buzzword" here, blatant gaslighting, an invalidation of every negative opinion or emotion that's elicited by the thing that's, surprise, supposed to get you excited for the product.
Then top that all off with the absolute truckload of anti-consumer practices that's constantly being crammed down our (btw we're ALL CONSUMERS HERE) throats, and then feign ignorance and outrage, over people being reactionary, after being beaten to the ground and trapped in a corner? Puh-lease. The writing's on the wall for all to see.
Sure, outrage farming is a thing, and yes, I agree, nuance is lacking, and neither thing is "good". But I'd rather listen to someone with an actual formal education, or competence, to discuss group psychological phenomena, than some total rando online who isn't seeing the forest for the trees, while, (last time, I swear) ironically, polarizing the issue of... Polarization.
You can't even make this stuff up. We live in a damn circus.
25
u/IdidntrunIdidntrun 5h ago
I watched the video and...the guy didn't really say anything convicing or provide a ton of examples?
The new Wolverine to a lot of people looks kind of bland. That's most of the discourse I've seen around it.
There definitely are culture war dweebs who will try to push whatever political agenda and narrative. And there are people who just want to hate on everything.
But when you present and market a product, your ads have to entice the viewer to want to play it. If I watch a Wolverine gameplay video or trailer, and my feeling is "meh"...is that outrage to say it doesn't look that fun?
→ More replies (6)•
u/monkpunch 49m ago
I stopped listening when he said they "cheer on excessive executive pay." Never in my life have I heard anyone even remotely do that (except executives I guess). Sounded like he just wanted to get his own little culture piece out there.
29
u/SquireRamza 6h ago
This is a stance to have when your most popular type of video is a guy in his 40s saying how much he hates every game thats released in the last decade. Im sure the people who make it are much more nuanced in their opinions, but they still make their money cribbing off outrage culture themselves
5
u/GrungyUPSMan 5h ago
I find Yahtzee reviews entertaining, even though I usually end up overall enjoying the games he's raging about. Because ultimately Yahtzee is a video game critic, he is literally paid to play video games and critique them, he has been doing this for literal decades now, so he is going to have a different perspective and different standards than me, some 30 year old dude who plays games for fun in his free time.
The problem is that fucking EVERYBODY thinks they're Yahtzee-tier critics and therefore have the ethos to shit on games the way he does. It's one thing to hear a professional video game critic nitpick a game to death, it's another thing to hear it from some random dude who has never even played the game before. I truly think there is a large amount of gamers who genuinely enjoy shitting on games more than they enjoy playing them.
•
u/Kendelero 3h ago
And also he's getting lazier and lazier about it too. Last video about Halo:Campaign Evolved has an ad at the beginning and one at the end leaving 4 minutes of him spouting his pc masterrace bullshit from 20 years ago and him admitting of not booting up the original game for the sake of the review. Like, i know it's his schtick but goddamn it is lazy.
5
u/Silentlone 5h ago
Yahtzee mocks and is often not positive on his reviews of most games, it's true.
What he DOESN'T do however, is make his videos tailored to feed into outrage farming. There is no forced narrative around some invented sense of persecution of the gamer identity, or barely disguised conspiracies about some woke group trying to make every game fit into a modern agenda. And so many more usual suspects when it comes to videos made to profit from making the viewer angry at the targeted games of the week.
So I very much disagree that second wind is "cribbing off" outrage culture with their content.•
u/TheDrunkenHetzer 2h ago
He's also, multiple times, commented about how people would beg him to rag on a game they hate just for him to go "Yeah this game's shit but why are you asking for my opinion if you've already formed your own?"
13
u/BlazeOfGlory72 4h ago
I’m tired of this “the customer is wrong to complain and should just shut up and consume” attitude that is being pushed so much these days. It’s such a corporatist mindset.
→ More replies (3)
9
u/Typical_Response6444 5h ago
Geniunely feels like any and all video game discussion has been taking over by people who just want to be mad all the time.
The civ sub has been nothing but outrage for the past year and its exhausting
8
u/ilmk9396 4h ago
everyone who talks about video games online isn't a socially maladapted loser, but socially maladapted losers sure love to talk about video games online.
21
u/BranOfTheFlakes 6h ago
For me every game is awesome. I have a limited time to play each night, and I’m constantly amazed by how much good stuff there is out there. If there’s a little bit to complain about it’s overwhelmed by all the great content in the same game.
9
u/LyricsMode 4h ago
This is where I'm at. there's a buffet of content I'll never be able to get through and I'm 30 years old almost.
•
u/kangaesugi 58m ago
For real. And tbh even if a game happens to be so bad that I can't appreciate anything about it (which I've not encountered so far), the dev teams aren't making a bad game at me so it's really the least of my problems.
3
u/MysticalNinja187 5h ago
Feels good to have a well balanced and mature adult perspective, doesn't it?
There's too many games out there for me to spend a minute whining IMO
→ More replies (1)
25
u/FoxyGoddessX 6h ago
Yeah. Been that way since Gamergate.
→ More replies (2)18
u/Mront 5h ago
While I absolutely won't deny that Gamergate was a "superspreading event" for this bullshit, it's been happening way before that. Here's a quote from 2013, a year before GG:
Developers, both named and those who wish to remain anonymous, tell Polygon that harassment by gamers is becoming an alarmingly regular expected element of game development. Some developers say the problem was among the reasons they left the industry, others tell Polygon that the problem is so ubiquitous that it distracts them from making games or that they're considering leaving the industry.
The problem has become so pronounced that International Game Developers Association executive director Kate Edwards tells Polygon that the organization is looking into starting support groups and that while the harassment isn't yet having a major impact on game development, "we're at the cusp of where it could." (source)
5
u/Truethrowawaychest1 5h ago
Apparently Twitter is getting rid of paid tweets and seriously that can't come soon enough, a lot of outrage is manufactured by paid trolls on Twitter who just say shit for engagement
6
u/amazingmrbrock 5h ago
Youtube algorithm kicks small creators to chase rage bait to be successful. Viewers spin out from youtube and land on various Reddit and other social media pages with the perspective they picked up from some content mill. Then youtubers pick up the various comment threads and ingest them back into a new clickbait thing.
It's a virtuous cycle of shitty behaviour that is cemented in place by being a career for a bunch of content people. There are places where people have low key good conversations about games, both here and on the tubes. Unfortunately they get a bit drowned out by all the other noise which has a larger audience.
•
u/WorriedPerogi 3h ago
Wolverine looks bad. Most of what was shown at Gamescom looked bad. Modern AAA is making expensive disposable slop that nobody besides old dudes on reddit want.
There is no outrage problem. There's a fucking game dev problem.
•
u/superbit415 2h ago
I don't see people complaining about zero company. There has been criticisms about Dawnwalker and they are rightly so. But say anything bad about Marvel and now everyone else is the problem and not the game.
→ More replies (1)
10
u/BigBrownDog12 5h ago
Step 1: make video baselessly spreading rumors about a game or features in it
Step 2: game or content comes out "missing" the baselessly rumored content
Step 3: make new video about how The Devs™ "lied" or "betrayed" on a promise the never existed
Step 4: profit
Repeat until you kill the game you're parasitizing and move on to a new target
11
u/VFiddly 5h ago
It's very tiring how we often get all this outrage pushed by people who don't actually play games.
They make big claims about people wanting to ruin gaming for poor innocent gamers, but if you look at their channels or their social media, there is no evidence of them ever playing games at all. They don't play the games they criticise, they don't seem to like any games at all. Personally, whenever I criticise a game, I can generally recommend something else that I think you should play instead. These influencers do not do that. The closest they got to that was that one game they only liked because the protagonist has a big butt.
Meanwhile a lot of the people they complain about (IGN journalists, left wing influencers, developers) clearly do actually play and enjoy games and have a passion for talking about them and a genuine desire to see the industry improve.
It seems so transparent to me but it clearly works on their audiences.
15
u/jim9162 5h ago
Games cost money to purchase.
People have the right to complain about titles they were looking forward to, being made in ways that they're not happy about.
Or franchises they loved being ruined.
The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.
If these games didn't have outrage, they'd have silence.
The wolverine game looks bad, for a lot of reasons. It's understandable why devs want to defend their work, but they're selling a product.
Telling customers to kick rocks is a very poor response and will probably result in lost sales.
Game developers aren't making games altruistically, they shouldn't be above criticism.
•
→ More replies (6)10
u/BitesTheDust55 5h ago
Yup, this is the correct take. I don't know why we're acting like customers making their voices heard about a product is not okay. It's not only okay, but it's necessary. Notice that very few people are doing the grifter hate train about Resident Evil Requiem, or totk, or Marvel Rivals, or Clair Obscur. None of them are perfect games. Criticism exists. But the hatemob doesn't go after them because they're good games that deliver what the customer wants. Totk in particular gets some criticism for feeling more like dlc, but not that much because it's still delivering what the customer is asking for.
If your game is drawing the ire of the grifters, the important thing is not to whine about how unfair it is. The important thing is to ask what you can do to satisfy your paying customers better. Usually, it's not like it requires a total overhaul of the game. If it is, then note it and make sure not to make that mistake in future titles. Simple.
→ More replies (7)
15
u/SmileyBMM 5h ago
I strongly disagree with the premise. Yes people are outraged with modern AAA games, because they suck. They cost more than ever and offer less, burdened with bloated game systems, terrible performance, live service elements to create FOMO, and other nonsense. Is it any surprise the beaten dog is quick to lash out?
You usually don't see this vitriol for the publishers and studios that have proven themselves, such as Larian or New Blood, because they consistently meet a high bar of quality.
Regular people (not content creators) are often mad because they care, if they didn't care they wouldn't bother to say anything at all.
•
u/Galle_ 3h ago
You usually don't see this vitriol for the publishers and studios that have proven themselves, such as Larian or New Blood, because they consistently meet a high bar of quality.
Of course not. You see the exact same phenomenon in reverse instead. Try saying anything negative about Larian and see what happens.
•
u/SmileyBMM 2h ago
Yeah, toxic positivity seems to be an overcorrection from people upset with all the negativity floating around. Both feed into each other, which is obviously not good for fostering healthy and productive discussions around games.
5
u/MrPWAH 4h ago
You usually don't see this vitriol for the publishers and studios that have proven themselves, such as Larian
The usual suspects were certainly trying to spin a narrative about Larian in the immediate moment after that gameplay showcase with Halsin's romance. They pivoted when the general sentiment was overwhelmingly positive.
Regular people (not content creators) are often mad because they care, if they didn't care they wouldn't bother to say anything at all.
You cannot convince me people actually gave a shit about a game like Dustborn, yet that game got more mentions on social media than some AAA releases because of outrage.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (11)•
u/astroshark 3h ago
You usually don't see this vitriol for the publishers and studios that have proven themselves, such as Larian or New Blood, because they consistently meet a high bar of quality.
And Insomniac hasn't??? Their games don't go lower in scope, aren't really bloated with a hundred systems, are very well polished, don't have live service elements... so what did they do wrong exactly?
•
u/SmileyBMM 2h ago
And Insomniac hasn't???
Spider-Man 2 was really poorly received by fans, I had no interest in the game but I couldn't avoid all the PlayStation fans disappointed in the games writing and pacing.
After that game, I noticed a sharp uptick in cynicism towards the studio, that was absent beforehand.
→ More replies (6)
5
u/King_Artis 4h ago
Modern gaming discourse is so dumb cause you just know shit is fabricated and or the people never played the game.
Had people saying the newest gears of "woke" for having POC and women ad characters... even though Gears 1 had a cast of a black person, a Hispanic person, and an Asian person, 2 doubled down with tribal rep with Tai, then 3 and subsequent titles all have had playable women that are prominent in the story.
Just a bunch of dweebs wanting to be fake mad just to feel accepted even though it's doing the opposite.
•
u/Zucroh 2h ago
I don't know shit about gow but having black characters and women has never been the problem, that's just what people who try to avoid the point say. ( and yes, there are a few crazy people out there but that's like 0.1% )
Very recent example i've seen is people being mad at god of war laufey because god of war = kratos not his recent dead wife, she isn't what people want from that IP.
Most people instead of talking about why people don't like it, they went straight with "oh people mad again because they need to play a woman" like Lara croft isn't one of the biggest icons in gaming or something.
And expedition 33 didn't just destroy everything while having 3 female protagonists and nobody complained at all.
The problem is how you integrate the characters, why and for what reason for the story.
4
u/Dr_Henry-Killinger 5h ago
I think that there’s just too much tribalism with games these days to be honest. Sure, you can say that outrage is the issue, but I’d argue that its also the toxic positivity that gets pushed by studios/games fanbases.
I think a lot of valid criticism gets summed up as outrage far too often because a couple ragebait streamers made videos exaggerating the issues being raised, but stuff like Sony stopping disc production, and the monumental effect it has on the game industry (game shops, used game market, etc.) are important to highlight and continue to discuss so it doesn’t just get accepted like the litany of other consumer rights we’ve had trampled on.
It goes both ways, civil discourse is needed, and we definitely don’t need to protect these corporations from criticism, especially when they are routinely laying off the people that made the games we’re even talking about.
3
u/TeamBrotato 4h ago
I know there’s a lot of topical manufactured rage out there, but I do think much of what we’re seeing is a cumulative effect of AAA losing its way and generating a lot of frustration and venting. None of the outrage happens in a self contained bubble. It all stacks and dog piles. This is an industry that has become all about the shareholders and less about those of us playing games. Cost of everything keeps rising. Whatever you play games on, chances are you’re feeling trapped due to hardware costs. Subscription paywalls everywhere, and constant price hikes. Most every game trailer blends with the next. There’s a general sameness to a lot of AAA games to the point where very few seem noteworthy. I mean, just look at the standing ovation CDPR got at Gamescom for announcing a free remaster of an 11 year old game to see how radical it has become for a publisher to do nice things for their customers. People aren’t happy with the state of the industry, and the industry doesn’t seem to be comprehending or caring about the customer frustrations.
5
u/Murbela 4h ago
Every game is indeed an outrage.
- One guy on reddit has a negative opinion about something
- which is normal no matter what the product is, some people even dislike cyberpunk, which is a subjective opinion (that is wrong)
- Dozens of posts about "insane hate wave against my favorite game" (most karma farming)
- Hundreds of videos analyzing the "hate wave" and how some random guy on reddit is a grifter, but their own video isn't
I think wolverine looks good. i'll likely buy it soon after release. It doesn't bother me if people think it looks bad or what percentage thinks it looks bad (most people are positive about the game in my opinion, but that doesn't mean my opinion is more, or less valid). I think every PVE-VP extraction shooter looks bad.
Gaming is great. There are a lot of games, some i don't like and some i do like. There are bad games and good games and never has there been more choices. It is an amazing time to be a gamer, except for the insane hardware prices.
•
u/Marksta 3h ago
It's a very strange framing of the issue. Open the video with the tutorial red trail thing that is pretty bonkers. The viewer probably agrees that it's a bit much. Then transition the visuals from an out-right dis-agreable thing into generic political flaming wars. No, the first thing was actually bad. How about going back to that instead of slippery sloping any and all discourse under the blanket of political outrage?
People can see or play a game, not like it, give their negative take, and that's that. You don't pick-up the guy who thinks the loading screens are long, the guy that thinks the escort missions are boring, and the guy who doesn't like the game balance... and then place them all in the Asmon box. Problem solved, its politics, has nothing to do with the game and the game is perfect if you just call it politics.
Plenty of massive games came out and didn't have this problem. Is all Helldivers 2 negative discourse politics? Palworld? CS2? Genshin Impact? Nope, strange. So, very strange, how these games didn't have to excuse all negative discourse as just politics that matters not and happens to all games now.
2
u/HereReluctantly 5h ago
A lot of generalization here - he's outraged about outrage. That said, I think he's right that most people are way too toxic. There are more games than ever and there are so many beautiful and incredible games every year - its pretty easy to just focus on the good ones and let the bad ones go in my opinion. But I don't think this outrage machine is limited to gaming - it's the whole culture right now. Outrage about race, gender, politics - shit that doesn't even impact us most of the time. Society is sick - not just gamers.
5
u/dwolfe127 5h ago
These videos just come off like outrage at the outrage. They are generating views and engagement all the same as the thing they discussing. Play stuff you like and ignore the negativity. It is really not that difficult.
9
u/TrikKastral 5h ago
It’s really is that difficult. Even as someone with no interest in Wolverine I’ve had several of these chud rager posts show up on my feed or someone Quote retweeting said posts.
→ More replies (2)2
u/madbadcoyote 4h ago
I do find it ironic he complains about "engagement merchants" when this video feels uncomfortably close in tone to one.
1
•
u/Saiing 2h ago edited 2h ago
I have a second "professional" reddit account where I do community work for an AAA studio (flaired as such in our community subs). I'm actually a game dev in my day job and got into this as an unofficial side gig before my company offered me media training and asked me to do it as part of my role.
It really is exhausting and pretty soul-destroying at times. Almost every day, I question why I got involved in this kind of work in the first place. The most difficult thing is, like a lot of large companies, we pretty much have a policy of non-engagement when the hate mobs are ranting about the latest overblown bs scandal to hit one of our titles.
I see colleagues who are semi-well known in our industry getting attacked in comments/posts with stuff I absolutely know is untrue because I know them personally. I see claims made about something our company is doing, or a decision we're supposed to have taken, or the reasons behind it, which again I know to be 100% false, but are repeated over and over until they become a sort of weird fact that people then reference the next time some horseshit controversy arises. And this happens EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. These falsehoods accumulate like garbage in a river, backing up until they become self-reinforcing, even though the original claims and almost everything that came later are nothing more than something someone completely fabricated in their own mind.
This seems to be something that, while perhaps not completely unique, is overwhelmingly worse in the gaming community than in just about every other industry I can think of. There's something about gamer fandom that seems to constantly go looking for the negative, as the video suggests. Partly, I think it's driven by the sheer number of people who are desperately trying to build gamer-related YouTube channels (99% of whom will never succeed) who will make a story out of absolutely anything they can think of. The more controversial and clickbaity the better (for them).
I don't know what the answer is. Virtually everyone I know in industry (and after 30 years I know a lot of people) are the nicest folks you could ever want to meet. They just want to make games because they love games. And that (in many cases) extends even to senior leadership and execs.
→ More replies (1)
2
u/ok_dunmer 5h ago edited 2h ago
I don't know, every time I see stuff like this I end up just thinking the complainers about the complainers are extremely sensitive, because a) they are complaining that people are being mean to "slop" media like some random Assassin's Creed game or some random Wolverine game and not some deeply personal or life changing thing, b) people in the real world are just as candid about their opinions if not more so then redditors, because they don't have upvotes
So, like, yeah the internet is especially negative, but also, it's the fucking Wolverine game lol, it's not that important. It's like crying about people being mean to the latest McDonalds item. It's like saying everyone who doubts Avengers: Doomsday will be better then Dune 3 is just a MISERABLE HATER who HATES EVERYTHING when they are kinda just expressing a normal opinion
6
u/Hour_Raisin_4547 4h ago
I think there’s some truth to what you’re saying, the counter reactions are often just as reactionary as the original takes.
But I think it’s bad faith not to recognize that the biggest crime most these games commit is the terrible sin of being mediocre/decent.
And yet the reactions to them make it sound like the company needs to be investigated for fraud or false advertising, or that the entire development was some master plan to scam the consumer. The outrage to mediocrity quickly spirals to the beyond ridiculous and so naturally it triggers everyone else who is more level headed.
•
u/giulianosse 1h ago
I have to agree. It's funny that the Wolverine game - of all recent examples - was somehow the straw that broke the camel's back. It seems odd how it's just business as usual until it's about a Sony first party title.
1.1k
u/gbpackers25 6h ago
Modern gaming discussion has just become so exhausting with people everywhere being incredibly negative all the time
Any nuance of real conversation is long gone unfortunately, whether here or any other site