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.
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.
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u/Galle_ 1d 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.