Same here. I love older games and I love indies. So much more passion, more spirit, more ideas. It's just good for the soul to see things are still good in some corners.
The Indie and Middle Market spaces are where we are seeing the most fun titles pop up. Like I would rather play SEs smaller titles than their major releases. I would rather play the niche weeb centric game with ample fan service than major AAA open world game featuring non descript bow weilding protagonist that crafts items.
I personally don't feel like "gaming is dead" or whatever. I just feel people get WAY too invested. Like, I play a lot of games, but I don't take on the identity of "gamer". Whatever happens, there will always be cool games to play. Just chill.
Same here, Im older (I bought FF1 on the NES back in 1990 with my first job) I love to play games, but I don't consider myself a "gamer" I have other hobbies, but I love to play video games, and I've always found new games to play even over 30 years later. I think younger people took on the identity of "gamer" way too seriously, they need to relax.
We forgot about The Remaster of the Remastered version of The Last of Us? You know instead of just supplying said "upgraded version" for free to already existing owners akin to many PC games where the devs would have done usually. Oh, and they raised the price of the original Complete version product as well. Scummy Sony as usual. They are making money off of your less than a couple of years old nostalgia for zero reason. Yet people will buy it anyway.
Something that Derrick from Mega64 said once that really stuck with me is "some people only know how to enjoy things by being mad about them." You'd think that would be counter-intuitive, but I think the *act* of being angry is a lot more fun than just being sort of lukewarm about something. I think about this a lot when I read comment sections on big gaming announcements that aren't outrageous, but bland.
Also, I'm sure someone has already mentioned it, but Bloodborne PSX has been done for a while! It rocks! It doesn't recreate the whole game, but is a really good vertical slice.
SE will likely never release a Xenogears remaster but they recently decided to start selling a $2,000 Xenogears watch no one asked for. The industry just doesn't 'get it' anymore.
@@eternalgracenote the production of that watch does not prevent them from doing a remaster. You are not representative of the entire fan base. Just because you don’t want something doesn’t mean it won’t sell.
It’s all corporate decisions. They don’t know or understand what gamers want; all they care about are numbers, not the craft of creating stories or entertainment.
@@captawesome42True, but $2000? People are complaining about a $700+ “upgrade” console. Only the truly hardcore would get that item, and most of them would still think that’s a steep price, especially in today’s economy.
My favorite past time is going treasure hunting on the depths of the web to find new games I never would have known existed without emulation. Sometimes there's gold and other times there's pyrite.
Basically I’m looking at content be it movies or games or whatever that pre dates the ‘cancellation era’. I don’t mind politically motivated content but eventually we got to thought police etc and that has made things really hard particularly for a bunch of my friends who feel attacked by it all. I do agree the reaction in some ways is worse
What you said between the 8 and 20-minute mark made me a little emotional, Mike. You said with explicit detail what I have tried to foster with my own community. I hope that one day, that civil, constructive approach becomes the dominant approach to RUclips that creators and commenters have. EDIT: YOU'RE DOING ALAN WAKE?!?!?!?!
Expedition 33 looks a bit TOO awesome frankly. When you look at studios with similar money and manpower, they usually can't achieve nothing close to that. It makes me skeptical wondering how much the final product will look and play like these trailers.
its on Unreal 5, all Unreal 5 games look great graphically, since its easier than ever to develop on it, but you have to worry about the rest of the game besides the visuals
@@danutghidia5820 Still a lot of super-heavy 3D modelling work for a small team of under 50 unproven devs. Unreal 5 or not, I can't think of a similar dev that achieved that level of visual detail and fidelity.
I feel like gaming was this way to vent out from the real world, now a lot of it has been denied from many bad or good actors. A lot of resentment and, let's be honest, politics are a heavy factor that people are as angry as ever.
I don't know if the works themselves were really ever any more escapist (for lack of a better term, you know what I mean) than they are now, it's more the ways that they aren't that have changed. Also a lot of it is genuinely people being goaded into it, sometimes by deliberate bad actors, other times by opportunists, mainly through social media. That is the one thing that is for sure unique about games culture now as compared to, say, 30 years ago. Broadcasting power used to be fairly limited and highly controlled. I genuinely don't think people would have nearly as negative of an attitude about *most* of the perceived problems with games if the idea weren't being sold to them so heavily. May still be negative of course, but nowhere near as intense.
There’s an ongoing sentiment over the past decade or so but especially ramping up in the last 5 years or so, that entertainment isn’t nearly as good as it was 20, 30, 40 years ago. Whether it’s music, television, movies, western adult animation, cartoons, anime and manga, video games, every entertainment medium has been seen to either be pushed to a mass audience and sacrifice quality for mass appeal, be reduced to a dopamine fix to get people hooked and continually throw money at it, or push particular agendas. The vast expansions of these entertainment mediums thanks to the internet age around the late 2000s and early 2010s period, pushed this entire monetization and corporatization of entertainment that we see now. This leads people to be very frustrated, especially when you consider how upset a lot of people are in their real lives. We look to entertainment as an escape, to relax, to laugh, to cry, to make us think and change our ways of living. When it becomes clear that the thing we used to rely on for all these things becomes a vehicle to drain people’s bank accounts and offer nothing but raw brain stimulus and push agendas, there’s good reason for much of the ire we see in response to these mediocre shows.
On top of that the reason why the public think something is bad “your racist and sexist”. It would help if some director just said “sorry you didn’t like that I try better next time”.
I just stopped caring about what goes on in gaming these days. If there is a game coming out I am interested in I will just buy it and play it ignoring anything else going on around it. If there isn’t anything coming out I am interested in there are decades of games I haven’t played yet or woudlnt mind replaying. It’s nice going back to being disconnected from what is going on in the world of video games.
@@Rithysak101 For real, I remember the only information I had to go on was looking at the back of the box at the rental store. And a lot of games I loved got panned hard in later years, I'm glad I didn't have the internet to influence me. I still go with my gut feeling. I had to make a Reddit post telling them why Im glad I DIDNT listen to them for passing up a great game that got blasted by everyone on Reddit.
There's obviously a big chunk of online comments you can safely dismiss on any given topic. But as someone who is both pissed off about performative wokeness in media and aware enough to know where to direct that anger, I can explain why people feel so strongly about this. Firstly, it's important to note, the diverse characters, their actors and people who look like them aren't typically the source of the problem. It's actually generally white people who are trying to push these things. This is the crux of the problem, there's a bunch of well meaning people who think that they're being nice, and doing the right thing by shoehorning these elements into media. However, they are often the "useful idiots" (using the term in its political sense, not as an insult) for far more sinister political groups who know exactly what they are doing. I would recommend learning about "The long march through the institutions" or Antonio Gramsci's "war of position" to get a better sense of how deliberate and how long running both the inclusion of these elements and the inevitable backlash that they create actually are. At the heart of every seemingly harmless liberal cause of the late 20th and early 21st century there is a small group of radicals trying to destabilise society and replace it with utopia. This has been extremely successful so far, check out the BBC's diversity requirements for all of their productions - this is why we see characters deliberately race and gender swapped, as well as storylines or characterisations that seem at odds with the creator's original vision. These explicit requirements exist alongside the ESG mandates from investment firms who decide who gets access to capital. These mandates stifle creativity, originality and quality as the wrong things are prioritised and rewarded. Creators with a vision they strive to make real have been replaced by committees with quotas to reach. And each new game doesn't exist in a vacuum, it's the latest in a long line of insults, propaganda and shoddy workmanship that people with pattern recognition have had to endure for over a decade. There's a new straw to break the camel's back added every day. To a casual observer, the reaction seems overblown, disproportionate and even hateful - but to the people who have been under the boot of managerialism for years, the reaction isn't nearly strong enough.
I think the reason people are pretty negative about the State of Play is because at the end of the day it's just a show. Like people aren't watching the State of Play because it is the State of Play. It's a good show that showcases what people think are garbage. With the Concord, Ubisoft, games dying and you not owning even a copy of the game you bought and shit. Things that are happening and we think are getting worse year after year. Just like the family dynamics where issues just keep building up over the years and not getting fixed so there is always tension between the family ready to explode anytime even from some most minor issues. You guys talked about this before about family dynamics. Issues that were resolve for years just keeps building up. One good thing doesn't erase those issues just like how one or two good shows won't stop people from getting mad. A lot of us gamers already picked the "do nothing" choice. And things got worse. So people on the internet started speaking out and it did nothing too. Now people are just pissed. That's the only thing the majority of people can do now. Constructive conversation is good and all but not everyone speaks good English. Well, at least I don't. And also I'm sure most gamers don't really care about all these stuff. Edit: I just want to add that even youtubers/content creators have their DLC/Battle Pass called Patreon or any monetization platform. You get exclusive contents if you subscribe to their Patreon most of the time. People basically become investors so the more they invest, the more their voice is valued. The opinion of a $1 guy is less valuable than the $50 guy. Not saying it is bad but this happened in video games, right? You gotta listen to the company that invested $100m to develop your game no matter how bad it is. Sorry if this has nothing yo do with the video but more like with your other video talking about video games collapse. You guys are reinvesting the money to the channel which is great. But in video games? I can't say.
@@locdogg86 yea but it remains to be seen what effect this is going to have. But the trajectory isn't looking good. Remember, that was apparently the future of playstation.
I was thinking the other day how its funny how I grew up on the PS1 but I rarely thought about the company Sony beyond the cool PS1 intro itself until the Internet got big. Those mysterious Japanese names in the end of Final Fantasy or Metal Gear. It all seemed like magic. I miss that. There was a relationship between games magazines and their readers, like a magazine on your favorite tractors or fishing rods, or car mechanics, so the whole hobby.... felt like an actual hobby. Co-op gaming leant into this too, making memories in the real world. It was visceral and localised. The UK magazines were wrote in a very casual tongue in cheek way, the games were incredible in everyway and yet there was not a hint of airs, or talk of art or pretension. I distinctly remember this. It was wonderfully unassuming and a pleasure. Now developers and writers on are so serious and cringe, but the art is often terrible. Pushing the medium etc.. They were serious about the game making but it wasn't serious at all, really. It was all very punk rock. You'd be kind of laughed at in magazines if you thought your game was a art installation or an "experience" and this was their view of first party stuff too. They did not give a damn who you were coming across as. Kojima was doing his thing and respected but they weren't bowing down to him in the deifying sycophantic way they do now. In other words when your stuff is good and you know it's good, you're good, you tend not to be a poser or be insecure in your abilities, you relax. A lot of the modern world have forgotten the best way to live imo. One last bit being a game developer back then meant you likely knew a little bit of everything, a bit of Renaissance man so that helped you relax. I suspect specialisation has made people crabby and insecure too. Now they flip, rather than say "I don't know", they didn't have million eyes staring them down either.
Thanks for being a voice of reason, Mike. That's why I love your podcast. Whenever you get political, it's not really about the politics, but about building understanding.
Gave a like. Good convo, and here's my 2 cents. I do agree there are great individuals, but I am in the same boat of not shoving religion or other ideologies. UNLESS, you are prepared to listen to the other side and have respectful conversation. Also respectful conversation means possibility to offend others, as pointing out flaws of something you believe in can be painful. However, as long as you are willing to listen to each other, and end the conversation with disagreements with respect towards each other, I think it's a good thing. Problem is, people that preach are never willing to listen, and they are quick to silence the opposition. This applies to both sides, but one side that is preaching is backed by media, government, and overall industry, and they are out to silence the opposition. In this situation, being cordial is not going to work is my opinion. They will only take advantage of you if that is the case. Ubisoft is finally starting to listen tiny bit, and is taking more consumer friendly approach. If it takes near bankrupcy for a mere game company to listen tiny bit, not even fully, imagine what it will take for giant companies and government to listen to the average people? I think voting with wallet and voicing louder than them is the only way. If pendulum swings the other way, like late 90s and early 2000s with Jack Thompson, we need to start voicing against them again. Making sure no one censors games BOTH ways. As for games, this is what I think. Games these days improved in terms of tech and function. I am enjoying games more that primarily focuses on functionality. For example, sports games (ignoring gacha issues they have) However narrative driven games these days are either quite souless and often filled with agenda. That is not enjoyable for me. Even if it is not filled with agenda, they are often generic passionless projects. No longer i see some grand vision i once saw with games like Xenogears. Even if some indie games have neat ideas, they are often good ideas, but small ideas. Small idea is probably not a description, but i cant find better words. Often indie games have cute personal stories, but I no longer see games with grand ambition.
It's hard for games to have grand ambition without the sense that they are pushing an agenda. Xenogears could definitely be said to have been pushing an agenda. Final Fantasy 7 is basically the Green New Deal the Video Game. I'd recommend trying games like The Outer Wilds, Disco Elysium, or Pathologic 2 as amazingly grand games but they're all fallible for having what can be seen as an agenda.
@@Bliss_Less philosophy and agenda is paper thin difference, but i do think there's a difference. One creates timeless and eternal wisdom. The other is irrelevant if trend changes. The way these agenda is pushed in these games, they expect people to understand the current norm and context to understand. It is often based on current trend and relevency. Games like Xenogears are timeless and can stand on its own and period, very much like classic novels. Also when i talked about grand vision, i also meant the fictional world itself. Like Xenogears that created large world including multiple civilization and generations of history within the game. Games you mentioned are about small wporld and quite personal story, very much like indie games I've described.
@@Bliss_Less also to say FF7 was eco story is like saying star wars was only about incest kiss. It was tiny part of the story, and eco issue in the game was only used to introduce bigger theme, which was circle of life.
@@Bliss_Less Games can be political without "feeling" like they are pushing an agenda, hell Final Fantasy 16 did it just fine and thats a newer game, I lean Conservative, yet I didn't feel like the game was preaching at me.
@@neoasurahere we need to establish the word "political" If is about complicated political struggles within the game world, yes i want more of that. However if its modern political activism stuff into fantasy world that often breaks immersion since the asthetic is medieval times, but the politics in the game is modern, or waste significant time of the story to explain sexuality of a character when that sexuality has nothing to do with the main story, then we have a problem. If you cannot distinguish the difference between the two, i believe we are not having honest discussion here.
It is not essential to play Blood Omen before Soul Reaver, indeed many fans of the series such as myself only joined with the release of SR. However Blood Omen absolutely does need to be played before Soul Reaver 2. If you wish to play SR to coincide with the remaster's release then make it clear at the start of Soul Reaver that you will go back to Blood Omen before starting Soul Reaver 2. As with Chrono Trigger this series deals with time travel and the events of Blood Omen are cornerstone events to the series that get re-examined in later games.
While I agree that knowing the events of Blood Omen adds depth to Raziel's adventures, I still haven't been able to finish Bloom Omen - instead, I've piggybacked off other people's experiences - reading wiki entries and watching RUclips lore videos - to get the context. The biggest advantage to actually playing Blood Omen and doing it first is that you start out with Kain's perspective on his actions and character, rather than being introduced to him through Raziel's opening narration for Soul Reaver.
The hyperbole that people use is what really gets me. I was discussing a particular game with some folks on a stream last night, and basically saying how I didn't get why a particular section of that game was so hated by everyone that played it. Sure, it's not my favorite part of the game, but there are other parts that I dislike more. But I hear others say it completely ruins the game and is one of the worst gaming experiences they've ever had. I asked someone to explain it to me, and they're explanation basically amounted to "it's boring." It's boring, and therefore it elicits that amount of hate and ire? I understand that boring is bad, but why does something boring mean it deserves that kind of reaction? Clearly there's something else going on there. I feel like the gaming community really needs to do some introspection and ask itself some tough questions, and determine what it can do to make things better. The gaming industry will do what it will do, but none of this anger is doing anything to help matters if it's directed towards trivial things like this. If people are angry about workers' rights, and equal pay and whatnot, I think they should be. Those are worthy causes, and they are problems in the industry. But if they're angry that a game is boring, or that the graphics aren't exactly how they wanted them to be, or a character doesn't look the way they like, they need to look inside themselves and ask why these things really matter so much to them. Because they shouldn't. It is possible to just not enjoy a thing. You don't have to hate it with every fiber of your being.
I was a little worried from the title card and description but I am very very happy with the message you had here and fully and heartily agree with everything I've heard so far. I always tell people when something you are being told by media is making you feel an emotion, you should ask why they want you to feel that way. Most of the time, the benefit is all theirs, and not yours.
To be honest, the rising level of toxicity has made me step away from the video game "community." There are so many gamers (of both political extremes) who not only get offended ridiculously easily, but seem to actively go out looking for reasons to get offended. It's just exhausting to constantly see people act like that.
Well it's not both sides, there's people and there's activists infiltrating and infecting everything with their crazy ideas. If you blame both sides YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.
@@IlSH2 Nobody "made" video games mainstream. They became mainstream naturally, just like any other thing that eventually becomes mainstream over time. It's like saying it was a mistake to make driving mainstream resulting in traffic jams, road rage etc.
Then you are the problem. 😂 Youre just fence sitting while people are fighting to keep our games untouched. Bet you're the type who just sat there, while illegal immigrants taken over.
your points are well taken and beautifully put. I'd just say that -- when you pointed to Tolkien's writing to make a point, like, there's a significant group of people who will say things like Tolkein's works are inherently racist with the implication being there's something wrong with you for liking them -- And that's just one example, and people feel (and there's reason to believe they're not totally wrong) that this type of thought is making its way into entertainment and changing it. This is what spawns a channel like criticaldrinker, not the existence of gay people. A channel like that is focused on media and I don't think you'd be totally crazy to notice mainstream media as a whole is changing in ways that not everyone likes.
They're people crying racist are antiwhite and want my people gone with no countries of our own for our White diversity. They are trying to White-erase us both culturally and biologically. It is cruel and evil.
Why are games so mad? Because most of us feel attacked by the media we consume. Our hobby is effectively taken over by people who hate us. With that said, I agree that some gamers go too far as well. However these companies are the ones holding the powerstone. It's pretty clear what US Gamers want. Make the games without preaching to us. Stop with this injection of modern day politics in games where it doesn't belong. For the bad faith actors out there, I'm not saying don't make a political game. FFT was a political game, but they weren't preaching to us gamers. It was done right here.
the hobby isnt really being taken over tho, most gamedevs have always been left leaning these are modern games, why wouldnt they have modern politics? sure, they can be executed badly, but why not criticize the writing or art etc. rather than the mere presence of "politics" the companies don't hold as much power as you think, if you dont like how a game is presented, or its messages etc. just dont buy it, and buy games that do have the stuff you like, its just capitalism. sure, it can take a while, due to how long games take to make, but voting with your wallet does have an impact and if these games do end up surviving/succeeding that you dont want or whatever, it may just be that "US gamers" doesnt actually entail ALL gamers. most people just simply dont care about the "politics" in these games (hogwarts legacy is a good example, highly pushed by the right, the game is filled with left leaning political messages, yet sold gangbusters because no one actually cares)
@@elijahbauer8488 The whole don't buy it if you don't like it won't work. That's like conceding ground and giving up on my favorite hobby. We're *not* doing that! You can say they've always been left leaning, but I don't believe that. If that was so, we'd have this problem through all of gaming, not just with the latest slope they're trying to shove down our thoughts. We didn't have these problems until the mid 2010s. Why do I say politics and not writing? I didn't say politics. Remember I gave an example of a political game that was fine. Another one is final fantasy 16. I have my issues with the game but the politics and it was just fine. I don't have a problem with political game. I've stated what the problem was. Them preaching to us and breaking the immersion by inserting current day dogma down our throats. No one likes to be preached to as if they're inferior. I also don't want them making changes for people who don't even play their games.
@@AntonioCunninghamwhere is the evidence that anything you're saying reflects what the majority of gamers actually want? How do you know that changes being made are in fact for people who don't play the games in question? There's obviously a weighing of risks when it comes to decisions of what to make, who to market to, whether or not to include "politics," etc. If catering to people who think like you was profitable, you would be more catered to. And yet, that's not what happens. It seems to me the people you're presuming to speak for don't represent a particularly significant segment of the market. Can you demonstrate that the success or failure of any game is because of how gamers like you responded to it? Not games where your opinion was the same as the gaming press or a more general audience, but specifically ones in which you diverged from them.
@@Krisusu Are you ignoring so many games complaining? There are so many content creators with big accounts on youtube alone complaning about it. You can stroll through the comments sections of this video alone to see gamers being upset with modern gaming. I mean why do you think there's this push for indie games? Why do you think people down vote in large amounts videos that do the things I talked about earlier? Remember gamers didn't do this prior to 2010s They were overall happy until gaming media went to war with them. The evidence is living though gamergage and seeing how things have continues to get worse. Here's a good example. Concord. That game would not have failed if Gamers wasn't upset like I'm suggesting here.
Thank you guys so much for doing this format for videos again. I've been a fan of your channel since the Dark Pixel days, but I fell off for the last year or two because there would be months at a time when you'd be covering a game that I hadn't played with no other content to go along with it. I'm glad to be actively viewing again! Also, I watched a lot of State of Play reactions, and this is BY FAR the best analysis so far. I know it may not be your biggest passion, but I do like hearing your thoughts on current events in gaming.
"I wonder when we'll move into when indie devs are starting to use PS1... ...aesthetic as inspiration for their games." Hate to tell you but, you guys are a bit behind the times. XD
Obviously not finished with it, but I'm glad you guys are bringing up ESG. When people throw around the fact that they hate "wokeness" in games, I don't think they really mean that. Political topics have been done in games before - left wing politics have been portrayed in games and beloved media before. And people on both sides of the political aisle have embraced that media just fine. I think the problem we're seeing is that ESG demands shoehorning in of things in awkward and artificial ways. I heard somebody once critique Christian movies, and one of the things they said was that they often have meaningless asides where a character talks about something totally unrelated to the story, but it's in there because the writer or director thought it was just something that was worth saying. Like a character might start talking about how great it is to use Dave Ramsey's financial advice. Nothing to do with the film, the themes, or the characters. It's just bad writing. It gets preachy and sucks you out of it. I hate that about films that technically support "my" worldview, saying that as a conservative Christian. I don't feel like it's good writing, I feel like it's pointless pandering. Now when a bunch of investment firms roll up to an industry and tell them they'll have their ability to get business loans reduced if they don't put in XYZ *insert social topic here* in their games, how is that in any way going to feel organic? When Kojima talks about nuclear proliferation, it's because he genuinely cares about that subject. When I see the character designs in Concord, I just see lifeless corporate garbage.
Yup bingo. See but they dress it up as if we're against the politics in the broad sense and are hypocrites because we will enjoy some politics. There's a famous quote from this comic writer, Kelly Sue, and she said "if you don't like my politics don't buy my book." She then goes on to make the popular argument that comics (media) was always political. See but she gave it away in her first sentence. "If you don't like MY politics..." see the problem? If I can read atlas shrugged and critize ayn rand I can critize Kelly Sue and everyone else who copies her. It's called a healthy discussion. But see the problem is that Kelly Sue and people like her are actually worse than Ayn Rand. It's just pandering. Lame asides that do nothing but take you out of the story. They don't do anything for the writing or themes or even characterization. So the problem isn't politics in the broad sense, the problem is their politics. Their pandering. When I read the Astonishing X-Men I can clearly understand what the allegories are for but at the same time I'm reading a dude shooting concussvie beams at a guy who controls magnetism. It's dressed up in a cool and interesting way with drama and changing team dynamics. These are interesting stories even if I go monke mode and don't consider the themes. Then there's something like the watchmen. That is made by a dude is a communist and thinks he's a wizard. He also thinks you're stupid if you like roarsach or think he's right. Welp that doesn't stop me from enjoying the watchmen or thinking roarsach is right. Why? Because the story is honestly well written. The characters. The politics. It definitely shows you how doomer Alan Moore was at the time but it's still a great read. And it doesn't even beat you over the head with anything. The only way it comes close to that is the purposeful straw man of roarsach and his characterization but even then the character I'd played so straight and real that people have legitimate and valid reasons to think roarsach was the only hero in the whole story, despite his flaws. Meanwhile captain marvel in the comics would go on political asides about women's rights. Or when Jane Foster was Thor she'd do that. So would she hulk. How, in anyway, is this latter half even comparable to the genius and mastery of the former? They aren't. They were better written. Less heavy handed. They said it in this podcast, it's condescending but it doesn't stop there and I want to drive that home. It's not that they are just being kind of rude about their politics. They are holding the things we love and enjoy hostage. Ruining it and tainting it. When a fan gets mad at an inconsistent minor detail the contradicts known lore, do you think anyone besides the fans cares? When someone perverts and changes a character and makes them into a mouthpiece to spew political nonsense, do you think anyone cares besides fans? At what point does someone have the right to say "hey stop that please" and it's not a hate crime? See fans will get rabid about any change. It's not just political. "They X-men aren't even wearing the proper costumes." "Spider-Man is just Ironman Jr." Fans do this. So when you go and make something politically awkward yea they will react to that too. If you KEEP doing it repeatedly then yes it's a pattern and people will call that out. If it becomes an industry wide pattern people will recognize it. JUST like how people recognized how a lot of comic book media that wasn't in a comic was afraid to have characters wear their costumes. See? Everyone is treating this as a massive political issue when it's not. I already made the case politics, in the broad sense, aren't the issue. It's the writing, themes, characterization and quality of these products that is the issue. And it's all wrapped up in political pandering. It does nothing but hurt the groups it wants to promote. I think the heaby push in media years ago to put strong females everywhere and make them mouth peices and lame has now trained people to resent any woman in any media. This is not a positive outcome and the only people to blame for this are people who forced it and did it badly. Is it right for people to react that way? I'm not saying it is. I'm saying 1+1=2. In other words, it's understandable. And it's not going away. People are hurting. Burnt out. Tired of being preached at. And it's not just for women in media. I'm just using that as an obvious example. But this gigantic push has only harmed the very groups they were "trying" to uplift. Edit: realized I never closed out. But yea I hope this can expand on why people are mad. And that it's not just people having issues with certain orientations or beliefs. As these same people will LOVE older things that clearly has those same orientations or beliefs *but just done better.* I think now more than ever my case is made for me by the constant release of slop. It's right there for all to see validating what people were saying for years. It's ugly and people were wrong. The more we resist that the stronger the push against the groups depicted is going to get. *stop it.* but what do I know, I'm just some guy.
Opposition to war and support for environmental conservation isn't even a controversial topic. The clean water act occurred under Nixon. National parks were due to Teddy Roosevelt. Antiwar movements have been part of the left and right. Those political statements weren't taking cheap shots at large segments of the population. The left and right both agree we should be good stewards of the Earth. It's just they disagree about how. Tokien was extremely conservative but obviously supported conservation of the English countryside. Putting in racial and gender politics is going to aggrevate half of your potential consumer base. It makes no sense unless you are being subsidized by these programs or you hired too many activists who refuse to change course
I greatly appreciate Cyberpunk 2077's writing because the characters are relatable and human, even if I have political and moral objections with a lot of the game's mature themes and strong language. It's dang good writing that's interesting to engage with on an intellectual level and has helped me consider my position on certain topics more thoroughly. On the flip side, I can't stand the borderlands franchise anymore because it feels like the people writing it now haven't stepped foot outside of their office in Frisco, Texas in over a decade and never evolved past collegiate radicalism.
No, we do, i hate "wokeness" in games because wokeness IS political. Pushind diversity for diversity's sake IS political, if you want to highlight people of color then make the next assassin's creed in Africa, where real amazing stories have happened and nobody is telling.
For me, it's all about the lack of vision, which is why what you guys said in the last video (regarding indie games leading the way) seems right to me. Nowadays, companies are so big that they can't afford to bank on the vision of an up-and-coming writer or director so we're not really seeing new Kojimas, Sakaguchis, or Spectors. Everything has to have twelve writers working of list of trends of what's big right now and dozens of corporate executives sending it back for revision and hundreds of marketers sending it back again. No risks! I think that's why so many videos like "The Beautiful Weirdness of the GameCube" and "The Forgotten Capcom One-Offs of the PS1" are doing well on RUclips right now. People are hungry for that kind of artistic vulnerability and expression from an interactive medium, ESPECIALLY if they loved it when they were kids. Indie games are great, but a lot of them are still stuck in trends themselves (one thinks of the "Earthbound/Paper Mario sprite-based RPG featuring humorous dialogue, solid music and a story about depression" meme). I'm incredibly excited to get to the point where indie devs can consistently get games of the PS2/GameCube aesthetic out. I don't think we're too far away from that era.
Ok finished listening to this, the start had a lot of emotions that I feel especially since I have family/friends that are just polar opposites of one another and its always just concerning listening to the vitriol from either or and me just having the usual anxiety of do you think I'm that bad cause I talk/associate with blank, or believe in this thing you hate, etc. I do hope people can stop trying to destroy each other for being on the wrong colored team and just get rid of the grifters, trolls, and media outlets that prey on everyone anxieties for their bottom line. But going away from that, I really didn't find too much interest in the games other than the indie games really, and I pretty much only play indie games now. Also in terms of the graphic nostalgia there are a lot of indie horror games that have already gone the PS1 look and are starting to go the PS2 look now. Two I'd recommend is Signalis and Faith, Signalis is very classic Resident Evil (OG 1-3) and Silent Hill inspired with some German sci-fi and King in Yellow if you know the book. Now Faith isn't PS1 graphics its Atari style graphics, but I feel that Mike could add a interesting perspective on it considering its heavy religious tones.
A very big thing. RUclipsrs/influencers/gaming journalists have bills to pay and typically that leads to saying whatever will get the views. That’s why you see one hundred and two videos about how “gaming is dead”
a lot of people talking about escapism as if the only people seeking to escape are in a deep depression or sad, lonely, and angry. A lot of us just don't want 24 hours of our day dedicated to whatever the "most existential threat to democracy" is every 4 years. i don't want to turn on call of duty and get hit with a gay pride banner, free palestine, and blm in the same way that i don't want to load it up and get a MAGA ad or whatever. These triple A games are being marketed as activism. They choose their words carefully because they want to signal very specific things.
Outside of my other comment, the reason I'M upset is because this industry spends so much time and money making these giant ass blockbuster looking titles because of the investors, and then when it doesn't sell as expected, it's a failure and entire dev teams are laid off if not the entire studio closing. THAT pisses me off. AAA gaming is in such a horrible spot right now. There's barely any risks being taken because everything is all about making investors money. I know this was discussed in the last video, but I just agree with the point. It is tiring seeing yet another studio of great people getting shut down literally every week. Indie devs are taking risks because they have to and that's where I'll be pouring a lot of my support going forward. And the remasters.... I wish the entertainment industry as a whole would move past them, but for SOME video games it's fine if the previous version is either hard to attain on modern hardware or limitations made it a pain to play. Games industry is extremely bad about media preservation, too.
Gamers are mad cos noone literally asked for Horizon or last of us remakes and we keep getting them... yet there is Bloodborne which is what really needs a remake or something and Sony isn't touching it... just give the IP back to Fromsoft ffs
Online gaming discourse (like most online discourses) is disconnected from actual polite society and is subject to all flavors of bad actors. There's a difference between a school yard complaint sesssion and an actual honest discussion on the state of the industry. Comment sections and youtube vbloggers tend to be the former. Thanks for being part of the later guys. Cooler heads prevail.
I think games used to feel like interactive art and now it's just some dude showcasing a glitter-covered turd in the middle of a gallery snd calling it a masterpiece
Because too many people aren't playing games to appreciate art, to exercise their mind with gameplay mechanics or appreciating a good storyline. Just check the comments, they're playing games to "escape reality". So games have to prioritize graphics and *being immersive* over everything else.
In the past developers would have to build their own engines and have to solve the limitations in a creative way. So games felt more unique and artistic. Now games are made with the same engines, the same tools and run on the same hardware. So now it all feels the same.
I have been a member of the LDS church (or a Mormon, if you prefer) for all 20 years of my life. I agree with Mike completely that showing love and compassion to those who disagree with you is best for you, that person, and the world at large. Even to those who attack you, because you fighting back is only perpetuating the cycle that Mike was describing. I may disagree with a lot of things that are growing in popularity, but what I believe is more important than political differences is the fact that we are all human. My church teaches that we are all as dust of the earth, that no person should esteem themself above another. We are also taught that it is not our place to judge others and that we should focus on improving ourselves and not on how we think other people should improve. It's a common problem you'll see in the members of this church, as well as many other branches of Christianity, that they will condemn others, particularly on hot-topic issues such as sexuality, but that's part of that person's flaws and not at all representative of the doctrine we should be teaching. And we all do have flaws. Because of that, it's essential to give people compassion and patience. Maybe someone was ignorant of how something they said would affect you. Maybe they were taught a particular way since they were a child and have a difficult time putting themself in other people's shoes. Even if they did genuinely have your worst interest at heart, thinking that retaliating in kind is justified only justifies that person's potential retaliation against you.
Quote from Resetera regarding if there was a path back to shorter PS2 length games with AA visuals: "I was watching a streamer a while back who was discussing the shorter and worse meme with chat and seemed really receptive to the message. Then he proceeded to mock a weapon texture for an environmental decoration as being too PS3 like. What people say and what people do are two different things. Yep. Even on here at "we want AA games back! bloated industry bad" HQ, people were arguing over a fucking low-quality rock in the corner of a screenshot in the Rebirth performance thread. And we expect the mainstream will be receptive to a modest production downscale?"
Games and the many types we have to play has never been better.. but certain political people have been implemented into the gaming sphere for the last 15 years now, normal people that just want to play games do not want to be talked down too by some video game (input title) views on politics. We just want to play games.
Best thing you can do in any medium you enjoy, just empty your thoughts, back off from the bandwagoning that occurs and absorb it how you see fit. Gamers prefer to rant about games and drama surrounding it, games that they'll never play. The whole 'scene' is toxic.
Something I've been noticing increasing recently, not just in gaming but overall certainly here in the UK is people treating participatory identities as proprietary and trying to assert control over who can join in that participation.
I’ll tell you why their mad Because they keep spending money on these bullshit remasters that no one asked for And making games no one wants Concord 400 million Horizon already got an upgrade for ps5 ??? How many bloodbornes could we have got for a wasted 400 million?
On the subject of trying to see others as people and not let their "excessive" appearance in media impact how you view them (really their identities are essentially being used by companies and social media personalities on both sides)... Lets say a bulk of this started with Gamer Gate and by people like Anita. We don't need to so extreme on the opposite end. Media could all be Hetero Caucasians for the rest of time and I'd be ok with other people not getting represented, but I don't yearn for the status quo, nor do I get upset when original diverse content comes out even if I'm still not fully comfortable with non hetero PG13+ content (I'm growing, it's not a snap your finger situation). This is because ultimately because I don't use the mentality that many upset people do of "it's just an agenda, how else do you justify a DEI character?" Mainly because I don't think you need to justify it as you typically don't/didn't need to justify it for hetero white characters. In any case, the point that I'm building it is if it can be justified, then things should be cool, right? Well no, not really. At least not with vocal minorities. Diversity can play by the rules and still get rejected. This brings me to the example inspired by mentions of open world games like Ghost of Tsushima. That example being Assassin's Creed Shadows. This is an example of a company fundamentally playing by the rules while having missteps along the way, but the greater pushback is against the fundamental story design. Ubisoft have selected to have a dual protagonist story featuring Naoe, a Japanese female ninja and Yasuke, a black former slave turned retainer and "Samurai" of Oda Nobunaga. People are upset because they feel a Japanese Assassin's Creed should be Japanese. But the reality is, this is what Ubisoft does with Assassin's Creed. You mostly have Native to the setting Assassins but you also have outsider Assassin's coming to a new land. A dual protagonist story lets them have both sides. Abd just as the outsider is a new idea they explored, they have a chance at incorporating another new idea. "A historical figure that has little noteworthy documentation that can be inserted into their fictional history to be present just as made up main characters are." Maybe there was a Japanese person who would be perfect for this, but it's not a big deal. Yasuke fits and probably plays outsider better than any made up or existing Japanese character might. This type of protagonists works in other places of history as well as if we look at Julius Caesar or Alexander the great, they certainly have warriors and generals who are praised without much specificity that would make them perfect for historical fiction. People's complaints shouldn't be on this completely justified narrative setup. If it had to be about the story then make it about how to make the best possible story with that setup. But the real discussion should have been about gameplay. Ubisoft have a track record of making mediocre gameplay despite having a history of doing such game elements well in the past. With AC Mirage and the Star Wars game being the most recent similar options. People should be talking about what works and what doesn't from those 2 entries. Instead everyone is talking about "DEI" because it's what is popular now both in terms of being available and available to hate. We should be like the past and focus of the gameplay and level design. When Resident Evil 5 was out, being a white guy shooting down African zombies was the main discussion point. In Nioh 1, we we're hung up on William being the main character. And now with games that are coming out, we shouldn't be overly focused on the DEI element (tho not ignore it, as it is likely worth evaluating) and just try to focus on the game itself for the most part
"Are" experts, or "consider themselves to be experts with no training or achievements of any kind that would be used by anybody else to call those people experts". I seem to come across that second one a lot more than I do the first one.
LEGO Island, I had the game on PC and I remember when you talked to certain LEGO Figures, all the textures in the area would change to his face. Unfortunately, the LEGO games still have their faults because they often have to get out of the oven quickly, but they have certainly come a long way😅
These videos came out the same week the Godot engine PR manager called developers scum for not being rabidly leftwing and banned their own donors and dev projects lol. I think we all see the problem 🤔
i mean they are a private company, they can do whatever they want as long as they arent breaking any laws. there are other game engines you can use if you care about godots politics
@@elijahbauer8488 I mean we are private individuals, we can discuss and criticize whatever we want as long as we aren't breaking any laws. There are other threads to respond to if you don't agree with OP's expression of dissatisfaction. I hope this example can show how outright dismissive responses like these aren't particularly productive.
@@elijahbauer8488 They banned at least one platinum investor. They're going to be in a huge lawsuit in certain jurisdictions if they banned people that didn't break their terms of service where money is involved. You don't get to use catch all arguments like that in California for example Also it's highly unethical and disastrous for the hobby if companies act this way. All you're going to do is create backlash. In ten years we are going to see a huge right wing backlash to all of this.
@@user-nw5ef3zh9t themeangene's version of events are slightly hyperbolic and reductive but effectively conveys what happened. The head moderator of the unofficial Discord server that is endorsed by Godot and that shares most of the same team as the official server called people "evil" and "cockroaches" for having any sort of response to a questionable post made by a CM on the official X. Some donors and devs were blocked, timed out, or banned on said platforms as well as Github. Godot then put out a statement that apologized for their own overreaction and distanced themselves from the server while simultaneously painting themselves as the victims. It's a bit much to expect people to fully cover every detail in a concise manner in casual discussion, and it's definitely dishonest to dismiss the simplification as being fully untrue.
its simple the issue is social media journos report a few negative tweets as 'news' make a headline that says 'everyone is hating XXX game' and quotes a few tweets and those small amount of negative tweets everyone turns that into 'everyone is saying' and then youtubers jump on bandwagon about it reporting it as 'everyone hates this' when it really is a small percentage
My most wanted game of the year: Metaphor comes out in 1,5 week and it wasnt even in the state of the play- its weird because the demo came out the next day. You would assume a jrpg from the guys behind Persona would get some kind of love, but I guess microsoft is paying SEGA to hide that.
I wouldn't be surprised if that were exactly it. I don't know if they've made the details clear anywhere, but Atlus does seem to have been boosting their relationship with Microsoft the past few years.
Came here to post this! The demo is great and got my preorder in - I never preorder digitally but giving us a free demo to decide is such a pro-consumer move. And it’s Xbox play anywhere which is really useful for me. Really hope it sells well like Persona 5, but I don’t think it quite has the same appeal. Its themes are bit more complex and mature (which I’m enjoying).
All this assumes that both sides are willing to talk in good faith. I can’t trust one side for 2 reasons. 1. The video on GDC’s channel “now you see me: representation as innovation.” 25 minutes into the talk her words become hostile talking as if game devs are intentionally creating racist moments and telling people that it’s okay to scare the S*%+ out of marketing and higher ups if you don’t get your way. 2. The Black myth Wukong story where Sweet Baby Inc wanted 7 million dollars for consulting. Using it as a threat to deter any possible negative stories about racism in the future. And almost immediately after calling them out publicly, negative stories started coming out. There is no good faith argument. The bridge is burned and they’re holding the torch saying how we, not they, did it. Edit:as an additional note ESG, DEI, and Bridge are real corporate accepted racism. Ubisoft had a story talking about assigning scores to their employees based on their race and gender, but scores can go up and down based and several behavior factors including a ridiculous factor like eating at a foreign food truck. These people are terminally online. Not to say the other side has its problems, but there’s a more blatant entitlement problem coming from one side projecting it as everyone else’s issue that they can conveniently fix.
Wukong is all the example you need to show this is one sided. Critical Drinker isn't demanding money for good press nor is he even making any real money, but hes put in the same boat as people like SBI which is preposterous to me. This is not "both sides are bad" at all. One side is unfathomably worse.
I tried psychedelic drugs to “escape reality”. Funny enough, they tend to produce the polar opposite effect. Shame that society and mental health is to the point where people care more about escaping reality than engaging with a wide spectrum of art in a deep, meaningful and measured fashion.
I cannot fathom how anyone can get so worked up over something so insignificant, and honestly, I'm happy about that. Like imagine how miserable they must be to spend so much time in anger, when they could be channeling that into something that makes them happy. I'm no fan of (most) AAA games either, so you know what I do? Ignore them. Even filtering out the AAA schlock, I can't even begin to keep up with all the newer games I want to play, to say nothing of the older stuff I haven't gotten around to yet (and god forbid, all the stuff I want to replay!). And say there are no current games that grab my attention - oh well, I'll focus more on reading, or catching up on anime (which I'm also terminally behind on). Life is too short, and the world too interesting, to pidgeon-hole yourself into one very narrow sector of one specific medium.
Aptly put. People are just finding things to be upset about, when they could be a lot happier if they actually spoke to people in the real world and just engaged with the things they are interested in.
@@jacobmonks3722Look I'm going to say this. Personally? I don't care, Disco Elysium is one of my favourite games of all time, so I'm sure you can guess where I lie politically on that. However, for someone else, sure you can go back and play something old etc, but one of the best parts about gaming is having new games to look forward to, and not having to awkwardly search for games that aren't going to grind your gears due to narratives it may try to push or gameplay elements etc. Like for me, I play a lot of fighting games. I really like guilty gear, I played a bit of xrd (back when it had bad net code), and was looking forward to strive. Strive came out, gameplay wise I can't stand it, it feels simplified, air dashing feels like I'm slogging through mud and gatlings being gone sucks. So if I want to enjoy guilty gear, I have to play the older games, worse graphics, much smaller communities, and less games overall. Plus, because of how successful this game has been compared to the previous ones, there's very little chance that they'll change up the formula in the next games. I know it's not the exact same scenario, seeing as I'm bringing in a multiplayer game, but feeling alienation from a game, or watching your favourite series become something you no longer want to play sucks, both because the fanbase of the older things will dwindle, and there's little to look forward to
Scared me for a second that they were going to go down the alt right youtuber grifter route, glad they are holding to their principles. Cant wait for Alan Wake Coverage
Thank you so much Mike for sharing your story. Your message and the way you put it is very simple but is exactly what some people need to hear. We all just need to listen more and judge less. Everyone is just trying to get through life and it’s hard. We need to support each other, listen, and have empathy.
Stop preaching. It's nice that you've met 3 gay people. Most of us grew up knowing multiple gay people and have no problem with the people themselves. The issue is performative/forced diversity by corporations.
That's too convenient for this discussion. The issue is anger by consumers against intellectual property that serve as modern idols that cannot be sacrilegiously tainted by the ideology of its liberal creative teams. Else they reap the whirlwind of a vengeful old testament like force of death threats and general online harassment. These types gin up a hate campaign for a star wars tv show before it even comes out. The real people involved in making it have probably suffered greatly due to the amount of vitriol that has been spewed at them. All they wanted to do was make an interesting new star war. I'm sure people in the game making business feel the same level of anxiety and pressure from haters in online echo chambers getting high from their own venomous screed.
@@devan_dangerno they didnt want to make interesting star wars They wanted to use star wars as a medium to spread their agenda. Can we just honest and talk about obvious issues instead of trying to create a narrative and try to create victims to use as a shield?
I've been a fan of you guys for ages; it's great to see how you've grown, both in terms of video production value and thoughtful discussion. If you think Midnight Walk looks awesome, I highly recommend playing through their previous game Lost in Random. On top of a pretty cool battle system, the writing is fantastic.
I hear your personal heartfelt story with your coworker. But I feel like you‘re implying that people who are fed up with wokeness are actually just homophobic. And that they need to have a transformative experience like you did. But that’s basically what the woke narrative is. I‘m as gay as it gets and I‘m fed up with woke culture, too. I don’t need to “look a gay person in the eye“, I am one. This “culture war“ is not about “gays vs homophobes“, or “pocs vs racists“. That‘s the one-sided view that’s fuelling this whole mess. You call the likes of Critical Drinker grifters and an extreme response, when for me they are voices of reason and I‘m as far from homophobia as it gets, in my opinion.
I wonder what you think wokeness is when folk mention the concept, cause there are multiple meanings depending on who you ask; however, there is a source for the term.
@@mekannatarry1929wokeness is a rebranding of social justice, which is a rebranding of intersection feminism, which is a rebranding of communism. Usually the folks acting confused and obfuscating around the point of “what is woke anyway???” are woke and are just being dishonest
@@mekannatarry1929 The original source is the concept of "being aware of and being sensible to social issues", more or less. Which most people, including the "grifter" RUclipsrs mentioned in the video, are. That's the crux. So that's obviously not what the term means anymore, as professional activism becomes more and more niche and extreme in an already liberal, modern society in order to stay relevant. Problems arise as the nature of a social issue and the extend of it mostly come down to personal beliefs and social science theories these days. It's easy for narcissistic cry-bully types to latch on to a seemingly honorable goal to exert their power fantasies, so no wonder there's so much conflict. 10 years ago everyone knew what racism was. Everyone knew what homophobia was. Or sexism. Now these definitions get redefined to include, or better: EXclude, more and more people, and ideas. That's not making the world a better or diverse place. It unnecessarily divides society. It's creates hate, because it comes from a place of contempt. The civil rights movements from last century, which have become industries on their own, desperately try to stay relevant, and lucrative. Because what happens when you achieve your goal? What happens to the charities, the experts, the platforms etc? For example, it's no coincidence that the "gender movement" got in full swing right after gay marriage was achieved, and the formerly gay organizations, like Stonewall and GLAAD, got fully on board. Or how feminism reinvents itself and has become the 4th wave by now, and its followers hate the 2nd-wave radical feminists like JK Rowling. It left the ground of common sense a while ago and has become a faceless industry on one hand, and somewhat of a secular religion on the other. Wokeness is capitalistic, hierarchical, authoritarian and censorous (that a word? I'm not English) to its core. That's the damn problem. When Mike speaks of his experience with his co-worker (who, if I might add, is not the spokesperson of all gay people) I truly believe him. But it's fair to say that since Mike described him as an older guy, when he speaks of his hardships he surely speaks of the aids crisis, or gay bashing, or not being able to come out and marry your partner. Which has nothing to do with modern woes like "misgendering" or "not-having-a-gay-character-in-every-game-or-movie". So long, LONG story short: "woke" isn't just an innocent term describing some kind of awareness anymore. It describes a very specific belief system and power structure. It's an erosive and nihilistic philosophy. It doesn't reach out, it mandates. And it's very corporate, very by the numbers, sterile. And that's what gaming has become as a consequence.
HZD remaster shows how much Sony thinks its audience is stupid. The "old" game is good looking and does not need a remaster. Sony did it because a lot of fan just consume its products without thinking and they hate that Aloy looks like a woman i the original game, in my opinion. Moving to California was a bad move. People dont want "body types", LGTV propaganda and other DEI woke stuffs in games.
I’m just stunned that they’re remastering late ps4 titles from 2018 and 2019, but 2015’s bloodborne, honestly probably the most satisfying souls game in my opinion is locked at 30 fps and console locked to ps4.
I think part of the anger at the Horizon remaster is that a lot of people view it as "replacing" a Bloodborne remaster. Now, I know the industry doesn't work that way. I think a lot of people were dissappointed it wasn't the "right" remaster. To me, I feel Bloodborne remaster is more deserved since you can't even play the original at 60 fps without modding it. A lot of people view a Bloodborne 60 fps remaster as 'free money' for Sony. I kind of feel the same way, but I'm not going to act like a fiend about it.
The slow patient mentoring way is so slow and there are so many people to go through that process with... Why do millions need to wait to be treated decently?
@@rmsgrey that's bullship. I guess white straight males are the only people that deserve attention? You should ask yourself, why can't we just treat all people like they are people and are worthy of existing and representation.
All one has to do to see that there is a bias against conservatives in the gaming industry is what happened with Colin Moriarty and Kinda Funny games. Colin made an innocuous joke on international women's day and just about everyone in the games media attacked him and painted him as a sexist and somehow managed to figure out a way to try and paint him as a racist during all of it to (he's now married to a black woman by the way). All while his coworkers went along with the people attacking him for their own personal gain. It was an intentional attempt to blacklist him, but because he had a history in the games industry before things became so divided, he was able to start last stand media and gain a large following but most conservatives in gaming today aren't afforded that opportunity to gain a following now and Colin himself rarely gets early access to games from Sony even though he was one of, if not the largest podcast about Playstation today. Games media doesn't allow conservatives anymore and skews heavily liberal, while you have conservative game developers who are afraid to speak out about their views because of repercussions from both coworkers and the people they work for. Colin has said he's had plenty of conversations with people off the record about this. Of course, people online are going to become angry, they're not given any other forum to debate and find compromise with any of this without being attacked or blacklisted within the industry and seeing condescending comments from liberal gamers only makes it worse. NightSkyPrince was complaining about how people who don't like the translations should just learn Japanese a day after you had Kazuhiko Torishima and Yuji Hori talk about how ridiculous all of these western ideals are that they are being forced to put into their games due to corpirate demands, like having type A and type B instead of traditional genders. If legends like them think this stuff is ridiculous, then why should it be the right or conservatives that have to put down their arrow on these subjects? The progressives are the ones constantly on the attack, telling people "if you don't like it then don't buy it," and regular people who just want to play games are sick and tired of the condescension without having a seat at the table and until that happens, the backlash will only keep growing stronger. If you want the fire to die down, put water on it instead of gasoline, and most games journalists and developers have chosen to put more gasoline.
I am so tired of the culture wars. It's genuinely ruining my ability to enjoy stuff. I'm watching things and I see stuff I know for a fact will be pounced on by the bad faith grifter types who'll make a mint spouting coded hatred. On the other hand, I know what the militant reaction to those bad faith critiques will be and get annoyed how little of an effect they'll have on calming the discourse. It's maddening. Oh yeah, Soul Reaver Remaster. Will be nice to send my mind back to a time when my life was simply boring and not horribly soul destroying.
I'm there with you. I was glad that gamers got together and starred pushing back against the moral busybodies trying to ruin our hobby, but lately both sides have gone too far. For example, with Stellar blade, one sad said it was objectifying women. That it was disrespectful for them to betray her that way. The other side instead of focusing on the game play, the story, the lore... You know anything related to the game, baby treated her like a porn simulator. Praising that he's sexy and going out their way to show it to everyone. I won't play this game because of them. If a game is surrounded by the culture War, I just avoided from now cuz I'm tired of it
Hello, gentlemen, been a while since I’ve had chance to catch up with the show and much less comment. I understand and agree with the sentiment that the condescension, hectoring and lecturing coming from the progressive left has made a lot of gamers angry. I get that. It annoys me sometimes too. On the other hand, there are real people of marginalized groups of different gender, race and sexual orientations that work on these games and use these mediums as an outlet to tell their stories and get their messages across. Even when these stories are told with more or less the same care that “traditional” stories are told, they’re still panned by angry gamers as “woke”….and the reason that gaming is “dying”. It’s almost inconceivable to me that gamers, of all people, like (comic book fans), can’t separate the identities of a group of people from the utilitarian and clumsy use of those identities in the pursuit of selling a game by corporations. Gamers…people that have consumed media filled with gray narratives where people and groups are almost always not as straightforward as they may appear. Furthermore, to address it directly, I do think that there are some people who complain about all this “wokeness” who truly don’t understand what the last 200 years of experiencing media has been like for these groups. They have no idea what it’s like growing up without role models, feeling like an outcast for simply being who you are. All of this recent outpouring and support of these groups feels like “pandering” when it doesn’t even come up to pare with equality. I hope that more of these critical people can open themselves to have an experience like Mike did. You have much more in common with these human beings that seem so different from you for benign, immutable reasons. I thought this TGS was alright. My main complaint was that I didn’t see anything that was so innovative or memorable that it left a lasting Impression. Oh and guys, PLEASE play Lunar. I think you guys will find it very simple and in some ways very much a product of its time, BUT it’s a heartfelt, sincere retelling of a classic hero’s journey and romance. Very straightforward story, that touches upon more complex themes without delving too deeply into them.
The thing is we've been enjoying media perfectly fine for the last 200 years. Nowadays we can have people like us represented in games, which is obviously exciting! It is a good thing and we want to see more of it, but it doesn't mean that we weren't enjoying media to the fullest before. So when some people today get mad at games with a woman or a gay person as a protagonist and complain saying that you don't need representation in something to enjoy it feels ironical and disheartening. Ironic because this kind of guys are the ones that truly can't stand playing as someone with a different gender, race or sexuality; disheartening not because we weren't enjoying media before, but because this responses are a reflection of the discrimination we face irl
Gamers are mad because real world politics are being jammed into games. They are making unwanted and unneeded changes to the remakes. Censoring Dragon Quest art like its being put on the SNES in 93, changing the way statues look in Soul Reaver, changing Lara Crofts design for the remakes, its goes on and on all to comply with the "modern audience" If they want this kind of character design make your own games and quit ruining the ones I grew up with. However, they do make those games and they flop because no one wants this political stuff in games.
a lot of people have seen behind the curtain now. when you couple together the games that are coming out and the tweets from the people involved in making them, of course it makes people mad. They label me the enemy and then blame me for the failure. Well they told me the game wasn't for me anyways. Like you said people don't want political stuff, i'd call it an agenda in their games. i'd even simplify it further. People aren't mad they just don't want preached at for $60 or feel like they are signing up for some political cause.
Legacy of Kain, Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid all PS1 games that had a ton of politics in them. Face it as soon as stories became the focus of certain types of games politics were right there. Its only in this day and age that people who didn't notice it back then have been led to believe that this is source of their problems and to be angry about it. Good thing for them that YT algorithms allows for outrage to be monetized.
@@cherimiss7983 I don't know how people keep missing the point even when he described exactly what he meant by "political" in this context. They don't mean games having themes that can be political, but politics interfering with the in a weird preaching, social engineering and censoring way, or outside the artistic vision. No one is complaining about, say, Disco Elysium being too political even though it's the most aggressively political game ever released, and made by very left leaning developers. That's not what the "it's too political" complaints are about, though I agree it's not the most articulate way to voice them. People are by large fine with engaging with political themes, but not being subliminally manipulated towards any worldview or having their entertainment babyproofed by some outside criteria. But Disco Elysium literally telling you "this is political, deal with it or fuck off"? Not a problem because that's part of the writer having a dialogue with the player and treating them like an adult.
I know it's been said already, but I've gotta echo it. We just want to play our games, have fun, and escape into a different world for a couple hours. Especially since I'm sure most of us in here are at an age where we don't have the free time we used to. I don't want modern day politics of any kind, whether it's from the other side of the aisle or even from my own. Political drama is fine, but I don't want the current day political themes that we already have crammed down our throats the other 22 hours of the day. I'm not even saying there's no place for those games, but most of us don't want that and we especially don't want it pushed into our favorite franchises. Also don't expect to be making much money off of those kinds of games because they do alienate a large portion of the potential audience by their nature.
I enjoyed Fantasian a lot more than most. It charmed me more than most modern games do. The difficulty was hugely refreshing. You really had to think like 5 turns ahead for the last boss. I think turn based is too easy most times and that’s what actually turns some people off.
I find the gaming discourse tiresome in both directions. Yeah, the critical drinker types often focus on the wrong things (DEI bad, ugly characters suck. we want babes and explosions!) but they are correct in pointing out that gaming has been on a downward trend in quality and cultural resonance and the sales reflect it (sometimes). And the hyper positive influencer types are equally bad in the opposite direction. Just celebrating the most banal stuff and tokenism of various minorities in media. As a minority, I find tokenism far more insulting than lack of representation. And I don't need to see myself in a video game to feel invested in a story. I worry about a segment of modern day gamers that they consider being able to see themselves in a video game of high importance for their investment in a story. Seems mildly narcissistic. I suspect a lot of them are corporate shills/on the payroll.
I see what you mean, but I think it's less a *need* to see themselves in it, and more an appreciation for when it happens. Less a matter of not being able to be invested otherwise, and more a matter of being acknowledged in the media landscape. That last one isn't even just a personal experience thing, it has tangible benefits for the demographics being included down the line. Of course it's not quite that simple, but even just looking at the history of cinema in the United States is a good reference. Ultimately, if you're someone who does want to see demographic variety in games (or whatever media), for whatever reason, your only options are carrots and sticks. At the end of the day, I'd rather people be over eager to hand out carrots than over eager to hand out sticks. So even though praising inclusion of a minority in and of itself feels like a low-bar, and I agree that it is, if you don't acknowledge it, people are going to stop doing it (particularly when it's a given that anti-DEI types, will be handing out sticks). Plus... I don't know, I have a difficult relationship with the idea of tokenism to begin with? I wouldn't really call something tokenism unless it's actually being used as a token, a currency in a sense, and I don't think that actually happens as much as people think. It's *perceived* that way, but just having a diverse cast and saying nothing of it isn't really tokenism to me (even though it might be in the background, but that's a separate issue).
@@SaberToothPortilla You're so right. Do these people who complain about minorities being "shoehorned in awkwardly" or whatever feel the same way when they meet minorities in real life? Like, theyr'e just there. Existing. Is that "tokenism" to them?
@@SaberToothPortilla Tokenism is absolutely the right word, especially when they change the color of the skin or gender of the protagonist but they behave exactly the same as the white protagonist. The black/diverse character is used as currency to pander to people like you but their race doesn't meaningfully affect the story. Also assuming that African Americans are the only minorities in the United States. Haven't seen that many video games with latinos. An example of a game that truly embraces minorities perspectives is Black Wukong. That was created by Chinese people and represents their mythology faithfully. Would love to see more games like that but for other cultures. Or something written by a minority that truly understands their world, instead of a white dude trying to pretend he understands or just panders to white liberals.
@@SaberToothPortilla plus not all representation is positive representation. I'm not sure I'd be head over heels about a minority character being represented in a video game considering what most video game characters do in their games. That would be like celebrating black actors doing minstrels. Also notice that most of the praise for diversity in video games comes from white liberals from California. Very few minorities care or are positively affected by this pandering.
@@rdrouynrivthat is literally not true at all. Minorities that are involved with making games nowadays have said that they wished they could connect on a deeper level with characters in media. Like it or not, having a skin color and gender comes with thousands of years of history attached. You may see “oh wow a black character they are just pandering” but that’s so surface level. If a writer wants to portray an experience or point of view from a black character, it shouldn’t be written off as pandering.
Why show compassion to people who act with malice? Compassion only makes sense when they admit their mistakes and seek forgiveness. Otherwise, it's self-defeating and foolish.
An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. War truly ends when someone is willing to be brave enough to stop fighting and look for a peaceful resolution.
When did either side of the culture war actually make an attempt to reach out with compassion? How do we know it won't work if there's been no large effort made to reach out with compassion to the other side? Each side just responds with hostility over and over again and we've escalated tensions to the point where we are now.
I'm usually a quiet listener of the podcast because I'm not confident in my ability to convey my thoughts properly, but I feel compelled to speak up. I don't think people are as divided as it may seem. While there are certainly bad actors taking advantage of the outrage to push their own ideals or even just to revel in the fallout, I believe that most people(including the LGBT people) are united in their fury. And I think they are pushing back against those bad actors as well as corporations. I do agree with your message of compassion and empathy. This podcast specifically has made me more conscious about being compassionate and I'm grateful for it. But I can't help but feel like people have already been trying to be compassionate and empathetic for the past 5-10 years. And people are feeling like it's not working. People have tried compassion and see that the result of it is the art that they love is being hijacked, molested, and used as a vehicle to either make more money or push and agenda. There's probably more to say but I don't know how to say it. I apologize if this made little sense. PS. I appreciate the extra podcast episodes!
I love these discussions. For me, I've been feeling indifferent towards major releases nowadays. I've been playing older games and indie games lately.
Likewise. I buy VERY FEW modern titles.
Same here. I love older games and I love indies. So much more passion, more spirit, more ideas. It's just good for the soul to see things are still good in some corners.
Same. The last "major" game I bought was Tears of the Kingdom. Other than that it's been all indies and I've been enjoying myself.
The Indie and Middle Market spaces are where we are seeing the most fun titles pop up. Like I would rather play SEs smaller titles than their major releases. I would rather play the niche weeb centric game with ample fan service than major AAA open world game featuring non descript bow weilding protagonist that crafts items.
any indie game recommendations?
The Lunar games would be perfect to cover!
I personally don't feel like "gaming is dead" or whatever. I just feel people get WAY too invested.
Like, I play a lot of games, but I don't take on the identity of "gamer". Whatever happens, there will always be cool games to play. Just chill.
Same here, Im older (I bought FF1 on the NES back in 1990 with my first job) I love to play games, but I don't consider myself a "gamer" I have other hobbies, but I love to play video games, and I've always found new games to play even over 30 years later. I think younger people took on the identity of "gamer" way too seriously, they need to relax.
Exactly. Anyone who's complaining there isn't any good games, just isn't looking. There's like unlimited games at this point.
Great comment.
they're remastering a PS4 game already?
Seems like a strange choice.
We forgot about The Remaster of the Remastered version of The Last of Us?
You know instead of just supplying said "upgraded version" for free to already existing owners akin to many PC games where the devs would have done usually. Oh, and they raised the price of the original Complete version product as well. Scummy Sony as usual. They are making money off of your less than a couple of years old nostalgia for zero reason. Yet people will buy it anyway.
Something that Derrick from Mega64 said once that really stuck with me is "some people only know how to enjoy things by being mad about them." You'd think that would be counter-intuitive, but I think the *act* of being angry is a lot more fun than just being sort of lukewarm about something.
I think about this a lot when I read comment sections on big gaming announcements that aren't outrageous, but bland.
Also, I'm sure someone has already mentioned it, but Bloodborne PSX has been done for a while! It rocks! It doesn't recreate the whole game, but is a really good vertical slice.
SE will likely never release a Xenogears remaster but they recently decided to start selling a $2,000 Xenogears watch no one asked for. The industry just doesn't 'get it' anymore.
@@eternalgracenote the production of that watch does not prevent them from doing a remaster. You are not representative of the entire fan base. Just because you don’t want something doesn’t mean it won’t sell.
They should just leave it as it is. I'd rather play the OG till the day I die than get another monster like FF7 Remake.
It’s all corporate decisions. They don’t know or understand what gamers want; all they care about are numbers, not the craft of creating stories or entertainment.
@@captawesome42True, but $2000? People are complaining about a $700+ “upgrade” console.
Only the truly hardcore would get that item, and most of them would still think that’s a steep price, especially in today’s economy.
Can you time travel with it at that price?
I rather play retro games
There was a pretty big survey that came out not too long ago showing that 60% of gamers are just playing games that are up to a decade old or older
Based
My favorite past time is going treasure hunting on the depths of the web to find new games I never would have known existed without emulation. Sometimes there's gold and other times there's pyrite.
Reject modernity. Embrace tradition. Motto to go by until modernity fixes itself
Basically I’m looking at content be it movies or games or whatever that pre dates the ‘cancellation era’. I don’t mind politically motivated content but eventually we got to thought police etc and that has made things really hard particularly for a bunch of my friends who feel attacked by it all. I do agree the reaction in some ways is worse
Because gamers are people, and people are mad and are piling up more and more frustrations in general.
I REALLY wanted to see something new from Yoko Taro :(
This! New NieR or Drakengard would be so great.
What you said between the 8 and 20-minute mark made me a little emotional, Mike. You said with explicit detail what I have tried to foster with my own community. I hope that one day, that civil, constructive approach becomes the dominant approach to RUclips that creators and commenters have.
EDIT: YOU'RE DOING ALAN WAKE?!?!?!?!
Thank you
A wild Alchemist appeared…
Here on the SOTA podcast. Awesome!
I totally agree with your sentiment.
very profound comment
Here to recommend Max to be a regular on SOTA.
Hey max. Love your content bro.
45:05 Legacy of Kain series would make an amazing Resonant Arc series. It is *better* to play Blood Omen 1 before Soul Reaver 1, but not necessary.
Would love to see them discuss Legacy of Kain.
@@Tenpouin definitely, that's a really good shout!
yeah I'd be hyped. So many eloquent vampires, giving retrospective soliloquies.
and vampires sucking up blood like a reverse fire hose.
Expedition 33 looks a bit TOO awesome frankly. When you look at studios with similar money and manpower, they usually can't achieve nothing close to that. It makes me skeptical wondering how much the final product will look and play like these trailers.
its on Unreal 5, all Unreal 5 games look great graphically, since its easier than ever to develop on it, but you have to worry about the rest of the game besides the visuals
@@danutghidia5820 Still a lot of super-heavy 3D modelling work for a small team of under 50 unproven devs. Unreal 5 or not, I can't think of a similar dev that achieved that level of visual detail and fidelity.
This takes me back to the old Dark Pixel Gaming Podcast. Just 3 dudes with daily gaming news.
Ah Dark Pixel. I've been following these guys for so long now.
Same here
Yep I liked those streams
I grew up and was thought to judge people by their actions. I still do now.
My wallet speaks for me when it comes to corporate pandering
I feel like gaming was this way to vent out from the real world, now a lot of it has been denied from many bad or good actors. A lot of resentment and, let's be honest, politics are a heavy factor that people are as angry as ever.
I don't know if the works themselves were really ever any more escapist (for lack of a better term, you know what I mean) than they are now, it's more the ways that they aren't that have changed.
Also a lot of it is genuinely people being goaded into it, sometimes by deliberate bad actors, other times by opportunists, mainly through social media. That is the one thing that is for sure unique about games culture now as compared to, say, 30 years ago. Broadcasting power used to be fairly limited and highly controlled.
I genuinely don't think people would have nearly as negative of an attitude about *most* of the perceived problems with games if the idea weren't being sold to them so heavily. May still be negative of course, but nowhere near as intense.
@@SaberToothPortilla that is also true, like a misdirection of their anger to other topics
There’s an ongoing sentiment over the past decade or so but especially ramping up in the last 5 years or so, that entertainment isn’t nearly as good as it was 20, 30, 40 years ago. Whether it’s music, television, movies, western adult animation, cartoons, anime and manga, video games, every entertainment medium has been seen to either be pushed to a mass audience and sacrifice quality for mass appeal, be reduced to a dopamine fix to get people hooked and continually throw money at it, or push particular agendas. The vast expansions of these entertainment mediums thanks to the internet age around the late 2000s and early 2010s period, pushed this entire monetization and corporatization of entertainment that we see now. This leads people to be very frustrated, especially when you consider how upset a lot of people are in their real lives. We look to entertainment as an escape, to relax, to laugh, to cry, to make us think and change our ways of living. When it becomes clear that the thing we used to rely on for all these things becomes a vehicle to drain people’s bank accounts and offer nothing but raw brain stimulus and push agendas, there’s good reason for much of the ire we see in response to these mediocre shows.
On top of that the reason why the public think something is bad “your racist and sexist”. It would help if some director just said “sorry you didn’t like that I try better next time”.
I just stopped caring about what goes on in gaming these days. If there is a game coming out I am interested in I will just buy it and play it ignoring anything else going on around it. If there isn’t anything coming out I am interested in there are decades of games I haven’t played yet or woudlnt mind replaying. It’s nice going back to being disconnected from what is going on in the world of video games.
That's pretty much what gaming is to me before i have internet access.
@@Rithysak101 exactly. Which is amazing.
This!
This is exactly how I feel too.
@@Rithysak101 For real, I remember the only information I had to go on was looking at the back of the box at the rental store. And a lot of games I loved got panned hard in later years, I'm glad I didn't have the internet to influence me. I still go with my gut feeling. I had to make a Reddit post telling them why Im glad I DIDNT listen to them for passing up a great game that got blasted by everyone on Reddit.
There's obviously a big chunk of online comments you can safely dismiss on any given topic. But as someone who is both pissed off about performative wokeness in media and aware enough to know where to direct that anger, I can explain why people feel so strongly about this.
Firstly, it's important to note, the diverse characters, their actors and people who look like them aren't typically the source of the problem. It's actually generally white people who are trying to push these things. This is the crux of the problem, there's a bunch of well meaning people who think that they're being nice, and doing the right thing by shoehorning these elements into media. However, they are often the "useful idiots" (using the term in its political sense, not as an insult) for far more sinister political groups who know exactly what they are doing.
I would recommend learning about "The long march through the institutions" or Antonio Gramsci's "war of position" to get a better sense of how deliberate and how long running both the inclusion of these elements and the inevitable backlash that they create actually are. At the heart of every seemingly harmless liberal cause of the late 20th and early 21st century there is a small group of radicals trying to destabilise society and replace it with utopia.
This has been extremely successful so far, check out the BBC's diversity requirements for all of their productions - this is why we see characters deliberately race and gender swapped, as well as storylines or characterisations that seem at odds with the creator's original vision. These explicit requirements exist alongside the ESG mandates from investment firms who decide who gets access to capital. These mandates stifle creativity, originality and quality as the wrong things are prioritised and rewarded.
Creators with a vision they strive to make real have been replaced by committees with quotas to reach. And each new game doesn't exist in a vacuum, it's the latest in a long line of insults, propaganda and shoddy workmanship that people with pattern recognition have had to endure for over a decade. There's a new straw to break the camel's back added every day. To a casual observer, the reaction seems overblown, disproportionate and even hateful - but to the people who have been under the boot of managerialism for years, the reaction isn't nearly strong enough.
They're not well meaning, they're antiwhites. Your fence sitting will not stop them White-erasing you.
In the words of John Rambo, “they drew first blood, not me”
All I wanted was just something to eat.
I think the reason people are pretty negative about the State of Play is because at the end of the day it's just a show.
Like people aren't watching the State of Play because it is the State of Play. It's a good show that showcases what people think are garbage. With the Concord, Ubisoft, games dying and you not owning even a copy of the game you bought and shit. Things that are happening and we think are getting worse year after year.
Just like the family dynamics where issues just keep building up over the years and not getting fixed so there is always tension between the family ready to explode anytime even from some most minor issues. You guys talked about this before about family dynamics. Issues that were resolve for years just keeps building up. One good thing doesn't erase those issues just like how one or two good shows won't stop people from getting mad.
A lot of us gamers already picked the "do nothing" choice. And things got worse. So people on the internet started speaking out and it did nothing too. Now people are just pissed. That's the only thing the majority of people can do now. Constructive conversation is good and all but not everyone speaks good English. Well, at least I don't.
And also I'm sure most gamers don't really care about all these stuff.
Edit: I just want to add that even youtubers/content creators have their DLC/Battle Pass called Patreon or any monetization platform. You get exclusive contents if you subscribe to their Patreon most of the time. People basically become investors so the more they invest, the more their voice is valued. The opinion of a $1 guy is less valuable than the $50 guy. Not saying it is bad but this happened in video games, right? You gotta listen to the company that invested $100m to develop your game no matter how bad it is. Sorry if this has nothing yo do with the video but more like with your other video talking about video games collapse.
You guys are reinvesting the money to the channel which is great. But in video games? I can't say.
I think the best thing is to not buy the game. Which is wat made me happy about concord as I’ve been telling people not to buy cod for 15 years lol
Your English is much better than you give yourself credit for here
@@locdogg86 yea but it remains to be seen what effect this is going to have. But the trajectory isn't looking good. Remember, that was apparently the future of playstation.
@@locdogg86 Honestly that's the only thing they care about an it'll make you happier with what you actually buy!
@@lastmanstanding7155 yea it could definitely get worse before it gets better. Ultimately the end of trajectory is probably better imo
I was thinking the other day how its funny how I grew up on the PS1 but I rarely thought about the company Sony beyond the cool PS1 intro itself until the Internet got big. Those mysterious Japanese names in the end of Final Fantasy or Metal Gear. It all seemed like magic. I miss that.
There was a relationship between games magazines and their readers, like a magazine on your favorite tractors or fishing rods, or car mechanics, so the whole hobby.... felt like an actual hobby.
Co-op gaming leant into this too, making memories in the real world. It was visceral and localised.
The UK magazines were wrote in a very casual tongue in cheek way, the games were incredible in everyway and yet there was not a hint of airs, or talk of art or pretension. I distinctly remember this. It was wonderfully unassuming and a pleasure.
Now developers and writers on are so serious and cringe, but the art is often terrible.
Pushing the medium etc..
They were serious about the game making but it wasn't serious at all, really. It was all very punk rock. You'd be kind of laughed at in magazines if you thought your game was a art installation or an "experience" and this was their view of first party stuff too. They did not give a damn who you were coming across as. Kojima was doing his thing and respected but they weren't bowing down to him in the deifying sycophantic way they do now.
In other words when your stuff is good and you know it's good, you're good, you tend not to be a poser or be insecure in your abilities, you relax. A lot of the modern world have forgotten the best way to live imo.
One last bit being a game developer back then meant you likely knew a little bit of everything, a bit of Renaissance man so that helped you relax.
I suspect specialisation has made people crabby and insecure too.
Now they flip, rather than say "I don't know", they didn't have million eyes staring them down either.
Thanks for being a voice of reason, Mike. That's why I love your podcast. Whenever you get political, it's not really about the politics, but about building understanding.
Gave a like. Good convo, and here's my 2 cents.
I do agree there are great individuals, but I am in the same boat of not shoving religion or other ideologies. UNLESS, you are prepared to listen to the other side and have respectful conversation.
Also respectful conversation means possibility to offend others, as pointing out flaws of something you believe in can be painful. However, as long as you are willing to listen to each other, and end the conversation with disagreements with respect towards each other, I think it's a good thing.
Problem is, people that preach are never willing to listen, and they are quick to silence the opposition. This applies to both sides, but one side that is preaching is backed by media, government, and overall industry, and they are out to silence the opposition.
In this situation, being cordial is not going to work is my opinion. They will only take advantage of you if that is the case. Ubisoft is finally starting to listen tiny bit, and is taking more consumer friendly approach. If it takes near bankrupcy for a mere game company to listen tiny bit, not even fully, imagine what it will take for giant companies and government to listen to the average people?
I think voting with wallet and voicing louder than them is the only way. If pendulum swings the other way, like late 90s and early 2000s with Jack Thompson, we need to start voicing against them again. Making sure no one censors games BOTH ways.
As for games, this is what I think.
Games these days improved in terms of tech and function. I am enjoying games more that primarily focuses on functionality. For example, sports games (ignoring gacha issues they have)
However narrative driven games these days are either quite souless and often filled with agenda. That is not enjoyable for me. Even if it is not filled with agenda, they are often generic passionless projects. No longer i see some grand vision i once saw with games like Xenogears. Even if some indie games have neat ideas, they are often good ideas, but small ideas. Small idea is probably not a description, but i cant find better words. Often indie games have cute personal stories, but I no longer see games with grand ambition.
It's hard for games to have grand ambition without the sense that they are pushing an agenda.
Xenogears could definitely be said to have been pushing an agenda. Final Fantasy 7 is basically the Green New Deal the Video Game. I'd recommend trying games like The Outer Wilds, Disco Elysium, or Pathologic 2 as amazingly grand games but they're all fallible for having what can be seen as an agenda.
@@Bliss_Less philosophy and agenda is paper thin difference, but i do think there's a difference.
One creates timeless and eternal wisdom. The other is irrelevant if trend changes.
The way these agenda is pushed in these games, they expect people to understand the current norm and context to understand. It is often based on current trend and relevency. Games like Xenogears are timeless and can stand on its own and period, very much like classic novels.
Also when i talked about grand vision, i also meant the fictional world itself. Like Xenogears that created large world including multiple civilization and generations of history within the game. Games you mentioned are about small wporld and quite personal story, very much like indie games I've described.
@@Bliss_Less also to say FF7 was eco story is like saying star wars was only about incest kiss.
It was tiny part of the story, and eco issue in the game was only used to introduce bigger theme, which was circle of life.
@@Bliss_Less Games can be political without "feeling" like they are pushing an agenda, hell Final Fantasy 16 did it just fine and thats a newer game, I lean Conservative, yet I didn't feel like the game was preaching at me.
@@neoasurahere we need to establish the word "political"
If is about complicated political struggles within the game world, yes i want more of that.
However if its modern political activism stuff into fantasy world that often breaks immersion since the asthetic is medieval times, but the politics in the game is modern, or waste significant time of the story to explain sexuality of a character when that sexuality has nothing to do with the main story, then we have a problem.
If you cannot distinguish the difference between the two, i believe we are not having honest discussion here.
It is not essential to play Blood Omen before Soul Reaver, indeed many fans of the series such as myself only joined with the release of SR. However Blood Omen absolutely does need to be played before Soul Reaver 2. If you wish to play SR to coincide with the remaster's release then make it clear at the start of Soul Reaver that you will go back to Blood Omen before starting Soul Reaver 2. As with Chrono Trigger this series deals with time travel and the events of Blood Omen are cornerstone events to the series that get re-examined in later games.
While I agree that knowing the events of Blood Omen adds depth to Raziel's adventures, I still haven't been able to finish Bloom Omen - instead, I've piggybacked off other people's experiences - reading wiki entries and watching RUclips lore videos - to get the context.
The biggest advantage to actually playing Blood Omen and doing it first is that you start out with Kain's perspective on his actions and character, rather than being introduced to him through Raziel's opening narration for Soul Reaver.
That LOTR pull to illustrate your point is one of the best things I've heard in a long time.
You've nailed it. God I appreciate you two.
Really enjoying these pods. Its cool to get your opinions on current gaming stuff or less hyper focused subjects. Looking forward to more.
The hyperbole that people use is what really gets me. I was discussing a particular game with some folks on a stream last night, and basically saying how I didn't get why a particular section of that game was so hated by everyone that played it. Sure, it's not my favorite part of the game, but there are other parts that I dislike more. But I hear others say it completely ruins the game and is one of the worst gaming experiences they've ever had. I asked someone to explain it to me, and they're explanation basically amounted to "it's boring." It's boring, and therefore it elicits that amount of hate and ire? I understand that boring is bad, but why does something boring mean it deserves that kind of reaction?
Clearly there's something else going on there. I feel like the gaming community really needs to do some introspection and ask itself some tough questions, and determine what it can do to make things better. The gaming industry will do what it will do, but none of this anger is doing anything to help matters if it's directed towards trivial things like this. If people are angry about workers' rights, and equal pay and whatnot, I think they should be. Those are worthy causes, and they are problems in the industry. But if they're angry that a game is boring, or that the graphics aren't exactly how they wanted them to be, or a character doesn't look the way they like, they need to look inside themselves and ask why these things really matter so much to them. Because they shouldn't. It is possible to just not enjoy a thing. You don't have to hate it with every fiber of your being.
I was a little worried from the title card and description but I am very very happy with the message you had here and fully and heartily agree with everything I've heard so far.
I always tell people when something you are being told by media is making you feel an emotion, you should ask why they want you to feel that way. Most of the time, the benefit is all theirs, and not yours.
To be honest, the rising level of toxicity has made me step away from the video game "community." There are so many gamers (of both political extremes) who not only get offended ridiculously easily, but seem to actively go out looking for reasons to get offended. It's just exhausting to constantly see people act like that.
Best thing I’ve done for my own mental health is to avoid all of it and just play what I want. Discourse will almost always dissolve into toxicity
Well it's not both sides, there's people and there's activists infiltrating and infecting everything with their crazy ideas. If you blame both sides YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.
The issue is that they turned gaming into a community. Making videogames mainstream was a mistake
@@IlSH2 Nobody "made" video games mainstream. They became mainstream naturally, just like any other thing that eventually becomes mainstream over time. It's like saying it was a mistake to make driving mainstream resulting in traffic jams, road rage etc.
Then you are the problem. 😂
Youre just fence sitting while people are fighting to keep our games untouched. Bet you're the type who just sat there, while illegal immigrants taken over.
I would say I have more of an indifference or meh feeling from most video game stuff these days. Getting mad about it isn't good for your health.
your points are well taken and beautifully put. I'd just say that -- when you pointed to Tolkien's writing to make a point, like, there's a significant group of people who will say things like Tolkein's works are inherently racist with the implication being there's something wrong with you for liking them -- And that's just one example, and people feel (and there's reason to believe they're not totally wrong) that this type of thought is making its way into entertainment and changing it. This is what spawns a channel like criticaldrinker, not the existence of gay people. A channel like that is focused on media and I don't think you'd be totally crazy to notice mainstream media as a whole is changing in ways that not everyone likes.
They're people crying racist are antiwhite and want my people gone with no countries of our own for our White diversity. They are trying to White-erase us both culturally and biologically. It is cruel and evil.
Why are games so mad? Because most of us feel attacked by the media we consume.
Our hobby is effectively taken over by people who hate us.
With that said, I agree that some gamers go too far as well. However these companies are the ones holding the powerstone.
It's pretty clear what US Gamers want. Make the games without preaching to us. Stop with this injection of modern day politics in games where it doesn't belong.
For the bad faith actors out there, I'm not saying don't make a political game. FFT was a political game, but they weren't preaching to us gamers. It was done right here.
What?
the hobby isnt really being taken over tho, most gamedevs have always been left leaning
these are modern games, why wouldnt they have modern politics? sure, they can be executed badly, but why not criticize the writing or art etc. rather than the mere presence of "politics"
the companies don't hold as much power as you think, if you dont like how a game is presented, or its messages etc. just dont buy it, and buy games that do have the stuff you like, its just capitalism. sure, it can take a while, due to how long games take to make, but voting with your wallet does have an impact
and if these games do end up surviving/succeeding that you dont want or whatever, it may just be that "US gamers" doesnt actually entail ALL gamers. most people just simply dont care about the "politics" in these games (hogwarts legacy is a good example, highly pushed by the right, the game is filled with left leaning political messages, yet sold gangbusters because no one actually cares)
@@elijahbauer8488 The whole don't buy it if you don't like it won't work. That's like conceding ground and giving up on my favorite hobby. We're *not* doing that!
You can say they've always been left leaning, but I don't believe that. If that was so, we'd have this problem through all of gaming, not just with the latest slope they're trying to shove down our thoughts. We didn't have these problems until the mid 2010s.
Why do I say politics and not writing? I didn't say politics. Remember I gave an example of a political game that was fine. Another one is final fantasy 16. I have my issues with the game but the politics and it was just fine. I don't have a problem with political game.
I've stated what the problem was. Them preaching to us and breaking the immersion by inserting current day dogma down our throats.
No one likes to be preached to as if they're inferior.
I also don't want them making changes for people who don't even play their games.
@@AntonioCunninghamwhere is the evidence that anything you're saying reflects what the majority of gamers actually want? How do you know that changes being made are in fact for people who don't play the games in question?
There's obviously a weighing of risks when it comes to decisions of what to make, who to market to, whether or not to include "politics," etc. If catering to people who think like you was profitable, you would be more catered to. And yet, that's not what happens. It seems to me the people you're presuming to speak for don't represent a particularly significant segment of the market.
Can you demonstrate that the success or failure of any game is because of how gamers like you responded to it? Not games where your opinion was the same as the gaming press or a more general audience, but specifically ones in which you diverged from them.
@@Krisusu Are you ignoring so many games complaining? There are so many content creators with big accounts on youtube alone complaning about it.
You can stroll through the comments sections of this video alone to see gamers being upset with modern gaming.
I mean why do you think there's this push for indie games? Why do you think people down vote in large amounts videos that do the things I talked about earlier?
Remember gamers didn't do this prior to 2010s They were overall happy until gaming media went to war with them.
The evidence is living though gamergage and seeing how things have continues to get worse.
Here's a good example. Concord. That game would not have failed if Gamers wasn't upset like I'm suggesting here.
Thank you guys so much for doing this format for videos again. I've been a fan of your channel since the Dark Pixel days, but I fell off for the last year or two because there would be months at a time when you'd be covering a game that I hadn't played with no other content to go along with it. I'm glad to be actively viewing again! Also, I watched a lot of State of Play reactions, and this is BY FAR the best analysis so far. I know it may not be your biggest passion, but I do like hearing your thoughts on current events in gaming.
"I wonder when we'll move into when indie devs are starting to use PS1... ...aesthetic as inspiration for their games." Hate to tell you but, you guys are a bit behind the times. XD
Obviously not finished with it, but I'm glad you guys are bringing up ESG. When people throw around the fact that they hate "wokeness" in games, I don't think they really mean that. Political topics have been done in games before - left wing politics have been portrayed in games and beloved media before. And people on both sides of the political aisle have embraced that media just fine. I think the problem we're seeing is that ESG demands shoehorning in of things in awkward and artificial ways.
I heard somebody once critique Christian movies, and one of the things they said was that they often have meaningless asides where a character talks about something totally unrelated to the story, but it's in there because the writer or director thought it was just something that was worth saying. Like a character might start talking about how great it is to use Dave Ramsey's financial advice. Nothing to do with the film, the themes, or the characters. It's just bad writing. It gets preachy and sucks you out of it. I hate that about films that technically support "my" worldview, saying that as a conservative Christian. I don't feel like it's good writing, I feel like it's pointless pandering.
Now when a bunch of investment firms roll up to an industry and tell them they'll have their ability to get business loans reduced if they don't put in XYZ *insert social topic here* in their games, how is that in any way going to feel organic? When Kojima talks about nuclear proliferation, it's because he genuinely cares about that subject. When I see the character designs in Concord, I just see lifeless corporate garbage.
Excellent summary.
Yup bingo. See but they dress it up as if we're against the politics in the broad sense and are hypocrites because we will enjoy some politics.
There's a famous quote from this comic writer, Kelly Sue, and she said "if you don't like my politics don't buy my book." She then goes on to make the popular argument that comics (media) was always political. See but she gave it away in her first sentence. "If you don't like MY politics..." see the problem?
If I can read atlas shrugged and critize ayn rand I can critize Kelly Sue and everyone else who copies her. It's called a healthy discussion. But see the problem is that Kelly Sue and people like her are actually worse than Ayn Rand. It's just pandering. Lame asides that do nothing but take you out of the story. They don't do anything for the writing or themes or even characterization. So the problem isn't politics in the broad sense, the problem is their politics. Their pandering.
When I read the Astonishing X-Men I can clearly understand what the allegories are for but at the same time I'm reading a dude shooting concussvie beams at a guy who controls magnetism. It's dressed up in a cool and interesting way with drama and changing team dynamics. These are interesting stories even if I go monke mode and don't consider the themes.
Then there's something like the watchmen. That is made by a dude is a communist and thinks he's a wizard. He also thinks you're stupid if you like roarsach or think he's right. Welp that doesn't stop me from enjoying the watchmen or thinking roarsach is right. Why? Because the story is honestly well written. The characters. The politics. It definitely shows you how doomer Alan Moore was at the time but it's still a great read. And it doesn't even beat you over the head with anything. The only way it comes close to that is the purposeful straw man of roarsach and his characterization but even then the character I'd played so straight and real that people have legitimate and valid reasons to think roarsach was the only hero in the whole story, despite his flaws.
Meanwhile captain marvel in the comics would go on political asides about women's rights. Or when Jane Foster was Thor she'd do that. So would she hulk. How, in anyway, is this latter half even comparable to the genius and mastery of the former?
They aren't. They were better written. Less heavy handed. They said it in this podcast, it's condescending but it doesn't stop there and I want to drive that home. It's not that they are just being kind of rude about their politics. They are holding the things we love and enjoy hostage. Ruining it and tainting it.
When a fan gets mad at an inconsistent minor detail the contradicts known lore, do you think anyone besides the fans cares?
When someone perverts and changes a character and makes them into a mouthpiece to spew political nonsense, do you think anyone cares besides fans? At what point does someone have the right to say "hey stop that please" and it's not a hate crime? See fans will get rabid about any change. It's not just political. "They X-men aren't even wearing the proper costumes." "Spider-Man is just Ironman Jr." Fans do this. So when you go and make something politically awkward yea they will react to that too. If you KEEP doing it repeatedly then yes it's a pattern and people will call that out. If it becomes an industry wide pattern people will recognize it. JUST like how people recognized how a lot of comic book media that wasn't in a comic was afraid to have characters wear their costumes. See?
Everyone is treating this as a massive political issue when it's not. I already made the case politics, in the broad sense, aren't the issue. It's the writing, themes, characterization and quality of these products that is the issue. And it's all wrapped up in political pandering. It does nothing but hurt the groups it wants to promote.
I think the heaby push in media years ago to put strong females everywhere and make them mouth peices and lame has now trained people to resent any woman in any media. This is not a positive outcome and the only people to blame for this are people who forced it and did it badly. Is it right for people to react that way? I'm not saying it is. I'm saying 1+1=2. In other words, it's understandable. And it's not going away. People are hurting. Burnt out. Tired of being preached at. And it's not just for women in media. I'm just using that as an obvious example. But this gigantic push has only harmed the very groups they were "trying" to uplift.
Edit: realized I never closed out. But yea I hope this can expand on why people are mad. And that it's not just people having issues with certain orientations or beliefs. As these same people will LOVE older things that clearly has those same orientations or beliefs *but just done better.* I think now more than ever my case is made for me by the constant release of slop. It's right there for all to see validating what people were saying for years. It's ugly and people were wrong. The more we resist that the stronger the push against the groups depicted is going to get. *stop it.* but what do I know, I'm just some guy.
Opposition to war and support for environmental conservation isn't even a controversial topic. The clean water act occurred under Nixon. National parks were due to Teddy Roosevelt. Antiwar movements have been part of the left and right. Those political statements weren't taking cheap shots at large segments of the population. The left and right both agree we should be good stewards of the Earth. It's just they disagree about how. Tokien was extremely conservative but obviously supported conservation of the English countryside.
Putting in racial and gender politics is going to aggrevate half of your potential consumer base. It makes no sense unless you are being subsidized by these programs or you hired too many activists who refuse to change course
I greatly appreciate Cyberpunk 2077's writing because the characters are relatable and human, even if I have political and moral objections with a lot of the game's mature themes and strong language. It's dang good writing that's interesting to engage with on an intellectual level and has helped me consider my position on certain topics more thoroughly.
On the flip side, I can't stand the borderlands franchise anymore because it feels like the people writing it now haven't stepped foot outside of their office in Frisco, Texas in over a decade and never evolved past collegiate radicalism.
No, we do, i hate "wokeness" in games because wokeness IS political. Pushind diversity for diversity's sake IS political, if you want to highlight people of color then make the next assassin's creed in Africa, where real amazing stories have happened and nobody is telling.
For me, it's all about the lack of vision, which is why what you guys said in the last video (regarding indie games leading the way) seems right to me. Nowadays, companies are so big that they can't afford to bank on the vision of an up-and-coming writer or director so we're not really seeing new Kojimas, Sakaguchis, or Spectors. Everything has to have twelve writers working of list of trends of what's big right now and dozens of corporate executives sending it back for revision and hundreds of marketers sending it back again. No risks!
I think that's why so many videos like "The Beautiful Weirdness of the GameCube" and "The Forgotten Capcom One-Offs of the PS1" are doing well on RUclips right now. People are hungry for that kind of artistic vulnerability and expression from an interactive medium, ESPECIALLY if they loved it when they were kids. Indie games are great, but a lot of them are still stuck in trends themselves (one thinks of the "Earthbound/Paper Mario sprite-based RPG featuring humorous dialogue, solid music and a story about depression" meme). I'm incredibly excited to get to the point where indie devs can consistently get games of the PS2/GameCube aesthetic out. I don't think we're too far away from that era.
Ok finished listening to this, the start had a lot of emotions that I feel especially since I have family/friends that are just polar opposites of one another and its always just concerning listening to the vitriol from either or and me just having the usual anxiety of do you think I'm that bad cause I talk/associate with blank, or believe in this thing you hate, etc. I do hope people can stop trying to destroy each other for being on the wrong colored team and just get rid of the grifters, trolls, and media outlets that prey on everyone anxieties for their bottom line.
But going away from that, I really didn't find too much interest in the games other than the indie games really, and I pretty much only play indie games now.
Also in terms of the graphic nostalgia there are a lot of indie horror games that have already gone the PS1 look and are starting to go the PS2 look now.
Two I'd recommend is Signalis and Faith, Signalis is very classic Resident Evil (OG 1-3) and Silent Hill inspired with some German sci-fi and King in Yellow if you know the book.
Now Faith isn't PS1 graphics its Atari style graphics, but I feel that Mike could add a interesting perspective on it considering its heavy religious tones.
Hate-farming is a thing.
A very big thing. RUclipsrs/influencers/gaming journalists have bills to pay and typically that leads to saying whatever will get the views. That’s why you see one hundred and two videos about how “gaming is dead”
Fuck you! as if there wasn't a real problem.
It's such an easy way to get subscribers and make money. I'd do it myself if I had lower morals.
a lot of people talking about escapism as if the only people seeking to escape are in a deep depression or sad, lonely, and angry. A lot of us just don't want 24 hours of our day dedicated to whatever the "most existential threat to democracy" is every 4 years. i don't want to turn on call of duty and get hit with a gay pride banner, free palestine, and blm in the same way that i don't want to load it up and get a MAGA ad or whatever. These triple A games are being marketed as activism. They choose their words carefully because they want to signal very specific things.
It's very weird as a non American seeing a comparison between movements that fight for basic human rights being compared to MAGA
Outside of my other comment, the reason I'M upset is because this industry spends so much time and money making these giant ass blockbuster looking titles because of the investors, and then when it doesn't sell as expected, it's a failure and entire dev teams are laid off if not the entire studio closing. THAT pisses me off. AAA gaming is in such a horrible spot right now. There's barely any risks being taken because everything is all about making investors money.
I know this was discussed in the last video, but I just agree with the point. It is tiring seeing yet another studio of great people getting shut down literally every week. Indie devs are taking risks because they have to and that's where I'll be pouring a lot of my support going forward.
And the remasters.... I wish the entertainment industry as a whole would move past them, but for SOME video games it's fine if the previous version is either hard to attain on modern hardware or limitations made it a pain to play. Games industry is extremely bad about media preservation, too.
Because corporations pander in the worst possible way and grifting/ selling outrage for clicks is a lucrative business.
Gamers are mad cos noone literally asked for Horizon or last of us remakes and we keep getting them... yet there is Bloodborne which is what really needs a remake or something and Sony isn't touching it... just give the IP back to Fromsoft ffs
Online gaming discourse (like most online discourses) is disconnected from actual polite society and is subject to all flavors of bad actors. There's a difference between a school yard complaint sesssion and an actual honest discussion on the state of the industry. Comment sections and youtube vbloggers tend to be the former. Thanks for being part of the later guys. Cooler heads prevail.
Casen got the white socks on??? You think you know a guy
Hahaha😂
It's just funny to me that both the most hyped upcoming games are remakes and the most apparently hated upcoming game is a remake 😅
I think games used to feel like interactive art and now it's just some dude showcasing a glitter-covered turd in the middle of a gallery snd calling it a masterpiece
It’s harder to hard a game that is more creative or new.
Because too many people aren't playing games to appreciate art, to exercise their mind with gameplay mechanics or appreciating a good storyline.
Just check the comments, they're playing games to "escape reality". So games have to prioritize graphics and *being immersive* over everything else.
@@losgryfog agreed
In the past developers would have to build their own engines and have to solve the limitations in a creative way. So games felt more unique and artistic. Now games are made with the same engines, the same tools and run on the same hardware. So now it all feels the same.
I'm loving these non=game specific episodes. Looking forward to whatever it is you have planned
Been waiting on this topic for a long time. Hope everyone is listening and receptive 🙏
I get excited about lunar but then I realize man it’s going to get censored 😂
Got evidence?
Will it? Aw. Well, I still have the PS1 games.
@@kurisu3000 There's recent patterns with Dragon Quest III, altering Toriyama's art straight after his death
@@kurisu3000 Less "going to" more "likely" with most of modern day remasters of old games like Dragon Quest.
I have been a member of the LDS church (or a Mormon, if you prefer) for all 20 years of my life. I agree with Mike completely that showing love and compassion to those who disagree with you is best for you, that person, and the world at large. Even to those who attack you, because you fighting back is only perpetuating the cycle that Mike was describing. I may disagree with a lot of things that are growing in popularity, but what I believe is more important than political differences is the fact that we are all human. My church teaches that we are all as dust of the earth, that no person should esteem themself above another. We are also taught that it is not our place to judge others and that we should focus on improving ourselves and not on how we think other people should improve. It's a common problem you'll see in the members of this church, as well as many other branches of Christianity, that they will condemn others, particularly on hot-topic issues such as sexuality, but that's part of that person's flaws and not at all representative of the doctrine we should be teaching. And we all do have flaws. Because of that, it's essential to give people compassion and patience. Maybe someone was ignorant of how something they said would affect you. Maybe they were taught a particular way since they were a child and have a difficult time putting themself in other people's shoes. Even if they did genuinely have your worst interest at heart, thinking that retaliating in kind is justified only justifies that person's potential retaliation against you.
kinda sad this comment has no likes yet loads of more aggressive and vitriolic comments have upwards of 15.
Quote from Resetera regarding if there was a path back to shorter PS2 length games with AA visuals:
"I was watching a streamer a while back who was discussing the shorter and worse meme with chat and seemed really receptive to the message. Then he proceeded to mock a weapon texture for an environmental decoration as being too PS3 like. What people say and what people do are two different things.
Yep. Even on here at "we want AA games back! bloated industry bad" HQ, people were arguing over a fucking low-quality rock in the corner of a screenshot in the Rebirth performance thread. And we expect the mainstream will be receptive to a modest production downscale?"
Games and the many types we have to play has never been better.. but certain political people have been implemented into the gaming sphere for the last 15 years now, normal people that just want to play games do not want to be talked down too by some video game (input title) views on politics. We just want to play games.
This podcast is so chill
Buying an incomplete $70 game and being forced to buy extra DLC would make anyone rightfully upset. Plus AAA quality games look like polished turds.
Best thing you can do in any medium you enjoy, just empty your thoughts, back off from the bandwagoning that occurs and absorb it how you see fit.
Gamers prefer to rant about games and drama surrounding it, games that they'll never play. The whole 'scene' is toxic.
Something I've been noticing increasing recently, not just in gaming but overall certainly here in the UK is people treating participatory identities as proprietary and trying to assert control over who can join in that participation.
I’ll tell you why their mad
Because they keep spending money on these bullshit remasters that no one asked for
And making games no one wants
Concord 400 million
Horizon already got an upgrade for ps5 ???
How many bloodbornes could we have got for a wasted 400 million?
On the subject of trying to see others as people and not let their "excessive" appearance in media impact how you view them (really their identities are essentially being used by companies and social media personalities on both sides)...
Lets say a bulk of this started with Gamer Gate and by people like Anita. We don't need to so extreme on the opposite end. Media could all be Hetero Caucasians for the rest of time and I'd be ok with other people not getting represented, but I don't yearn for the status quo, nor do I get upset when original diverse content comes out even if I'm still not fully comfortable with non hetero PG13+ content (I'm growing, it's not a snap your finger situation).
This is because ultimately because I don't use the mentality that many upset people do of "it's just an agenda, how else do you justify a DEI character?" Mainly because I don't think you need to justify it as you typically don't/didn't need to justify it for hetero white characters.
In any case, the point that I'm building it is if it can be justified, then things should be cool, right? Well no, not really. At least not with vocal minorities. Diversity can play by the rules and still get rejected.
This brings me to the example inspired by mentions of open world games like Ghost of Tsushima. That example being Assassin's Creed Shadows.
This is an example of a company fundamentally playing by the rules while having missteps along the way, but the greater pushback is against the fundamental story design.
Ubisoft have selected to have a dual protagonist story featuring Naoe, a Japanese female ninja and Yasuke, a black former slave turned retainer and "Samurai" of Oda Nobunaga.
People are upset because they feel a Japanese Assassin's Creed should be Japanese.
But the reality is, this is what Ubisoft does with Assassin's Creed. You mostly have Native to the setting Assassins but you also have outsider Assassin's coming to a new land. A dual protagonist story lets them have both sides. Abd just as the outsider is a new idea they explored, they have a chance at incorporating another new idea. "A historical figure that has little noteworthy documentation that can be inserted into their fictional history to be present just as made up main characters are." Maybe there was a Japanese person who would be perfect for this, but it's not a big deal. Yasuke fits and probably plays outsider better than any made up or existing Japanese character might. This type of protagonists works in other places of history as well as if we look at Julius Caesar or Alexander the great, they certainly have warriors and generals who are praised without much specificity that would make them perfect for historical fiction.
People's complaints shouldn't be on this completely justified narrative setup. If it had to be about the story then make it about how to make the best possible story with that setup.
But the real discussion should have been about gameplay. Ubisoft have a track record of making mediocre gameplay despite having a history of doing such game elements well in the past. With AC Mirage and the Star Wars game being the most recent similar options. People should be talking about what works and what doesn't from those 2 entries.
Instead everyone is talking about "DEI" because it's what is popular now both in terms of being available and available to hate.
We should be like the past and focus of the gameplay and level design.
When Resident Evil 5 was out, being a white guy shooting down African zombies was the main discussion point.
In Nioh 1, we we're hung up on William being the main character.
And now with games that are coming out, we shouldn't be overly focused on the DEI element (tho not ignore it, as it is likely worth evaluating) and just try to focus on the game itself for the most part
"Are" experts, or "consider themselves to be experts with no training or achievements of any kind that would be used by anybody else to call those people experts". I seem to come across that second one a lot more than I do the first one.
LEGO Island, I had the game on PC and I remember when you talked to certain LEGO Figures, all the textures in the area would change to his face. Unfortunately, the LEGO games still have their faults because they often have to get out of the oven quickly, but they have certainly come a long way😅
The topic at hand in the title was largely side-stepped in this discussion but on the bright side, I'm excited for Alan Wake.
Most people are pissed at the wrong reasons. We should be focusing our hatred on that $700 price on a ps5 pro, that doesn't even have a disc reader
Kudos to that story with the former co-worker 🙌🏼
I am buying Fantasian because I want to see more Mistwalker titles become multiplatform.
Here in Brazil Sony double the price of the game via Steam, that alone pissed alot of people
These videos came out the same week the Godot engine PR manager called developers scum for not being rabidly leftwing and banned their own donors and dev projects lol. I think we all see the problem 🤔
i mean they are a private company, they can do whatever they want as long as they arent breaking any laws. there are other game engines you can use if you care about godots politics
@@elijahbauer8488 I mean we are private individuals, we can discuss and criticize whatever we want as long as we aren't breaking any laws. There are other threads to respond to if you don't agree with OP's expression of dissatisfaction.
I hope this example can show how outright dismissive responses like these aren't particularly productive.
@@elijahbauer8488 They banned at least one platinum investor. They're going to be in a huge lawsuit in certain jurisdictions if they banned people that didn't break their terms of service where money is involved. You don't get to use catch all arguments like that in California for example
Also it's highly unethical and disastrous for the hobby if companies act this way. All you're going to do is create backlash. In ten years we are going to see a huge right wing backlash to all of this.
thats not what happened, but whatever fits your narrative. lol
@@user-nw5ef3zh9t themeangene's version of events are slightly hyperbolic and reductive but effectively conveys what happened.
The head moderator of the unofficial Discord server that is endorsed by Godot and that shares most of the same team as the official server called people "evil" and "cockroaches" for having any sort of response to a questionable post made by a CM on the official X. Some donors and devs were blocked, timed out, or banned on said platforms as well as Github. Godot then put out a statement that apologized for their own overreaction and distanced themselves from the server while simultaneously painting themselves as the victims.
It's a bit much to expect people to fully cover every detail in a concise manner in casual discussion, and it's definitely dishonest to dismiss the simplification as being fully untrue.
its simple the issue is social media journos report a few negative tweets as 'news' make a headline that says 'everyone is hating XXX game' and quotes a few tweets and those small amount of negative tweets everyone turns that into 'everyone is saying' and then youtubers jump on bandwagon about it reporting it as 'everyone hates this' when it really is a small percentage
My most wanted game of the year: Metaphor comes out in 1,5 week and it wasnt even in the state of the play- its weird because the demo came out the next day. You would assume a jrpg from the guys behind Persona would get some kind of love, but I guess microsoft is paying SEGA to hide that.
I wouldn't be surprised if that were exactly it. I don't know if they've made the details clear anywhere, but Atlus does seem to have been boosting their relationship with Microsoft the past few years.
@@SaberToothPortilla which baffles me a bit- why not just buy SEGA then instead?
The Japanese (and Indie) market is doing all the heavy lifting with gaming now.
Came here to post this! The demo is great and got my preorder in - I never preorder digitally but giving us a free demo to decide is such a pro-consumer move. And it’s Xbox play anywhere which is really useful for me.
Really hope it sells well like Persona 5, but I don’t think it quite has the same appeal. Its themes are bit more complex and mature (which I’m enjoying).
@@steveco1800 same already paid for a digital copy over psn store AND a CE coming later.
All this assumes that both sides are willing to talk in good faith. I can’t trust one side for 2 reasons.
1. The video on GDC’s channel “now you see me: representation as innovation.” 25 minutes into the talk her words become hostile talking as if game devs are intentionally creating racist moments and telling people that it’s okay to scare the S*%+ out of marketing and higher ups if you don’t get your way.
2. The Black myth Wukong story where Sweet Baby Inc wanted 7 million dollars for consulting. Using it as a threat to deter any possible negative stories about racism in the future. And almost immediately after calling them out publicly, negative stories started coming out.
There is no good faith argument. The bridge is burned and they’re holding the torch saying how we, not they, did it.
Edit:as an additional note ESG, DEI, and Bridge are real corporate accepted racism. Ubisoft had a story talking about assigning scores to their employees based on their race and gender, but scores can go up and down based and several behavior factors including a ridiculous factor like eating at a foreign food truck. These people are terminally online. Not to say the other side has its problems, but there’s a more blatant entitlement problem coming from one side projecting it as everyone else’s issue that they can conveniently fix.
Wukong is all the example you need to show this is one sided. Critical Drinker isn't demanding money for good press nor is he even making any real money, but hes put in the same boat as people like SBI which is preposterous to me. This is not "both sides are bad" at all. One side is unfathomably worse.
There are WAYYYY too many people saying they play games to "escape reality".
I tried psychedelic drugs to “escape reality”. Funny enough, they tend to produce the polar opposite effect. Shame that society and mental health is to the point where people care more about escaping reality than engaging with a wide spectrum of art in a deep, meaningful and measured fashion.
I cannot fathom how anyone can get so worked up over something so insignificant, and honestly, I'm happy about that. Like imagine how miserable they must be to spend so much time in anger, when they could be channeling that into something that makes them happy.
I'm no fan of (most) AAA games either, so you know what I do? Ignore them. Even filtering out the AAA schlock, I can't even begin to keep up with all the newer games I want to play, to say nothing of the older stuff I haven't gotten around to yet (and god forbid, all the stuff I want to replay!). And say there are no current games that grab my attention - oh well, I'll focus more on reading, or catching up on anime (which I'm also terminally behind on). Life is too short, and the world too interesting, to pidgeon-hole yourself into one very narrow sector of one specific medium.
Aptly put. People are just finding things to be upset about, when they could be a lot happier if they actually spoke to people in the real world and just engaged with the things they are interested in.
@@jacobmonks3722Look I'm going to say this. Personally? I don't care, Disco Elysium is one of my favourite games of all time, so I'm sure you can guess where I lie politically on that.
However, for someone else, sure you can go back and play something old etc, but one of the best parts about gaming is having new games to look forward to, and not having to awkwardly search for games that aren't going to grind your gears due to narratives it may try to push or gameplay elements etc.
Like for me, I play a lot of fighting games. I really like guilty gear, I played a bit of xrd (back when it had bad net code), and was looking forward to strive.
Strive came out, gameplay wise I can't stand it, it feels simplified, air dashing feels like I'm slogging through mud and gatlings being gone sucks.
So if I want to enjoy guilty gear, I have to play the older games, worse graphics, much smaller communities, and less games overall. Plus, because of how successful this game has been compared to the previous ones, there's very little chance that they'll change up the formula in the next games.
I know it's not the exact same scenario, seeing as I'm bringing in a multiplayer game, but feeling alienation from a game, or watching your favourite series become something you no longer want to play sucks, both because the fanbase of the older things will dwindle, and there's little to look forward to
Us People just want for the woke people leave us with our games alone. Gaming for us are our escapism we play games to escape reality.
Scared me for a second that they were going to go down the alt right youtuber grifter route, glad they are holding to their principles.
Cant wait for Alan Wake Coverage
Nah, there's no shot these guys would ever do that.
Mike, I learn so much from you. I admire the way you see things from a respectful point of view.
Thank you so much Mike for sharing your story. Your message and the way you put it is very simple but is exactly what some people need to hear. We all just need to listen more and judge less. Everyone is just trying to get through life and it’s hard. We need to support each other, listen, and have empathy.
Stop preaching. It's nice that you've met 3 gay people. Most of us grew up knowing multiple gay people and have no problem with the people themselves. The issue is performative/forced diversity by corporations.
seeing these comments reminds me of how pathetic your westerners's first world problems is. oh the horror
That's too convenient for this discussion. The issue is anger by consumers against intellectual property that serve as modern idols that cannot be sacrilegiously tainted by the ideology of its liberal creative teams. Else they reap the whirlwind of a vengeful old testament like force of death threats and general online harassment.
These types gin up a hate campaign for a star wars tv show before it even comes out. The real people involved in making it have probably suffered greatly due to the amount of vitriol that has been spewed at them. All they wanted to do was make an interesting new star war. I'm sure people in the game making business feel the same level of anxiety and pressure from haters in online echo chambers getting high from their own venomous screed.
@@devan_dangerno they didnt want to make interesting star wars
They wanted to use star wars as a medium to spread their agenda.
Can we just honest and talk about obvious issues instead of trying to create a narrative and try to create victims to use as a shield?
Sure that's why the interviews up to the show was all about how gay the show is.
so if they get rid of our race nicely it is okay??? lolwut
I've been a fan of you guys for ages; it's great to see how you've grown, both in terms of video production value and thoughtful discussion.
If you think Midnight Walk looks awesome, I highly recommend playing through their previous game Lost in Random. On top of a pretty cool battle system, the writing is fantastic.
I hear your personal heartfelt story with your coworker. But I feel like you‘re implying that people who are fed up with wokeness are actually just homophobic. And that they need to have a transformative experience like you did. But that’s basically what the woke narrative is.
I‘m as gay as it gets and I‘m fed up with woke culture, too. I don’t need to “look a gay person in the eye“, I am one. This “culture war“ is not about “gays vs homophobes“, or “pocs vs racists“. That‘s the one-sided view that’s fuelling this whole mess.
You call the likes of Critical Drinker grifters and an extreme response, when for me they are voices of reason and I‘m as far from homophobia as it gets, in my opinion.
Thanks for sharing this. I feel that there is a lot of labeling and stories like yours run counter to the narrative.
I wonder what you think wokeness is when folk mention the concept, cause there are multiple meanings depending on who you ask; however, there is a source for the term.
@@mekannatarry1929wokeness is a rebranding of social justice, which is a rebranding of intersection feminism, which is a rebranding of communism.
Usually the folks acting confused and obfuscating around the point of “what is woke anyway???” are woke and are just being dishonest
Agreed I don't agree with that either. Thanks
@@mekannatarry1929 The original source is the concept of "being aware of and being sensible to social issues", more or less. Which most people, including the "grifter" RUclipsrs mentioned in the video, are. That's the crux. So that's obviously not what the term means anymore, as professional activism becomes more and more niche and extreme in an already liberal, modern society in order to stay relevant. Problems arise as the nature of a social issue and the extend of it mostly come down to personal beliefs and social science theories these days. It's easy for narcissistic cry-bully types to latch on to a seemingly honorable goal to exert their power fantasies, so no wonder there's so much conflict.
10 years ago everyone knew what racism was. Everyone knew what homophobia was. Or sexism. Now these definitions get redefined to include, or better: EXclude, more and more people, and ideas. That's not making the world a better or diverse place. It unnecessarily divides society. It's creates hate, because it comes from a place of contempt.
The civil rights movements from last century, which have become industries on their own, desperately try to stay relevant, and lucrative. Because what happens when you achieve your goal? What happens to the charities, the experts, the platforms etc? For example, it's no coincidence that the "gender movement" got in full swing right after gay marriage was achieved, and the formerly gay organizations, like Stonewall and GLAAD, got fully on board. Or how feminism reinvents itself and has become the 4th wave by now, and its followers hate the 2nd-wave radical feminists like JK Rowling.
It left the ground of common sense a while ago and has become a faceless industry on one hand, and somewhat of a secular religion on the other.
Wokeness is capitalistic, hierarchical, authoritarian and censorous (that a word? I'm not English) to its core. That's the damn problem. When Mike speaks of his experience with his co-worker (who, if I might add, is not the spokesperson of all gay people) I truly believe him. But it's fair to say that since Mike described him as an older guy, when he speaks of his hardships he surely speaks of the aids crisis, or gay bashing, or not being able to come out and marry your partner. Which has nothing to do with modern woes like "misgendering" or "not-having-a-gay-character-in-every-game-or-movie".
So long, LONG story short: "woke" isn't just an innocent term describing some kind of awareness anymore. It describes a very specific belief system and power structure. It's an erosive and nihilistic philosophy. It doesn't reach out, it mandates. And it's very corporate, very by the numbers, sterile. And that's what gaming has become as a consequence.
HZD remaster shows how much Sony thinks its audience is stupid. The "old" game is good looking and does not need a remaster. Sony did it because a lot of fan just consume its products without thinking and they hate that Aloy looks like a woman i the original game, in my opinion.
Moving to California was a bad move. People dont want "body types", LGTV propaganda and other DEI woke stuffs in games.
I’m just stunned that they’re remastering late ps4 titles from 2018 and 2019, but 2015’s bloodborne, honestly probably the most satisfying souls game in my opinion is locked at 30 fps and console locked to ps4.
I think part of the anger at the Horizon remaster is that a lot of people view it as "replacing" a Bloodborne remaster. Now, I know the industry doesn't work that way.
I think a lot of people were dissappointed it wasn't the "right" remaster. To me, I feel Bloodborne remaster is more deserved since you can't even play the original at 60 fps without modding it. A lot of people view a Bloodborne 60 fps remaster as 'free money' for Sony.
I kind of feel the same way, but I'm not going to act like a fiend about it.
The slow patient mentoring way is so slow and there are so many people to go through that process with... Why do millions need to wait to be treated decently?
Because trying to take shortcuts doesn't work?
@@rmsgrey that's bullship. I guess white straight males are the only people that deserve attention? You should ask yourself, why can't we just treat all people like they are people and are worthy of existing and representation.
Normies and middle-class factory workers wasting time on the internet shitting on games, what dafuq have you ever created?!
All one has to do to see that there is a bias against conservatives in the gaming industry is what happened with Colin Moriarty and Kinda Funny games. Colin made an innocuous joke on international women's day and just about everyone in the games media attacked him and painted him as a sexist and somehow managed to figure out a way to try and paint him as a racist during all of it to (he's now married to a black woman by the way). All while his coworkers went along with the people attacking him for their own personal gain. It was an intentional attempt to blacklist him, but because he had a history in the games industry before things became so divided, he was able to start last stand media and gain a large following but most conservatives in gaming today aren't afforded that opportunity to gain a following now and Colin himself rarely gets early access to games from Sony even though he was one of, if not the largest podcast about Playstation today. Games media doesn't allow conservatives anymore and skews heavily liberal, while you have conservative game developers who are afraid to speak out about their views because of repercussions from both coworkers and the people they work for. Colin has said he's had plenty of conversations with people off the record about this. Of course, people online are going to become angry, they're not given any other forum to debate and find compromise with any of this without being attacked or blacklisted within the industry and seeing condescending comments from liberal gamers only makes it worse. NightSkyPrince was complaining about how people who don't like the translations should just learn Japanese a day after you had Kazuhiko Torishima and Yuji Hori talk about how ridiculous all of these western ideals are that they are being forced to put into their games due to corpirate demands, like having type A and type B instead of traditional genders. If legends like them think this stuff is ridiculous, then why should it be the right or conservatives that have to put down their arrow on these subjects? The progressives are the ones constantly on the attack, telling people "if you don't like it then don't buy it," and regular people who just want to play games are sick and tired of the condescension without having a seat at the table and until that happens, the backlash will only keep growing stronger. If you want the fire to die down, put water on it instead of gasoline, and most games journalists and developers have chosen to put more gasoline.
Thank you for pointing out the positives. There's some games you mentioned I'm looking forward to als well.
I am so tired of the culture wars. It's genuinely ruining my ability to enjoy stuff. I'm watching things and I see stuff I know for a fact will be pounced on by the bad faith grifter types who'll make a mint spouting coded hatred. On the other hand, I know what the militant reaction to those bad faith critiques will be and get annoyed how little of an effect they'll have on calming the discourse. It's maddening.
Oh yeah, Soul Reaver Remaster. Will be nice to send my mind back to a time when my life was simply boring and not horribly soul destroying.
I'm there with you. I was glad that gamers got together and starred pushing back against the moral busybodies trying to ruin our hobby, but lately both sides have gone too far.
For example, with Stellar blade, one sad said it was objectifying women. That it was disrespectful for them to betray her that way. The other side instead of focusing on the game play, the story, the lore... You know anything related to the game, baby treated her like a porn simulator. Praising that he's sexy and going out their way to show it to everyone.
I won't play this game because of them.
If a game is surrounded by the culture War, I just avoided from now cuz I'm tired of it
Hello, gentlemen, been a while since I’ve had chance to catch up with the show and much less comment.
I understand and agree with the sentiment that the condescension, hectoring and lecturing coming from the progressive left has made a lot of gamers angry. I get that. It annoys me sometimes too.
On the other hand, there are real people of marginalized groups of different gender, race and sexual orientations that work on these games and use these mediums as an outlet to tell their stories and get their messages across.
Even when these stories are told with more or less the same care that “traditional” stories are told, they’re still panned by angry gamers as “woke”….and the reason that gaming is “dying”.
It’s almost inconceivable to me that gamers, of all people, like (comic book fans), can’t separate the identities of a group of people from the utilitarian and clumsy use of those identities in the pursuit of selling a game by corporations. Gamers…people that have consumed media filled with gray narratives where people and groups are almost always not as straightforward as they may appear.
Furthermore, to address it directly, I do think that there are some people who complain about all this “wokeness” who truly don’t understand what the last 200 years of experiencing media has been like for these groups. They have no idea what it’s like growing up without role models, feeling like an outcast for simply being who you are. All of this recent outpouring and support of these groups feels like “pandering” when it doesn’t even come up to pare with equality.
I hope that more of these critical people can open themselves to have an experience like Mike did. You have much more in common with these human beings that seem so different from you for benign, immutable reasons.
I thought this TGS was alright. My main complaint was that I didn’t see anything that was so innovative or memorable that it left a lasting Impression.
Oh and guys, PLEASE play Lunar. I think you guys will find it very simple and in some ways very much a product of its time, BUT it’s a heartfelt, sincere retelling of a classic hero’s journey and romance. Very straightforward story, that touches upon more complex themes without delving too deeply into them.
The thing is we've been enjoying media perfectly fine for the last 200 years. Nowadays we can have people like us represented in games, which is obviously exciting! It is a good thing and we want to see more of it, but it doesn't mean that we weren't enjoying media to the fullest before. So when some people today get mad at games with a woman or a gay person as a protagonist and complain saying that you don't need representation in something to enjoy it feels ironical and disheartening. Ironic because this kind of guys are the ones that truly can't stand playing as someone with a different gender, race or sexuality; disheartening not because we weren't enjoying media before, but because this responses are a reflection of the discrimination we face irl
Gamers are mad because real world politics are being jammed into games. They are making unwanted and unneeded changes to the remakes. Censoring Dragon Quest art like its being put on the SNES in 93, changing the way statues look in Soul Reaver, changing Lara Crofts design for the remakes, its goes on and on all to comply with the "modern audience" If they want this kind of character design make your own games and quit ruining the ones I grew up with. However, they do make those games and they flop because no one wants this political stuff in games.
“Real world politics” like democracy, monarchy, or authoritarianism? 😆
a lot of people have seen behind the curtain now. when you couple together the games that are coming out and the tweets from the people involved in making them, of course it makes people mad. They label me the enemy and then blame me for the failure. Well they told me the game wasn't for me anyways. Like you said people don't want political stuff, i'd call it an agenda in their games. i'd even simplify it further. People aren't mad they just don't want preached at for $60 or feel like they are signing up for some political cause.
Legacy of Kain, Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid all PS1 games that had a ton of politics in them. Face it as soon as stories became the focus of certain types of games politics were right there. Its only in this day and age that people who didn't notice it back then have been led to believe that this is source of their problems and to be angry about it. Good thing for them that YT algorithms allows for outrage to be monetized.
@@cherimiss7983But there were video GAMES, not preachy propaganda filled cutscenes with walking simulator segments and a couple of QTEs
@@cherimiss7983 I don't know how people keep missing the point even when he described exactly what he meant by "political" in this context. They don't mean games having themes that can be political, but politics interfering with the in a weird preaching, social engineering and censoring way, or outside the artistic vision.
No one is complaining about, say, Disco Elysium being too political even though it's the most aggressively political game ever released, and made by very left leaning developers. That's not what the "it's too political" complaints are about, though I agree it's not the most articulate way to voice them. People are by large fine with engaging with political themes, but not being subliminally manipulated towards any worldview or having their entertainment babyproofed by some outside criteria. But Disco Elysium literally telling you "this is political, deal with it or fuck off"? Not a problem because that's part of the writer having a dialogue with the player and treating them like an adult.
People have been making low poly 3D games for a while now. The indie revival of retro-shooters is almost all in that camp.
I know it's been said already, but I've gotta echo it. We just want to play our games, have fun, and escape into a different world for a couple hours. Especially since I'm sure most of us in here are at an age where we don't have the free time we used to. I don't want modern day politics of any kind, whether it's from the other side of the aisle or even from my own. Political drama is fine, but I don't want the current day political themes that we already have crammed down our throats the other 22 hours of the day. I'm not even saying there's no place for those games, but most of us don't want that and we especially don't want it pushed into our favorite franchises. Also don't expect to be making much money off of those kinds of games because they do alienate a large portion of the potential audience by their nature.
I feel at hope here, too bad that I can't find the time to stay active in this community.
Great episode. This format is a great compliment To the book club format.
Best Podcast on RUclips!!!!!!
I enjoyed Fantasian a lot more than most. It charmed me more than most modern games do. The difficulty was hugely refreshing. You really had to think like 5 turns ahead for the last boss. I think turn based is too easy most times and that’s what actually turns some people off.
Fantastic discussion
I find the gaming discourse tiresome in both directions. Yeah, the critical drinker types often focus on the wrong things (DEI bad, ugly characters suck. we want babes and explosions!) but they are correct in pointing out that gaming has been on a downward trend in quality and cultural resonance and the sales reflect it (sometimes). And the hyper positive influencer types are equally bad in the opposite direction. Just celebrating the most banal stuff and tokenism of various minorities in media. As a minority, I find tokenism far more insulting than lack of representation. And I don't need to see myself in a video game to feel invested in a story. I worry about a segment of modern day gamers that they consider being able to see themselves in a video game of high importance for their investment in a story. Seems mildly narcissistic. I suspect a lot of them are corporate shills/on the payroll.
I see what you mean, but I think it's less a *need* to see themselves in it, and more an appreciation for when it happens. Less a matter of not being able to be invested otherwise, and more a matter of being acknowledged in the media landscape. That last one isn't even just a personal experience thing, it has tangible benefits for the demographics being included down the line. Of course it's not quite that simple, but even just looking at the history of cinema in the United States is a good reference.
Ultimately, if you're someone who does want to see demographic variety in games (or whatever media), for whatever reason, your only options are carrots and sticks. At the end of the day, I'd rather people be over eager to hand out carrots than over eager to hand out sticks.
So even though praising inclusion of a minority in and of itself feels like a low-bar, and I agree that it is, if you don't acknowledge it, people are going to stop doing it (particularly when it's a given that anti-DEI types, will be handing out sticks).
Plus... I don't know, I have a difficult relationship with the idea of tokenism to begin with? I wouldn't really call something tokenism unless it's actually being used as a token, a currency in a sense, and I don't think that actually happens as much as people think. It's *perceived* that way, but just having a diverse cast and saying nothing of it isn't really tokenism to me (even though it might be in the background, but that's a separate issue).
@@SaberToothPortilla You're so right. Do these people who complain about minorities being "shoehorned in awkwardly" or whatever feel the same way when they meet minorities in real life? Like, theyr'e just there. Existing. Is that "tokenism" to them?
@@SaberToothPortilla Tokenism is absolutely the right word, especially when they change the color of the skin or gender of the protagonist but they behave exactly the same as the white protagonist. The black/diverse character is used as currency to pander to people like you but their race doesn't meaningfully affect the story. Also assuming that African Americans are the only minorities in the United States. Haven't seen that many video games with latinos.
An example of a game that truly embraces minorities perspectives is Black Wukong. That was created by Chinese people and represents their mythology faithfully. Would love to see more games like that but for other cultures. Or something written by a minority that truly understands their world, instead of a white dude trying to pretend he understands or just panders to white liberals.
@@SaberToothPortilla plus not all representation is positive representation. I'm not sure I'd be head over heels about a minority character being represented in a video game considering what most video game characters do in their games. That would be like celebrating black actors doing minstrels.
Also notice that most of the praise for diversity in video games comes from white liberals from California. Very few minorities care or are positively affected by this pandering.
@@rdrouynrivthat is literally not true at all. Minorities that are involved with making games nowadays have said that they wished they could connect on a deeper level with characters in media. Like it or not, having a skin color and gender comes with thousands of years of history attached. You may see “oh wow a black character they are just pandering” but that’s so surface level. If a writer wants to portray an experience or point of view from a black character, it shouldn’t be written off as pandering.
Why show compassion to people who act with malice? Compassion only makes sense when they admit their mistakes and seek forgiveness. Otherwise, it's self-defeating and foolish.
I agree! I can't stand turn the other cheek nonsense when someone legit wants to see your demise!
Philosophical
An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. War truly ends when someone is willing to be brave enough to stop fighting and look for a peaceful resolution.
@@Batterydennis That does not work when one side will continue. That was attempted before. Look what happened to Wukong.
When did either side of the culture war actually make an attempt to reach out with compassion?
How do we know it won't work if there's been no large effort made to reach out with compassion to the other side?
Each side just responds with hostility over and over again and we've escalated tensions to the point where we are now.
It’s not just games. Keep fence sitting. Everything you love will be destroyed.
Even their race.
I'm usually a quiet listener of the podcast because I'm not confident in my ability to convey my thoughts properly, but I feel compelled to speak up.
I don't think people are as divided as it may seem. While there are certainly bad actors taking advantage of the outrage to push their own ideals or even just to revel in the fallout, I believe that most people(including the LGBT people) are united in their fury. And I think they are pushing back against those bad actors as well as corporations.
I do agree with your message of compassion and empathy. This podcast specifically has made me more conscious about being compassionate and I'm grateful for it.
But I can't help but feel like people have already been trying to be compassionate and empathetic for the past 5-10 years. And people are feeling like it's not working.
People have tried compassion and see that the result of it is the art that they love is being hijacked, molested, and used as a vehicle to either make more money or push and agenda.
There's probably more to say but I don't know how to say it. I apologize if this made little sense.
PS. I appreciate the extra podcast episodes!