What always gets me is that they can’t admit and accept that something is overpriced, low quality shit when it is just overpriced, low quality shit. Instead they huff the copium and call anyone who does offer genuine criticism a “toxic hater” or whatever. Another argument I also keep seeing is “It’s just not for you”.
True of other artistic mediums as well. Everyone wants their hobby to be “art” but nobody wants to actually engage critically with anything which they consume. For most people, film, literature and music are sources of cheap dopamine hits, and the artistic output of the twenty-first century shows it.
It’s even worse. The whole journalistic side of it is just a giant paid ad over and over again. There’s no real critique of games being done by these outlets that pretend to do it. It sucks seeing the whole medium being treated as just a product and never as art.
Yeah I dont understand how games journalism is so bad specifically. It’s so infuriating trying to find out about something only for an article to waffle on about nothing for 5 pages
probably not literally the same people
That and there’s a line. The post is vague do maybe I’m misinterpreting, but when I say “let people enjoy things” I’m less talking about people who critique art in an artistic sense and more so the people (i.e, r/patientgamers on reddit) who are like “oh my god (Insert game here) is so slow and boring I cannot believe anyone would like this walking simulator? Don’t the devs understand that I have a job?” At least in my experience that’s what I see mostly, and its so annoying. Let me like different things than you, why is it my or the devs fault that you picked a game that you don’t mesh with personally.
i think that videogames are just like movies, cinema is art, but not all the movies are art. that’s why we have a subgenre that it calls “art cinema” so, i think that is the same in videogames, there’s some games that maybe we can call “art videogames” but also we have mario kart.
I would argue that mario kart is as much a work of art as any “art game.” I’d also make the same arguement for films. Art of any kind doesn’t have to be good, or prestigious, or “arty” to still be art.
yes, i’m agree with you, that’s why i use mario kart as an example. cause it needs so much work in every area, and the results are just awesome, but in the end it will never be considered art.
Would love an Anti-Gamer-Aktion community, but it would just end up being SRS 2.
It’s pretty much a given that a plurality, if not majority, of videogame fans, especially online, are immensely obsessive and defensive of their treats, while also being massive chuddy manchildren that seem the most susceptible to culture war freak outs.
When I think of art, I think of rich aristocrat dumbasses trading ugly pictures. The word is completely poisoned for me.
yes, the word art (word art lol) maybe is so poisoned right now.
Ugh gamer culture is the worst. Idk how the fun thing i used to do as a kid sometimes turned into one of the most toxic parts of modern society.
Anything mainstream is going to have toxicity as a major feature, that’s the price paid to become mainstream in a culture that lionizes capitalism. That doesn’t mean everything niche is non-toxic, of course, but in general, everything that is mostly non-toxic is also niche.
I think it’s more than that. I think the gaming industry as a whole caters to the loudest and most obnoxious minority. Lots of people enjoy video games, yet so many of them cater to 20-40 year old man babys. They put ridiculously sexualized depictions of women in their games, take little online communities throwing fits seriously, make their games simpler, and less engaging so people don’t have to think while playing them, etc.
I think they are under the impression this makes them more money, but i honestly think it hurts them. There are plenty of games that could have been good, and i might have tried had they focused more on good mechanics and gameplay and less on things like crazy detailed graphics, big boobies, and other nonsense. I can’t imagine im the only one who is just put off of the industry entirely by this stuff.
People got addicted and then got precious over it. Brings out toxic behaviour in a lot of folks.
Gamergate
I’ll repeat this as often as this comes up, Wind Waker was widely hated in online forums back when it was announced because the 12 year old who played OoT were now 16 and wanted LoZ: More Tits and Gore and that whole debacle predated Gamergate by 12 years despite basically just being “LoZ has gone woke!!!” with the particular words put through a thesaurus.
On the flip side of this. Pokemon bootlickers will tell genuine fans of the series they’re just nostalgia brained for saying that newer games on the series are undercooked, unfinished, and filled with anti-player features/trends (DLCs, un toggleable QoL, no difficulty setting). I’ve enjoyed the series since I was a kid but it’s not purely my brain playing tricks on me to reconize the last few games needed longer development times and that the devs are forced to push out content before its anywhere near ready.
It feels like trying to bring up the inherent contradictions of Capitlism into these discussions should be easy but people will violently reject any attempt to even explain why this is occurring.
You get reaponse tgat range from:
- A delusional rejection of the premise that the games are actually “bad” (note they take a objective metrics like unfinished and replace it with a subjective metric such as opinion)
- A smug dismissal that your wrong and putting too much time into a conspiracy, and the real issue stems from consumers buying the product(?) not acknowledging the fact that this is still a part of the analysis it’s just not the core issue.
- A weird defensive response which highlights how you are probably just growing out of the games and actually "its really dysfunctional"that you put any thought into this thing you’ve bought and used for years and that you should stop trying to police a product made fo 8 year Olds (they say as another likely early 20 year old still enjoying an admittedly charming game play loop).
- 500 gorzillion dead, no food or iPhone or UB Funkeys, Vuvezuela-Chicom-Putin, did you know the Muslims invented communism by spreading their anti-semetism to Karl Marx through I Ibn Khaldun?
I think there would be a better chance at making progress now rather then when had been attempting to a few years back, but I’m not sure I’d like to dive back into long-winded arguments with manchildren over trying to help a medium we both enjoy.
Pokemon bootlickers will tell genuine fans of the series they’re just nostalgia brained for saying that newer games on the series are undercooked, unfinished, and filled with anti-player features/trends (DLCs, un toggleable QoL, no difficulty setting).
Bootlickers in defense of [insert any criticism of a game’s product fitness ever] are some of the most annoyingly smug people on the internet I’ve ever had the displeasure of dealing with on an ongoing basis.
To be clear, there are game enjoyers who sometimes defend something who are just having a conversation and disagreeing, and that’s perfectly fine with me, you don’t have to agree with a criticism someone levies at a game.
But then there are those people who use every talking point pushed by corporations like it’s their religion and talk down to anyone who makes any criticism, even if that person is otherwise a big fan, like they’re telling off a child for demanding a candy bar at the store. Those types give off the same vibes as the sort of lowlife scum who would tell people they are entitled for wanting universal healthcare. The bootstraps ministers who preach being happy with whatever you get, as if corporations and capital were gods who are being magnanimous when they provide anything at all.
I personally think a lot of the toxic positivity surrounding the Pokémon community specifically comes from the content space.
Nintendo and the Pokémon Company (which are different companies that I’ve seen people confuse as one) are notably ruthless against anyone who interacts with their brand. Mods, fan games, emulators, and other obscure related content are snuffed out with bullshit reasons in sporadic basically random sequences.
It’s fostered a culture on YouTube where people approach this content in a “don’t bite the hand that feeds” sorta mentality. It’s well known that if Pokémon Co doesn’t like your content for whatever reason, the response can range from having all your revenue cut off to being personally hit by some insane lawsuit out of nowhere. This leads audiences to repeat after their parasocial idols putting up a toxicly optimistic front.
The creator themselves for all intents and purposes are probably just trying to talk about a thing they enjoy while also not stressing out about getting whacked by the largest franchise in the world.
I tend to avoid gaming communities mainly to save myself from seeing annoying corporate worship on a scale that’s genuinely depressing. The rise of unionization efforts in development teams gives me some hope that consciousness is shifting, as I’ve seen a lot of “gamers” show solidarity towards worker abuse by game companies. Maybe the whole treat culture will actually be challenged in a few years, but that’s just anecdotal optimism.
I don’t know, admittedly I was not on online forums witnessing hatred of Wind Waker back then so maybe the hate was like you say, but I personally was not a big fan of Wind Waker and it had nothing to do with what you stated. For me, it was largely the art style and the ship gameplay that put me off. I’ve long preferred more realistic-ish art styles in games (not necessarily hyperrealistic, just not like super flat I guess) and have yet to meet a game where I enjoy navigating sea.
Ocarina of Time is one of, if not, my favorite game of all time because it had great puzzles, music, environments, story, and was all-around charming, and is no doubt ensconced in a lot of nostalgia for me, of playing it with siblings. Tits and gore would destroy the charm of it and be more like GTA, not Legend of Zelda. In fact, I would say one of the charming things about Legend of Zelda is the distinct lack of “adult” themes. It feels more like a kid’s adventure born out of their daydreams than a gritty hyperrealistic thing.
Wind Waker is not beyond criticism, even on the sailing part (what a slog in the original version in the midgame, honestly). But that wasn’t really what the hullaballoo was about back then, because the game wasn’t out. I personally do not understand how anyone can not marvel at the art style of Wind Waker but taste is subjective. I think this article gives an allright overview, even with “we were lied to!” by this 5 second trailer clearly styled after OOT with no mention of the actual game
I see, I didn’t realize there was controversy about it before it was even out.
Games as art largely got killed by capitalism. There’s some of it in indie, as with other industries, but they turned into a largely casino-adjacent medium overall. As for game enjoyers, yeah there are a lot of people who get defensive over criticism levied at the game(s) they like. In general, any online “community” centered around a product seems to trend toward being cult-like (or cult-lite, perhaps), maybe because in the capitalist west (particularly the US section of things) the customer has virtually no power or influence short of kicking up a prolonged media shitstorm for a given company and just kinda has to deal with what is meted out or leave, so it’s maybe similar to the makeup of a cult in that way; supreme leader (corporation) and followers (customers who stick around). And also the disconnect, that with online, we aren’t generally talking about a business made up of people you know in your community, but instead a largely faceless entity who hardly knows your in-person region exists, much less cares.
There has been pushback against rightwing attitudes in gamer culture lately.
Good Post!
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I get your point about overanalyzing things that don’t need to be. But i don’t think that means that its any less art. All movies are art. I don’t think all movies should be analyzed the same way and to the same degree, because they aren’t all trying to do the same thing, right? There’s differemt genres, different things that the artists involved are trying to achieve. Something Stepbrothers or Anchor Man are trying to do something different than The Godfather, or Citizen Kane, or whatever - but theyre all still movies - they’re all still art.
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No all art is art, even if its bad or made for shock value. Art doesn’t have to be “artistic” or deep.
