Just watched this 5 minute video:

“Why Aren’t Games Fun Anymore?” by Jackus

And it pretty clearly lays out the Hedonic treadmill and describes depression and alienation under capitalism, even calling out the companies who are just churning out games for profit. But then he blames the games and says he doesn’t enjoy them anymore because they’re not as good.

Is that the point and I’m just taking it at face value when I shouldn’t be? It’s just super sad for someone to basically express the experience of becoming an adult under capitalism, but then completely externalize the cause.

  • culpritus [any]
    ·
    3 years ago

    so I've had this remembrance of some old pre-adult times when me and the chums would talk about the potential for games in the future, combining genres and basically dreaming about things akin to VR and Star Citizen, etc

    and I think this 'dreaming' aspect of play/fun has really been what is lost in many ways, and it has been replaced with this jaded melancholy that's very much part of the capitalist realism brain worms

    this is why I still think the mods/indies are the real fertile living soil of the gaming world, it's not some monetized investment vehicle tied to a valuable IP, it's just 'creators' trying to build some version of that dream-place where play/fun are very much at home

    I think this might be part of the appeal of rogue-likes/lites, and maybe generative/procedural games as well, they are more about the experience than some winning strategy or being some god-like power/savior

    I've always enjoyed competitive games, but only ones that have minimal persistence, so there's always a reset back to the start for everyone involved, which in many ways mirrors an equitable perspective

    it's just not very fun to stomp other people to me when they don't at least have a fair chance to stomp me too, so I mostly just play Rocket League to scratch that itch these days