It's REALLY bad on Steam, but on many online platforms (sadly even itch.io) there is so much damn shovelware. Not even "slop" something below "slop", sludge is the only word I can think of (no disrespect to Sludge Life 1 & 2, great games go play them). It clogs up online storefronts and really ruins searching games by tags.

It's really annoying that my personal favorite genre, "immersive sim" has been utterly flooded with these shovelware games. Unless I know exactly the name of a game, I cannot find anything worthwhile. Good games, small games, gems of yesteryear, all that sort of stuff is just hidden by this layer of sludge. I like to browse storefronts (digital and physical) and just check stuff out, get a feel for what's out there, but you can't do that when there is "XYZ simulator: prologue" every other item.

It fuckin' sucks. I really do think many real good games get lost in the sludge pit and have to hope that some internet video essayist/review or something discovers it by chance. I'm not saying everything is an undiscovered legend but I am saying, I can't even find games on most of these storefronts because the whole thing is flooded with effectively spam games.

(I then feel bad that these scumbags can get a game on steam and i can't even hack together a playable game jam thing, but that's a different post)

  • UlyssesT [he/him]
    ·
    5 days ago

    Human creativity is being crowded out everywhere by these labor-stealing derivative slop machines, and the longer this goes on, the more the slop machines will feed on slop machine content, diluting their own output the way Google's search engine became increasingly useless because of SEO contamination. Copy of a copy syndrome running rampant, all for the low low price of burning our remaining forests and drying up our remaining freshwater supplies.

    I am fucking disgusted with the self-described "leftists" on Hexbear that stan for the fucking things in their present unchecked and ever-expanding database demands, now more than ever. Whether it's occultism-in-denial about the ascension of humanity's new masters/successors or just treat brain cravings for more cheap treats, it doesn't matter anymore. Their misanthropic selfishness and apathy is ruinous.

    • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
      ·
      5 days ago

      But have you considered that the treat printers make PP hard? and are therefore something that requires unconditional support?

      • UlyssesT [he/him]
        ·
        5 days ago

        The treats must never make someone feel uncomfortable or guilty in any way, nor should any discouragement to consume more treats ever be entertained. Therefore the treats are objectively good and to say otherwise is against materialism and no investigation, no right to speak, and other words that may be cherry picked from a Marxist vocabulary book, you Luddite. smuglord

      • Belly_Beanis [he/him]
        ·
        5 days ago

        Have we reached the point where chuds calling people SWERFs as a rebuttal to AI girlfriend criticism?

        • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
          ·
          5 days ago

          I don't think I've ever heard a CHUD call someone a SWERF. Someone just being a feminist is usually enough to get them shaking with rage.

    • peppersky [he/him, any]
      ·
      5 days ago

      Human creativity is being crowded out everywhere by these labor-stealing derivative slop machines, and the longer this goes on, the more the slop machines will feed on slop machine content, diluting their own output the way Google's search engine became increasingly useless because of SEO contamination. Copy of a copy syndrome running rampant, all for the low low price of burning our remaining forests and drying up our remaining freshwater supplies.

      It's just the endless downward spiral that is media and art in late-stage capitalism getting steeper and faster as it gets closer to the center (and hopefully although increasingly unlikely its breaking point).