Instead of "it's not for me" it's always "this is horrible". Most of the time I'm on social media I see people talk down to others or ridicule them for liking or enjoying certain games. I get that gamers can be annoying, but it's just so draining sometimes.
And don't get me started on this anti-"woke' movement. Some people are BEGGING to see developers and games fail just because they don't like their stuff. Not to mention most of their complaints are based in BIGOTRY alone, which is definitely not getting better in the coming years. It's so fucking infuriating
Plus, In the early times of the Internet, gaming discourse wasn't this negative at all outside of the stupid Console War discussions.
I'm pretty sure that it's the way that social media is designed. It's designed to generate outrage to maximize engagement
Gaming discussion online has always been shitty on the whole, but nowadays this applies to nearly every hobby online. Social media amplifies this effect like crazy.
For me this is how the gaming community has always been. It's the reason I'm pro gamer gulags tbh
I remember seeing flame wars on gamefaqs over 20 years ago over dumb shit while looking for guides. Gamers, like all fandoms, have always been like this.
I mean besides the cultural war and the social media manipulating things to be always angry comments we also have the enshitfication in general affecting the industry.
Capitalism endgame: instead of artists working on passion projects, it's corporate slop directed by weird people in suits using soulless algorithms attempting to maximize profit margins.
I wonder how many people that are gaming enthusiasts are depressed and feel less satisfaction with things generally
That's a good point. It's kinda a chicken and egg situation, though. Do lonely people get into gaming because they don't have IRL hobbies and friends, or do the people who are really into gaming become depressed and lonely because of the nature of the activity?
thats literally everybody in every hobby all the time. like what could you possibly be into where you go "oh yeah this is the high time for this, this is going greater (or at least not worse) than ever before"
In the early times of the Internet, gaming discourse wasn't this negative at all outside of the stupid Console War discussions.
idk what about like gamergate and all that shit, i dont think it was ever nice
Gamergate is super recent, I think they mean like in the 2000s and earlier.
Yeah and the internet is like 40 years old, it's still super recent when you consider how long the Interrnet went without massive commercialized social media.
I feel like its only a continuation of the same idpol taken to the extreme, first it was the "console wars" now its a genre wars, people build their identities around certain games or studios (e.g from software). Its kinda sad because i enjoy pretty much any genre.
Social media pushes content that will make people angry because it keeps them engaged for longer. This causes a feedback loop where negativity becomes a larger factor over time.
I would argue that Gamers are predisposed to this kind of thinking already, so the negativity is amplified even more.
It is a category of media that attracts children, man-children, and people who can be entertained by slop-level tactile/audio-visual/skinner-box mechanisms. Even the slightest critique of their escapist fantasy causes the whole thing to turn to ash in their mouths.
It's been like this since I started consuming video game content in like 2011. The only newish addition is the gamers who call every game woke now.
At least the console wars were entertaining and made for some funny moments. A bunch of people in their mid 30s arguing about "woke" and how games aren't as good anymore is just sad. Like don't get me wrong, some gaming genres have suffered badly in the past few years, racing games being a prime example. But other genres are better than ever right now.
I'd say racing sims are better than they've ever been and arcade racers are having a major resurgence.
Arcade racers are practically dead outside of Forza Horizon though. As for racing sims, they've gotten better at the downside of becoming an obscenely expensive hobby, and aren't really games anymore in terms of feature set, they're just simulators and nothing else.
