r/Gamingunjerk

I've commented on a few other posts about this but I need to know: why is such an innocent indie game that I haven't even heard of until two days ago suddenly attracting the same outrage I would expect from a AAA game? Like I get if it isn't someone's cup of tea or something, but I'm seeing stuff on YouTube and Twitter (being passed around of course, I don't use Twitter) calling it garbage and I'm seriously confused on where this has come from.

I got the game on Steam so I am going to try it out but I want to know why it's a hot topic all of a sudden?

Just seems all this anti-woke gaming discourse around censorship is wildly selective.

Like if a localisation changes a joke, a woman in a game is slightly less sexualised, or a studio makes a character less conventionally attractive, it becomes proof that progressives are destroying media?

To be clear these companies absolutely do make bad decisions sometimes but the point here and what these people never acknowledge for some reason is the right has a much stronger record of actually censoring media.

The Hays Code shaped Hollywood for decades. The Comics Code gutted comics. Conservative moral panics targeted D&D, violent games, sexual content, queer material, libraries, schools, and now online porn access. This is all REAL institutional censorship, backed by law, pressure campaigns, school boards, and political power. Yet culture warriors and anti-woke gamers mostly talk about censorship as if it means “progressives touched my hobby.”

I'm sure this is obvious to most here but I really don't think a lot of these people actually oppose censorship. They just oppose progressive influence. When progressives pressure media, it is tyranny but when conservatives do it, suddenly it becomes “protecting children,” “community standards,” or “fighting degeneracy.”

Gaming discourse needs to stop pretending these people are consistent free-speech defenders. Most of them only care when the pressure comes from the left. They have no clue the "enemy" they are fighting is literally on their "side" 😂

People are clowning on Mixtape for being “just hold forward gameplay” and acting like the awkward kissing scene (which is SUPPOSED to be awkward and uncomfortable and most importantly, NOT SEXUAL) was some kind of moral catastrophe yet, people praised Dispatch despite it also having the same gameplay and having actual sex scenes.

I'm honestly convinced that the gaming community is FULL of Hypocrites

every single one of these right wing grifters were using Slay the Spire 2’s CCU as as a culture war weapon against Marathon for weeks and then they found out about Anita Sarkeesian's name being in the credits

then there's Mixtape which is being disregarded because because all you do is " hold forward" as if Narrative games aren't "real games"

we had that whole Pragmata controversy a few weeks ago because of the pedos making either explicit comments/images or dog-whistles to sexualize Diana and then screaming “censorship” when people try to pushback,, the reactionaries who see this then immediately assume anyone who touches the game is/supports pedophilia , the weird natalists claiming this single game somehow “defeats feminism” because it somehow promotes pregnancies (even though the game is very pro-adoption).

then there was Crimson Desert being divisive

you don't HAVE to like EVERY Single player game that comes out but some people need to stop looking for stuff to be offended by

So, so many gaming YouTubers prey on culture war bullshit, and I absolutely hate those guys. However, I've become a big fan of MugThief, who doesn't seem like a culture war guy, and has pretty good takes I agree with. Watching his video on Mixtape right now, which he doesn't like, and he has a very measured take on why he doesn't like it, and why he thinks it's getting great reviews.

I should preface by saying that i believe everyone is entitled to their own opinion, one hundred percent. I don’t want everyone to have the same opinions as me. If everyone shared the same opinions on things we’d be living in a Pluribus style dystopian hell. I’m sure a lot of y’all don't want that too.

What i want to rant about is something i personally feel is slowly infesting the gaming community: subjective opinions being treated as objective fact by both the speaker and the audience.

Let me make something clear: i have a very open mind when it comes to video games. I used to restrict myself to a couple select genres when i was younger (i almost exclusively played racing games at the time), but as i grew and matured my tastes have expanded beyond them, though i still love those genres dearly. I don’t restrict myself to budget and scope either- i’m willing to play AAA titles, indie stuff and everything in-between. As long as i’m having fun, i could care less what i’m playing. Of course, i also acknowledge every game has it's flaw, and have ultimately learned to live with the fact that there's no such thing as a truly “perfect” game. Unfortunately not a lot of people seem to like the idea of engaging with the art of video games the way i do.

Almost every time i see people criticize a game now, especially if it’s something that has a mixed-at-best reception, it doesn’t feel like they’re saying “i didn’t enjoy this game personally” like it should be. Now it’s more like “THIS GAME IS THE SCUM OF THE EARTH NOBODY SHOULD EVER BUY THIS IF YOU LIKE THIS GAME YOU’RE A TERRIBLE PERSON”. And others usually back them up, even those who didn’t actually play the damn game. I feel like gamers don’t want to jump into a new title blindly and make their own judgment anymore. No now we HAVE to agree with the majority response, positively or negatively, like we’re a fucking hive mind (hence the Pluribus reference). If someone dares to deviate to the minority opinion by liking or hating something most others are doing the opposite of, they don’t appreciate video games as an art form or something like that.

I'll allow this behavior for a few exceptions, such as ai slop games made specifically to scam consumers and are objectively scummy, but when it's for real games that real people actually put effort into, it hurts.

A personal example of this i can think of is Wreckreation. I love Wreckreation. Sounds crazy, right? Why could i possibly love some shitty knockoff of Burnout Paradise, right? Here’s the thing: i also really love Burnout Paradise. I was surprised at how similar Wreckreation was to it (to be fair i barely looked at any promotional footage of it before release and it being made by former Criterion devs should’ve clued me in) but i welcomed it because we don’t get games like Paradise anymore. In fact, there are a handful of things i think Wreckreation does better (having a clearer sense of direction was a big one for me) than BP. I also think vice versa but like i said, no game is ever truly perfect. But i’ve been afraid to say that i personally like Wreckreation for so long because it got so utterly bashed at launch; that i would be ridiculed for finding fun in something so many said was a piece of shit.

There were times i thought this fear was unwarranted until one recent incident, when i defended the new Rayman remaster on r/Rayman by saying it could determine if there’s a demand for more, maybe even actually new Rayman games. One person kindly responded by saying i had a “cuck mindset” and I was defending a soulless corporation being lazy. And this was all because the remaster committed the unforgivable sin of having different music. “But the original music triggers the memories people have playing the game back in the day” (paraphrasing another actual reply) so that super-specific aspect not being there should automatically negate you being grateful Ubisoft still cares about the franchise you love? Why is the activation of nostalgia the most important thing for a remaster to be “good”?

I should not be called a cuck for having a positive opinion on a game because it’s made by a AAA studio. That moment, to me, exemplifies the climate i feel like i’m stuck in, where i’m subliminally being told what i can and can’t enjoy. “Don’t play this game you love! It’s made by a corporation so it’s automatically soulless and a worthless time waster! Only play indie games! They'll make you actually appreciate the beauty of this world or something! Having fun should not be enough for you! That makes you a mindless bootlicker with no sympathy for the common man!!!”

It’s so tiring and makes me sad.

The discourse around Mixtape is what pushed me over the edge and inspired me to speak up about this. I saw some comments claiming the majority positive reviews, most of them fueled by genuine heartfelt connection to the relatable characters and story, were GENERATED BY AI. Why? Simply because the game doesn’t have a ginormous emphasis on gameplay. Which is not the whole fucking point of the game. Since when did games that “play itself” become something we’re required to shit on? Were you expecting this game meant specifically to evoke the nostalgic experience of hanging with your childhood friends with a huge emphasis on the music that shaped you and them during those formative years to have the same depth as fucking Elden Ring?

Ultimately, what i want to say is i think all games deserve to exist. Video games are arguably the art form with the most limitless possibilities, and it deserves to be taken advantage of every single way it can. Controversial as it may sound, i want more 20+ hour long AAA epics with sprawling open worlds and photorealistic graphics to be created just as much as i want more quirky, shorter-length indie games with hand-drawn or cruder art styles to be made. Why do people act like they want only one or the other to exist? How could that possibly benefit us as a society? Is it wrong for someone like me to enjoy both? To love and appreciate video games in general?

IDK. Some of you might think i'm rambling over nothing. I just wanted to finally come out and vent about this after hiding it for so long.

'This could just be me, not having a sense of humour, or maybe I'm just being nitpicky. But I feel the gamers™ approach to sexualization is rather immature and frankly shallow. They have low standards when it comes to shitty videogame fanservice. They will see a woman wearing the most ridiculous unfashionable outfit, and they will simply wank off to her and die on a hill if people call the outfit objectifying, stupid, and, accurately said, look, someone who has never seen an actual woman (and no, I don't care if some actual woman designed these; she either a) has a poor sense of fashion and poor taste in what she finds attractive about herself because she's probably straight as a board, or b) she commissions drawings of ridiculous character designs, and none of it is her idea).

Also, they are very bad with risque humor; it's just forced, corny, and sounds like something a hormonal teenager would have thought up and can get rather creepy—nothing subtle, nothing creative. Let's not forget how these fucking losers will go to arms to defend a fucking 12-year-old. In a shitty ecchi game, wearing a fucking thong and the USA not wanting to be involved in selling that shit. But they won't say shit when an actual woman gets sexually harassed at best or fully assaulted at worst in these gaming companies. Is this just me?

edit: I just realized I meant I sexualzation but unfortunately I can't change he title.

i used to LOOOOOVVVEEE rdr2. but ya wanna know why it didn't win game of the year? all the missions that restricted you to WATCH railroaded set pieces that were nothing but TALKING, HORSE RIDING or LEARNING THE NEW SKILL. where you had no in game freedom to shoot or run or take cover or anything.

the bit where you find john marston in the prologue is a great example, you cannot speed this journey up or go your own way to get him. you HAVE to follow your gang member at a snails pace. or the first strauss missions, you can't skip them or have another member of the group do them, find you in camp and then have a short dialogue about how you "forgot to help".

no. you HAVE to do it. it's boring bullshit. on par with the boring bullshit from crimson desert like having to rescue the cat or the sheep or the chimney or the boxes by the river or the whatever, forever.

i hope we shift away from this shit some time soon. because the amazing bits of RDR2 like all the shootouts and all the big main character moments like arthurs diagnosis, dutch's betrayal at the factory, hosea's death, seans death? they come in AFTER this boring bullshit and that's just not fun to me anymore.

i'm crossing my fingers into a fucking pretzel for blood of the dawnwalker, the witcher 4 and fable to be back to back peak. i'll eventually have to pick one as the king in my own head knowing me but for now, i just want to see them.

crimson deserts main quest, plot, constant puzzles and detective work make it unbearable. i just don't care to place the cube in the right spot or answer this heaven tech door code they've installed into the wall, in order to get to the next anticlimactic boss battle where the villain runs away at the end.

very simply, these other games like witcher 4, blood of the dawnwalker and fable, being more traditional RPGs will hopefully not harp too hard on these aspects and provide a more stable design that knows what it wants the player to see and do.

Ngl, I'm having a moment with all the discourse around gaming and how it's sexualization of women still persist despite the western game industry's attempt to diversify and move away from mindlessly sexual female character designs. But we still have shit like gacha games where all the waifus are designed to be sexy for lonely men or the fact that these games prove these efforts are futile.

Idk, I just feel as though as long as games pander mostly straight cis men with the libido of teenagers, this will continue while the industry does nothing.

AC Shadows was the first AC game that had garnered enough interest in me to check out since I dropped the first game about half way through when it came out back on the 360 almost 20 years ago now. While playing it off the Uplay+ subscription service to beat it within the month, I did mostly enjoy my time with it but could understand how many may have developed open world fatigue from repetitive tasks over the previous entries and felt the ending was bland set up to be sell a real ending as DLC later on. Truly a 7/10 of a game which I think should be respectable but just not for $70 and I think if I didn't play it for $20 I'd probably feel more slighted about it.

Throughout my experience with Shadows a lot of my friends were telling me to just drop it or forget it and play Ghosts of Tsushima now that it had launched on PC. Personally I just don't like the idea of paying for the Sony PC Ports for more than $30 because while the art is timeless they are treated as products and by the time they launch they are old and quickly go on sale and you can find the physical PS5 editions for under $20. I made the exception for The Last of Us Part 2 because after years of internet discourse, I'd really wanted to play it to form my own opinion of the game. I recently was able to find a key for Ghosts of Tsushima from one of the authorized key sale sites for under $30 and picked it up.

After about 5 hours, I think it's an interesting give and take between the two titles. I personally scale games on a binary from toy to art and Ghost of Tsushima is much further on the art side than Shadows. While I think Shadows does a good job with it's characters and the detail of it's beautiful world, there's a level of cinematography and art direction even with the lower fidelity that transcends Ghosts even just that bit ahead of Shadows. For Shadows credit, I think it's just a more mechanically developed game and the higher fidelity adds to it's experience. It could just because I'm very early in Ghosts but I also feel the various weapons in Shadows, the wider array of move sets and varied challenges made playing shadows more mechanically satisfying to play.

anyone remember pragmata? or what the story was? or the premise? or what it looked like beyond that dogshit box art? anyone? where is all the hype we used to have? did it just go to resident evil? will it return for 007 or lego batman? assassins creed 4 remake? will we even be able to play assassins creed 4 remake or will we all get stuck at the main menu trying to connect to ubisofts third party bullshit.