Board 8 > You know what irks me about modern gaming?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Well, lots of things (most of them aren't new or surprising), but...

Gaming nowadays is way too temporary, too "come-and-go". I mean, very few games are talked about (or even played) for more than a few months. The only games that stay relevant are ones like Smash Ultimate, because they keep adding new content so it isn't forgotten. Next come revolutionary games like... I can only think of Minecraft (not even Breath of the Wild). Then you have the (most popular) MMOs like League of Legends and FFXIV. Finally, you have miracles (or odd-balls?) like SSB Melee.

And that's it. Every other game, good or bad, just comes and goes.

But I also witness this phenomenon in other media, like movies and social media.

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This isn't an issue with gaming any more than it is an issue with movies, anime, TV shows, etc etc as you already pointed out.

The issue is that mainstream channels of discussion chew things up and move on at a rapid pace these days. The art is just as valuable and everlasting as ever, it just seems less so if you care about those shallow consumerist discussion channels. (Which you shouldn't for the sake of your mental health.)

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@Metal_DK

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also, since when is LoL an MMO

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It was always this way, it just doesnt feel like it when youre younger because each one takes up a much larger percentage of your life (so far).

Yeah I remember when I stopped playing my main MMO and I was just like well Ill just wait for the next big MMO instead of getting back into the old one and nothing ever materialized. I remember when a new MMO came out every week.

In gaming, I do actually think the culture moves a bit faster than it did in the 90's - the technology certainly isn't, but back then you could have a game that was 5 years old and it could still be the big thing. I think two things were true:

1) There weren't quite as many games coming out and the base library of games that existed was much smaller, so things stayed relevant for a bit longer
2) The lack of internet meant that time passed at a different pace

I think social media really accelerates the rate at which we consume stuff - the hot new shit gets memeified to death in a matter of months until nothing but bones is left and seems like old news sooner than it would have 20+ years ago, where it was still possible to have not just you but your entire friend circle newly discover something that was already years old.

Although, that said, I'm still newly discovering stuff that's years old today, too, and there were fast-moving fads back in the day as well. I think the internet just makes things seem a lot different.

PerfectChaosZ posted...

Yeah I remember when I stopped playing my main MMO and I was just like well Ill just wait for the next big MMO instead of getting back into the old one and nothing ever materialized. I remember when a new MMO came out every week.

pso2

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Paratroopa1 posted...

I think social media really accelerates the rate at which we consume stuff - the hot new shit gets memeified to death in a matter of months until nothing but bones is left and seems like old news sooner than it would have 20+ years ago

Yes, I was going to mention memes, but those things move on so incredibly quick that I wasn't sure if they counted as part of the conversation or not, especially when you bring up an """"old"""" or random meme like "Netflix & chill" and they respond with: 2015 called; it asked you to give it back its meme. I mean, it's been just 5 years! (I don't use "Netflix & chill", though, it's just an example.)

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I assure you BotW is still relevant
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Also add GTA Online to your list

And Fortnite

And Overwatch

I actually think more games have staying power today than in the past, they just happen to mostly be online competitive stuff
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Witcher 3, Skyrim, GTA V, BotW, Fortnite all of them are talked about for years and will probably continue to be so

But I understand what you mean
Nowadays there are so many types of media to consume. Not just games, but also TV shows, movies etc
Hell even just watching Youtube videos of popular people is considered a mainstream media thing

I also kind of missed the old days. When if you played a game, there was a very high chance a lot of other people played it too so you could talk about it

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There are more games these days and they're much more accessible than they used to be, so the discourse is just more flooded. There's also way more outlets to talk so fans of smaller games or certain genres just go into their circles to talk about them, and the big AAA ones are the only ones that get blasted everywhere.

Add to that the personal bias that as kids we played fewer games for what felt like much longer periods of time, and I don't think it's really that big a deal.

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What irks me about gaming now is how one button press does multiple things. Not just contextual buttons, I mean how one button instigates a whole maneuver of jumping and leaping sometimes. Took me forever to figure out Arkham Asylum.

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If anything i'd say that it is actually the opposite and that people play the same games longer and return to them more. Most games get some type of regular updates and the games as a service model has been going strong for a few years now. You probably just are not into a lot of those games so you don't see it and with the internet usually if you want to talk about them there is a specific forum or discord you use for discussion about them.

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Other than that, the Souls series still maintains a level of interest. [Even if the release of Demon's Souls Remake is ignored, the series still holds it's place.]

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I don't believe this is much more true than it used to be. The only difference is that the sheer volume of content means you're less likely to return to something for lack of other options. As a kid, there were games I'd end up playing like once every three months for years, simply because I didn't have a Steam library with hundreds of alternatives and thousands of other options to purchase for a couple bucks. At best, maybe I could find a shareware game at a computer show that I could buy the disk to for $3.

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Youre mourning the death of the monoculture.

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It's absolutely perception. We're older, our friends have more $$ mobility, we have more $$ mobility, we can instantly see what games our friends are playing, etc etc

If we want to stick with one game we certainly can. I'd still be playing rocket league today if my computer was still hooked up to an ethernet cable.

i really think everybody was playing diverse games back in the day, we just didn't see it because we weren't at their houses and they weren't posting about it online

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WazzupGenius00 posted...

Youre mourning the death of the monoculture.

Yeah it's like how we don't all watch the same shows on the same couple channels anymore

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WazzupGenius00 posted...

Youre mourning the death of the monoculture.

And really when it comes to gaming there hasnt really been a monoculture since the mid-70s

Once the 2nd Generation got underway there was a clear disconnect between console gamers and PC Gamers

Like even in the days of NES dominance you still had subcultures of arcade gamers and computer gamers who didnt really give a shit about something like Super Mario Brothers
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It's more of a society issue.

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Like we might consider Doom a game that crossed into the monoculture of the 90s, but how many of us who were gaming at the time actually played Doom in its heyday? I know I wasnt.
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Jakyl25 posted...

Like we might consider Doom a game that crossed into the monoculture of the 90s, but how many of us who were gaming at the time actually played Doom in its heyday? I know I wasnt.

My cousins and friends definately had Shareware Doom and Doom 2.

It may have been like 1994 or 1995 but thats pretty close. They were still playing it into 2000.

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The most recent example that jumps out to me is Borderlands 3. People were hyped about that game for almost 10 years and then nobody talked about it after like a week or two.

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skullbone posted...

The most recent example that jumps out to me is Borderlands 3. People were hyped about that game for almost 10 years and then nobody talked about it after like a week or two.

I remember something happenind around that time that stole the spotlight

sometimes a miracle is all you need

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MysticBrohan posted...

sometimes a miracle is all you need

isn't that always true by the definition of "miracle"

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nope

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LOLIAmAnAlt posted...

My cousins and friends definately had Shareware Doom and Doom 2.

It may have been like 1994 or 1995 but thats pretty close. They were still playing it into 2000.

And were you also console gamers?
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blame social media for this one. Gaming isnt about the game anymore, its just where everyone is. Streaming culture ramping up in the past 5-7 years brought it to the next level.

Remember how quickly fall guys rose and fell LOL

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Metal_DK posted...

blame social media for this one. Gaming isnt about the game anymore, its just where everyone is. Streaming culture ramping up in the past 5-7 years brought it to the next level.

Remember how quickly fall guys rose and fell LOL

Fall Guys reminds me of another game that has stuck around a long time; Rocket League
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Rocket League has been surprisingly successful long term. I will say it still pretty unique in the niche it fills which helps it. Nobody has really tried to challenge with another game that takes two sports sorta (soccer and auto racing) and merges them.


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This is true all across society/culture, and has led to a much more fractured world. There is so much media to consume that people just go for what is most familiar to them personally. I know that this has been blamed on people becoming more biased in general, which is true, however I believe the chain of causation in that claim is reversed. The original impetus here was pragmatism/the paradox of choice: "There's so much to choose from, why don't I just stick to my favorite?" and this has in turn led to people becoming more biased in general.

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Rocket League stands the test of time because its a fantastic example of what makes games good: exploiting their mechanisms in creative ways

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Rocket League is basically video game sport where you have full and complete control over the 'body' and ball.

No other game offers that.

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Jakyl25 posted...

And were you also console gamers?

Oh yeah.
I didn't own a PC till 2000 and they all had some forms of consoles.

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Jakyl25 posted...

Like we might consider Doom a game that crossed into the monoculture of the 90s, but how many of us who were gaming at the time actually played Doom in its heyday? I know I wasnt.

I was a PC gamer, and I didn't play Doom because the required specs for the game were too intense for my machine.

That said, anyone my age then didn't define ourselves as a "PC gamer." We were just gamers who had the misfortune to not own any console systems.

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Jakyl25 posted...

And were you also console gamers?

I think I got the shareware of Doom 1 in like 1995, which was only a few months after it came out on Mac (I didn't have a Windows PC until 2000), and I was still playing Final Doom regularly in 1997. And I was definitely a console kid, because like I said I had a Mac and you try being a PC gamer in the 90s with that.

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MrGreenonion posted...

I had a Mac and you try being a PC gamer in the 90s with that.

marathonnnnnnnnnnnnn

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The video game market was already big back then too. Outside of long term pack-in games even the highest selling games would struggle to crack 30% market share for a single console. Very few games in history remained relevant to a large portion of gamers after a couple of months.

The difference now is you can see outside of your gaming bubble more easily.

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I clicked in to sing the praises of Rocket League, but looks like that's already been covered, so instead I'll say...

Counter-Strike is still as popular as ever.


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