Has it always been like this?

L*][*N*K

L*][*N*K

Member
This has been a really odd week, on one hand some of us (me included) are spoiled with two really good games to play, one and old and familiar game we loved 20 years ago and another one a fresh new thing we didn't even expect to fall in love with, but I find myself sucked into numerous arguments about these games "Oblivion Remaster is disastrous, Gamepass destroyed Expedition 33's chances at success, nothing about E33 is original….etc", while I am more than guilty for dragging myself into those arguments but I can't help wonder was it always like this? Did people ever just enjoy games or negative arguments was always the dominant voice online??
 
25598.gif


People like complaining.
 
Patterns have probably shifted a bit thanks to the rise of social media and the fall of news sites, but yeah it's always been that. Video games, tabletop games, any electronics, have always had nerd rage and vocal minorities. Usenet was before my time in terms of my internet access but you can look up records of old-timey "flame wars" and it's fucking hilarious how little it's changed.
 
The internet thrives on hate, drama and negativity it seems. It's getting worse it seems like.

Saw some dude who makes Youtube content around Civilization-like games post 2 reviews of Civ7:
- Civ7 review 10/10 it's a MASTERPIECE
- Civ7 review 0/10 it's a COMPLETE MESS

His negative review got twice as many views.

It's the internet in a nutshell: everything has to be 'the best/worst thing ever' or else it's not interesting enough.
 
Yeah I think its just the nerds.

Online wasn't always such a negative place from what I remember. Gaming definitely wasn't. You had some shit games, but you and your friends still had a great time, or you still had a great time with whatever genre you were into.

And when I say nerds, I don't mean folks that are into tech and anime or scifi...comics, DND...etc.

I mean the ones who masturbate to sales reports and concurrent players or whatever the hell that is. I really only see those bringing doom and gloom to any game that hasn't hit a million in two days or has 50,000 players on steam at 2am on a Tuesday.

Same ones who find and post irrelevant shit like a developer had banana pancakes for breakfast and the rest of the team had blueberry so there has to be some sort of issue.
 
The internet is always driven by engagement, and you're going to get more engagement with people arguing than you will with them all agreeing something is awesome.

Microsoft is kinda stupid for releasing both games in the same week though, because they are going to cannibalize possible sales, and if they wanna push gamepass they should drip-feed the content over time to keep people on it.

Thankfully, Clair Obscur is a good enough game that it doesn't matter, and they're going to make money.
 
809e2c70613899a5d7978a0c4045bb3c57a777a2.gifv
 
It wasn't always like this, it was far more intense and worse.

Go read some of the BBS postings in the 1990s when gaming was just objectively way better and more interesting than it is now.
 
There's hundreds of millions of gamers. They all have their opinions. Many are misinformed. As well as just because they have a different opinion doesn't mean they are wrong. There are lots of bots too. You might be arguing with bots.
 
it's your fault if you "drag yourself" into these arguments as you said yourself, nothing more to say really

criticism should be okay whether it's a praise or a roast
 
Be the outlier, write about how much you enjoy those games and leave the negativity to the always depressed people and warriors who apparently can't enjoy anything without finding something pointless to complain about.

Oblivion is my GOTY, by a wide margin. I think about it when I wake up, think about it at work, play it in the evenings. Rinse and repeat.
 
Gaming fandom over the last 5-10 years has been more entitled, whiny, and toxic than it has ever been.


This type of attitude/sentiment has always existed here and there, but it's become exponentially more prominent.
 
I got both and don't engage in that stuff. They're both quality releases. I think the AC Shadows hate kinda jumped the shark. Unless something is blatantly woke, like dragon age, it all just sounds like white noise to me now.
 
adamsapple said:
Kinda.

Sucks to be a hater tho, I'm glad to be able to play both of these fantastic games.
Click to expand...
This right here. Nice post.

I'm guilty of propagating it myself, but learned to segment my forum persona from my gaming persona so never the twain shall meet.


I can shit on a game like it owes me money and then go enjoy 8 hours of it without even remembering I talked about it before.

The man's a genius and Persona is a true story. Make it your superpower. Don't be controlled by negative emotions you don't understand(when/if you can control them).
 
Last edited:
Well when it comes to GP, imagine that people have been rotating the same retarded arguments for EIGHT years now, how it's killing the industry, blah blah rental, muh sales etc.

So yeah it's been the same for at least 8 years, the only cure is not caring and doing what you enjoy.
 
Nah. It only started being like this shortly after you showed up. Before, it was all apples and orgies.
 
The power is in your hands to ignore toxic online arguments

Everything was so different on the offline age.
 
Last edited:
L*][*N*K said:
This has been a really odd week, on one hand some of us (me included) are spoiled with two really good games to play, one and old and familiar game we loved 20 years ago and another one a fresh new thing we didn't even expect to fall in love with, but I find myself sucked into numerous arguments about these games "Oblivion Remaster is disastrous, Gamepass destroyed Expedition 33's chances at success, nothing about E33 is original….etc", while I am more than guilty for dragging myself into those arguments but I can't help wonder was it always like this? Did people ever just enjoy games or negative arguments was always the dominant voice online??
Click to expand...
QWmZUGL.jpeg

The internet can be your worst enemy, but it can also be your greatest cinema
 
Reminds me when I used to lurk the Gamefaqs boards.

I swear nobody who posted there actually enjoyed video games.
 
L*][*N*K said:
but I find myself sucked into numerous arguments about these games "Oblivion Remaster is disastrous, Gamepass destroyed Expedition 33's chances at success, nothing about E33 is original….etc", while I am more than guilty for dragging myself into those arguments
Click to expand...
Once you understand that no matter what you say, that other person at the end of the day may never change their mind, it frees you from needing to argue so much and prove a point to them. I'm not saying you will never engage or disagree, as I still do myself, but I do it way, way less than I used to on this site. There were quite a few times where I had a response typed up for a controversial thread, thought on it for a bit, and then deleted it and moved on.

The second thing to realize is that some people use this forum as an emotional outlet or as a pillow to scream into, which means they could have a shitty day all day, then access their phone or computer, log into GAF, and unleash their own version of edginess, jadedness, and anger on multiple topics. Keep an eye out for that because it's easy to spot.

Also if someone is going too far with spreading misinformation about a game and it truly bothers you enough to post, it's much easier to just drop factual footage or sourced information and leave it at that. They will try to bait you into going further, but don't bother, because it leads to nitpicks and list wars due to the other person potentially doubling down and never wanting to concede.

If you're tired of all of this but still want to be social within the community, find some OTs or community threads like the "52 games a year" thread to share your experiences and to discuss things with other level-headed people. The rest of these threads are mostly rumors, hot takes, culture wars, and tabloid style clickbait.
 
There's more of an incentive now for ragebait. YouTube clicks are almost all driven by negativity.

That said, the largest change I've seen in my tenure as a player and someone who's interested in the business - People care WAY more about technical specs than they ever did, and it's the absolute most boring part of the discourse. I wish there were channels that discussed gameplay and level design in as much detail as the bores at Digital Foundry discussed resolution and frame rate.

Nobody in the console space cared about this stuff until the 1080p/900p discussions around the launch of the PS4. I get the feeling that it's because it's easier to talk about objective technical specifications than it is to talking about things like "game-feel" or design.
 
L*][*N*K said:
This has been a really odd week, on one hand some of us (me included) are spoiled with two really good games to play, one and old and familiar game we loved 20 years ago and another one a fresh new thing we didn't even expect to fall in love with, but I find myself sucked into numerous arguments about these games "Oblivion Remaster is disastrous, Gamepass destroyed Expedition 33's chances at success, nothing about E33 is original….etc", while I am more than guilty for dragging myself into those arguments but I can't help wonder was it always like this? Did people ever just enjoy games or negative arguments was always the dominant voice online??
Click to expand...
As someone who has been around message boards since the Dreamcast... Yes, yes, nothing has changed. Calm down and enjoy the show.
 
There's been some of that ever since gaming message boards became a thing.
But I do think the negativity has increased in recent years. It all got way worse once some people realized how easy outrage is to farm and monetize, and the whole outrage culture got turned up to 11.
 
I've been gaming since the 1970s. I've been online and going to gaming forums since 1994.

In my personal experience, the trouble all started with FFVII. I'm not joking. There was negativity and arguing before that, obviously. But with FFVII it was like a full blown nuclear war broke out. It was an overnight smash success, but there were these weirdly dedicated vocal haters who just went so far out of their way to convince the world that "FFVII is shit, and if you like FFVII that means you like shit!" It was weird and I'd never seen anything like it before. And to some degree it just stayed that way, message boards have never gone back the generally far more chill atmosphere I remember before that. My theory is that this just happened to coincide with a moment in history when the internet was really starting to take off and become mainstream, and there was this flood of newbies coming to gaming message boards for the first time and seeing all the chaos of these flame wars and it just became normal.
 
Last edited:
Forums have always been echo chambers that usually focus more on complaining than praising, and GAF is no different.

If I were to take the rhetoric here at face value, I would think the games industry is in a perpetual state of chaotic flames and that gaming as we know it is ruined forever.

But in reality, I think most of the people here are just stoked to be playing good games.
 
L*][*N*K said:
This has been a really odd week, on one hand some of us (me included) are spoiled with two really good games to play, one and old and familiar game we loved 20 years ago and another one a fresh new thing we didn't even expect to fall in love with, but I find myself sucked into numerous arguments about these games "Oblivion Remaster is disastrous, Gamepass destroyed Expedition 33's chances at success, nothing about E33 is original….etc", while I am more than guilty for dragging myself into those arguments but I can't help wonder was it always like this? Did people ever just enjoy games or negative arguments was always the dominant voice online??
Click to expand...
Nothing personal but you're trying to match your taste with them, that's a fatal mistake. Unfortunately, that was a big part of my younger years. I recommend you to give a lot of 6s and 7s games another chance and believe me you're gonna love these games and find what you've been missing all these years.
 
Last edited:
L*][*N*K said:
This has been a really odd week, on one hand some of us (me included) are spoiled with two really good games to play, one and old and familiar game we loved 20 years ago and another one a fresh new thing we didn't even expect to fall in love with, but I find myself sucked into numerous arguments about these games "Oblivion Remaster is disastrous, Gamepass destroyed Expedition 33's chances at success, nothing about E33 is original….etc", while I am more than guilty for dragging myself into those arguments but I can't help wonder was it always like this? Did people ever just enjoy games or negative arguments was always the dominant voice online??
Click to expand...
Been using forums since bulletin boards, vn boards, ign etc.. and people dissect everything, nothing new. But sure I think more people want to get rise out of others and that's their goal.

Me personally I'm off my rocker with games, indy, lunar, 33, oblivion, forza, atomfall, khazan, platinumed shadows... Loving every minute of it all. We are in the most variety driven game era ever, I love it. I'm 46 and been at it since 1982... Been there seen it all, and gaming is awesome. Not that we haven't had years where it's just thru the roof but this is one of those damn good nonstop game years. Doom coming, battlefield, borders 4...Just fucking nuts man
 
Last edited:
Hell yes it's always been like this.

The more beloved a game is, the more attention you get for shitting on it. Certain people LOVE to pick the most highly regarded game and tell you all about how overrated/unoriginal/stupid it is, then watch as they are showered with glorious attention.

SlimeGooGoo was pretty good at this lol
 
Kinda. You wouldn't believe how much of the stuff I thought was awesome was actually shit according to the internet - or at least so I found out when I came online back in the days.

You can't let it get to you. If you do you're like one of the celebrities who cries about someone hating them. Like… duh… there are a lot of people on the internet. Someone is bound to hate you for some reason no matter who you are.
 
People have always complained. It was like this in the 80s and 90s.

There's never been an easier or cheaper time to play games. I was laying in bed playing oblivion on my portal this weekend. That's fucking awesome.

Sorry if people don't enjoy our hobby as much but the negativity around video games has always been in culture. It's an easy scapegoat and terminally online people complain a lot. The majority of gamers never talk about it online
 
In Oblivion's case, it was released in a sorry state on all platforms, to the point it really can get in the way of trying to enjoy the game. Criticism was both expected and deserved so I don't find it odd people are talking about it. I bought it myself and then refunded as I want to really enjoy it later in a better state, hopefully.
 
Who gives a shit, with the time you took to create this thread you could be playing either Clair Obscur or Oblivion. I like posting on NeoGAF as well, but I like playing games more. It's all about playing games man
 
It seems so, unfortunately. There's a loud crowd here that seems to enjoy trashing (most negative comments barely have any depth or nuance to them) the games they don't like more than talking about the games they do like.

Sometimes it is difficult to avoid being swept up with all the negativity, specially when these people flood the threads about games you like yet again. But, fortunately, there are people that are here to talk about the games they like and to discuss them properly, unlike those who only seek to feel validated by the reactions they get with their one liners.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

As good as Game Pass has been, it's almost always the worst version of a game.
2
56
4K
Brakum replied
A Factory Nintendo Switch 2 Has Been Stolen (can’t play games on it)
Trailer Hardware 
15
186
Silver Wattle replied
Has public perception or outcry ever been an effective deterrent?
26
129
poppabk replied
Ghost of Yotei has been rated in Taiwan
News 
28
297
nial replied
Xbox Game Pass has been absolutely incredible in 2025
2 3 4
177
1K
QuantumThermos replied
Top Bottom