Librarianon

@Librarianon

Your local Librarianon

He/Him

Writer, TF Finatic, Recohoster, and Game dev. Wasnt able to post here as much as I liked, but I'll miss it and all of yall. Till we meet again, friends!

Librarianon @Librarianon9/20/2024, 11:08 PM

Chris Franklin @Campster

Chris Franklin @Campster8/25/2024, 6:10 AM

Between Concord and Dustborn it's hard to escape the sense this weekend that a lot of "gamer" content produced by the YouTube screech-o-sphere is declaring other people's stuff dead before it had a chance to even find an audience.

Like, it's all fueled by the same platform-reinforced incentives that drive engagement seeking outrage merchants to post about how Star Wars is too woke or how they're "erasing gingers" or whatever, I get it. It's monetizing outrage as reactionary in-group signifier. The system pays out for engagement, high emotions generate engagement, so "THE WOKEST GAME EVER FLOPS HARD LOLZ" becomes an easy headline to generate for either game.

But I dunno, man. 2023/2024 has been hard as shit on the games industry, and being forced to watch as bunch of disingenuous hateful shitbirds declare games that have barely been released "the biggest flop of 2024" is so dispiriting. Especially since I can point to other titles released this year that have similarly struggled, but without the reactionary harassment videos because of obvious reasons.

It's just so exhausting that with games journalism being choked to death by capitalism these assholes are the ones that get to set the tone of discourse. I'm in a pretty bummed mood, honestly.

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in reply to @Campster's post:

Signals and Light @SignalsAndLight8/25/2024, 7:01 AM

Valid, though why I've (somehow successfully?) done everything I can to keep those people out of any feed of any website I use aside from like 2 subreddits that post mocking screenshots. It's a bit surreal sometimes, tbh, to be struck by how much slop is actually out there while managing to not have it recommended by YT or Twitter. I increasingly am of the conviction the best thing someone can do for themselves is to just block this kinda content and focus on people who don't make the internet more toxic.

Not to say it it's awful this shit exists -- but engagement bait thrives on engagement, they want to make you mad, so the only defense is to not pay attention. Something makes me think it's just gonna keep getting worse...

@cidolfas8/25/2024, 7:04 AM

The take-industrial complex is bad for civic health. I (game programmer for >10 years now) wanted to see what programming YT was like, and all of them (who got traction) produce nothing but logically-unsound ragebait.

I can't imagine what it's like to be a kid learning things these days where a lot of the how-to content is done in video, and the video producers who get to keep doing it aren't providing good or honest advice.

hellojed @hellojed8/25/2024, 7:13 AM

wishing valve kept the paper thin NDA on deadlock because the lack of takes and "content" on it was refreshing

Kyuseishun @Kyuseishun8/25/2024, 1:09 PM

i just ignore it and i invite other people to start doing the same, yall give too much attention to shit that doesnt matter

Christian Simmers @Xuelder8/25/2024, 2:54 PM

Between Concord and Dustborn it's hard to escape the sense this weekend that a lot of "gamer" content produced by the YouTube screech-o-sphere is declaring other people's stuff dead before it had a chance to even find an audience.

I see where you're coming from on this, the neo GG, SBI haters are really toxic on this game, but a decent number of the exclamations I have seen of "dead game" for Concord have been through established journalists like Gene Park and Paul Tassi. And they were playing it and giving it an honest chance. A flop like this by a first party studio for a game that has been in some state of production for 5 years is noteworthy and is gonna get scrutiny by mainstream press.

Aspeon @aspeon8/25/2024, 4:29 PM

Part of it's this weird focus on concurrent player numbers, I guess because it's an easy number to scrape from Steam? Any game's going to have a drop-off after the initial launch excitement, and it's easy to spin that into "dead game lol."

Bramcrack3r @bramslambreakfast8/25/2024, 5:10 PM

The problem with multiplayer shooters like Concord is your game can't be sitting at only 400-500 players on launch day and be playable. Like sadly being the biggest game possible is the only way a multiplayer pvp FPS can actually survive without a single player or offline botmatch or split screen play option. people are gonna be waiting for way too long in matchmaking and get fed up they can't play the game and just quit at that rate.

@Fachewachewa8/25/2024, 9:04 PM

Yeah, people focus way too much on this even when it doesn't make sense. The issue is those specific games do need players. Guess the world did evolve though, back when Overwatch launched, journalists were the one profiting from the "dead game lol" with stuff like Lawbreakers.

It's not as reactive, but you still see it with stuff like Palworld "losing x% of its players" even though it doesn't mean anything, and that the game still had the highest player count even after the big drop.

@Fachewachewa8/25/2024, 8:59 PM

Concord's launch really is baffling though. The griefter were almost the only ones that cared about it since the beta. People forgot it existed before that one dev said they worked on it for 8 years.
I'm sure it'll make some great articles and interview at some point.

Christian Simmers @Xuelder8/25/2024, 9:25 PM

I think a more senior dev corrected it saying it was in development for 5 years. Which is par the course for a AAA game nowadays, especially one with as extensive mocap this one has.

@Fachewachewa8/25/2024, 9:28 PM

Huh okay, that'd make more sense at least, and is sligthly less depressing. I wonder how they got this wrong

Christian Simmers @Xuelder8/25/2024, 9:36 PM

The lead character designer put out the 8 years figure, which would put development start two years before the studio was founded.

B.I.E. Unit: Explorer-B @GoopySpaceShark8/25/2024, 10:08 PM

Other criticisms of Starfield aside, these people really do take umbrage with a literally optional pronoun selector in it. It's one little prompt at the end of the character creator, and you have to go out of your way to press the button to open it up. If that's the bar for these people to declare a game "woke" and "the end of the games industry", then maybe we should just leave them behind -- after all, if games peaked 10 years ago as they claim, then they won't care about missing out.