Need to dump my thoughts about the gaming sphere

[QrtzQdrnt]

what's up guys girls & the ones in between it's been a while since i posted here. or logged on in general

here's my stupid pointless ramble about mixtape and indie games and the modern state of gaming in general (or at least how i perceive it). i did not want to make this into a thread because i don't want to cause ww3 but this thing surpasses the 1000 character limit on profile posts so here goes nothin

disclaimer: i wrote this during my linguistics classes on a phone so pardon if some stuff comes off as incoherent because i might've gotten distracted by the assignments

the intro, or, my thoughts on the indie sphere

the label "indie" genuinely means NOTHING today (might be a slight exaggeration). every indie is now some hyper polished expensive project trying to mimic a popular retro game (that's not necessarily bad). while there's nothing wrong with making your own "spiritual successor", it gets tiring when games are just marketed as "REMEMBER X? WELL Y IS JUST LIKE THAT". we live in an era of companies constantly nostalgiabaiting and when indie devs do the same it gets even more tiring.

i may have bias because i do not like toby fox (his stuff is just not for me i'm sorry) but undertale might be the catalyst for so many indie devs popping up. everyone thinks that making an indie is easy, while not realizing that this is survivorship bias because most indies die in obscurity with like 20 steam downloads. trust me, i used to know someone who ignored the survivorship bias part and tried to be the next big indie dev.

indies used to be something simplistic and unique. games like thomas was alone and vvvvvv and arguably even cave story were simple, but fun experiences, hooking you on with easy to learn but hard to master gameplay, and a fun story to follow. nowadays games try hard to go toe to toe with the big aaa giants, which, from one point, is cool, but from another, i feel like a lot is being lost simply because most of the time is spent on comparing the game to big titles, rather than appreciating it for what it is.

the part where i talk about mixtape ohhh im so original no one's ever done this before

"hey fred, can i get an indie game?"

"sure thing, kid"

"hold the indie part"

"hold the indie...???"

"and hold the gameplay"

"hold the gameplay...???? hey jimmy, get me an indie game with nothin!"

"nothin????"

everyone's said this a thousand times but it's a fact. mixtape is an industry plant. no way on god's green earth would an indie be able to afford to have a soundtrack consisting of nothing but licensed songs by some of the biggest artists ever. no indie would be able to afford to send youtubers collector's edition packages before release. no indie would be able to strike a collab with koss in order to put an exclusive colored porta pro on said collector's packages. you get the gist.

annapurna interactive is an indie label, owned by the daughter of the co-founder and owner of oracle, aka the 5th richest man in the world. annapurna is the publisher for such big games like stray and what remains of edith finch. they published one of my most favorite games ever, neon white. so, these guys are not newcomers to the game industry.

however with mixtape it's easy to suspect foul play.

first i'd like to talk about neon white. as much as i love it, i suspect it to be a similar deal to mixtape. this can't really be an indie, right? what indie game could afford to hire a cast of extremely popular voice actors AND hire machine girl to do the soundtrack? machine girl are a pretty big band, it can't be cheap to hire them. i don't think that neon white is an industry plant, but it sure has to border on the boundary between indie and aa.

now let's get to mixtape, aka the thing that even prompted me to write this entire essay/article in the first place. this game has caused a lot of ruckus and debate, and for good reason. yes, it has weak gameplay, a weird story, goes on for like 2-3 hours, but that's whatever.

the reviews HAVE to be paid for. annapurna 100% has the money. how did this game, that was announced at the game awards and never brought up again, get so many 10/10 or 9/10 reviews immediately after coming out? this seriously REEKS of foul play because this wasn't an anticipated or heavily advertised game. i never even saw anyone bring it up during or after tga.

also the protag wearing the headphones backwards annoys the fuck out of me it makes me wanna go apeshit

thoughts on (modern) gaming in general

i loathe all those yt videos that go "gaming isn't fun anymore" because that's just bullshit. there are fun games nowadays! however i do have to say that gaming feels... different now? i grew up on famicom, psp and ps3 games, and watching how different things have gotten is oddly depressing i suppose? i feel like there's so much emphasis on the pursuit to make graphically impressive cinematic games that we're in the point where gaming is becoming a thing for the rich. im in the middle class but i still can't afford to cash out on a gaming pc or a ps5. i have a dinky laptop from 2021 whose limits are minecraft and ultrakill and the most recent console i own (not counting the retroid pocket 5) is the switch that i got back in 2019 aka when the prices weren't rising every 3 months thanks to the ai companies hoarding every single electronic component they can get their dirty hands on.

games are getting expensive, hardware is getting expensive, developers cut as many corners as possible by using ai and not optimizing their games, people are getting laid off left and right. what happened? what happened to the hobby i love?

closing thoughts

that's about all i have to say. it's been super hectic on social media lately because of the mixtape discourse, so i couldn't really pass up on the opportunity to write down my own thoughts about it. i hope i didn't come off as too jaded (admittedly i am kinda jaded) especially during the beginning part with me talking about indies. if you got any questions then ask away. i'll try to answer everything

 

[ZeromusVX4]

As attractive as the paid reviews conspiracy are I don't believe it actually happens, companies don't even want to pay their workers, let alone a random reviewer

 

[JG5009]

I've been out of touch with whatever new indie thing releases for a long time by now (Only caring about some 2D platformer and cheap RPG here and there), but that description is quite spot on. The old "indie" part with it's simplicity is already a thing of very small scale projects (or from amateur devs) that often get forgotten inmediatly (Not always I know, but for each one that takes off theres 10 more that did not), yet most of the things that do persevere have some degree of high quality factor that becomes costly to make. (I know that this is because the standards of quality are much higher now though)

Also really doesn't help much that some genres are way too overloaded with attempts that can't stand out enough.

Is the creativity and ideas still blooming there? Of course, but most of these "indies" should already be stopped being called that, and maybe people should make a new word for these higher budget games besides AA. (which is somehow not used enough)

 

[SpcDaicon]

the label "indie" genuinely means NOTHING today (might be a slight exaggeration). every indie is now some hyper polished expensive project trying to mimic a popular retro game (that's not necessarily bad). while there's nothing wrong with making your own "spiritual successor", it gets tiring when games are just marketed as "REMEMBER X? WELL Y IS JUST LIKE THAT". we live in an era of companies constantly nostalgiabaiting and when indie devs do the same it gets even more tiring.

People kinda mix up things. Games are not "indie", the Devs are. The term indie gets thrown around nowadays not as a descriptor for Devs but as marketing stunt to attrack consumers. Opposed from the cynical and corporate driven AA and AAA games, Indies would be these passion projects with artistic integrity, divorced from the corporate interests. The term kinda lost its meaning.

Mixtame seems to be the case, just like Expedition 33 or Black Myth Wukong, two games that paraded themselfs as indies but had tons of money poured into them, even had governmental funding (nothing wrong with that)

Indies are just games made by people or teams that are self funded (lit. "I sold my car to make this game", "I took a loan to fund this game"), made on the devs spare time and, more often than not, self published.

"hey fred, can i get an indie game?"

"sure thing, kid"

"hold the indie part"

"hold the indie...???"

"and hold the gameplay"

"hold the gameplay...???? hey jimmy, get me an indie game with nothin!"

"nothin????"

I admit I laughed more than I should have from this ahahahaha

how did this game, that was announced at the game awards and never brought up again, get so many 10/10 or 9/10 reviews immediately after coming out? this seriously REEKS of foul play because this wasn't an anticipated or heavily advertised game. i never even saw anyone bring it up during or after tga.

I ask this in the most sincere way possible and without any mallicous intent: Did you played it?

As attractive as the paid reviews conspiracy are I don't believe it actually happens, companies don't even want to pay their workers, let alone a random reviewer

They may not pay the workers but I can see them paing for the reviews as marketing

 

[Clippy]

Seriously, if it wasn't for the whole circus surrounding it I would've never heard of Mixtape and rightly so because judging by the things I've read it seems to me that it doesn't have what I look for in video games.

 

[contrail_]

From an economics perspective, it's actually completely logical to pay reviewers. This is done in a lot of other industries; gaming is nothing special in that regard. Imagine you shell out a bunch of money making a video game and there's the risk of not making your money back. It's a gamble, and anyone who isn't stupid will try stacking the odds in his favor.

>you pay someone for a good review
>maybe send him presents or other stuff
>he gives you a good review
>you sell more copies
>you make more money by paying for a review
>you both gain from this relationship

Reviewers getting free shit (not just review copies of stuff, but a whole bunch of other goodies) is part of common everyday reality. Imagine some talking head's youtube video cutting into your profits. Of course you want to get some famous reviewers to rate your game well, but you should also treat some of the little guys. That way the reviews you paid for look more organic, as it's not just a particular caste of high-profile reviewers praising your shit (that would look suspicious).
Also, we do not live in a world where corruption does not exist. It's not a bug, it's a feature.
Smarter people cooperate instead of competing and plenty of people have written economics dissertations over that.

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

As attractive as the paid reviews conspiracy are I don't believe it actually happens, companies don't even want to pay their workers, let alone a random reviewer

I mean... Maybe nowadays, but they definitely got caught red-handed paying people to promote that DRIV3R trash fire a couple of decades ago... And it's not just the gaming industry that does it — I have been on places INFESTED by Avril Lavigne's online "street teams".

It's definitely happened before.

 

[CHEESE ENJOYER]

It may have been shilled hard but it doesn't look like it's selling. Most games labeled "indie" games still are lower budget though.

 

[QrtzQdrnt]

I ask this in the most sincere way possible and without any mallicous intent: Did you played it?

genuinely wish i had something to play it on because i want to see this entire spectacle for myself because the art style is pretty cool even if i'm not too keen on the low-framerate spiderverse animation they used for the characters (unlike in spiderverse it feels out of place here). unfortunately buying a ps5 where i live is a thing for the rich because the economy is kinda going to hell

i've seen a bunch of gameplay videos and it doesn't really seem like the type of game for me though. it leans too much into being cinematic, it should've been a movie (and could've been, because annapurna has an animation division)

 

[tizlor]

As attractive as the paid reviews conspiracy are I don't believe it actually happens, companies don't even want to pay their workers, let alone a random reviewer

companies quite literally spend millions on marketing and can be verified simply by companies and people receiving early release review copies of the game, event access, travel expenses, etc

companies pay their employees what they can get away with, and right now most western companies can and are being flooded with hyper cheap foreign labour subsidized by local and federal governments.

it might be hard for you to believe because you sound incredibly young, but at one point on the internet many game companies would offer review copies of games just for having a small game review or tech blog.