Unpopular Opinions about Video Games

[Pissmaster]

But the narratives and puzzles and general difficulty, yeah, they're clearly aimed at kids. I don't understand on any level why people still fervently buy Pokemon games well into their 20s and 30s - it's the same thing every time.

Now that, I can get behind, because Pokemon has all the hallmarks of a franchise that's truly designed for kids.

Producing children's entertainment is different from producing entertainment for families, because it's fundamentally the same thing over and over again, but updated with modern standards in mind. Sesame Street isn't a family show because it's essentially always the same thing at its core. Teaching kids fundamentals like the alphabet and to not be a jerk are things every new generation needs to learn. Pokemon's similar - while not educational, it scratches that itch so many kids have on wanting to collect everything and go on a grand journey in a miniature world where everyone has a one-track mind, obsessed with the animals around them. That's why it's magical when you're a kid, but boring when you're an adult. Adults need something more sophisticated and challenging. Not all the time, of course - some people play it as a comfort food kind of thing, but to obsess over it into adulthood is... pretty damn autistic.

Mario games are different enough each time to keep an adult audience engaged enough, so they fall into the family category. They're not difficult games, but they're clever and mix things up enough to keep a non-autistic adult audience engaged.

 

[Day of the Cope]

Nintendo games are designed for children. Always have, always will be.

Hot take but it's possible to make entertainment for children that doesn't condescend to them and treats them like fucking idiots.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

Mario games are different enough each time to keep an adult audience engaged enough, so they fall into the family category. They're not difficult games, but they're clever and mix things up enough to keep a non-autistic adult audience engaged.

They also allow you to impose your own sets of challenges, even if those veer often into the autistic. But like, while trying to beat the game in 32.5 a-presses may imply you're on the waiting list to get a stinkditch installed, trying to 100% the games provides a bit of challenge above whatever the required collectibles number is.

I've never been into Mario games and I have more often felt the urge to dumpster-dive for a thanksgiving turkey than I have to 100% a game, but I at least understand why people above the age of 14 are drawn to it.

Not all the time, of course - some people play it as a comfort food kind of thing, but to obsess over it into adulthood is... pretty damn autistic.

That's my main disconnect with it, really. I get taking a jaunt through nostalgia, or wanting a pretty basic RPG with collectathon elements. I don't get buying the same thing, every single year, over and over again - which I guess does extend out to any annual franchise, admittedly. Yet while people shit on Asscreed or Far Cry or Madden or Cawadooty for this kindof thing, Pokemon has this impermeable shield around it, coupled with how simple and easy its gameplay is on the whole.

I guess on some level of fairness, the behavior of the people playing the games shouldn't really factor in to how you regard them. Whether you see Zelda as a game for kids or a game for the whole family, everyone can agree that people shitting out two-hour video essays on the thing and delving in deep to the 'lore' are fucking stupid.

 

[Matt Damon]

"choices matter" mechanics are almost always a waste of time and retarded, because people and by extension writers & developers are always biased.

I agree they're retarded and a waste of time, but they're retarded and a waste of time because "choices matter" is not how satisfying storytelling works. It's how terrible Choose Your Own Adventure books for second graders work. The only people who disagree are autistic nerds who have no taste and no understanding of the most basic writing concepts.

I've never played a game where, for example, both factions are morally grey and just lead to different outcomes instead of "everyone dies because you joined the evil people who have no redeeming qualities because we can't be bothered with good writing & world building" or "everyone lives and is happy because you picked the GoodGuys™"

Perfect moral ambiguity makes for a boring story where your "choices" are arbitrary and meaningless.

 

[Pissmaster]

That's my main disconnect with it, really. I get taking a jaunt through nostalgia, or wanting a pretty basic RPG with collectathon elements. I don't get buying the same thing, every single year, over and over again - which I guess does extend out to any annual franchise, admittedly. Yet while people shit on Asscreed or Far Cry or Madden or Cawadooty for this kindof thing, Pokemon has this impermeable shield around it, coupled with how simple and easy its gameplay is on the whole.

I think it's because everyone under 40 grew up with Pokemon in one way or another, so everyone's just naturally soft on it, because it was completely unavoidable for several years after it was new. From a marketing perspective, the Pokemon phenomenon of 1998-2001 was a legendary marketing push, with so much media coming out all at once, all of it of pretty high quality for its day, and every aspect just tuned perfectly to encapsulate the youth of the Y2K era. I have never seen such a widespread marketing revolution that encapsulated so many people in my entire life, except for maybe the iPhone. Except, Pokemon was endearing and full of cute Pikachu faces and tons of characters to make plushies out of, even the ugly ones


so I think it just dug itself so hard into all of our consciousnesses, that it's hard to really go harsh on that franchise.

 

[Raging Capybara]

You need to understand adult pokemon fans are obsessed with the battle system. They don't give a shit about the game itself, only the multiplayer battles.

It's still pathetic because the battle system is incredibly simple despite the fans saying it's more complex than 3D chess, and the grind to evolve the pokemons with the perfect strats is something that even MMOs are ashamed of.

 

[Matt Damon]

It's still pathetic because the battle system is incredibly simple despite the fans saying it's more complex than 3D chess, and the grind to evolve the pokemons with the perfect strats is something that even MMOs are ashamed of.

Isn't it also substantially buggy and broken? I remember reading somewhere a long screed explaining in autistic detail that each generation of games has different fundamental flaws in how either attributes or types or moves or whatever are implemented and straight-up don't work the way they're supposed to.

 

[ReasonablyRetarded]

Perfect moral ambiguity makes for a boring story where your "choices" are arbitrary and meaningless.

I never asked for perfect moral ambiguity. Just different flavors of moral besides belligerently evil and obviously good, with it very much being up for debate for example which faction is the "good" choice.

 

[God of Nothing]

I never asked for perfect moral ambiguity. Just different flavors of moral besides belligerently evil and obviously good, with it very much being up for debate for example which faction is the "good" choice.

true to caesar

 

[skjora]

"choices matter" mechanics are almost always a waste of time and retarded, because people and by extension writers & developers are always biased.

I think Morrowind and VTM:B did it pretty well. Alpha Protocol too supposedly, though I haven't played it. There's a a few other games that are not explicitly about politics or morality but feature them heavily that are in the same boat, but games advertised for this aspect all fucking suck.
Oh and there's the point-and-click Blade Runner game, that had some *excellent* "choices matter" mechanics coupled with some randomization of NPC alignment/status per playthrough so the same choice wouldn't always have the same outcome depending on other factors.

 

[FudgeFish]

And oh dear fucking god, why do some writers think a nuclear apocalypse is a fitting ending? It was shit in Hotline Miami, and it was shit in 5.

Sperging from pages back, but this is more or less what directly killed Film Noir as a genre - Kiss Me Deadly from 1955 had a big whole dumb plot about a nuclear bomb in a suitcase. Film Noir as a genre got caught up in a weird arms-race around depressing endings, or how the main character would die and lose everything.

Once you've gone with "big nuclear explosion, everyone dies, very sad" there's not really a whole lot else you can do. The entire genre basically jumped the shark years before that was even a thing.

Anyway, the writing in games is a mess. It briefly wasn't, then it was again.

 

[Inafune Fanfiction]

It should be a bannable offense to kick people from a game for not using external chat services like Discord.

 

[Pissmaster]

You need to understand adult pokemon fans are obsessed with the battle system. They don't give a shit about the game itself, only the multiplayer battles.

It's still pathetic because the battle system is incredibly simple despite the fans saying it's more complex than 3D chess, and the grind to evolve the pokemons with the perfect strats is something that even MMOs are ashamed of.

Yeah, I remember reading about the insane practices on optimizing effort values and the outlandishly minute chances you have to pull a good one, but also how that community frowns upon save game editors. They really expect you to sit there and essentially pull a very slow slot machine by way of breeding and then walking around doing nothing in order to try and pull a high EV pokemon. It's like the series was purposefully structured to be as unfriendly to competitive play as possible.

Then again, I guess that's what happens to idiots filtered by every single other tactical combat game on the planet

 

[Matt Damon]

It's like the series was purposefully structured to be as unfriendly to competitive play as possible.

It wouldn't surprise me if it was. Nintendo has long tried to discourage min-maxing nerds from sucking all the fun out of their games with high-level competitive play.

Unfortunately they continually underestimate how insanely autistic those nerds are. What's a few thousand hours to be able to say "I'm the best middle-aged virgin to ever play this children's game"?

 

[The Ugly One]

The "it's just cosmetic!" argument for microtransactions is losing its validity with every passing day. If it was JUST cosmetic, why charge for them?

Same reason there's a whole aisle of that shit in every drug store. People wanna look pretty for the big dance.

 

[xXx: State of the Union]

Hot take but it's possible to make entertainment for children that doesn't condescend to them and treats them like fucking idiots.

It's possible, sure, but the vast majority of children are fucking idiots. The vast majority of adults as well. So why should they?

Once you've gone with "big nuclear explosion, everyone dies, very sad" there's not really a whole lot else you can do.

In regards to Hotline Miami 2, I believe this was actually their intention.

From what I recall, they didn't really want to make the sequel or didn't enjoy making it or something. Whatever the case was, I believe they have flat out said that they wanted it to be a definitive ending so they could move on to whatever goofy experimental shit they wanted to do.

That doesn't excuse them if you think the rest of the story or game is shit or whatever, but yeah.

 

[Matt Damon]

Left-Ctrl is the one true crouch button and anyone who uses the 'C' key should be put to the sword.

I assume this is an unpopular opinion because every first person game desperately wants me to use C instead.

 

[CharlesBarkley]

Cyberpunk has the gayest and lamest sound track on earth.

 

[Kulee Baba]

Now that, I can get behind, because Pokemon has all the hallmarks of a franchise that's truly designed for kids.

Producing children's entertainment is different from producing entertainment for families, because it's fundamentally the same thing over and over again, but updated with modern standards in mind. Sesame Street isn't a family show because it's essentially always the same thing at its core. Teaching kids fundamentals like the alphabet and to not be a jerk are things every new generation needs to learn. Pokemon's similar - while not educational, it scratches that itch so many kids have on wanting to collect everything and go on a grand journey in a miniature world where everyone has a one-track mind, obsessed with the animals around them. That's why it's magical when you're a kid, but boring when you're an adult. Adults need something more sophisticated and challenging. Not all the time, of course - some people play it as a comfort food kind of thing, but to obsess over it into adulthood is... pretty damn autistic.

Mario games are different enough each time to keep an adult audience engaged enough, so they fall into the family category. They're not difficult games, but they're clever and mix things up enough to keep a non-autistic adult audience engaged.

On that note I'd argue the Mario games have a traditionally higher skill ceiling than many games deemed hardcore, in particular Call of Duty.

 

[Table Country]

Left-Ctrl is the one true crouch button and anyone who uses the 'C' key should be put the sword.

I assume this is an unpopular opinion because every first person game desperately wants me to use C instead.

I agree with you, but reaching for left-ctrl has fucked up my pinkie at times so I understand the temptation to use the C button even if it is haram.