Unpopular Opinions about Video Games

[Joey-The-Chud]

That'd be Child of Light.


Based and adventure pilled


I think it's way underrated, people write it off for being old when they don't do that for other games. It holds up just fine mostly, but it's not the best gen (that's gen 2).

Gen 1 was good but personally I prefer games like emerald and platinum.

 

[dankweed420]

video game anti-piracy is good if it's implemented in a way that doesn't harm the paying customer and their experience.

edit: also, lol.

 

[Joey-The-Chud]

video game anti-piracy is good if it's implemented in a way that doesn't harm the paying customer and their experience

Nope piracy is based and red pilled simple as that , most video games ever made aren't even available for purchase on modern systems thanks to bullshit copyright laws and licensing issues, I bought a super console X4 from Kinhank a few months ago and I'm really enjoying playing all these old games ( most of them I didn't even get to experience growing up ) much more than playing most of the nu games that come out today.

 

[TheHarbinger]

Nope piracy is based and red pilled simple as that.

Piracy has been the most effective form of archiving pretty much all media made in the last couple of decades. It's arguably one of the most important aspects of personal computers and the internet.

 

[Ibanez RG 350EX]

video game anti-piracy is good if it's implemented in a way that doesn't harm the paying customer and their experience

edit: also, lol
View attachment 5735508

I guess as a hypothetical exercise this might be the case, but in practice it always does harm the paying customer. As a pirate, I can do anything I want with my pirated installation of the game - any anti-piracy measures necessarily make legal ownership a worse, more restrictive experience.

a harmless drm won't hurt anybody,

There's no such thing.

 

[dankweed420]

There's no such thing.

except there is. a best example i could think of is gmod's anti-piracy. it works by tricking pirates that it has an error and won't start. when pirates stumbled upon this error, they bring their complains to steam and facepunch forum which surprise, they got banned.

 

[Ibanez RG 350EX]

except there is. a best example i could think of is gmod's anti-piracy. it works by tricking pirates that it has an error and won't start. when pirates stumbled upon this error, they bring their complains to steam and facepunch forum which surprise, they got banned.

Then ten years from now you find out their cheeky DRM relies on some esoteric functionality of Windows 10/11 and renders your legitimate copy of the software unusable, while pirates who've long since patched that error out of the executable can still use it no problem.

DRM is always shit, always restrictive, and always hurts paying customers.

 

[MembersSchoolPizza]

look, i agree with piracy being helpful in certain areas but a harmless drm won't hurt anybody, right?

There's no such thing. There's only a question of "how harmful", "harmful to who", and "how long until it's harmful".

Sooner a later a game is going to fall out of the market, hardware is going to change, something. Sometimes old DRM doesn't play well with modern versions of Windows, for example. Or it requires contacting servers that don't exist anymore. Or a publisher updates the version on the digital storefront to remove content. Or just flat-out remove it from sale. Or worse-case scenario remove your ability to download it altogether. And if it's DRM protected, it doesn't even matter if you saved a backup copy, it may not authenticate. Or they decide that modding a game is something they don't want to allow, and use the DRM to prevent it. These examples have happened.

No. DRM is always bad. It's just some is an evil we've learned to live with.

If a game can be got without DRM, on GOG, I buy it there over any other platform, even if I have to pay more, which I usually do since GOG sales don't tend to be as good or as frequent.

 

[Chuck McGill]

video game anti-piracy is good if it's implemented in a way that doesn't harm the paying customer and their experience.

edit: also, lol.
View attachment 5735508

If the following conditions are met, then I would agree it's appropriate to have DRM:

-The DRM is not invasive to me or my experience in any way. A perpetual network connection requirement for an otherwise offline game, as an example.
-If the game requires a central server for operation, there is a plan in place to ensure it can be played offline once the servers shut down. Yes, even for multiplayer or MMO games.
-If I pay money for a digital copy of a game, it is available to me in perpetuity. Anything short of this is not ownership of the game, meaning that any piracy of aforementioned game cannot be considered theft.

Considering there is no game that follows these rules that I am currently aware of, piracy it is.

 

[MembersSchoolPizza]

Considering there is no game that follows these rules that I am currently aware of, piracy it is.

No DRM system, no. Hence why I use GOG as much as possible.

Okay, technically you can't say "available to me in perpetuity" in the sense that there could be some future date where the servers go down, but, since you can back up the game any time and the backup installer is not DRM protected, it's fine by me.

Although I do have to say I don't have any expectation an MMO would be playable without the servers. I mean, even it was, the games are basically meant to be, well, multiplayer. Even if I could wander around single player offline, what would be the point?

 

[Gondolindrim]

This is what I was wondering when I asked the posters age.

The closest example I can think of would be someone like Kojima, and every member of the games press was Geoff Keighley. Okay, maybe not that bad, but you get the idea. Maybe a better comparison is Cage was a Neil Druckmann level of smug twat with an army of reddit defenders but before reddit was a thing.

Imagine hearing about a game described as the best, most mind blowing thing, and when you play it you find a barely functional broken mess with a story that goes right up it's own arse and tries your patience constantly, but you're supposed to over look all that because famous person cameo.

It's funny how David Cage was hated for doing the exact same thing that Kojima and Druckmann are doing right now 10 years earlier. Only difference is that both those fuckers are getting thunderous applause for it. Hating Neil makes you an antisemite and Kojima has decades of good will built up via Metal Gear.

 

[Chuck McGill]

No DRM system, no. Hence why I use GOG as much as possible.

Okay, technically you can't say "available to me in perpetuity" in the sense that there could be some future date where the servers go down, but, since you can back up the game any time and the backup installer is not DRM protected, it's fine by me.

I agree it's unreasonable to expect this, but I'm beginning to see so many games that people pay money for die in under 5 years, I'm almost at the point where 'unreasonable' might be a good thing. If game devs decided independently "Hey, we're gonna give you at least 10-15 years worth of server time for something we expect money for", I'd be fine with letting them at some eventual future date shut this stuff down and let them decide the specifics for themselves. But no you fuckers, you done abused our trust, you clearly can't be trusted to be treat your customers with dignity so now the terms will be decided for you. And with them clearly trying to push their digital-only future, it would be one hell of a stumbling block for them and might just nudge things back towards physical copies.

Although I do have to say I don't have any expectation an MMO would be playable without the servers. I mean, even it was, the games are basically meant to be, well, multiplayer. Even if I could wander around single player offline, what would be the point?

Well for one thing, a lot of dead MMOs could easily be resurrected if the devs just released the source code after the servers shut down, leaving the fanbase the option to run the game on private servers. As to why you'd wander around in single player, sometimes the environment is really good. Sometimes the level's music is really good. For as dated as WoW's graphics are, it's hard to deny that a lot of the levels themselves have a great deal of charm to them, and it just seems unnecessarily callous that we keep allowing devs to say "yeah uhhhh we could release a patch that makes the game code already on your computer available offline and it would cost us basically nothing but we don't wanna thanks go fuck yourself no refunds buh bye"

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

Imagine hearing about a game described as the best, most mind blowing thing, and when you play it you find a barely functional broken mess with a story that goes right up it's own arse and tries your patience constantly, but you're supposed to over look all that.

That's what I experience every time I see people swear up and down about how some older game is so much better than its modern counterpart, only to see a game that barely works and a story that's not even worth writing home about.

 

[Judge Dredd]

That's what I experience every time I see people swear up and down about how some older game is so much better than its modern counterpart, only to see a game that barely works and a story that's not even worth writing home about.

I would say I disagree, but that describes my experience with pretty much all of the old PC games considered classics. Eldar Scrolls has been talked to death in this thread so I won't go into that. But the big one has got to be MechWarrior, which I might have mentioned in this thread a bunch.

Short version. All the tactical depth = who has the bigger mech and how much did you exploit the customization. The amazing story and lore = it's not in the game but buried in paperbacks and tabletop games, many of which were not available in my country. Grounded low-fi sci-fi tone with none of the goofiness of anime = samurai robots with giant swords and 100 ton flying trash cans.

 

[Cheeseknife]

Jokes, gimmicks, and ripping off games that weren't Duke Nukem.

Shit, if you plop Duke in Dark Forces or Doom 3D, that's more of a Duke Nukem game than DNF was.

All the jokes in the old games were also fast in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it kind of way. The adult film stores and stripper joints weren't even the center of attention, all they did was service the aesthetic for whatever stage you were shooting aliens in. Then you have gags like finding the body of the Space Marine from Doom hidden behind a door. Duke sees the body, delivers a quip, and moves on. The game doesn't focus on its gags, it just lets you have free reign over what you are doing.

DNF spends minutes of time drawing out jokes where DN3D would take like 3 seconds. People writing DNF really needed to realize, jokes are funnier when they're quick and punchy, no obnoxiously lengthy.

 

[*sigh*]

All video games will become bespoke and there will be no common experience to bond over with others. Also, furry loli porn will be default mode.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

I would say I disagree, but that describes my experience with pretty much all of the old PC games considered classics. Eldar Scrolls has been talked to death in this thread so I won't go into that. But the big one has got to be MechWarrior, which I might have mentioned in this thread a bunch.

That's because more than a few 90s games on the PC had a lot of ambition, but their UI systems were clunky, and were more suited to tactical wargames at best. Which explains why strategy games like Starcraft and Command and Conquer dominated in those years.

Short version. All the tactical depth = who has the bigger mech and how much did you exploit the customization. The amazing story and lore = it's not in the game but buried in paperbacks and tabletop games, many of which were not available in my country. Grounded low-fi sci-fi tone with none of the goofiness of anime = samurai robots with giant swords and 100 ton flying trash cans.

That sounds rather disappointing, but it's nothing new. Many games in those days had labyrinthine lore descriptions in their books and ingame lore, but it barely reflects on the story. Which kinda makes them look like shit when you do compare it with anime mecha and all the cool shit they had.

All the jokes in the old games were also fast in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it kind of way. The adult film stores and stripper joints weren't even the center of attention, all they did was service the aesthetic for whatever stage you were shooting aliens in. Then you have gags like finding the body of the Space Marine from Doom hidden behind a door. Duke sees the body, delivers a quip, and moves on. The game doesn't focus on its gags, it just lets you have free reign over what you are doing.

DNF spends minutes of time drawing out jokes where DN3D would take like 3 seconds. People writing DNF really needed to realize, jokes are funnier when they're quick and punchy, no obnoxiously lengthy.

Jokes are funnier when you let them settle in and let the player figure out what's funny about it, instead of having a longer time for what should be a laugh for a few seconds before you get back into the game.

In DNF, you're forced to look for these gags in order to increase your health, whereas the older games don't really care and you can experience or ignore them as you wish. A more serious player who's more into the gameplay than the gagas can ignore them in DN3D, whereas they'll have to engage with the gags in DNF to get the most health for the firefights.

 

[MembersSchoolPizza]

look, i agree with piracy being helpful in certain areas but a harmless drm won't hurt anybody, right?

Thinking on this some more... Here's the problem, as I see it, with DRM.

DRM is the gaming company saying "You have to trust us, because we don't trust you."

DRM is the gaming company saying "You have to trust us to keep the DRM servers running, you have to trust us to keep the software updated to modern hardware, you have to trust us to pay to keep our licenses up to date, you have to trust us to not spy on you with our DRM, you have to trust us that our DRM is safe, you have to trust us that we're going to give a shit about you in 2 years when we have your money and we're on to our next game." All the while they follow each of those statements with, "... because we think you're a thief."

So here we are, I guess.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I hate endlessly respawning enemies in GTA clones. You know the type. Wanted levels and they just keep coming until you disengage. I see it in GTA, RDR (where it's especially unjustifiable as it doesn't make sense within its setting), Destroy All Humans (doesn't matter so much there), and Maneater.

The one thing I want that would pretty much fix it is having reinforcements come in waves and with delay. See, in Maneater it's the worst implementation of it I've ever seen, because it will literally spawn the hunters right next to you. Like, you turn the camera away and they pop into existence, and then it's just a clusterfuck, there's no such thing as winning because they swarm in faster than you kill them. But this is part of the formula of every one of these sorts of games. I want it to be the case that they come in with a certain amount of force and if you kill that force fast enough, boom, you win, or at least you get a reprieve to leave the area without being chased out of the area.

 

[Ayana Otonashi]

Xenosaga Episode II isn't that bad. The story is great, the gameplay is engaging and fluid once you get the hang of everything and it fixes the biggest issue with Episode I (the fact that there was very little music). My only complaint are the bum fuck ugly models (Shion, Momo and KOS-MOS got hit with it the worst)