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[Kai Dracon]

The thing is, Danny focuses a whole lot on that elusive concept of "innovation". But I think people like myself who grew up in the more formative years of gaming experienced something else besides rapid changes in technology and game design. We saw games become increasingly tilted towards a mainstream audience as the industry strove to capture the money being made by television, by motion pictures. To get people who wouldn't previously have played games to take games seriously by demonstrating how much games could be like those other mediums.

I tend to think a lot of alienation older game players feel is more due to this than a perceived lack of innovation. I've seen some people like Destiny for instance because it's not one of the endless 7 hour long corridor shooters of the last 8 years, that attempts to tell a cinematic story. A few people who grew up on games like Diablo have gone right in and are happy as pigs in mud. It makes Destiny an ironic controversy to reference in discussion about the perception of old vs young gamers, because I don't think it's divisive along the polarities Danny's reasoning seems to suggest. (i.e. old people don't get it because it's not "innovative", young people like it in spite of that.)

For the larger point though, I do think there are a lot of illusions about consensus. And many people have an exaggerated need for it in both directions: confirmation that something they like is good and something they dislike is bad. But this is also heavily entangled with the game industry and marketing. There's a tremendous need to hype games through the roof to insure front loaded sales of titles that have no evergreen staying power. They'll be in the bargain bin in 90 days, so better make sure people believe every game will change the world: and if you're not there at midnight with pre-order in hand, you may literally die.

 

[LuchaShaq]

I think Destiny's media vs. community enjoyment isn't much about age. It's about extremes.


What Destiny does well (Art/Combat) it does as well or better than anything out there.

What Destiny does poorly (story and mission design) it does as poorly as anything out there.



As for the review scores, I love the game and think they have been fair. That said I don't understand why this is the game that gets hit hard in reviews when pieces of garbage get great reviews across the board every year just because they are AAA. No conspiracy bullshit from me here, just confusion.

 

[The Shogun]

I think there are lots of ideas in here that produce a less coherent point than I expected.

First, it is worth separating the #gamergate stuff from arguing over reviews on message boards. Conflating the two seems to mask the real origins of the gamergate nonsense.

More importantly, though, I'm in his age range and I don't know that I am on the same page with the general thesis (bias towards new gameplay experiences). I'm not even entirely sure his examples represent new gameplay experiences. I was really expecting to see something like Tomb Raider or Super Mario 64 pop up. Real genre redefining games. Half Life -> Half Life 2 is a refinement (imo, a poor one) of an existing construct. The same is true of a lot of the examples he listed.

I find that as I get older, I am more interested in varied experiences and not in any one particular subset of experiences new or old. So I don't know that I agree.

I'm also not too sure about his comments on consensus. I don't agree there was ever a period in gaming (or in film or in literature) where it was easy to find or reach a consensus on anything. I don't think it's harder now to find a singular voice (as he says, a singular truth) about Destiny as it was about any game from the 90s.

This seems really romantic.

Agree on every single point you listed.

 

[Sirim]

While I do think he has a valid point, I think it oversimplifies gaming and quality. In any art form/entertainment medium, the past exists and when a new item is added to the lineage of film or gaming or music, the world can't ignore what has been done before.

If a mediocre to our generation(s) standards fantasy trilogy was released ten years from now, and children who had never seen LOTR were in love with it and people who had seen LOTR thought it was severely lacking, I don't think the flaws of that trilogy can simply be brushed onto the "different times different generation, different views". I think once a standard is set, it exists and will always exist. LOTR, for many (not all of you, but that's beyond the point, I'm merely using it as a common example for a greater point), set a huge standard in the fantasy genre and movies in general.

That standard still exists, whether or not you were alive to see it happen. Thus, whatever comes after will be judged to that standard, and I think for good reason, because progress is good. I wasn't alive to see classic cinema from the 20s, but I know it exists and thus I've seen quite a bit of it. Those old videogames may not be the big thing for children growing up now, but that doesn't mean they are to be ignored when new items are added to the lineage of videogames. I hope I'm stating all this clearly.

Destiny is an example (and I bring it up because it's in the title of the video), whatever age you are, of a game that simply falls flat compared to the standards set by what came before, and many of those standards were in recent years.

I don't think the opinion of 25+ generation of people (which I'm not a part of, close though) should be regarded as "they're just looking through the lens of the past and are judging the games against such", but more "they have seen the standards first hand and have a better idea of how this game stands against them".

No other medium I can think of ignores the past accomplishments in it when speaking of opinions, which is how progress is made, or how lack of progress is understood.

If we are to accept gaming and game development and releases as simply a purely subjective, generationally subjective thing because some of us know the lineage and some of us don't, then progress is going to stall because there won't be as much of a need to aim higher.

If a game whose acronym was ROTOK came out today, and it was pixel for pixel the exact same as KOTOR, reviewers and our generation would be entirely correct in giving the game a low opinion for being a copycat of a game that came before.

Just because a child has never heard of KOTOR and loves ROTOK for it as much as we initally loved KOTOR because of such, doesn't make the game any more deserving of praise.

Lineage and the past can't be ignored in an art or entertainment medium, I'd say.

 

[TheDarkKnight774]

Nice vid, I'm in my late 30s, and have been gaming since the Atari. And I enjoy destiny a lot. I do agree on a couple points that I think destiny has shown for the industry.

1) the options and what people want from games are as diverse as ever
2) gaming critical praise and what people enjoy is starting to reflect like more established/mature forms of entertainment. The oscars don't go to the highest grossing film, etc. In the past the highest reviewed was also the highest grossing or most beloved. Earlier on some of that was due to the higher quality made games now (technical and QA quality) than back in the day. Some games released in the day were flat out broken.

3) And finally we are not used to games media reviewing mega hyped games without the inflated hyped scale. I don't think the scores are too outside my take of destiny but I also think it's tons of fun. We as a community are not really used to this. Usually it's mega hyped game, therefore it must be 9s as a minimum. And then months later everyone feels a good portion of those games were high 7s. It's not that Destiny has any more flaws than other games that got high scores from years past, it's just less hype going in. And this has caused this interesting ripple in how everyone reacts to the critics. People that haven't played it or are interested in it see the scores and think it must suck since it's outside what we are conditioned to seeing. People playing it just seem to (for the most part) shrug it off and enjoy playing what they want. And having the review scores show up a couple days to a week later I think helped smooth everything over. I would like more reviews to be like that.

It seems to calms the process for reviewers and readers alike

 

[Messofanego]

Not the most cohesive of points like the consensus on opinions, but great video and thought-provoking at least.

I can definitely agree that older players have higher expectations on gaming evolution. That goes for any medium. The expectation of such a nebulous term as mentioned above such as "next gen gameplay" should be evidence of that.

However, I've been blown away by many recent games as much as I was when as a kid I played Doom, Prince of Persia, Mortal Kombat, Tenchu, or Neverhood. Examples such as Papers Please, Alan Wake, Spec Ops The Line, Mark of the Ninja (it's 2D Tenchu like holy shit!), Wolfenstein The New Order, Bulletstorm, Journey, Alice Madness Returns, Dear Esther, The Novelist, and more. I just need a STALKER-level game, and I'm set for life. Games now have much better merging of storytelling and gameplay than ever before when they were divorced. First person exploration or narrative-heavy games are now my jam.

 

[mcwizardry]

I think the point he makes about consensus existing in the era he describes ( 1998 - 2004 ) is largely true. At the time the opinions of enthusiasts and critics mostly aligned, especially for the important releases of those years ( i.e. Grim Fandango, Call of Duty 1, Half-Life 2 ) Nowadays it seems gaming and criticism have diversified enough that we can have such a large array of opinions on games like Destiny.

 

[Ketch]

I think there are lots of ideas in here that produce a less coherent point than I expected.

First, it is worth separating the #gamergate stuff from arguing over reviews on message boards. Conflating the two seems to mask the real origins of the gamergate nonsense.

More importantly, though, I'm in his age range and I don't know that I am on the same page with the general thesis (bias towards new gameplay experiences). I'm not even entirely sure his examples represent new gameplay experiences. I was really expecting to see something like Tomb Raider or Super Mario 64 pop up. Real genre redefining games. Half Life -> Half Life 2 is a refinement (imo, a poor one) of an existing construct. The same is true of a lot of the examples he listed.

I find that as I get older, I am more interested in varied experiences and not in any one particular subset of experiences new or old. So I don't know that I agree.

I'm also not too sure about his comments on consensus. I don't agree there was ever a period in gaming (or in film or in literature) where it was easy to find or reach a consensus on anything. I don't think it's harder now to find a singular voice (as he says, a singular truth) about Destiny as it was about any game from the 90s.

This seems really romantic.

I think your points about the specific examples he gives are valid, but I think you're confusing his thesis. What I got out of the video is that we're all biased towards different things in games now more then ever... and that's developed over time as we've all experienced different aspects of the medium as we grew up.

Were as you mention tomb raider to mario 64, his example is wolfenstein to half life. The thesis is that we're all looking for something different, even if we don't realize it, so there's not need to be at each other's throats.

By saying that you're not looking for the same things that he's looking for, or you don't remember the past the same way he does.... that's kind of the whole point... But people dont get it, they say things like "This game is clearly garbage" instead of "This game is not for me".

Which brings me to your last statement about concensus, which I do kind of disagree with. I think in the past it was a lot easier for people to identify and agree on which games were total garbage. Mostly because there were a lot more of them back then.

 

[sploatee]

Fucking Gamespot piece of shit doesn't work on either of my 3 tablets, in 3 different browsers on each.
Fuck this shit. Sounds like just the thing I'd want to watch too!

edit: booted up the desktop for it. Great vid but fuck me 29 is not an aging gamer. You missed the whole 8 bit era sunshine. If you didn't own a Spectrum or NES, you don't know shit!
Also, I do t know wtf this had to do with Destiny other than attaching the most click attractive game to his page.

Spectrum!?

SPECTRUM!?!?!

C64 for ever!

 

[Messofanego]

Which brings me to your last statement about concensus, which I do kind of disagree with. I think in the past it was a lot easier for people to identify and agree on which games were total garbage. Mostly because there were a lot more of them back then.

I'm agreed with that point, that because of the deluge of bad games back in the day, the great games stood out more and people weren't as divisive in their opinions. That's why a negative review of Deus Ex was shocking.

But I believe there's a consensus on opinions now too thanks to Metacritic, GOTY awards, and other metrics. It's why there are "underrated" or "overrated" games threads.

 

[MormaPope]

I think there are lots of ideas in here that produce a less coherent point than I expected.

First, it is worth separating the #gamergate stuff from arguing over reviews on message boards. Conflating the two seems to mask the real origins of the gamergate nonsense.

More importantly, though, I'm in his age range and I don't know that I am on the same page with the general thesis (bias towards new gameplay experiences). I'm not even entirely sure his examples represent new gameplay experiences. I was really expecting to see something like Tomb Raider or Super Mario 64 pop up. Real genre redefining games. Half Life -> Half Life 2 is a refinement (imo, a poor one) of an existing construct. The same is true of a lot of the examples he listed.

I find that as I get older, I am more interested in varied experiences and not in any one particular subset of experiences new or old. So I don't know that I agree.

I'm also not too sure about his comments on consensus. I don't agree there was ever a period in gaming (or in film or in literature) where it was easy to find or reach a consensus on anything. I don't think it's harder now to find a singular voice (as he says, a singular truth) about Destiny as it was about any game from the 90s.

This seems really romantic.

C'mon now.

How many posts have we seen that praise Metal Gear Solid, Ocarina of Time, Diablo 2, Half Life, Deus Ex. Sure, everybody won't like those games, that's a given, but at that time when a game did something extremely well or different, it garnered tons and tons of positive attention. There are indeed classics, games in which people will cite as favorites instantly or champion until the end of time. Consensus means popular opinion in this case.

Destiny isn't going to be championed, it isn't going to be looked at as a game that shook the industry when it comes to game design, it isn't going to be lauded as a classic. The same thing can be said for a lot of different titles in the past few years. The Walking Dead seems like a faint memory already, Metal gear Rising isn't going to embraced by the masses because of its excellent boss battles and soundtrack.

More games, more variety, more of everything, that will dilute consensus.

 

[U2NUMB]

36 here and I agree with his point. Growing up in the 80's and living the glory days of Atari and NES and then seeing that progress over the next 3 decades was amazing and it is very hard to continue that level of freshness as we move forward.

 

[uncredited male]

He should have played Dune 2 on his Amiga, did the DOS version have voice SFX?

Yes.

 

[Into]

Perhaps the very reason that Destiny has garnered plenty of people who argue for it on the internet, is precisely because the relationship between people who play videogames and those who write about them on major sites are in a all out war these days.

Hence it is cool and preferable to praise the game, because these sites gave it mediocre considered how lenient they are with triple A releases and general gushing over production values. It serves as sort of further proof that they do not matter, game is successful despite them not liking it much. Of course the reality is that the game has had a great marketing machine behind it as well. But that is a different topic altogether.

As for Danny's overall point, well he is right when he says gaming today is a teenager in some way. But when he grew up, and i grew up it was a baby, its first words were magical and noteworthy, its first dance, cough, swim, even fart were special. That teenager though has to do something really special for us to notice him these days.

 

[ArjanN]

Nice video, very nostalgic.

Spoiler

But put on some long pants.

 

[Ingueferroque]

Destiny is an example (and I bring it up because it's in the title of the video), whatever age you are, of a game that simply falls flat compared to the standards set by what came before, and many of those standards were in recent years.

Oh ok! Destiny is mediocre, whatever age you are. OK. I wonder what games you play, high standards.

Perhaps the very reason that Destiny has garnered plenty of people who argue for it on the internet, is precisely because the relationship between people who play videogames and those who write about them on major sites are in a all out war these days.

It is true that a game structured like Destiny does not particularly gel with the culture of reviews/journalists. Similar to Monster Hunter and (before it thankfully got accepted by everyone) Demon's/Dark Souls.

I remember getting annoyed listening to Giant Bomb/CheapAssGamer staff dismiss any Demon's Souls / Monster Hunter discussion because of the challenge/timesink required.

 

[BumblebeeCody]

It's funny because I often tell people these things. Instead it comes down a lot to being closes minded and hating on the latest stuff.

I don't disagree with anything he said but it's also nothing particularly insightful.

Because it's relevant, I'm 33 and I've been playing games since the 8-bit days. I'm also hopelessly addicted to Destiny.

The thing I agree with most is the unnecessary vitriol amongst people who play videogames. I find it so alienating. It often just feels like a reminder that this is so often a medium geared around teenage boys and I am neither.

Funny because I'm 24 and feel the same. I don't find it being the want for more, it's just people being a dick on a Internet. The Internet itself has changed the way criticism is addressed because everyone has an opinion. Imagine what the gaming industry would be like if it was the way it was now but during the era of 1998 with Ocarina of Time, Half-life and Metal Gear.

 

[JeffG]

edit: booted up the desktop for it. Great vid but fuck me 29 is not an aging gamer. You missed the whole 8 bit era sunshine. If you didn't own a Spectrum or NES, you don't know shit!

lol...try pong

Is 50 an aging gamer? (first computer was an Atari 400 with a tape drive.)

 

[IISANDERII]

Fucking Gamespot piece of shit doesn't work on either of my 3 tablets, in 3 different browsers on each.
Fuck this shit. Sounds like just the thing I'd want to watch too!

If anybody's got a youtube link, please post.

 

[shem935]

I don't really think anything has changed about consensus. It's just we are hearing everyone else's opinions about everything now instead of a very limited set of reviewers and critics who generally match each other's tastes.

 

[Sojgat]

I think Destiny's media vs. community enjoyment isn't much about age. It's about extremes.


What Destiny does well (Art/Combat) it does as well or better than anything out there.

What Destiny does poorly (story and mission design) it does as poorly as anything out there.



As for the review scores, I love the game and think they have been fair. That said I don't understand why this is the game that gets hit hard in reviews when pieces of garbage get great reviews across the board every year just because they are AAA. No conspiracy bullshit from me here, just confusion.

I agree 100% with the bolded.

I think the review scores are due mainly to a perceived lack of content, and high expectations from Bungie's overhyping. They promised the galaxy in the lead-up to the game's release, but it feels like they just built the biggest Halo levels ever, and then sectioned them up into Destiny's zone mission structure. I don't think this would have been such a problem if there were seven or eight of these levels. Unfortunately there are only four of them.

 

[maxcriden]

Wow, his voice is great. I don't even care about Destiny and I find him compelling to watch. Great screen presence.

 

[Y2Kev]

C'mon now.

How many posts have we seen that praise Metal Gear Solid, Ocarina of Time, Diablo 2, Half Life, Deus Ex. Sure, everybody won't like those games, that's a given, but at that time when a game did something extremely well or different, it garnered tons and tons of positive attention. There are indeed classics, games in which people will cite as favorites instantly or champion until the end of time. Consensus means popular opinion in this case.

This is not really meaningful. How many posts have we seen that praise The Last of Us, Dark Souls, Super Street Fighter IV, Bayonetta, Super Mario Galaxy, etc. I can easily name a stream of games. I can also name a stream of games that were controversial in the 90s.

The controlling premise here is completely unsubstantiated and I'm arguing it's not true. I would have absolutely no problem rattling off games from the period in which he said there were cultural standards where there was no standard.

I'm well aware of what consensus means.

Destiny isn't going to be championed, it isn't going to be looked at as a game that shook the industry when it comes to game design, it isn't going to be lauded as a classic. The same thing can be said for a lot of different titles in the past few years. The Walking Dead seems like a faint memory already, Metal gear Rising isn't going to embraced by the masses because of its excellent boss battles and soundtrack.

So you're saying you've got a consensus on some modern games? Would you say you reached those easily (in that, for example, you pulled it out of your ass?)

I'm not talking about Destiny at all. I don't care. The point that there were universal, appreciable standards "back in the day" is false, or at best unsubstantiated. You certainly haven't done it and O'Dwyer doesn't in his video either.

More games, more variety, more of everything, that will dilute consensus.

You haven't demonstrated this either and it isn't a priori true. First you would need to demonstrate that we have more variety than we used to, which is something I find highly contentious.

His phrasing and argument are absolutely drawing on nostalgia and I don't understand why people don't immediately pick up on it. It's romantic. He even uses the phrase "halcyon days." No one does that unironically anymore. Yikes.

 

[hwy_61]

This is the kind of shit gamespot's producing? fuck, I gotta pay more attention to that site.

 

[Owzers]

Every shitty game doesn't require remembering your history as a gamer.

 

[StewboaT_]

Hajaja!

 

[Ketch]

I'm agreed with that point, that because of the deluge of bad games back in the day, the great games stood out more and people weren't as divisive in their opinions. That's why a negative review of Deus Ex was shocking.

But I believe there's a consensus on opinions now too thanks to Metacritic, GOTY awards, and other metrics. It's why there are "underrated" or "overrated" games threads.

I was more talking about bad games in the sense of broken or non functioning.... Now a days most games that actually release as a paid "boxed" product (including digital), are of such a quality that there's typically at least some kind of enjoyment to be had.
The stuff that comes out as "early access" on steam, used to just be games. You could go to the store and buy the wrong game and literally be stuck with a broken piece of shit... that doesn't really happen anymore, at least not as often as it used to.

And I disagree that there's a consensus on opinions now. The methods you citing actually reinforce that there's not a consensus.

Metacritic isn't a consensus it's an average.... As an example, Game X getting a 75% doesn't mean that is the consensus. If some people think it's a 50 and others think it's 100, then 75 is very much not the consensus, it's just an average.

Same goes with awards and stuff. In an era where pretty much every big game has "game of the year" on the box, or "Game of the year edition", or whatever. Winning GOTY does not actually mean it's the best game of the year, it just means somebody somewhere thought it was. So if there's multiple games claiming GOTY, then that means there's a bunch of people who aren't agreeing on one true GOTY... so it's not a consensus.

 

[maxcriden]

While I understand the issues that Kev has above very well, I do think there was still something meaningful to this video, specifically about marginal diminishing returns. For me, if games never looked better than they did in the GCN days, I think I'd be okay. I love what they look like in the Wii U era, but it's not as crucial to me. So I think where I'm seeing less in the way of diminishing returns are in new ways to play, like motion controls in Metroid Prime or stylus controls in Kirby: Canvas Curse. These kinds of new ways to play help reduce the feeling of diminishing returns, and new gameplay experiences like Skyward Sword that retain older mechanics of prior games in the same series help cement this for me and help these games not feel as much like just more of the same. Series reinventions like Mario Galaxy and 3DW help to increase the feeling of freshness as well. I like that for every Kirby game like Triple Deluxe, we get something with new and different gameplay like Mass Attack. So I guess my point is that if diminishing returns doesn't come as much from graphics anymore--especially underlined by a resurgent affection for games which are 8- and 16-bit in appearance--they can still come from fresh gameplay and control mechanics.

 

[komplanen]

Really good video and a nice message. Good on Danny!

 

[Cipherr]

That was GREAT. I mean really on point stuff. Awesome job Danny.

Remarkable job Mr. O'Dwyer!

That was a fantastic video.

Yeah, he's pretty much hit it on the head for us older folks particularly

So much truth. He really nailed it.

I'm also not too sure about his comments on consensus. I don't agree there was ever a period in gaming (or in film or in literature) where it was easy to find or reach a consensus on anything. I don't think it's harder now to find a singular voice (as he says, a singular truth) about Destiny as it was about any game from the 90s.

I disagree with you here completely. One needs only look at OOT's reviews from back then to see it. How many games will achieve the near 100 rating that game got from all publications both printed and online? Very few if any. Noone is saying that there was ever a complete consensus, only that it was much closer to it back then, and they are right.

Thats to be expected though the industry is older and it has expanded a great deal. Much less of an echo chamber these days and a much wider assortment of people playing and reviewing each game.

You haven't demonstrated this either and it isn't a priori true.

Games are selling 20+ million way more often than they did in the 1990's, last gen more consoles sold than any other gen that I'm aware of, and the number of people commenting on gaming websites, forums and comment sections dwarf the numbers of us that were discussing gaming on IRC and BBS's back in the 1990's. Im not sure how any of this is even up for debate. Even when I look at the number of reviews for games on Metacritic and the like and compare them to some games in the 90s we see reviews in the low numbers for older games while these days big titles get hundreds of reviews. Its not even close.

 

[Darklord]

He's so right. I'm 26 and agree with him....it also makes me feel kind of old.

 

[erpg]

That desire for wonder and a new experience is what drew me to Mass Effect and why I dropped the franchise after 2.

Jeez, ME1 is seven years old.

 

[Y2Kev]

I disagree with you here completely. One needs only look at OOT's reviews from back then to see it. How many games will achieve the near 100 rating that game got from all publications both printed and online? Very few if any. Noone is saying that there was ever a complete consensus, only that it was much closer to it back then, and they are right.

Thats to be expected though the industry is older and it has expanded a great deal. Much less of an echo chamber these days and a much wider assortment of people playing and reviewing each game.

First, one game would not prove the rule. It could simply have been truly a wonderful game (and it was and is). But, second, GTAIV is one point off Ocarina of Time in an era of supposed expansion and maturation with many, many more reviewers both online and off-- a far wider assortment of critics and reviewers than Ocarina of Time faced by far.

I don't even know why this is relevant though. It doesn't prove there are cultural standards. Do I really have to go cite what he said verbatim?

Games are selling 20+ million way more often than they did in the 1990's, last gen more consoles sold than any other gen that I'm aware of, and the number of people commenting on gaming websites, forums and comment sections dwarf the numbers of us that were discussing gaming on IRC and BBS's back in the 1990's. Im not sure how any of this is even up for debate. Even when I look at the number of reviews for games on Metacritic and the like and compare them to some games in the 90s we see reviews in the low numbers for older games while these days big titles get hundreds of reviews. Its not even close.

What does the number have to do with anything? This point remains hugely unsubstantiated.

 

[Cyrano]

Funny to see that people in their late 20s and early 30s are already clamoring for the "good old days." Which is never something that existed.

What is interesting is that it seems like people are now feeling like this at a much younger age than in the past (or are just more vocal about it).

 

[erpg]

Funny to see that people in their late 20s and early 30s are already clamoring for the "good old days." Which is never something that existed.

What is interesting is that it seems like people are now feeling like this at a much younger age than in the past (or are just more vocal about it).

It shouldn't be that surprising. Gaming went from something like Le Voyage dans la Lune to Star Wars' bombast over the course of 30 years.

 

[mr teaspoon]

Funny to see that people in their late 20s and early 30s are already clamoring for the "good old days." Which is never something that existed.

Well, I generally agree that 'the good old days' are usually whatever time a person grew up in, but he does have a point: the 30-ish crowd among us do know videogames in a different way than any future generation will. We saw it go from NES to PS4, so in this context 'the good old days' did actually exist.

As others have said, I'm not really finding much insight in this video. There's nothing I disagree with, but no big revelations. But I'm somebody who finds just about 99% of discussion about the industry and gamers to be incredibly boring. I understood that different people like different games and that game reviews are entirely subjective by the time I was like 10 years old - how this continues to be a thing is beyond me.

 

[Evil Monkey DTT]

I feel so fucking old, how the hell is half life 2 10 years old. When it came out I was like "my pc could never run that in a million years" and I was screaming with joy when it was ported to the original xbox. This was a fantastic video!

 

[MormaPope]

This is not really meaningful. How many posts have we seen that praise The Last of Us, Dark Souls, Super Street Fighter IV, Bayonetta, Super Mario Galaxy, etc. I can easily name a stream of games. I can also name a stream of games that were controversial in the 90s.

Those games are a lot more divisive than the games I listed, even if there is little divisiveness for those games to begin with. There is no proof of this besides personal perspective, so we have to agree to disagree if neither of us can provide which era was more consensus rich.

I'm not talking about Destiny at all. I don't care. The point that there were universal, appreciable standards "back in the day" is false, or at best unsubstantiated. You certainly haven't done it and O'Dwyer doesn't in his video either.

Who is saying consensus is universal? Popular opinion doesn't equal something being universal.

You haven't demonstrated this either and it isn't a priori true. First you would need to demonstrate that we have more variety than we used to, which is something I find highly contentious.

His phrasing and argument are absolutely drawing on nostalgia and I don't understand why people don't immediately pick up on it. It's romantic. He even uses the phrase "halcyon days." No one does that unironically anymore. Yikes

.

Free to play games didn't exist until last gen, mobile games weren't nearly as complex or elaborate until the last five years or so. Look at weekly releases for Steam, indie games come out every day, free indie games can be found on tons of websites. 2D Platformers, 2D action games, first person shooters, third person shooters, simulation, MOBAS, horror games, top down RPGs, RPGS in general.

Indie games also weren't a thing until last gen.

"More" doesn't necessarily mean more variety, but the amount of games now versus the amount of games in the late 90's is staggering. The way you're phrasing your post suggests people's opinions and expectations on games don't change en masse, even if there is a ton of growth overtime. That the perception and consensus of videogames hasn't changed since the late 90's. To me that has to be argued for a lot harder.

 

[dimb]

This kind of thought process seems like it unintentionally defines people who have been around games for a long period of time to be wiser, although amusingly enough, the age bracket targeted in this video are too young to see the jump between stuff like old Atari games to early arcade machines. The cited games are also just...sort of ironic, with titles like Grim Fandango marking the end of an era that put a capper on a certain style of adventure games. It wasn't radically different than what had come before it. San Andreas is another game to note that just feels odd as the third title of its kind. Were these really the titles that brought about some kind of revolution, and if these are the titles fondly remembered as such, what does that really say about what sort of innovation people seek out?

The video also seems to completely skip over whatever main point it is trying to make by avoiding drawing any of its lines back to Destiny, other than to say that opinions essentially don't matter.

 

[CosmicQueso]

"let's love whatever games we want"

Awesome. I can dig that.

Plus, all you young whippersnappers complaining about how "old" you are. Get off my lawn. Sincerely, over 40 guy.

 

[ILoveBish]

Terrific video. I am 36 years old, so i've been gaming since the earliest of days, had a tandy, amiga, atari 2600 at launch, and every major console ever released. I liked his points made, but i'd like to point out that as i grow older, i don't care at all about the gaming media what so ever. They're absolutely not needed at all. If you visit gaf regularly, you will know more then they do and before they know it. I didn't really care much for destiny, till i played the alpha and beta, and loved it. I am loving it now as well. Its absolutely FUN to play, and it has been years since i've sat down with a video game and just plain had FUN. That speaks volumes to me. I also don't care about all the controversy stuff, i imagine those people involved have quite a bit of free time. Between work, cooking, going to the gym, and the occasional game here and there, life is crazy busy. I just want to play fun games, thats it.

I've said many times, i still do not understand the appeal of minecraft, but i do acknowledge its insane popularity. I don't get it, but obviously lots of others do, and i hope they enjoy it. Gaming is about fun.

 

[VanWinkle]

That was fantastic. Really, really good and made me think about the way I look at the evolution and progression in games through the years.

 

[soultron]

His points about how the medium isn't evolving at the same rate was pretty great.

And now that the people who grew up with the medium from its young(est) stages are getting older, mixing in with younger fans, was pretty salient, in terms of there being no consensus online as there might have been. I think part of this was there was not a lot of "audience" participation in terms of a medium's social consciousness; magazines and then websites were the authority since there wasn't much to challenge them. You couldn't hop on twitter and argue or debate a review's author back then.

 

[Sapphire Dreams]

I love the fact that he used the term "game enthusiasts" rather than gamer.

 

[tci]

He pretty much nailed it (32 here).

Today I rarely get exited about new games, since I want the medium to evolve more. Makes sense that this was rapidly changing during me growing up with games. Which resulted in my opinion deeply today.

 

[Y2Kev]

Those games are a lot more divisive than the games I listed, even if there is little divisiveness for those games to begin with.

Prove it. Use any method of showing that Metal Gear Solid is less divisive than Super Mario Galaxy. Or any game I listed. I'd love to see what you come up with.

The reason why I'm a stickler for this point is because I'm trying to show a crux of the argument (besides the touchy feely "let's all like what we like" stuff) is based on an appeal to yesteryear that I don't think actually existed.

There is no proof of this besides personal perspective, so we have to agree to disagree if neither of us can provide which era was more consensus rich.

OK, I'm going to cite him verbatim because this is really not the point:

"There was a time when you could play most great games. When there was a consensus in our culture about what was good and bad. But today we all come from widely different gaming heritages and to try and find consensus is a fool's errand. [....] Really, more than ever before, there simply isn't one."

This is contentious. I am asking for it to be demonstrated or substantiated in really any way.

So far I've seen:
- Individual games cited. When I cite counterexamples, I'm told they are either more divisive (with no proof or evidence) or that they do not fit the construct ("a consensus in our culture about what was good and bad.")
- Statistical attempt to prove that more voices = harder to arrive at a consensus. I said this is not necessarily true. I asked for some type of evidence because it can be impossible to reach consensus with as few as two people. Numbers don't make the case.

Who is saying consensus is universal? Popular opinion doesn't equal something being universal.

His argument is that it used to be easier to judge culturally what was good and bad. That is, the culture held certain values. It's not universal, you're right, but it's culture. This is an extremely contentious point that boils down to nostalgia about the "halcyon days" (quote from the author of the piece).

Free to play games didn't exist until last gen, mobile games weren't nearly as complex or elaborate until the last five years or so.

So? These aren't genres. These are ways we consume games. Is the point that there are more ways to play games than ever before?

Look at weekly releases for Steam, indie games come out every day, free indie games can be found on tons of websites. 2D Platformers, 2D action games, first person shooters, third person shooters, simulation, MOBAS, horror games, top down RPGs, RPGS in general.

There is no way you can really claim with a straight face there's more variety in RPGs today than there was in 2000. There has been near complete consolidation in the genre, particularly in Japan. But again, in aggregate (which is the point I'm trying to make) all of these genres have been around or are merely deviations or adaptations of existing forms.

Indie games also weren't a thing until last gen.

It's true. There's some variety re-introduced by Indie games that was lost because the larger publishers abandoned the space. There's no question we're getting some unique games because more people have access to creation tools, though. But we've lost so much as well.

Why am I even arguing this? It's not my point. I'm saying I need a link between variety and consensus.

"More" doesn't necessarily mean more variety, but the amount of games now versus the amount of games in the late 90's is staggering. The way you're phrasing your post suggests people's opinions and expectations on games don't change en masse, even if there is a ton of growth overtime. That the perception and consensus of videogames hasn't changed since the late 90's. To me that has to be argued for a lot harder.

I'm not suggesting tastes don't change or that people don't change or that people don't change their minds. I'm suggesting that people behave now as they did then and that there is no actual evidence that there's some big disunity of opinion today that there wasn't before.

 

[Joeku]

Slight tangential: I'm reminded of this whole thing http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=698719 wherein some posters think that Tevis Thompson is factually wrong, and that there should be some absolutism in how good a video game is.

I'm glad that games come out aren't for everybody because the more tuned for me a game is the more I will enjoy it. I'll talk about Spec Ops: The Line, Far Cry 2, and Splinter Cell Blacklist to the death, but some people can loathe them because of their tastes, and that's fantastic.

 

[Kurdel]

Great video, props to Danny!

 

[Auto-Reply]

To be a bit critical here, I fail to see the connection to Destiny? Is he suggesting that Destiny got that much criticism because for older gamers it isn't different enough?

 

[Ropaire]

I went into this video hoping for something insightful and enlightening and honestly I'm disappointed. I think the real irony is that Danny (as whom I'm the same age) should remember that ten years ago some people were already saying we'd hit a point of diminishing returns on technological level with games. Shouldn't that mean that we've had a decade of common ground, or were people just wrong back then? In which case, who's to say we're not wrong now, with the forthcoming advent of VR and independent games becoming more advanced and so on?

Mostly what bothers me about the video is the way it sort of wants to peripherally address GamerGate in an attempt to be another all-message and just throws in a few hot topic words: "Gone Home," "overly socially conscious," "misogynist fanboys," etc. It's irresponsible to ham-handedly insert that element into a video whose thesis has nothing to do with it otherwise, because now you're just making the same point that, say, Boogie (rightfully) got so much heat for: "Sexists and SJWs, we're all OK, let's just meet in the middle and it'll be fine."