Just to add that unfortunately much of the current state of gaming discussion is about everything but the games themselves. And right or wrong, I absolutely blame this on MS and the Xbox community. I’m not trolling when I say this, I’m just making an observation.
There has been a concerted effort to turn gaming discussion into business discussion almost exclusively. Look at the amount of insiders that have gained visibility over the last 12 to 24 months? Observe how most of them are Xbox centric, and are constantly playing to the crowd with rumors of acquisitions, free gold, exclusive this and that.
Look how a game like Miles Morales was instantly labeled DLC by a certain crowd, and instead of speaking about its quality, the price was the most important thing. Why? Because we gotta prop up a subscription service.
And since business has become the main topic, hypocrisy and double standards have shifted there. Let’s question every single move a certain company does as anti consumer, and the other as some sort of social service. Let’s talk business but let’s not talk the reality of the market, let’s instead create a narrative, a movement. Is a surprise that Phil Spencer has gained such status? Unironic I might add, which is astounding.
Coming into a gaming forum, ideally we want to talk about the games we are playing, the games that have been announced and are coming up, and discuss rumors here and there. But all people want to do atm is speculate business decisions, as if children dreaming of being CEOs. It’s pathetic.
We should be discussing content, but content won’t make anyone feel superior.
Yes we should talk about everything, but it’s the amount of focus on certain aspects that becomes extremely toxic.
Do we really need every post to reference the console you prefer, the controller you prefer, if you are buying the game on one console over the other or whether or not we need to thank a subscription service or a company or worse, a company talking head. I swear some people walk around with a t shirt saying “Thank you Mr A B C”.
A way to mitigate is to have threads dedicated to games being released on PS+/Gamepass/PSNow etc, or rumors. But I don’t know if that solves anything.
It’s just very toxic at the moment, as if nobody is actually playing and enjoying games, they are just working part time or full time as vital marketeers for these companies. And the ironic bit is that it’s just a stupid bubble that doesn’t mirror at all what’s happening out there.
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