Charting overall progress, Cain describes a trend from possibility to restriction for developers, and open to closed-mindedness on the part of gamers. Absent a unified discourse, Cain thinks the 1980s allowed for a much more freeform environment for developers, one without calcified genres and largely free from the burden of consumer expectation. Cain said that the late '90s was when he first noticed a shift in gaming tastes due to the internet, with the proliferation of message boards and guides supplanting an earlier DIY ethos where the only supplemental reading to be had was a game's manual and maybe a print magazine—like PC Gamer, say. 32 years strong, baby. The next seismic shift, according to Cain, was the rise of video content and influencers. With the former, Cain notes that the importance of clips and streamability has affected what gets made and how developers think: "What part of our game would make for good clips," as he put it. This has always been a struggle for me as a CRPG fan: Most of them make for sucky videos, thanks to the zoomed-out perspective and walls of text. No part of a CRPG makes for good clips, I'm sorry to say. Much of the video was devoted to how Cain sees trends in videogame tastemaking. In particular, he argued that parasocial relationships and alignment with preferred influencers have supplanted informed, critical review for most gamers.
"Many gamers don't even look to influencers for reviews, they look to influencers to be told what to think about the games," said Cain. "People don't form opinions from the online video, they're handed an opinion from the online channel they're watching. "I've seen reviews go from 'this game has less combat and more puzzles and dialogue for you to interact with than this other game,' to, 'This game is stupid and slow -paced and made for casuals, I think you should skip it.' That's a huge difference in how games are presented. They find someone they just like, and then that person's opinion becomes their opinion."https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/fallout-designer-tim-cain-thinks-influencers-have-changed-how-people-make-and-play-games-more-people-seem-to-be-abdicating-their-own-judgement-to-that-of-people-they-see-online/
I like Tim Cain a lot but I think he's blowing this out of proportion.Mewgenics is a success cause it's a cool game. Streamers all dropped it cause it's boring to stream.
I parasocially agree when tim (we're cool like that) and will regurgitate this in the future, thanks OP
>>738126343Actually, an even better example is Pentiment, from Tim's own studio.No one streamed that, there's no big e-celeb shilling for it, but guess what, game is soulful as fuck, so soon enough it started getting video essays and now most people in the know agree it's a kino visual novel.
I have no idea why anyone listens to an obvious has-been like Tim.
>>738128820when a based black gay man talks, you sit down and listen.
I have no frame of reference because I don't watch streamers, don't get my opinions from youtubers at all, and don't know anyone who does.Though I'm sure there's a lot of zoomers who actually do, that being said I doubt they are the majority
>>738126243Cain is gay
I dont know who that is but he sounds like a fag
He's not wrong but he's not right either.Let's be clear about what happened>"10/10 IGN">Nintendo Bonus>Hyping up good games as great games>An artificial shift towards making things "cinematic"Despite popular belief, there was never a conspiracy behind this and film criticism has had the same problem for decades. Early access screenings, exclusive first looks, and exclusive interviews don't count as bribes, so it always benefitted to stay in the good graces of every AAA developer.Because of this, people lost trust. They turned to these influencers who, while amateurish, also gave a more layman's quality and who never scored exclusives, making them feel more honest in terms of their reviews.You can talk about the parasocial nature of Twitch and what it's done, but that is the same parasocial nature which makes it so that there are entire fandoms of games that people within said fandom didn't play.But the thing is, I'd rather take the guy in a chair sponsored by tacky gamer snacks than the guy who has to stay in every corporate good grace.Not to mention, if you remember Old X-play, thing being "casual", "too slow", et cetera was always kinda part of the criticism and the culture. You can't just say a medium is "art" and then negate its technical aspects. And even under the lens of "art", the technical quality of the game defines the medium. No one excuses bad cinematography on a professional film because "art". If something is being called bad because it's "slow", it's being called bad because it's a slow pace that feels unsatisfying.Likewise, "Casual" is bad if it's not enjoyable in a casual context. Look how many indie games these reviewers enjoy like Minecraft or Gorilla tag are "casual", yet it never stopped anyone from enjoying them.
He's not wrong Look at demakes and demasters being rabidly defended by zoomersit's not until recent E-celebs have come out and said they're bad actually that some (but not all) zoomers have started to agree
>>738126243I say Tim Cain should quit bitching about reviewers and make a video game that isn't dogshit instead.
>>738131709>>738126343>>738131646He has some good ideas usually but lately he has had some dog shit takes which unironically are because he's gay. His video about ugly characters is so detached from reality it could only come from someone that doesn't even see females as people.
The parasocial stuff is getting out of controlThese kids are constructing elaborate fantasy relationships with these streamers. It goes far beyond the "he says my name if I give him money" desperation ten years ago
>>738126512the impression i get of that game is that it's one of those games primarily created by some social butterfly normie devs out of a desire to socialize with press junkets and other indie devs and stuff. hence its compulsory half heartedness in depicting humans at different times in different modes of existence and exhibiting different thoughts and values than the algorithmic-based survival strategies of individuals and companies today. all of history has to be 1% more gay and diverse than we previously thought last year and always always worse than our current world, however that makes sense, or you're leaving a huge incentive for the incumbent publishers and journos to sell your game and be your twitter friend. i more prefer games where its the creators' honest obsession to the detriment of the rest of their life, where the game has more confidence in itself and doesn't have to conform to succeed. i really really want more historical games too but at least you can make your own period-accurate text adventures with llms and actually set them straight when you see the rightthink seeping in
>>738133763 (me)ofc the writing structure, coding and art is still worth appreciating since yeah not a lot of VNs lately
>>738126252It would make sense that Tim Cain doesn't recognize "slow-paced and casual" as a criticism, as he's never made an actual video game.
>>738126243>>738126252Not going to listen to a guy with zero sense for advertising or making profit about trends.
>>738126252It's so fucking funny to me how old media reports on influeners. It reminds me of how medieval European scholars would report on "wondrous inventions" from the middle east, which were actually centuries old inventions from Asia that the middle easterners simply made known to Europe. Because Europeans got all their information about Asia from the Muslims, they just assumed the Muslims were the origin of all of it. It's the same with "influencers". These cretins don't have a single original thought in their heads. All they do is talk into a camera, they have no insights, they have no synthesis of new ideas. They harvest the hot takes and memes and jokes from places that old media fears to tread, from places on the internet they know nothing about, and then present it to a wider audience. Because of the way these fucking faggot content creators do things, they get to shamelessly steal content from the seedier parts of the internet without crediting the original source, and then take all credit for it. I have seen time and again opinions I have seen bandied about on /v/ months before some faggot content creator releases a video that blithely steals jokes, memes, and talking points from threads he probably lurked or had his faggot discord troons copy/paste from.
Developers hanging out with their fanbois in curated hugboxes let them ignore negative criticisms--genuine or "trolling"--and huff their own farts. Bioware Social is a premium example of how developers getting in to the hugbox situation leads to SHIT games.Developers don't *need* e-celeb marketers to shill their games; they don't NEED to pay some goblin $80000 to stream their game for an hour. I mean, to be fair, that guy IS doing a hell of a lot more than the publisher's worthless fucking Marketing Department does, so you could just replace THEM with HIM. But the thinking is flawed...developers think that paying those grifters will make their built-in audience spend money on buying that game. Doesn't really work that way, though; only works like that if it's some FoTM GaaS cashgrab garbage because the streamer's fanboys are hoping to play a game with their favorite streamer. They're not buying the game because they LIKE the game, or are even interested in the GAME, it's all about the parasocial relationship with the streamer.
If my Ina doesn't like it then it's badSimple as
>>738126252>made for casuals, I think you should skip itunironically this is good criticism given every game nowadays is for casualtards
I dont see how Tim is wrong. He appears totally correct in the sense that the most profitable games nowadays are indies that get a ton of "free" marketing by influencers on sites like Twitch playing them. Even monolithic corporations are beginning to stagger as juggernaut franchises such as Call of Duty or Donkey Kong can bring returns, but not well enough, and certainly not compared to their presence even a decade ago. Indies are cheap to make, have a gameplay loop, have persistent advertising that can maintain the illusion of not being fake and gay (it is but ecelebs are good at obscuring it.) Indies also come in the form of little studios that are functionally LLCs, so when the flavor of the month stops being tasty you just close the company and rapidly rebrand with whoever's popular in front of a camera lately. But at the same time this makes video games a more shallow experience than they used to be. You don't really judge Mewgenics on its merit as a game, you judge it based on whether you're kind of enjoying it (or more importantly, enjoy watching someone enjoy it as they insist "I'm enjoying this.")
>>738133034This
He's mostly right but he doesn't take it far enough. People are not willing to play games and just endlessly repeat blind opinions about shit they never touched. Instead of pirating if insure whether the game is worth their money, they'll go asking reddit, streamers or jewtubers if it's even okay to try some games.
Anyone who watches streamers is less than human, just a mind parasite, a clone or copy. Anytime my girlfriend mentions Markiplier to me, I say shut the fuck up.
>>738126243>he argued that parasocial relationships and alignment with preferred influencers have supplanted informed, critical review for most gamers.Might be something to do that. But on the other hand streamers have been a way for the public to have their actual opinions heard in a industry that listened less and less to their customers so its a double egde sword where they played both a good and a bad role.
>>738134997I'm not reading any of this but I've said for a long time streamers and "influencers" are even more corrupt and misleading than game reviewers ever were. Not only do we still have opinions about things being made with a clear financial incentive, but now there's an emotional attachment to these people that makes the retards who listen to them even more rabid. It's fucking sad man. The fucking pathetic state of modern video game players. In addition to all of this the shit cherry on top is that most of time these people have utterly retarded and uninformed opinions and these actually influence public perception.We literally live in a timeline dominated by cattle. Critical thinking is a dead idea and everyone just wants to be a part of the herd.
>>738126243This is a bootlicker's argument.The real issue is greedy gigacorporations engaging in rent-seeking behavior.Without those you'd still get honest games and honest word of mouth because every game would need to be 1 billion dollar budget, mostly advertising, and "guaranteed" 2x return.
>>738126243Let me guess, his idea of "information" is Polygon, PC Gamer, and IGN.
>>738126243Tim is old and washed up. Tim and Leonard need to channel their inner troika so they can start making some actual good rpgs again
>>738133034For me, Western e-celebs getting v-tuber technology was the point where it got dumb.The whole point in the Japanese industry was to create a version of idol culture where the person and the character could be separate because of how parasocial idol culture can get.Western e-celebs get their hands on it and immediately begin advertising that it's them to increase parasocial relationships with their audience.
