I'm sick and tired of gamers

[SuperCapes]

I am a bit like your friend, wanting to play everything possible, and I do have mental health issues which limit my attention unless I love what I am playing/doing. I do not care much for whinging about physical or digital, or anything at all really. Occasionally I will explain why I hate every Bethesda game post Fallout but try not to whinge much. Even if I end up hating some of the games I play! 

 

I just like to understand games as a whole! 

[dizogg]

1 hour ago, Fallows said:

 

Your friend sounds like a seven year-old with too much money and an undiagnosed mental condition.

Also I’d be interested if he has any significant other or even children? What’s the rest of his life look like? Paint the picture for us.

[Eighthours]

46 minutes ago, RubberJohnny said:

Whereas the like of Ultimate team are great, of course? Your problem is really with a business model (one that not all games on mobile even have,. and one that games on consoles have) but you're pretending it's about a platform because you don't have nostalgia for it and therefore it's an acceptable target. Stop being a gaming gammon.

Hey man, how's that straw going? Of course I don't like Ultimate Team and its ilk.

 

I have plenty of nostalgia for the mobile platform, it's certainly old enough for it now. I remember the likes of non-predatory Angry Birds, Tiny Wings, New Star Soccer, Sword & Poker 2, Peggle, Canabalt, Super Hexagon, etc etc etc. What was that game from the Trials devs where you tried to set the best time on one unique track every day and competed against your friends? That was cool too. Loads of great games - I could go on and on about how awesome those early years of the App Store were. You know, when mobile gaming was a brave new frontier where devs were trying all kinds of stuff out, and it wasn't an F2P-ridden pile of shit.

[Spacehost]

27 minutes ago, df0 said:

But only by his choice, when I'd told him about how great Doom 2016 is he'd go out of his way to not buy and play it. I had to buy it for him and he barely touched it. He'd rather play some complete crap and pretend it's well good.

The single worst thing you can to do get me to watch/ play/ listen to something is go on and on about how good it is and how I NEED to play it, because if just turns what could be a pleasant surprise into an obligation and sucks all the joy and discovery out of it. I don't know why but it just does. So I'm sorta with him on that one.

[Darwock]

Games are a personal thing. They always have been, always will be. The experiences you have with them are yours alone. I say this obviously as an old fart who is way out of touch with modern trends of Twitch streaming , multiplayer stuff etc. I don’t give a monkeys about any of that, and my tastes don’t really align with the majority most of the time. For the past 20 years I have been on forums like this one, talking and reading about games, sharing the experience of playing games - but not so much the actual specifics. I have always been frustrated that every new game gets about a week of attention in it’s own dedicated thread, which then sinks without a trace in favour of the next big thing, whereas I will probably still be playing it for the next 2 or 3 months.

 

Doesn’t stop me shouting into the void to put my thoughts out there. A recent example being the Tetris Effect thread - I’ve got about 5 posts in a row there (and probably about to make another one in the very near future). I thought I would have some company when the Switch version was released, but it quickly became apparent that the people posting about it just wanted to talk about the OLED screen and not the game, lol.

 

A lot of people sneer at it, but for in-depth discussion on a game, gamefaqs has always been the place to go for me. That’s where you find all the people who just play one game at a time. I haven’t posted there in the last five years or so mind, and I think it may have changed as more of the people that go deep into games have gravitated towards trophy hunting websites - also they seem to lock topics after about a week these days?

 

What’s my point. Enjoy yourself, share your thoughts, but if you want proper game specific chat you need to find other forums.

[Gabe]

This thread is so weird.

 

Like @Mr. Gerbik, just play what you want to play. Why do you all care so much about what other people like and enjoy? In the example in the OP, what business is it of yours if your friend buys everything and plays little? It's so strange.

 

@df0If somebody doesn't want to play Doom 2016, why on earth would you buy it for him (and why did you feel you 'had' to)?

 

The OP seems to be saying that there's a lot of negativity amongst their friends and online - but that's exactly the same here, too, so I'm not really sure what the actual point is?

[Rayn]

18 minutes ago, dizogg said:

Also I’d be interested if he has any significant other or even children? What’s the rest of his life look like? Paint the picture for us.

 

School drop out who was hanging around all day (when he was supposed to be at school) in the local GAME, he ended up working there for years before it went bust a few years ago. Ended up with a temp job via Adecco in various pre-schools with a shitty income. He now rents a flat with his girlfriend (in the country side to save money), still without a proper job. I think he now earns more money through trading retro games on eBay than he gets from Adecco. He's currently sitting on a sealed SMB3 (NTSC) with a 9.x grading, waiting for a big opportunity but overall he averages around £2k-3k each month in sales (dunno how much of that goes back into buying). 

[Vimster]

The stuff in OP's post about being into games in the 80s and 90s is important as it's easy to forget just how looked down upon gaming was back then. In the 80s games were for little kids, lumped in with toys (Mattel distributed the NES in Europe originally). It wasn't just uncool to state an interest in games, you'd get the piss taken out of you by girls and older kids who saw computers as "sad". I was on a programming course in the late 80s and when someone stated they wanted to get into games the staff, mostly in their 40s, were derisive. 

 

When the PS1 came out you would begin to see these articles in lifestyle mags like The Face about young adults with disposable income buying games. You have to hand it to Sony for trying to pull games from something kids did to a legit leisure activity for adults. 

 

You don't get nearly as much hostility towards games now than you did years ago. Even people who aren't fully into games have at least experienced them in some way, like they maybe inherited an older sibling's Megadrive or had a Gameboy when they were a kid, so it's not the arcane, unknowable, dangerously addictive thing that adults with zero knowledge thought it was in the 80s. 

 

So a lot of people who are big into games feel more comfortable to express themselves, and sadly some of that comes over as entitlement. For me the two worst things about "gamers" these days are people complaining about a game being "bad" when what they mean is "not great", like there are very few genuinely awful games these days; the other is this constant chasing of the new, the next big thing. 

[Mr. Gerbik]

2 minutes ago, Vimster said:

the other is this constant chasing of the new, the next big thing

For gamers, they could call this phenomenon "chasing the Princess". They'll never find a game that gives them the same feeling as unpacking and playing Ocarina of Time on Christmas Day when they were 12 - the high they're looking for will forever be in another castle.

[Stanley]

Yeah, I love games and hate the whining. Sure there’s loads I don’t like out there but there’s loads of music, films, books I don’t like either. Best to concentrate on what you love and not worry too much. 
 

I mean, I justlook at where it’s come from and I'm just amazed by it all, still. You know from Space Invaders or Mario, or whatever, to Forza Horizon 5, Flight Sim, Dark Souls, Skyrim, Breath of The Wild etc etc etc. We’ve come a long way. There’s way too much good stuff to be moaning. 

[MattyP]

10 minutes ago, Vimster said:

the other is this constant chasing of the new, the next big thing. 

 Don't think that is a problem just with gaming though. I mainly put it down to the web and people have access to updates more frequently. So are always waiting for the next upgrade to something they have. Never really fully happy with what they currently use/have. 

 

To some degree I think its capitalism in general.. have people in a constant state of unhappiness so they keep buying things in the hope they will find happiness.  

[Siri]

5 minutes ago, Vimster said:

So a lot of people who are big into games feel more comfortable to express themselves, and sadly some of that comes over as entitlement. For me the two worst things about "gamers" these days are people complaining about a game being "bad" when what they mean is "not great", like there are very few genuinely awful games these days; the other is this constant chasing of the new, the next big thing. 

I'd say that's a greater symptom of how commentary has devolved in social circles and media (and, well, the internet really). Everything's now binary tribal banter that has to be either loving or hating something in order to evoke a response.

I mean, like how adverts bang on about loving or hating Marmite when you just like the small amount that's on Twiglets.

I'd day the latter is also susceptible to that as well, but chasing new things to buy involves... well, paying for shit. It's free to have an edgy opinion.

[Jamie John]

I'm 31 and I don't have any friends who are into games in the same way that I am. Is it all your game-playing friends who are like this, @Rayn, or just the one guy you mention in your OP? He sounds like a bit of a numpty, but I don't think you should tar everyone with the same brush (although I assume you're being facetious for effect).

 

As others have said, this is a big part of why I like the forum: generally, people are pretty positive, or if they are critical then they have their reasons for doing so. I'd also suggest listening to gaming podcasts. TCGS, FIlthy Casuals, Triple Click, IGN UK - they're all pretty positive about the games they discuss, or they have valid reasons not to be if they're not, as opposed to just dismissing games arbitrarily, like your mate seems to.

[df0]

To elaborate on the whole Doom 2016 thing. He likes FPS games, he knew about the game, spoke to me about how good the reviews were, watched streamers play it, he showed enough interest for me to think "mate, if you don't but it I'll do it for you for your birthday". So I did, he told me he liked it enough but gave up on it early. Which is fair of course, each to their own. But knowing him, it was a case of being a contrarian on purpose.

[Marlowe]

I think this is typical of modern fandom and its outlet on the internet rather than being specific to games. Witness pretty much any major film release in the 'nerd sphere', there's always this polarisation between:

 

1. This is the worst thing ever - cynicism and outrage, nitpicking over plotholes and lack of fan service as if that amounts to actual criticism

2. This is the best thing ever - how dare anyone else especially professional critics dislike this thing that I like, they must have some agenda against it

[Rayn]

7 minutes ago, Gabe said:

This thread is so weird.

 

Like @Mr. Gerbik, just play what you want to play. Why do you all care so much about what other people like and enjoy? In the example in the OP, what business is it of yours if your friend buys everything and plays little? It's so strange.

 

@df0If somebody doesn't want to play Doom 2016, why on earth would you buy it for him (and why did you feel you 'had' to)?

 

The OP seems to be saying that there's a lot of negativity amongst their friends and online - but that's exactly the same here, too, so I'm not really sure what the actual point is?

 

It's actually none of my business but when someone I've known for 15 years as a fellow gamer, someone who used to be very open minded and loved his hobby as a gamer, it's very frustrating when he sends me text after text where he's going on and on about upcoming games, how much he looks forward to playing them and even suggest that we need to dedicate an evening to playing one of those games together. Heck, just two weeks ago he sent me a text where he said he was looking forward to playing the GTA remakes because he didn't play them much when they came out originally (as with all other games in his collection). I answered that they looked a bit rough and that I doubted he'd ever play them for more than an hour, to which he replied that I was kinda rude. Lo and behold. after 10 minutes on San Andreas this weekend I got a text where he said he'd put his PS5 copy up for sale as it was shit. 

 

I remember in the late 90s when dial-up internet was still a thing, we were dreaming of the day that internet would be main stream and not charged by the minute. When broadband arrived it seemed like a dream come true, I no longer had to drag my big tower PC and the huge CRT monitor to a LAN to enjoy gaming with my friends but somewhere along the road it seems that gamers got more focused on finding stuff to whine about instead of enjoying what they like, sharing their positives with fellow minded. 

 

Everywhere I turn there's so much negativity towards gaming. A few years ago there was a lot of talk about reviews/reviewers and whenever someone handed out a good score for a game, that reviewer was corrupt and had been sponsored to give such a high score. As a result of this, a lot of independent content creators, on youtube specifically, started to gain a lot of followers "because they're independent and state their true views" but as soon as these content creators reached a certain treshold they'd be blamed for being paid for as well. 

 

Have a look at user scores on Metacritic, it's ridiculous. Any game with a critics' meta score of 90+ will have hundreds of users scoring it a 0 coupled with reasonings as "Great game but way too short, finished it in one sitting of 30 hours. AVOID" or "I would've loved this game if it was exclusive to my favourite console platform but since others can play it this needs to die". 

 

That's my whole point, I'm sick and tired of this moaning. But what business is that of yours?

[Boothjan]

1 minute ago, Marlowe said:

I think this is typical of modern fandom and its outlet on the internet rather than being specific to games. Witness pretty much any major film release in the 'nerd sphere', there's always this polarisation between:

 

1. This is the worst thing ever - cynicism and outrage, nitpicking over plotholes and lack of fan service as if that amounts to actual criticism

2. This is the best thing ever - how dare anyone else especially professional critics dislike this thing that I like, they must have some agenda against it

 

Ahhh how I love the Star Wars threads!

[partious]

People generally don't expect that because someone likes watching certain movies that they're the audience for every movie that comes out. Same with music, books and basically every form of entertainment that isn't gaming. People like specific genres/artists and there's no expectation that they like all the other things beyond those personal preferences. 

"Gamer" is still treated like this homogenous thing, whereby if you liked Ridge Racer, then surely you'll love Dark Souls and if you liked Wii Sports well then you must be pretty excited about Halo Infinite.

I think it can be hard for people to fully realize that that just don't enjoy certain popular/hyped games and genres, and it results in people buying hyped games that their gaming history would suggest they're highly unlikely to get on with and then complaining about them.

A lot of gaming is built on hype and the next big thing is always on the horizon. Often the idea of that next big hyped game is more exciting that the reality of actually sitting down and playing it for 50 hours. 

 

Also, I find the idea of dismissing any preference for genres that have declined in popularity (arcade racers vs more simulation heavy racers as a common example) or any criticism of aspects of modern games/design trends as "nostalgia" a particularly shallow conclusion. Is it only games where everything newer is progress and intrinsically superior to what came before, or does this logic apply to everything else too?

[Boothjan]

1 hour ago, Garwoofoo said:

All this is why I like this place. Everyone here is a miserable middle-aged git like me, but everyone's got their specific areas of enthusiasm. I can go into the Forza thread and everyone's enjoying their new Forza game. The Yakuza thread is like a little community all of its own. The Rock Band thread is like a plastic instruments addiction therapy group. The Game Pass thread has loads of people enthusing about the latest little oddity they've found (and people wanting cheap deals, obviously).

 

I wouldn't try and have a generic conversation about "gaming" with a "gamer", but on here I can easily find people to chat to about specific stuff I like.

 

Had to quote this because I completely agree.

 

In my circle of friends, I'm the only one who is really into games.  Sure, some of them like to come over for a few games of FIFA etc, but if I tell them about the latest Game Pass discovery, they tend to stop listening to me 

 

In the age where the internet is 85% hellish, and full of horrendous opinions and people, I find rllmuk to be a bit of a gem in the gaming section because I have discovered so many games and have been able to discuss those I love with like minded people.

 

When I've teamed up with people from here for multiplayer games (Sea of Thieves being the best example - hello, @mechamonkey!) I've always found it great fun.  

[Qazimod]

1 hour ago, Garwoofoo said:

All this is why I like this place. Everyone here is a miserable middle-aged git like me, but everyone's got their specific areas of enthusiasm. I can go into the Forza thread and everyone's enjoying their new Forza game. The Yakuza thread is like a little community all of its own. The Rock Band thread is like a plastic instruments addiction therapy group. The Game Pass thread has loads of people enthusing about the latest little oddity they've found (and people wanting cheap deals, obviously).

 

I wouldn't try and have a generic conversation about "gaming" with a "gamer", but on here I can easily find people to chat to about specific stuff I like.

 

Pretty much this. For all of the bickering on here we have so many enthusiasts for games, series or entire genres; the guys over in the Street Fighter thread who can spill out all manner of advice and encouragement and hype, the Soulsbornekiroring fans who share anecdotes about discoveries and encounters, and so on. And I don't think I've ever engaged with a "subcommunity" here and felt patronised or ridiculed (the in-jokes about my idiosyncratic fighting game approaches are more like a running joke that I encourage in every way.  )

[Scribblor]

11 minutes ago, Rayn said:

he said he'd put his PS5 copy up for sale as it was shit. 

Not disagreeing with anything in your post, but from what I can tell from reading stuff online and watching people playing (I'm not interested in getting it myself as I know I won't play it enough to make it worthwhile) he's right in this case.

[phillv85]

When it comes to gaming buddies none of them really have the same tastes as me.

 

2 guys I work with are usually into the latest and greatest, there's occasionally overlap here, we played the shit out of The Division a few years back, tried a bit of Monster Hunter too.

My arcade buddies are all unsurprisingly into arcade games, I only really game with them when we meet up and it's at an arcade.

Most of my mates play FIFA or a bit of GTA, some play COD Warzone. I don't really enjoy any of those games.

The rest of my mates think I'm a fucking idiot because I have a room full of games

 

My interests are mostly in fighting games, shoot em ups or games from Ryu ga Gotoku Studio. I do like to try other stuff out of course. Recently I've loved Hades, Chaosbane, Crows: Burning Edge, Necromunda: Hired Gun etc. so I'm not totally stuck in my ways.

 

I don't really know what I'm getting at here other than to say everyone has different tastes. It's a bummer when your mates are constantly bringing stuff down, nobody needs that. I only really game with my mates when we find that special thing we all like, but when it happens it's bloody brilliant.

 

[milko]

I quite enjoy reading @Darwock getting deeply into a game sometimes, when it's usually something I only have time (and/or determination) to scratch the surface of. On the other hand it does show me that I'm unlikely to get so far with something so why even bother.

I do get a similar sense of obsession with the simracing though, trying to find ways to get good at that. Dunno why, I'm far from a petrolhead but its really grabbed me.

[MattyP]

41 minutes ago, Rayn said:

 

It's actually none of my business but when someone I've known for 15 years as a fellow gamer, someone who used to be very open minded and loved his hobby as a gamer, it's very frustrating when he sends me text after text where he's going on and on about upcoming games, how much he looks forward to playing them and even suggest that we need to dedicate an evening to playing one of those games together. Heck, just two weeks ago he sent me a text where he said he was looking forward to playing the GTA remakes because he didn't play them much when they came out originally (as with all other games in his collection). I answered that they looked a bit rough and that I doubted he'd ever play them for more than an hour, to which he replied that I was kinda rude. Lo and behold. after 10 minutes on San Andreas this weekend I got a text where he said he'd put his PS5 copy up for sale as it was shit. 

 

I remember in the late 90s when dial-up internet was still a thing, we were dreaming of the day that internet would be main stream and not charged by the minute. When broadband arrived it seemed like a dream come true, I no longer had to drag my big tower PC and the huge CRT monitor to a LAN to enjoy gaming with my friends but somewhere along the road it seems that gamers got more focused on finding stuff to whine about instead of enjoying what they like, sharing their positives with fellow minded. 

 

Everywhere I turn there's so much negativity towards gaming. A few years ago there was a lot of talk about reviews/reviewers and whenever someone handed out a good score for a game, that reviewer was corrupt and had been sponsored to give such a high score. As a result of this, a lot of independent content creators, on youtube specifically, started to gain a lot of followers "because they're independent and state their true views" but as soon as these content creators reached a certain treshold they'd be blamed for being paid for as well. 

 

Have a look at user scores on Metacritic, it's ridiculous. Any game with a critics' meta score of 90+ will have hundreds of users scoring it a 0 coupled with reasonings as "Great game but way too short, finished it in one sitting of 30 hours. AVOID" or "I would've loved this game if it was exclusive to my favourite console platform but since others can play it this needs to die". 

 

That's my whole point, I'm sick and tired of this moaning. But what business is that of yours?

Are you meta-moaning there?   

[Rayn]

1 minute ago, MattyP said:

Are you meta-moaning there?   

[Profgoten]

I've always bought each console when they were first released up to the PS3/360 era, the amount of bugs and issues with the hardware very quickly made me stop and think, I always end up getting each machine because there are games I am interested in but I'm in no hurry.

 

Gamers Fanboys are to blame, the elitist mentality of PlayStation is better X-box or "ALL HAIL THE PC MASTER RACE" (FUCK OFF!) is what is wrong with the industry, this and console exclusives forcing casual gamers to go for something they don't normally go for.  I can like console gaming for the exclusives and casual play like I enjoy PC gaming for JMMORPG's and MMO's in general! I use my PC to play WoW and New World I also use it to play mods for Darksouls. Everyone can have their own tastes and it shouldn't salt the tastes of others.

 

FYI I have been a HUGE Nintendo fan since the 80's (hell you could probably guess my favourite game by the name of my daughter haha) I know not everyone is into Nintendo these days but it doesn't stop me from sharing my excitement when a new Zelda game is announced or a new Metroid game is teased (yes still waiting for Prime 4) I'm never going to badger anyone over their tastes in games and I will always say "in my opinion" when it is in fact a conflict of opinion because opinions, like arseholes, everybody has one  

 

When I was a kid gaming was almost a taboo and frowned upon and wasn't deemed "cool" and now it's not cool to like something different when gaming was the one thing that made a bunch of us friends in the first place.

[Rayn]

10 minutes ago, Profgoten said:

FYI I have been a HUGE Nintendo fan since the 80's (hell you could probably guess my favourite game by the name of my daughter haha) I know not everyone is into Nintendo these days but it doesn't stop me from sharing my excitement when a new Zelda game is announced or a new Metroid game is teased (yes still waiting for Prime 4) I'm never going to badger anyone over their tastes in games and I will always say "in my opinion" when it is in fact a conflict of opinion because opinions, like arseholes, everybody has one  

 

 

I still love Nintendo, especially their software output. While I wish they'd be able to release more games than they do, I've been quite happy with their output on the Switch so far. I've not disliked any of their games this gen, but Mario Tennis and Smash Bros were quickly forgotten as I found out they were not for me. I'd never have thought that I'd find a new "Favourite game ever" after I turned 40 years old but BotW managed to grab that spot (kicking FF7 down from the throne) and looking at my Top 10 ever list, five of the games there are Nintendo games. 

 

 

[englishbob]

Pre internet it was just a group of friends that would identify as video games players 

 

Since the internet I've no idea on what most discussions on it are about unless you have an exhaustive knowledge of memes and quotes

 

I've not used a headset since 2008s COD MW heyday, I've heard enough.

 

I'm sure at rllmuk there will be a time where all responses will just be a meme anyway

[Gabe]

1 hour ago, Rayn said:

That's my whole point, I'm sick and tired of this moaning. But what business is that of yours?

I agree that it's none of my business, but given I didn't ask you about it (nor quote or tag you), I don't see any relevance in you typing that.

 

Besides, I'm not the one here bad-mouthing a friend to a bunch of strangers.

[AK Bell]

I find it hard to talk to anyone about video games. I'm weirdly in the middle.

 

On the one side I have old uni friends who were into their games, and were even doing game courses, but they've grown up into just a bit of FIFA and whatever the shooter of the year is. I can see them glaze over when I recommend something they'd probably like and despite them still playing games. 

 

And on the other I have the people I work with who are really into their PC gaming and guaranteed they'll all be buying the latest and greatest 4X strategy game on release. And I glaze over during lunch breaks as they break down strategies. 

 

Interest in games is too broad. And that's the problem with gamers, thinking their games are the only proper games. It's as silly as people saying they're really into movies but then sticking their nose up at the majority of decent content like rom-coms or comedies.