What The Internet Did To Gaming

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All the internet basically did to gaming is create a bunch of toxic controversy across the internet, harassing and attacking anyone for enjoying games they don't like and calling them bootlickers, harassing and attacking the developers that have Twitter, cyberbullying voice actors especially with the MJ actor from Spider-Man 2, sending Sakurai death threat over DLC and so much more! All the internet has done is basically screwed up gaming from the get-go and I can definitely see why people outside the internet are sick of social media talking about it.

I feel like an aspect on why video games are so bland and inoffensive nowadays (and it ties into how the internet ruined gaming) is because game publishers listen to a vocal minority of people on sites like Twitter and ResetEra, and in the case of publicly traded companies they're extremely performative with not stepping on literally anyone's toes, for a higher ESG score, but this is a whole other conversation that I'd rather not get into here. You even see this in the field of game localization nowadays, or how Sony, Microsoft, and Valve are forcing content edits on games that have gotten ESRB ratings and are sold in retail stores. The amount of games with poorly balanced difficulty options (where you may as well play on easy or normal) and removing fail states/animations in stuff like QTEs, while not having flexible input options or toggles for flashing lights just seems like hilarious preachiness with no sincerity to me. Or the fact that day one patches have normalized games shipping completely busted, without any patches unless there's enough backlash. Just look at any recent AAA release or just Japanese releases on Steam in general. Being a modder in today's climate went from "doing things because you have interest in it" to "people just force this onto you as an obligation and you'd rather be doing anything else". There's literally no motivation for game publishers to do better because they can just throw the "Just refund the game" thing, when such a thing was never really prevalent around when Arkham Knight released and caused a big controversy. Baldur's Gate 3 was mostly praised as much as it was (Yes, the game has a ton of cut content, rugpulls prior to release, and cringe romance routes that just get pushed onto you as soon as you get to camp) because of how low the bar has gotten with western RPGs, with companies like BioWare being shells of their former selves, and CDPR losing the public goodwill they had after Cyberpunk's launch. To think that Phantasy Star Online was one of the first bastions of online gaming just for it's recent entry to be a perfect analogy of everything wrong with modern gaming is just baffling to me. Thinking on putting together a retro PC build to play older games, because literally nothing in the AAA or Japanese space (outside FromSoftware) in the past few years is worth playing nowadays, and I barely use any of my current-gen consoles or current PC to play games, because the state of it all is just depressing. I mainly emulate older games nowadays.

the internet has come with so many benefits but everyone is realizing the negatives too. this is why i love nintendo, they still have the charm they did back in the day without the gimmicks.

Video games should've stayed as a niche hobby, everything that gets popular or enters the mainstream, is inundated by greedy mindsets and posers who just seek attention

Those last 3 minutes hit hard, not only in videogames but in life generally. We're obsessed with consumption and we rush to finish all we can before we die

I think Eldin Ring is kind of a bad example because it's so ridiculously hard in certain spots that the only way to beat it is to try and fail 100 times, and even then it still comes down to luck regarding the order in which the boss decides to throw out his attacks. It's a good example of the absolutely oldest games I can remember where you HAD to memorize things, but those games weren't really all that good either. The best ones were the ones designed so you could learn along the way and adapt as opposed to just memorizing every little thing. And actually now that I think about it, Eldin Ring is a BAD example because I remember being bombarded early on with tutorial messages that would pop up and explain something to me, but I had no frame of reference for what the hell it was talking about. So then I didn't figure out how to do a lot of different things until much later when I actually had the right stats/equipment/whatever to do them. And its class/progression system is a giant mess. It's set up so that you MUST build your character one of a few very specific ways, or it's gonna be a long hard slog. Then there's a ton of things it should probably at least give you clues about, but it never says a word.

I grew up on the point-and-click Nancy Drew mystery games, which I would play with my siblings. We would strategize next moves, crack codes together, and discuss whodunit. We had so much fun, even though the game wasn't online and didn't have couch co-op! 😊

I hate companies like sweet baby inc.

I really miss gameinformer magazines. The cover art, the articles, and the little tricks of the new games are coming out. It was amazing!

One game that totally supports this is Outer Wilds. The game is so great because you have to explore and figure stuff out yourself. If you look up the answers it takes away everything that makes the game fun.

4:24 wow that guy reduced his keyboard into lego pieces lmao

Internet ruined SO much in gaming, and not only gaming in the world and our society. It's probably the biggest double edged sword in the history of human inventions.

I know exactly what you mean by the co-operative nature of older games of trying to figure out stuff. I used to love watching my older brother play games and try to help him with what I understood. He would even talk it through with me as he enjoyed showing me the games he played. One time, on Assassins Creed I, he hit a block on this level where he had to parkour up a tower to progress the mission and reached this balcony that couldn't be reached with how he knew the parkour system worked. Eventually he gave the controller to me to mess around while he was trying to look it up online and I actually found the way to progress! It made that moment so memorable for me and I think about it sometimes now among the other memories of playing with my brother. I agree that modern games have definitely lost the art of couch co-op and I am happy to see that developers are going back to this with smaller games.

A couple days ago my brother and I played 'It Takes Two' and we had a blast. Now I watch this video about MMOs vs. Local Co-op. I wholeheartedly agree with your message. 'Couch co-op gaming needs to make a comeback.' Indeed. Thanks a bunch for uploading this, TGB :)

You've hit the nail on the head on every one of these points. It is so refreshing to hear someone that gets it.

It is convenient how when I tried to watch this video, the page didn't load because my internet router kept dying XD

The biggest implication the Internet has over gaming, and I'm not afraid to say it, is how indie games have been corralled. On one hand, the Internet brings attention to these excellent indie games that would otherwise have flown under the radar. On the other, the treatment of these games and their developers as "indie" has forced an iron curtain between them and the AAA space. Rather than up-and-coming visionaries being hired by companies and given a budget to make something new and creative, they're pushing out their own products on open markets. While this is good for the developers, making their own money without the middle man, it continues to divide these two sectors of gaming. A lot of indie games don't have much opportunity or resources to advertise themselves, outside of word-of-mouth. Meanwhile, AAA games advertise themselves through brand recognition and lazy commercials. There's a complete disparity between the quality of a game, and the endorsement it actually gets. Indie games are forced into a position of inferiority, where no matter how clever and ingenious their stories or gameplay may be, will never really able to surpass that "indie" reputation since they don't have the budget or manpower to take them to new heights. Thus, AAA experiences remain predictable and stagnant, and despite their rapid development, indie games will eventually reach a state of stagnancy too. Especially when most are locked behind digital PC storefronts and aren't self-sufficient for the growing customer base of casual console players. Gaming is becoming divided into tribalism, not based on console, but tastes. This is the apex of the 7th Generation FPS dude-bro development. I don't want to sound like a cynic or gatekeeper, but gaming is doomed to run itself into the ground.

SOCOM I and II opened up my world to online gaming back in the day. Miss that experience.

Pre-internet, there was asking your friends at school for help, or waiting for the next Nintendo Power or Gamepro and hoping there'd be an article about the game you're stuck on. You could even write snail mail to Nintendo's "game counselors" and they'd send a letter back with tips. Either way, those games taught patience!