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A Year in Mainstream

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IncendiaryDevice

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So often commented upon here, this idea of a mainstream gamer, a gamer so devoid of taste they just blindly consume the latest offering that's marketed into their face, the popamole, the casual, the unprestigious.

But who is this person, what does their gaming year look like? How can we judge someone to be the things we talk about without really having any idea what that someone is actually playing?

To me, a casual popamoler always just meant they were CoD addicts (and all the associated copy-cat FPSs and TPSs) who has a side in FIFA 2032 etc. I suspect everyone has a slightly different personal image of Mr. Mainstream popamoler, so I thought about looking one up to see exactly what their gaming year looked like. To see if our codex imagined stereotype still stands up in this age of PC gaming resurgence that is post-2014.

I chose a Youtuber who plays Let's Plays, usually to completion, so not just a paid promo or critic guy doing impressions, someone who is making a living out of very long and boring Let's Plays of entire new games that are enough in the mass-attention to garner him a wage and suitably occupy his time for the entire year.

Is it possible to be a prestigious mass-market high-end new games only gamer in 2015-2016?

I've analysed their past 12 months of activity for our perusal (parts is video number, average 30mins):

Finished and on-going games:
Everybody's Gone to the Rapture (parts 6-10)
Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (parts 111-124)
Witcher 3: Heart of Stone (parts 1-20)
Witcher 3: Blood & Wine (parts 1-41)
Until Dawn (parts 6-20)
X-Com: Enemy Within Impossible Ironman (parts 7-17 and parts 1-34)
X-Com 2 (parts 1-3, 1-14, 1-60, 1-12, 1-54)
Layers of Fear (Early Access) (parts 1-5)
Layers of Fear (Release) (parts 1-3)
Skyshine's Bedlam (parts 1-10)
SOMA (parts 1-18)
Uncharted (parts 1-11)
Uncharted 2 (parts 1-16)
Uncharted 3 (parts 1-16)
Uncharted 4 (parts 1-24)
The Beginner's Guide (parts 1-4)
Minecraft: Story Mode (parts 1-4)
Kingdom (parts 1-2, 1-7, 1-5)
Life is Strange: Polarized (1-4)
Rise of the Tomb Raider (parts 1-24)
Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition Co-op (parts 1-42)
Game of Thrones (parts 1-6)
Oxenfree (parts 1-11)
Firewatch (parts 1-7)
The Walking Dead: Michonne (parts 1-4)
Heavy Rain (parts 1-19)
Dark Souls 3 (parts 1-45)
Inside (parts 1-7)
We Happy Few (parts 1-12)
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (parts 1-18)
The Turing Test (parts 1-6)

Some other stuff:
Trying Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (3 vids)
Trying Shadowrun Hong Kong (sponsored) (3 vids)
Stasis (parts 1-5)
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes (parts 1-11)
Trying Fallout 4 (parts 1-4)
Hard West (parts 1-9)
Bloodborne: The Old Hunters (parts 1-4)
The Witness (parts 1-2)
Superhot (1 vid)
Salt & Sanctuary (3 vids)
Quantum Break (parts 1-6)
Star Crusade (sponsored) (1 vid)
Mirror's Edge: Catalyst (3 vids)
Resident Evil 7: Demo (1 vid)
Trying Red Dead Redemption (1 vid)
No Man's Sky (parts 1-6)


So not a bad haul for the year he gained 100k subs (now 250k) and likely went full-time (speculative). But is he prestigious?

Rate him Prestigious out of 10.

Does this look like your playlist for the year?

Is this proof that 2015-2016 has seen some incline (even if it's all still shit) in the mass arena?

???
 

ERYFKRAD

Barbarian
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Strap Yourselves In Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
18936.jpg
 

Indranys

Savant
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Illepsum
Well, I do have a casual buddy who plays those shitty games plus mmos and facebook games.
He's cool though, because he finished all of those with near perfect completion and he always tries to master the system of each game.
Thus he can almost powergame/exploit such popamoles in the end.
Well, it's pretty subjective but I find such mainstream gammerz are kinda ok, compared to the whining casuals who don't want to learn the intricacies of their shitty and shallow popamoles.
Such dedication should not go unnoticed, he's just lacking a good taste in gaming and it can be improved somehow.
So I'll give the archtype 7/10

:shittydog:
 

Soulcucker

Savant
Joined
Jul 22, 2015
Messages
235
7.5/10
The guy actually plays and finishes games first hand, not just bitch about them on a forum so that counts for a lot in my books. The last year has been pretty weak for big AAA titles outside of Dark Souls 3, Bloodborne, and the Witcher 3 (and maybe MGS V) making it hard to judge. He would have been better off adding some classics to his playlist or some more indies outside of the walking sims and choose your own adventure games listed.
 
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IncendiaryDevice

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Messages
7,407
Is this proof that 2015-2016 has seen some incline (even if it's all still shit) in the mass arena?
This thread is proof this mysterious YouTuber is you.

If I was on the verge of becoming a Youtube millionaire from playing games barely mentioned on the codex 24/7 do you really think that I'd be posting on the codex in anything other than "so-long suckers" type gloats?
 

Severian Silk

Guest
As opposed to shilling for him like you're doing now?
 

sullynathan

Arcane
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Dec 22, 2015
Messages
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Not Europe
in reality, most popamolers don't only play cod. Just look at the most popular games of the past 5 years, there is more than fps. Popamole will play anything that's popular.
 
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IncendiaryDevice

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in reality, most popamolers don't only play cod. Just look at the most popular games of the past 5 years, there is more than fps. Popamole will play anything that's popular.

But if you have that mindset then nothing prestigious can ever be popular, the two words become incompatible. You help consign quality to the dustbin and perpetuate the decline by refusing to support anything incline as soon as it starts being staff-payingly profitable. You end-up with the hideous notion that something is quality for no other reason than it's not popular. It's just mangling the English language so you don't have to think about anything as you lazily judge something from a glance. In the micro-fish-tank of the codex people will still mostly be only playing what gets promoted here, or what's 'popular' here.
 
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IncendiaryDevice

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what are you talking about?

You're definition of popamole is way too broad to have any use or value as a definition. If someone only played the 'popular' strategy games would they then be popamole? Can any strategy game be considered popamole? If you just mean a mindset of only following popular games then that's pretty much everyone as you can only know what you know, meaning you have to see some form of promotion in order to even know a game exists in the first place.
 

sullynathan

Arcane
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Not Europe
what are you talking about?

You're definition of popamole is way too broad to have any use or value as a definition. If someone only played the 'popular' strategy games would they then be popamole? Can any strategy game be considered popamole? If you just mean a mindset of only following popular games then that's pretty much everyone as you can only know what you know, meaning you have to see some form of promotion in order to even know a game exists in the first place.
I wasn't talking about a popamole definition.
 

Trash

Pointing and laughing.
Joined
Dec 12, 2002
Messages
29,683
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About 8 meters beneath sea level.
Everyone's tastes are personal and differ from person to person. A co-worker of mine for example absolutely adores Pokemon games and mmofps stuff like Destiny. A buddy of mine is heavily into Metroid like platformers. Another buddy plays endless bouts of Modern Warware multiplayer in between toying around with his Kerbals. A friend of a friend is mad enough about racing games that he bought a genuine racing chair and setup to play them with.

So, what exactly would you say is an rpg mainstream gamer?
 

ERYFKRAD

Barbarian
Patron
Joined
Sep 25, 2012
Messages
28,240
Strap Yourselves In Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Everyone's tastes are personal and differ from person to person. A co-worker of mine for example absolutely adores Pokemon games and mmofps stuff like Destiny. A buddy of mine is heavily into Metroid like platformers. Another buddy plays endless bouts of Modern Warware multiplayer in between toying around with his Kerbals.

So, what exactly would you say is an rpg mainstream gamer?
You first. What is an RPG? :troll:
 

GrainWetski

Arcane
Joined
Oct 17, 2012
Messages
5,080
So this is just a thread trying to justify your popamole taste? Feeling insecure about liking garbage?
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,164
Everyone's tastes are personal and differ from person to person.

That's because people tend to vary in their degree of knowledge, experience and intelligence.
 

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