How come no one but the people of the Codex

[Vibalist]

understand how shitty Bioware and Bethesda games are? How come the rest of the world are all in agreement that their games are awesome?


Could it be that we're the real idiots, not them?

 

[Jaesun]

 

[Metro]

It could be... but probably not.

 

[MMXI]

understand how shitty Bioware and Bethesda games are? How come the rest of the world are all in agreement that their games are awesome?


Could it be that we're the real idiots, not them?

Let me reassure you that we are in the right! Now, let us continue the war!

 

[Vibalist]

But seriously, though. I've never found any place apart from this one where this sentiment is shared. I've never come across any criticisms of Oblivion that even approached VD's treatment of it in his review. It's a clear cut case of a few hundreds, maybe a thousand, people against millions and millions of retarded fanboys and overly enthusiastic reviewers and a general community who don't mind Bethsoft's and Bioware's products and even hail them as being excellent and well written and fun and so on.

At some point you've just got to ask: Is the Codex even that enlightened? Or are we just a bunch of fringe lunatics?
Probably the latter.

 

[Metro]

Lady Gaga sells millions of records. Do you ever ask yourself if she's one of the greatest singers of all time? American Idol is an extremely popular television show. Do you ever ask yourself if it's one of the greatest contributions to entertainment media? The first Transformers movie sold a bajillion tickets. Do you ever ask yourself if it rivals Citizen Kane?

 

[DaveO]

When you have the years of experience in the RPG realms, it's quite easy to miss that games from decades ago had more complexity and depth than games being released today. Bear in mind though, that there is a specific demographic being targeted so older players are considered outside the target group.

 

[Micmu]

Gaming market has expanded big time and those are their first games they played.

 

[Skittles]

I might ascribe the discrepancy to both a) assessing games using the 'for what it is' lens and b) defining 'for what it is' by what they've been exposed to. You can quite easily understand the difference between them by trying to understand what games they've been exposed to. If you've never played PS:T, then your definition of what decent video game writing is differs from most Codexers'.

And I think it is the case that games have only recently turned into mass media. Before, a few hundred or a few thousand (those, maybe, that you mention in your post) would ever hear of, much less play, a particular game. Now, millions play mainstream games (and I don't mean mainstream pejoratively, just as a matter of fact) and only a fraction of them have been exposed to other, perhaps better, games--the dissenting, cranky few who enjoy pissing on Bethesda and Bioware. This lack of exposure may be age related, or just the age of particular interest in video games, or perhaps class related (let's not kid ourselves--almost anybody who played Fallout when it was released was upper-middle class in a handful of ultra rich countries, so yes, this is a class issue).

One reason this gap continues to exist is the way games age--or rather the way they don't. I happen to be one of those people who enjoys getting old games to run in emulators on a fucking awful OS. But Jesus if it doesn't kill half the energy and time I had for the game I'm trying to run in the first place. Also, I suspect that it isn't in the best interest of video games as an industry to do anything but dismiss the old and hype the new, regardless of quality.

An auxiliary observation, to deal with the natural counter example, i.e. those gamers or game critics weaned on Oblivion and the likes who go back and play 'classics' but still prefer the former, is simply the appeal of the new. How many times can you become completely immersed in a world? Maybe as many as there are radically different and well presented worlds, but the fact is that we criticise Bethesda and BW for turning into derivative, uncreative drivel. But for somebody going the opposite direction, the excellent games, the titans of a particular genre, are just variants on something they already know. It's not new. They can't get really immersed in a world they've already visited, even if it's better, because it already smacks of the old and the semi-familiar-but-off.

To answer more directly your question, I don't think either are idiots. The Codex is classist, elitist, uncompromising, self-entitled and ridiculously hyperbolic. The 'mainstream' lacks a real critical approach to games, is a tool of games as industry, and can't see past the end of its nose. But they both are operating by the same logic as they react to and criticise games.

EDIT: Ninja'd, but I'll leave it because I think it expands on the above two posts.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

Is the Codex even that enlightened? Or are we just a bunch of fringe lunatics?
Probably the latter.

 

[Volourn]

Trust me on this following fact of life: The Codex loves Betehsda and BIO games. This is undisputal no matter how much protest occurs against mty statement. The proof is in the action not the silly word spammage.

 

[.Sigurd]

It's not only the Codex, the problem is that rest is scattered around others less focused forums.
Take UolJogos for exemple, probably the biggest brazilian forum when it comes to games. The whole forum is a horde of your Bioware and Bethesda fanboys and general console player but if you take a look at the PC sub-forum you will find they are pretty :monocle: with just the ocasional retarded from the others sub-forums that got lost and ended in the more elitist part of the community.
Well, at least it was when I stopped posting there due the lack of free time at the beginning of the year.

 

[Vibalist]

Lady Gaga sells millions of records. Do you ever ask yourself if she's one of the greatest singers of all time?

Yes. When I venture out into the real world and everyone and their mother are claiming this, I do start to wonder if I'm missing something that everyone else gets. There's just such a large gap between the amount of people who have a problem with someone like Lady Gaga and the amount of people who either don't mind her or like her. Same for the rest of your examples.

I get the point that popularity doesn't necessarily equal quality, but I still sometimes wonder if it's just me who's a grumpy old man who'd enjoy all this mainstream bullshit if I loosened up a little and analyzed everything a bit less. Like normal people do.

Anyway, it seems I'm now actually taking my own semi-trolling thread seriously. Fuck this shit, nvm.

EDIT:

snip

Good post, and I think I see your point.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Is the Codex even that enlightened? Or are we just a bunch of fringe lunatics?
Probably the latter.

I thought of the Codex too when those guys appeared. It was way too accurate. All that was missing for downright stalker feeling would have been if they had hidden Codex-insider memes there.

 

[Temaperacl]

It could be that people who have that view tend to gravitate here because a higher number of people here hold those views - people are going to (tend to) go to where their ideas will be agreed with or at least recieve a fair reception.

It also doesn't help that people don't seem to be able to make the distinction between something being good and liking something, which leads to attacks over someone expressing valid criticism about a portion of a game because "I like it, therefore it must be objectively good" or "It isn't well-designed or well-implemented, therefore nobody with sense can like it", which further polarizes any boards where conversations regarding these games are taking place.

I think more people than it appears may agree with some of the issues with the games, but people who agree with all of them would tend to be drawn here to be vocal about it.

And to be fair, for the number of people here who actually look at the games and come to a reasonable conclusion based on the gameplay/story/whatever, there seem to be plenty of people around the Codex who just view those games as bad because that is what the rest of the Codex is telling them.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

I thought of the Codex too when those guys appeared. It was way too accurate. All that was missing for downright stalker feeling would have been if they had hidden Codex-insider memes there.

Well, the episode is called "Ass Burgers" which is quite the common meme around here.

 

[Mastermind]

Only Bioware games are shitty, and their fans are mostly people who don't like RPGs (and in the case of DA2, games in general). In other words, Arcanum fans.

Bethesda games are fine. They're no morrowind, but with the wide variety of gameplay options they are still superior to most of the shit the codex praises to high heavens.

 

[Excidium]

Only Bioware games are shitty, and their fans are mostly people who don't like RPGs (and in the case of DA2, games in general). In other words, Arcanum fans.

Bethesda games are fine. They're no morrowind, but with the wide variety of gameplay options they are still superior to most of the shit the codex praises to high heavens.

TES games are only good in concept.

 

[Wunderpurps]

Compared to MOH they make pretty amazing games.

 

[Oriebam]

It's a clear cut case of a few hundreds, maybe a thousand, people against millions and millions of retarded fanboys

 

[CrimsonAngel]

Ever see how videophiles can spot certain kind of degradation and distortion in films?.
Ever talk to a audiophile that can hear the difference between a FLAC file and a MP3?.
Ever eaten with a gourmet who can point out the individual spices used in a food?.

This is our role.
We have seen it all and done it all so our pallet is well developed unlike the kids of who play these kind of games today.

 

[Turjan]

At some point you've just got to ask: Is the Codex even that enlightened? Or are we just a bunch of fringe lunatics?

Both. I come here because of the wealth of information you can get even about the most obscure games, and many of the game criticisms are spot on. But you can also find lots of pretentious bullshit here, where personal preference is equaled with superior quality. As long as there is still enough substance in the topics and the bullshit is at least amusing, it's worth coming here.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Only Bioware games are shitty, and their fans are mostly people who don't like RPGs (and in the case of DA2, games in general). In other words, Arcanum fans.

Bethesda games are fine. They're no morrowind, but with the wide variety of gameplay options they are still superior to most of the shit the codex praises to high heavens.

Arcanum >>>> Bethesda

 

[Oriebam]

We're not the only ones that can judge shit guys, it's just that it's politically incorrect to criticize video games so people either aren't vocal or get drowned by the fans vomit.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

did you somehow forget the kind of posts you run into on bioware and bethesda and escapist and rockpapershotgun comments
go read them and tell yourself you are the idiot here for not thinking and reasoning like they do

people have substantial difficulty changing their position on something even if it directly affects their well being like say stop eating those anti-cancer homeopathic pills you are killing yourself faster, how much do you think they care about whether innovation is really innovative

all they know is that they're having fun and when you say their fun is shit they use their brain to protect that experience from your introduction of dissonence and you become 'them' instead of 'us', you're pissing on their den here what the hell is your problem they didn't go to your house and call you a faggot, what is your problem seriously why do you hate them being happy

basically this sort of thing is a personal choice that ideally should be nobody's concern but the individual in question's but since the masses dictate the direction of the industry it does end up affecting what's available and so some people get angry about welcoming games with fuckbuddy dlcs and poppy dance bullshit and movies that take excellent core concepts and turn it into watered down cgi vehicles with guns and hollywood endings
path of least resistance and all that

oh you say you don't like twilight or sex in the city eh

what a rebel you are

honestly though there's people who are amenable to good stuff once they try it but they just don't know how to find it in the first place or don't feel the need to, probably more of them than you think

e.g. when I I began seriously listening to music I started out out listening to accessible stuff first because that's what I grew up around and that's what everyone else was listening to, now a decade and a half later I enjoy listening to both 50 year old blues albums and melodic death metal just as much

people also need a reference point to start with first, kind of how girls who like farmville also have a good chance of liking starcraft 2, who the fuck knows maybe they'll end up playing kohan or myth or whatever the hell you think is the pinnacle of rts games

then there's the question of whether what you like ends up changing you and whether the same individual who furthers his taste in a hobby or pursuit is fundamentally the same one who just doesn't have time for that stuff and just works or wants a simple life watching whatever's on television or something
if there's a difference do you give a shit
really, haven't any of you met guys or girls who are p. cool in general but there's one or two things both of you can't agree on
maybe it's games

I guess the core of the issue here is how people evaluate whether they're satisfied with whatever they occupying themselves with
I only have what I know from personal experience and some very uncodexian applications of empathy so I could be wrong here of course


on a related note my interest in thinking further on this matter has plateaued and I'm off to watch a discovery channel program episode and play this pretty cool flash tower defense game I found kingdom rush, doesn't seem too grindy too, sweet