The Commoditization of grievance and anger in the industry

mibu no ookami

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21 Feb 2024
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We have a massive problem in the industry now. People have decided its easier to farm negativity.

And it's interesting because Valve and Nintendo somehow seem immune to it. Valve, who barely makes ANY games, and does zero showcases and Nintendo who doesn't drop their prices and remasters and re-releases games to almost no criticism, who also never pushes the graphical standards.

I saw two videos the last couple of days that have me pretty sickened. One was expected from the source, the other wasn't.


The general premise of this is accurate, but surprised to see gameranx peddle this garbage. Primarily still the argument that the PS5 Pro is priced more than it should be because it is a console and that the reason it is priced as it is, is because of the lack of competition from Microsoft. While that might be somewhat true, it mostly isn't. I've asked people for weeks to breakdown the price of the PS5 Pros feature and component set to come to the prices they think the PS5 Pro should be and I've yet to see someone answer appropriately.


Microsoft hasn't been competition for Sony since 2009. What people should be hoping for is Nintendo releasing a traditional or "hardcore" gaming console.

People are acting like Microsoft is lost, but they're not. They know exactly what they want to do, they're just not saying it out loud. This isn't Sega and the Dreamcast. Microsoft knows they can continue to make money off supporting the Xbox, so why would they just go ahead and say XYZ games are going to PS5 or all of them. It would me financial malfeasance. People like Gameranx pretend like Phil Spencer didn't know that HiFi Rush, Grounded, Pentiment, and Sea of Thieves were in development for PS5 before they were announced or that they didn't know that Indiana Jones was going to PS5 as if they're only going to take 3 months to port the game.


The other video I saw was from that piece of garbage Penguinz0.


Here he is peddling this idea that Sony hates Bloodborne. It just isn't true. But he's either too stupid or too immoral to live in reality, that Bloodborne as I've discussed in the past is simply in a difficult position. Sony owns the rights, but its developed by FromSoftware, who is busy as hell these days particularly on a franchise that sold more than 4x as much as Bloodborne. Ask yourself why Sony gets hate for no new Bloodborne instead of FromSoftware... it's because there are no views for hating FromSoftware, there is though in hating Sony.

I can tell why the girl said eww when he told her he liked her.

The reality is that if FromSoftware wanted to follow up on Bloodborne they could do so easily, just like they did with Dark Souls after Demon's Souls.

We have to start pushing back on these people who push these narratives. They're actually hurting gaming, because they're hurting companies, and in turn that hurts games.

Sony just a few weeks ago put out one of the most cheerful games of all time and a strong contender for GOTY... What is the refrain? That there are still no games on PS5. Where are all these games on PC that aren't on PS5? It's the silliest thing I've ever heard. Helldivers 2, Astro Bot, FF7 Rebirth, Wukong, Dragon's Dogma 2, Stellar Blade, Space Marine 2... The only device that can play every one of these games is a PS5 and Sony is directly responsible for 3 of these games. 3 of these games are ONLY on PS5.
 
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mibu no ookami

mibu no ookami

Veteran
21 Feb 2024
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One thing I'll add is that when Bluepoint started development on the Demon's Souls remake that this muppet brings up and wonders why they remade Demon's Souls and not Bloodborne, it was 2018. Bloodborne was 3 years old at the time and it was before Sony even started a PC strategy.
 
24 Jun 2022
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Sony never cultivated a strong relationship with Western games media during the time Microsoft explicitly went out of their way to do exactly that starting with the 360. They leveraged their lead in the West with 360 to shore up favoristism with Western games outlets (including Digital Foundry) and that's also when they started building out the Ambassador Program.

Then with XBO they built an entire cult of personality around Phil Spencer and turned his "rise" through Xbox like a hero's journey story, which Western games media fed into because Phil Spencer would spend lots of time talking to them as the "face of Xbox". Hell, he is still doing it. Microsoft also leveraged Phil (& others) to present a face to their community who'd interact with them a lot.

Sony never really did this, and when they struck gold with stuff like the Kevin Butler PS3 ads (which Microsoft ripped off of to build Phil Spencer's appeal afterwards), they just....retired it and moved on. Then they stopped doing PlayStation Experience before the start of this generation.

I say this to say...Sony basically never really challenged Microsoft in the area of messaging and optics control among the Western games media or core enthusiasts spaces like gaming forums (tons of Xbox Ambassadors as ResetERA mods, Major Nelson having an account there, Phil Spencer too apparently), social media, Youtube gaming podcasts etc. So things like the videos in your OP are the direct result of Sony's choice to ignore serious engagement in those spaces over the past 15+ years, more or less.