I think the early 2000s PS2 era was the peak of modern gaming. Colourful games, decent 3d graphics. The FPS era hadn't fully began on consoles yet.
The less said about the late 2000s, the better. That's when all the "gatekeeping, misogyny, toxic masculinity and general chuddery" really got kicked into overdrive. Every game got a sepia piss filter as well. And after that we got the blue filters which were somehow even worse.
Oh god I am in an eternal struggle against the „creatives“ and their constant use of disgusting filters which destroy the natural colors. Tho I must confess I loved the golden filter of deus ex human revolution and the grain filter of ME1 and yes even the brownish tints of dragon age, I know I am bad haha.
Honestly some games benefitted from the piss filter, like Fallout New Vegas. If it were made with modern graphics I would want them to keep the piss filter instead of being vibrant like Fallou4 76
Filters have their place tbh. Sometimes it makes a lot of sense aesthetically.
The issue is falling back on it to the point it becomes a meme.
I remember gaming always being seen as a "boys club" for as long as I can remember. They were thankfully pretty welcoming of me (being a brown guy and all) but girls playing games were either given the m'lady treatment or chastised for making a mistake that would get them seen as being bad at the game. Often both.
In 1980 something, Nintendo of America made the decision to sell the Nintendo Entertainment System as a gendered toy
This would later be considered a bad idea and roundly mocked
Was it? I remember it being praised for yeas and "saving the game industry"
Lots of good points being made but I don't like when it veers toward hatred of demanding games on a conceptual level. Ultrakill has lots of heart and soul and also challenges the player in order to evoke a certain experience, and that is part of the art of games.
"Hardcore" games without much story, games with leaderboards and bragging rights, aren't always being made to exclude and insult players. That stuff is fun sometimes, like Hyper Demon, a beautiful minimalist game in both concept and execution that many players will not necessarily excel at.
Petty, pedantic point perhaps but I do like a game that expects me to learn a bit to win.
Tbf ultrakill literally has the option to enable aimbot and you dont need any crazy techs to beat the main story.
Yeah the mentality that every game should be beatable by a 90 year old who has never touched a computer before otherwise it's not "accessible" is so fucking dumb. When I play my hardcore difficulty pokemon romhack because I want a harder game, I don't expect Nintendo to make the actual game that way. When people who want easy games play challenging games, they demand that the developers make them easy(see dark souls easy mode discourse). It's this mentality that liking challenge makes you "toxic" which just idiotic.
We already solved this problem in the 90s. The solution is to design a hard game but also have cheat codes to make the game easier (or even harder). But most modern game developers are completely allergic towards adding a simple god mode or infinite ammo code into their shitty game, so we're stuck with arguing over whether story mode is good or not (it's good if you insist on not having cheat codes).
gamergate was unironically the mainstream debut of the alt-right and I will stand by that assertion
Yes I agree coupled with the refugee crisis of 2014-15, fash talking points became mainstream.
The way you phrased your comment makes it sound like your take is controversial. Are there really a lot of people who think otherwise?
I had never heard of them until Milo Yannopolous got popular in 2016. Back then, it meant "alternative right" as an opposition to GOP establishment and RINOs. Boy, they sure got a lesson in entryism as every piece of shit in America jumped on the train. 
It became more and more intertwined with the right wing as the 2016 election drew closer. Gamer Gate and adjacent communities turned into a pipeline for the alt right, with YouTubers like Sargon of Akkad radicalizing libs into fascists.
I watched it unfold on r/KotakuInAction at the time. It was a weird crossroads for me.
I watched it unfold on r/KotakuInAction
You just brought up icky memories
It was a weird crossroads
Same. I was all for severing the ties between gaming journalists and publishers and ending the status quo of paid high review scores, but luckily past-me saw and rejected the misogyny that was also heavily present in those spaces and I didn't end up turning into a nazi.
Tabletop, DnD, board games, and minecraft. Also Animal Crossing.
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