I don't think this is a gaming problem.

It is a discourse problem.

People engage in absolutes. They either love a thing or hate a thing. There's no nuance.

And it must be made to cater for them, there's no expectation that it will contain choices they don't approve of.

And this stance, this modern relationship with the world permeates everything, especially forms of media.

You see it in films and books... Fans and stans and folk trying to take it down. There is no nuance or middle ground.

People don't accept that, perhaps, something isn't just "not for them". That's why you get grown men complaining about the direction of children's shows they used to watch.

And this is compounded with social media where polarisation, blunt takes and contradiction are the primary drivers of engagement.

Audience error.

We do have a problem of polarisation. But on the other hand we also have a problem of too many games, so we simply can't play them all. This leads us to a need to choose which one to pick. And a bad choice is very bad, because games are expensive and time consuming.

Now the real problem is when a community mistaken a new game for another. Like avowed was considered a terrible game because the leader scroll fanboys thought it would be their next game, and it wasn't. Anyone who know what old school bioware games were will certainly love avowed.

Now while veilgard is not a bad game, is it actually good? I'm not informed enough yet about it, but bioware has been terrible in the last decade, so I am clearly very wary of what they're doing.

I will wait for a discount for both those games, and I'll play avowed first because I'm informed and careful, and I have other games to play already.

On the side there's also the problem of fascist propaganda that will brand a game woke a try to destroy it.

With the amount of 9s and 10s coming out, why would you waste time with a 7? The polarisation is just an effect of the language of clickbait spreading in society, but doesn't change the fact that average games are probably not worth your time.

I'll be honest, I downloaded Avowed through gamepass and couldn't stand it for more than 4 hours.

It's about as dull as a game can be and doesn't excel at anything, even when compared to games that released 15 years ago.

Do I think it's garbage? No, but I also would not recommend it to anyone, it's not worth their time nor money.

But as regular people, gamers, Lemmy posters, why are we doing the same? How is it serving us? Are we all influencers in waiting, hoping to up our updoot count and build a following of… dozens?

Many people are rationalizing their purchase decisions. Not everybody can afford to buy (and play!) two games so if you have two highly anticipated games or consoles coming out in the same time, most people can only get one. And then they have to choose. Afterward, they don't want to hear that the other game is better, that it's also great and they are missing out on a lot of fun and that the one they didn't get is totally awesome.

93% vs 77% doesn’t strike me as polarized. 16% difference?

77% doesn’t even seem that bad if it’s a style of game I like. From about 2001 I used to see sci fi movies that looked interesting as long as they had at least a 25% Rotten Tomatoes score because my tastes were different.

Is there something I’m missing? I haven’t played either game and I haven’t looked at reviews. Won’t buy KCD (no character creation) and probably will eventually buy Avowed.

Well... to me this seems awfully close to "stop hitting yourself problem".

Why are you looking comments everywhere? Do you really need that information to make a decision? Is it so bad to play a bad game now and then? I don't see a problem, because this problem is easily avoidable by not going to social media for opinions.

Or am I missing the point?

I’ve learned a long time ago that if you just wait a few years these games will go on sale for $20 and will have enough informed reviews to help make a solid purchasing decision. Gamers need to get off this new release hype train and be patient. I personally won’t play KCD 2, I disliked the first one. I will probably try Avowed in a few years after I get through my existing backlog of ~100 unplayed games in Steam. We are spoiled for choice and the market is filled with good indie games.