Another controversial topic the internet proles and burzhui seem to be obsessed with is one that I'm finding eerily familiar to one that occured in the music industry not too long ago.
You see, to those people not alive or capable of storing abstract memories at the time, there was the age of "hair metal." Everything about hair metal was based around 3 factors: being overblown, having a "cool" image, and being more obscene than the last but only so much that you can bring in a massive and wide audience. Say what you will about the musicianship of glam and hair artists, the fact is they fell because they were entirely manufactured.
Then, when the jocks and preps decided that they'd had enough of men in drag armed with guitars, they found this nice little thing called 'alternative rock,' liked what they saw, and ran with it for 23 damn years.
No one can deny that glam metal artists put on good shows, had albums that sounded spectacular for their day, and indeed had good musicians: but they were utterly fake. You listened to one, you were done, move on to the next. They had multimillion dollar production, multimillion dollar tours, multimillion dollar mansions, the whole works.
Then came these ratty little people from the underground, from various scenes whether it be Seattle, Palm Desert, Manchester, whathaveyou playing what has since gone done as being some bizarre mix of stoner rock and heavy punk in various degrees. At least, that's what their early fans were into. They had shoddy production, sometimes were homeless, sometimes were working class, sometimes were middle class, but they actually had something to say; their music wasn't boring and overblown.
Now... don't get me wrong: it *has* become boring and overblown, but at one point, it was a breath of fresh air.
"Too long, you cockheaded spaz, didn't read, so what's your point?!" My point is that I'm finding more than a few parallels between the pop transition of glam metal and alternative rock and the AAA vs Indie market of video games.
Take AAA games for example: what is it everyone says about them? They're massive in budget, and so much of it goes into advertising. They look good, they play well, and their names are massive.
Yet, for some reason, they feel so empty. Like Call of Duty: you can still find people playing online matches for Modern Warfare and Black Ops, but it's not even a fraction of those playing Ghosts or Black Ops 2 (of which already plummeted). So there's nothing keeping people playing the older games in these series' if they can just play the newer version. In other ones', the main reason that I personally return to some AAA games is because the visuals are pretty good.
Yet, for some reason, while we say that a game is awesome upon release, as the years pass, criticism starts to flare and we soon try to figure out how we liked the title to begin with.
Indie games, however, seem to be the "fun" games nowadays, as cheap as some may be. I'm not saying they've grunged their way into making AAA titles obsolete, oh no. But AAA gaming already has the negative press it needs for me to make these meaningless metaphors, so that accounts for something, right?
Besides that, I've also begun noticing something I really didn't want to notice and wish I could erase from my mind: gaming hipsters. Not necessarily "real" hipsters, but these are the ones who could qualify as the "cool alternative crowd", the ones who spend their time hatin' on AAA games and proclaiming that they suck, have always sucked, and will always suck and say that indie games are "true" art. I say this because I know such a person who prides himself on being a fanatic of "gaming kvltvre".
And besides that... whatever will happen to the B and C games?
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/sony-we-don-t-do-mid-sized-games-any-more/0121195
TL;DR?
"In this thread, you will: talk about AAA Games and Indie Games, Discuss why Pearl Jam/Blur/Kyuss are Better/Worse Than Poison/Cinderella/Mötley Crüe, and Explain Why There's No Room For the Middle Class of Gaming "
You see, to those people not alive or capable of storing abstract memories at the time, there was the age of "hair metal." Everything about hair metal was based around 3 factors: being overblown, having a "cool" image, and being more obscene than the last but only so much that you can bring in a massive and wide audience. Say what you will about the musicianship of glam and hair artists, the fact is they fell because they were entirely manufactured.
Then, when the jocks and preps decided that they'd had enough of men in drag armed with guitars, they found this nice little thing called 'alternative rock,' liked what they saw, and ran with it for 23 damn years.
No one can deny that glam metal artists put on good shows, had albums that sounded spectacular for their day, and indeed had good musicians: but they were utterly fake. You listened to one, you were done, move on to the next. They had multimillion dollar production, multimillion dollar tours, multimillion dollar mansions, the whole works.
Then came these ratty little people from the underground, from various scenes whether it be Seattle, Palm Desert, Manchester, whathaveyou playing what has since gone done as being some bizarre mix of stoner rock and heavy punk in various degrees. At least, that's what their early fans were into. They had shoddy production, sometimes were homeless, sometimes were working class, sometimes were middle class, but they actually had something to say; their music wasn't boring and overblown.
Now... don't get me wrong: it *has* become boring and overblown, but at one point, it was a breath of fresh air.
"Too long, you cockheaded spaz, didn't read, so what's your point?!" My point is that I'm finding more than a few parallels between the pop transition of glam metal and alternative rock and the AAA vs Indie market of video games.
Take AAA games for example: what is it everyone says about them? They're massive in budget, and so much of it goes into advertising. They look good, they play well, and their names are massive.
Yet, for some reason, they feel so empty. Like Call of Duty: you can still find people playing online matches for Modern Warfare and Black Ops, but it's not even a fraction of those playing Ghosts or Black Ops 2 (of which already plummeted). So there's nothing keeping people playing the older games in these series' if they can just play the newer version. In other ones', the main reason that I personally return to some AAA games is because the visuals are pretty good.
Yet, for some reason, while we say that a game is awesome upon release, as the years pass, criticism starts to flare and we soon try to figure out how we liked the title to begin with.
Indie games, however, seem to be the "fun" games nowadays, as cheap as some may be. I'm not saying they've grunged their way into making AAA titles obsolete, oh no. But AAA gaming already has the negative press it needs for me to make these meaningless metaphors, so that accounts for something, right?
Besides that, I've also begun noticing something I really didn't want to notice and wish I could erase from my mind: gaming hipsters. Not necessarily "real" hipsters, but these are the ones who could qualify as the "cool alternative crowd", the ones who spend their time hatin' on AAA games and proclaiming that they suck, have always sucked, and will always suck and say that indie games are "true" art. I say this because I know such a person who prides himself on being a fanatic of "gaming kvltvre".
And besides that... whatever will happen to the B and C games?
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/sony-we-don-t-do-mid-sized-games-any-more/0121195
TL;DR?
"In this thread, you will: talk about AAA Games and Indie Games, Discuss why Pearl Jam/Blur/Kyuss are Better/Worse Than Poison/Cinderella/Mötley Crüe, and Explain Why There's No Room For the Middle Class of Gaming "
