Are we ever optimistic about anything anymore?

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Well yeah, it's just that it gets drained swiftly because we inhabit the internet, where anything bad gets exaggerated and spreads like wildfire across all related sites.

I feel that this Douglas Adams quote is relevant:

"Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws"

On the internet, that rule is multiplied by 10.

 

[Aeonknight]

Depends where you look. Sites like this are a breeding ground for negativity. Why? Human nature I guess. But there's always some good in there too.

The Souls series is still very much praised in almost every corner of the web, and there is quite a bit of anticipation for Dark Souls 2.

Most people consider the JRPG genre dead, but it's really not. It's just not the absolute powerhouse it was when we were kids. Remember when the title Final Fantasy meant "buy it right now"? It's doesn't have that appeal anymore, but hey they're still trying. That's not even including universally praised series like Persona.

On the FPS side of things... CoD is so damn popular it's cool to hate on it. But if it's breaking sales records every year, it must be doing something right. You just don't hear about it because the haters are on here bitching, while everyone else is playing the game.

Actually that's a good point to end my little thought vomit of a post on.
The optimistic people that seem to have gone extinct are very much so still there. They're just enjoying their hobby, not complaining about it to strangers.

 

[Hero of Lime]

As a whole, gamers can be very cynical, no argument here. There is room for cynicism in some regards, but I agree that it seems like people take the negative approach to new releases of games, consoles, and whatnot.

Me personally, I am optimistic about most games announced from franchises I love. A new Zelda game announced for example makes me super excited and brightens my day like few things can. Which unfortunately, lots of other Zelda fans seem to have trouble with, what with the infamous Zelda cycle rearing its ugly head every time.

E3 even still excites me no matter how many times it's been disappointing in the past. I like to think I'm optimistic about games in general. Gamers on the other hand...

 

[Canadamus Prime]

When it comes to my entertainment, no I don't get excited or optimistic anymore. Between the Star Trek reboot, Metroid: Other M, that new DragonBall Z movie which I refuse to watch or even acknowledge, and a number of other disappointments, no I can't get excited about any up coming instalments franchises I enjoy. However I will agree that the Internet does have a tenancy to focus too much on the negative and ignoring the positive. And when it comes to the negative I find it gets blown so far out of proportion it gets absurd. Like for example Navi from Ocarina of Time, the way people go on about her you'd think she literally took a drill to their eardrums. You are aware she could be ignored right? And she'd only do the "Hey, listen" thing if you pushed the button that acknowledged her.

 

[2xDouble]

Its part of growing up. Everyone eventually reaches a point where cynicism and self-loathing take over rationality like that sea parasite that consumes and replaces a fish's tongue. In the past, this stage of development typically occurred around 11-12 years old, and usually people grew out of it by the time they got to the average gamers' age of 18-24. Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) contained a song explicitly about this, entitled "The Age of Not Believing".

But then, something changed. The journey of self-discovery that typified the 50's, 60's and 70's, and allowed for fully mature adults, was all but eliminated in favor of fast, easy experiences. The new generation, so-called "generation X", associated the cynicism and bullshit hopelessness of teenage and high-school drama with actual maturity, refusing to accept love, beauty, and wonder as functional adults unless forced to do so, much later in life. Then we passed that on to our children, instead of raising them as our parents did us, because that was the "real truth", the one we "discovered" for ourselves. Now here we are, almost two full generations of people who refuse to accept that good exists and is within reach; joyless, soulless, empty husks of human beings living a torturous mockery of a life and believing it and themselves superior. So... yeah, good luck with that.

I suppose I should be sorry for my generation fucking up the good things we had going for us in the previous three.
...I should, but I'm not. Screw you, you rotten kids; get offa my damn lawn.

 

[KazeAizen]

Depends where you look. Sites like this are a breeding ground for negativity. Why? Human nature I guess. But there's always some good in there too.

The Souls series is still very much praised in almost every corner of the web, and there is quite a bit of anticipation for Dark Souls 2.

Most people consider the JRPG genre dead, but it's really not. It's just not the absolute powerhouse it was when we were kids. Remember when the title Final Fantasy meant "buy it right now"? It's doesn't have that appeal anymore, but hey they're still trying. That's not even including universally praised series like Persona.

On the FPS side of things... CoD is so damn popular it's cool to hate on it. But if it's breaking sales records every year, it must be doing something right. You just don't hear about it because the haters are on here bitching, while everyone else is playing the game.

Actually that's a good point to end my little thought vomit of a post on.
The optimistic people that seem to have gone extinct are very much so still there. They're just enjoying their hobby, not complaining about it to strangers.

I'd have to agree on the Final Fantasy front. Heck that again is one of the reasons I posted this in the first place like I explained. I jumped on that wagon on XIII at about the same time everyone else jumped off. Sure it wasn't the best game in the series but I didn't think it was the apocalypse it was claimed to be. Now the sequel I heard get mild to decent praise from critics but fans were just done. They wiped their hands of it when the sequel did everything a proper sequel should do. It expanded the world, polished and perfected the combat system, and its one of the few games that have actually got me to shed tears at the end. Also they built XIV from scratch and completely redid it. Who else takes the time to build their crap MMO from scratch again and make it better? I'm optimistic about Square Enix's future. They are doing a lot of things right. Namely putting out quality titles again. Yet I hear little praise of their achievements.

 

[Rad Party God]

I'm generally quite optimistic about what I'm given and sometimes I enjoy things waaay more than I should, I even know a few IRL people who are still pretty optimistic about all things videogames, but around the internet, as always, the loudest are the most cynical (I'm looking at you Escapist).

I honestly like Nintendo's games as they are, I honestly enjoy their "nostalgia milking" of their franchises, I'm honestly optimistic about the F2P model (the few games that gets it right), among other things.

It's hard to enjoy things around the internet without being called a "man child" if I ever slightly mention liking something made by Nintendo (I'm looking at you again Escapist*).

[small]*Seriously, sometimes I wonder why I stick around this site anymore.[/small]

 

[Roxas1359]

It's hard to enjoy things around the internet without being called a "man child" if I ever slightly mention liking something made by Nintendo (I'm looking at you again Escapist*).

If you think the Escapist is the worst when it comes to this then god help you if you were to ever go to IGN. The stuff that goes on there when it comes to anti-Nintendo makes the stuff that happens here from time to time seem like a joke.

 

[Rad Party God]

It's hard to enjoy things around the internet without being called a "man child" if I ever slightly mention liking something made by Nintendo (I'm looking at you again Escapist*).

If you think the Escapist is the worst when it comes to this then god help you if you were to ever go to IGN. The stuff that goes on there when it comes to anti-Nintendo makes the stuff that happens here from time to time seem like a joke.

I know it can get reeeeally ugly on IGN and other sites, being a fan of MMOs, I used to frequently visit MMORPG.com and oh boy, sometimes the forums can be seen as baboons yelling and throwing shit at each other.

I cite The Escapist a lot, because it's basically the only gaming site I ever visit at all and I know this site can do a lot of good, but as I said, sometimes I wonder why I ever stop by this site when so much negativity is around.

I don't mean that everything has to be pink and rosey, but damn, once I stopped using the internet as much as I did a few months ago, my mental health improved quite a lot.

 

[KazeAizen]

i am optimistic, but not in the way you think.

i am proud that people are starting to see the scams that developers and publishers alike are trying to pass as normal with consoles and pc games and thus are more and more not accepting this as they used to do before.

people are starting to get interested in pc games again and daring to learn more about it, try games they wouldn't had tried before while devs and pubs can run into their own shit they brewed to get every penny of their customers with minimal effort.

even if it means that the whole thing might crash and burn.

I'm not sure where PC gaming ever stood. If it declined and if its just now coming back or if it was just always a giant I never saw. Its hard to want to get into PC gaming when you've been a console gamer your whole life though. Its kind of like going to a new city. Except if the city had a gigantic brick wall made out of gold with massive viking Gods at the doors saying you must be this tall and this smart to enter the city. People say its the vocal minority of PC gamers but to me it is less of a minority and more a 50/50 split. I'm hoping the indie community will actually break the trend of fan bases blocking others out after X amount of time has passed.

 

[Bruce]

Yes, actually I am.

Think about this for a second - that you are angry means that you still have hope. You hope things can change, that the things which anger you can change.

And there are a lot of things which make you angry aren't there? Things like injustice, or bullying, or even stupid crap in something trivial like videogames.

You are angry because you want change, and you aren't alone. There is an entire world out there being angry with you - each at different things, in different ways, each complaining and moaning about all the things that are wrong.

There is an entire world out there that wants better.

And a world that wants better, will eventually figure out how to get better.

 

[Comocat]

I think it is a great time to be a gamer. For all the shit games that come out some of worst games are better than the best games of old.

Civilization was great, but winning was more about exploiting rules than have some master strategy. Now with Civ 5 has AI that makes playing more strategy and less exploiting bugs, who knows maybe Civ 7 the AI will actually take over the planet. Then there are sandbox games like MineCraft, has there ever been anything like that on a meaningful scale? Imagine what Dwarf Fortress or Terraria are going to be like in 10 years. Furthermore, game companies are actually hiring writers now rather than having their intern cobble together some dialogue. It used to be the best you had to work with was a couple pages in the game booklet, now games like Mass Effect are fully voiced. Sure SimCity sucks, but we have Cities in Motion and all sorts of sim-style games.

IMO its a great time to be a gamer, if you aren't an idiot. Meta-critic and GameFaqs will tell you everything you need to know about a game before you buy it. If a game has an online component, it will be broken for weeks on launch. This stuff should really be common sense so there isn't much of a reason to complain. It's not like your only info source is a 1-800 number that charges $1 a minute.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

So my fellow escapists do you think we have all just become a giant melting pot of cynicism or have I just been hanging out on all the wrong places on the internet?

I did a paper once on how we view other people as soon as we meet them. It turns out, we immediately break people down by judging how warm and how cold (lol your avatar) they are. Warm obviously referring to how nice or pleasant someone is and cold referring to how serious or cynical (or duchey) they are. We like people who are warm but think of them as a less capable, respectable, or dumb but we still want to be friends with them. We respect people who are cold and see them as smart and capable of fulfilling their wants or desires. This creates a disconnect because we want to be respected but people will like us if we are warm. It also creates problems because these associations are not generally true.

So basically, you go on the Internet and people want to act like cynical dicks because it makes them look smart without actually being smart. A lot of our interactions turn into "Oh there's a thing a lot people like? That thing was shit. I don't need to back up my opinion with facts but my dickishness confirms that I am smart." Or, "company X is doing something? They probably have an negative motive for it because that's the smart answer"

Also list one thing you know of in gamings future that has got you legitimately optimistic. It could be optimism for a company, franchise, technology, etc. For me that would be EA. Yes they get a lot of crap, yes they deserve a fair share of what they get but when they decide to actively try to alter their company image to be something better you've got my support. Yet when they do something good people choose to focus on their wrongs rather then say congratulate them or encourage them to know they are going in the right direction.

I agree. EA seems dead set on changing their image and I hope they succeed. I'm getting sick of EA-hate circle jerk. I recall people bitching even when they gave away free games after the Sim City fiasco. Personally, I'm optimistic about Android consoles and I was optimistic about the ouya. Making games for extremely cheap, efficient, computers based on an open source operating system? What's not to like? Mobile processors have plenty of kick to make HD games and they run on very little power. Not to mention apps can be easily side loaded with Android. In my opinion, all Android needs to be taken seriously for gaming a separate store front for games that aren't Candy Crush

 

[Robert Marrs]

Being optimistic is to risky. I would rather expect crap and be pleasantly surprised when it turns out to be good. Less disappointment that way.

 

[KazeAizen]

Wise words my friend... I feel that's all so true. When I was in middle school actually, I remember a poster with a dog on it. The puppy was sad, looking down with it's paws over the eyes and a quote underneath it-

"Whenever I do something good, everyone forgets about it...
Whenever I do something bad, everyone will remember it..."

Not sure WHY that was there, but it stuck with me since then.

OT: I'll try my best to express why I feel there's so much negativity... because people need to vent. Think about it- coming home from work or a stressful day, all they want to do is relax. Yet, at home it's probably all the more stressful or something's going down. We play video games not just because it's fun, but it relieves stress and makes us feel accomplished, along with having choices. Take that away due to bad game design or something bad with the story.... you're going to get an angry gamer.

Another thing to keep in mind is that this is the internet. Despite that I feel it can easily become a paradise- it's usually a place for people to get out of character or say what they're thinking... even if they would NEVER do it in real life. On here, you can bash and swear anything you'd like but once you're having a family dinner with your parents- I doubt you'll be acting the same way. It differs from individual to individual... yet I feel truthfully that perhaps you're looking at one place where there's to much negativity. Thousands of other people or locations will probably say otherwise from what you've seen and enjoyed that Sonic game. Just depends on where you're at really.

So this is how you found me

OT: I do understand the need to vent. I am guilty of rage venting but usually I do just sit down and play a game to relieve the stress instead of exploding the bomb on other people. You also talk of the proverbial "Internet dick-wad theory". I'm not sure if its just the one place I'm looking though. The escapist is a fairly big gaming site now at least I think but it is still small compared to other giants where I have visited and just see fountains of negativity spring forth. Gamespot, IGN, Youtube. Large sites with large audiences and a large reach. It eventually overwhelms anything positive that other sites have to say. I think because of their cynicism gamers aren't willing to give things the benefit of the doubt anymore like I said in my original post. Final Fantasy XIII-2 is another game that comes to mind. XIII wasn't the most spectacular and maybe not the best introduction to the series but it was my introduction so it will always hold a special place in my heart. When XIII-2 came stomping around it appeared that most people had washed their hands of this particular branch when XIII-2 did everything a proper sequel should do and it even showed. Official game reviewers were giving it the equivalent of B's and A's and it was vastly better than the previous game. However fans weren't having any of it and a few that I saw I actually tried to coax them to play the game. There was no sign they were giving this game a chance. Sure lots of people still bought it but an even larger portion of people were just done with it.

 

[Something Amyss]

Sonic, Mega Man, Mario, Zelda were new and when they got sequels they weren't met with groans but rather shouts of enthusiasm.

Except the last two, where people still shout for joy when a new title comes out.

And Mega Man, which people want so much Migty No. 9 became one of the most funded Kickstarters EVAHHHHH.

Come to think of it, a lot of the anger at Sonic games comes after their release, because Sonic fans had high expectations.

I'm curious, though, as to why you think we should greet the thirtieth installment in a franchise with the same fervor as the first or second or third. That seems to be the thrust of your "people aren't optimistic anymore" thing.

Maybe if people weren't so naive and optimistic as to rush out and buy something day one based on a handful of screenshots or misleading clips, we'd see less rage at these games. And maybe we'd be better off as a community for it.

 

[hermes]

people are extremophiles these days, things are either the best invention ever or something that murders kittens. there is no inbetween aymore for most people especially online. not to mention negative titles for articles and threads will automatically get a bigger amount of hits and replies as a rule.

if you even offer an opinion of "game x was decent and i had a good time" people will generally either ignore it or just go .. and?
bt if you say its the the best ever or the worst ever people will bite. either to agree or disagree

Good point. Middle of the road opinions are harder and harder to come by.

I get that you might have reservations, but if Bioshock Infinite or DmC are the worst games you ever played, you haven't played many games...

 

[mindfaQ]

I've been optimistic about DotA for 6.5 years now .
But yeah, there is a lot of friction - the medium is diverse, people invest a lot of time into their hobby and thus like to defend the things they like. In the earlier phases of gaming it wasn't so easy to insult a game or its players as it is now. We have a lot more experience with video games than in the past, so it is easier to find games that do something better than another game. Posting your opinion about a game for many people to read has never been as easy as it is now. Etc.