Thursday, August 11, 2016

On The Nature of Greatness

No Man's Sky releases on PC tomorrow, and man, I'm ready.

The backlash against the PS4 version began very quickly. A litany of complaints and resentment issued forth almost immediately upon release. Actually, they issued forth before release.

This made me wonder about the nature of greatness in games, and how difficult it is to be great these days.

Back "in the day", no one really rooted against games. I don't think anyone was desperately hoping that Civ II sucked. We all wanted it to be great.

We were looking for greatness.

Today, though--damn.

Incredibly, a large part of the gaming "community" doesn't really want anything to be great, seemingly. Anything that could potentially be great, or become great, is methodically knocked down, even before it's released.

I know that our country is polarized to an incredible degree politically. I can sort of understand that (even though I think one side is entirely deluded at this point). But how does wanting a game to suck qualify as a "side"? What is the point?

I'm not saying that No Man's Sky is great. It just reminded me that there is a group of people that try to destroy every game.

I'm curious about the demographic of these people. Is it just Angry Young Guy? And if it is, what is Angry Young Guy angry about in general?

This is an old man comment, but it seems like the proportion of people who would rather destroy than build seems to steadily be getting larger, and it's both uncomfortable and disturbing.

Angry mobs.

It makes me sad, that pitchfork-wielding cretins have done so much damage to a hobby that I have enjoyed so much, and that has been enjoyed so much by my friends.

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