A useful critique (Gaming)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Tuesday, April 15, 2025, 20:33 (3 days ago) @ Kermit
edited by Kermit, Tuesday, April 15, 2025, 20:54

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhxjlQT5aqM&t=1255s

He touches on something that has bugged me for a while. The couch format doesn't do it for me. This isn't fair, but there's a negative Hollywood vibe that turns me off. There's an assumption that these people, most of whom I don't recognize, are supposed to be inherently interesting to me simply because of where they work. Feels like stolen bases trading on the so-called glamor of working as a creative. [Caveat: love Lars, he was kind to me when I met him, but that defines me as a lucky outlier among potential Bungie fans.]

Let me make a comparison. I used to work in sales, hardcore door-to-door sales. Know what ticks me off? The young adults who used to come around selling magazines. I think the company that hired them was predatory, but in the moment what always irked me was that they weren't taught to sell anything. They were taught to beg for help so they could win a trip to Hawaii. Why the hell should I care about whether you, kid I've just met, goes to Hawaii? I've never gotten to go to Hawaii.

Similarly, I don't care about what kind of runner Bungie employees like to play as, or their favorite moments. I don't yet know what they're talking about. It's inside baseball and they haven't adequately explained to me what a baseball is. Maybe they haven't finished inventing baseball, and that accounts for the vagueness, but seriously, sell me a GAME. That is why you're there. The Bungie of old might not fly in 2025. There wasn't much transparency. There was a bit of arrogance. A webmaster might ridicule you. They made games that THEY liked to play, and that was it. We hope you like it, but maybe you won't. That is true salesmanship. We love our product. You might not. [Shrug]

The old-style viddocs were all I needed Not the new ones with a parade of faces and names in various throes of exclaiming how excited they are. Give me devs who aren't maybe as polished because they've been yanked away from working on something they care about to be filmed saying something about the game. It's a fine line I guess. There's nothing more boring than listening to people discuss a movie you haven't seen. That's how I felt through a lot of the presentation this week.

The cinematic used the art and the lore to make a FANTASTIC short film. If the game does this nearly as well, it could be something special. Maybe it will be. The pitch hasn't worked on me yet.