If you don’t like something, that’s fine. They made the product they want, they’re free to do that, and you’re free to not like it.
Just know that art has always driven social discussion, and it’s always been met with heavy social opposition, just usually in the form of outright censorship. So historically artists had to be subtle in order to be critical without being censored. In order to see more edgy stuff you had to go to small, barely funded art house shows.
But then the internet happened, and suddenly artists weren’t beholden to a small number of elite entertainment corporations. Art containing more openly progressive ideas can now be shared directly with the masses, the masses are now preferring progressive ideals more than ever before, and naturally corporations making entertainment products now have a financial incentive to cater to that demographic (often called “virtue signaling”). Today you see a mix of corporate pandering and actual art, even within the development teams of a mainstream product like Dragon Age or Disney. Some messaging feels honest, others feel ham fisted because it’s pride month.
But the censorship of the pre-internet days existed for a reason. A lot of people feel uncomfortable seeing things that challenge their status quo. People tend to seek comfort, and they just want their entertainment to leave them be. But now that corporate censors are less of a barrier, and now that progressive ideals are proliferating, the people themselves are backlashing. They say things like, “it’s way too much woke agenda, I’m tired of it. I want to watch a show without having the story be about woke issues.” I think that’s also normal.
I think the backlash is two fold: On the one hand, real art challenges the viewer, which can be exhausting when you just want to be entertained before you get a few hours of sleep and go back to work in the morning. But on the other hand, you do have what offen feels like a disengenuous layer of progressive pandering coming from corporations that you never saw before. And no one likes being pandered to, let alone not being pandered to.
I think this corporate pandering towards progressive ideals is new, the terms we use to describe everything are definitely new, but the tendency for art to expose people to progressive ideals and the tendency for the masses to be conservative and resist change are as old as humanity. And I view the two as a social evolutionary yin and yang, keeping each other in check.
Idk, I know I’m in the minority, but the stuff I don’t experience in a game is just as important as the stuff I do experience.
As someone who played WoW as a kid, the world always felt bigger and more memorable because there was stuff I wasn’t geared/skilled/determined/lucky/whatever enough to see. Then during WotLK they made a concerted effort to ensure everyone could see all the content. Suddenly the world felt small. Less like a world and more like a series of checkboxes that you tick off and say “done, onto the next game”.
I really appreciate when the creators say “not everyone will see everything, and that’s ok, that’s how we intended it”. Elden Ring is really good about this. I’m about to finish my first playthrough, I know ive missed a lot of stuff, but that’s OK, my playthrough was uniquely mine.
The vast majority of the game is optional so that you can get to the final boss and see an ending. I remember getting the normal ending and thinking “really? That fight was trivial”. Turns out the minimal play-through is tuned for a low skill level. The “true” ending is another story though.
“Linear” is not a word I would use to describe it, hah. I’m pretty sure you can go back to the start, make different choices, and play another 70+ hours of content you’ve never seen. Which is even more insane.
Ah, I guess I didn’t know they didn’t have the rights anymore. Tbh I played through AW2 and didn’t connect that Casey was a reference to Max Payne lol.
What do you mean legally distinct? You know that’s Sam Lake, writer and creative director at Remedy, and face model for Max Payne 1/2, both also developed by Remedy?
As someone still playing through vanilla Elden Ring, none of that means anything to me. And if my first 80h are any indication, I’ll finish the game and still have no idea.
Agreed. As I understand it, $50k-$100k is on the high end for a TV show to use a clip from a very well known song in an episode. Some band I’ve never heard of being paid $22k for their song to be played in the background of a game might be a little on the low end, so it’s totally reasonable for the band to counter, but it’s also totally reasonable for Rockstar to turn down a 10x counter. Publicly crying about it seems childish. The game is gonna happen with or without your song.