4 ms·

The age of that "wonder" feeling when you see a new game has ended. Most people already know what's going to be showns in E3, mostly things they don't care abou

The age of that "wonder" feeling when you see a new game has ended. Most people already know what's going to be showns in E3, mostly things they don't care about

OJFord 4y ago
Has it? Or has it just ended for you? I don't really game at all any more, I just mean maybe teenagers are just as hyped as we were then; the age hasn't passed, but we've aged.
- dylan604 4y ago
  That still doesn't change the fact that the release news has changed drastically. Sure, teenagers today probably like to game more than yesteryear's teenagers that are all middleaged boomers now. News at 11! The point isn't a lack of nostalgia, it's that there's no mystery to reveal at a big show. Studios release teasers, arrange for "leaks", or any other ways of keeping they hype machine rolling.
  - OJFord 4y ago
    But is that new, or do we become wise to it with age?
    - dylan604 4y ago
      really? 24/7 live coverage via streaming from the likes of youtube, twitch, or which ever social platform of choice delivered straight to your eye holes with a pestering notification for immediate consumption vs maybe receiving a magazine in the mail or at the newstand once a month. yeah, sounds the same thing to me. nothing new has changed here at all. i get you trying to check the nostalgia, but if you think news delivery is any where close to the same today as it was in the 90s, you must have had some future tech available to you in the 90s
- strken 4y ago
  In an objective sense, more new releases today are continuations of existing franchises than they were in the 90s. See https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average, which was on the front page earlier this week. Subjectively, the few teens I interact with seem hyped for new installments in old franchises, updates to existing games with more content, or remakes of old classics. I don't think there's as much excitement for new franchises, because of a wave of overpromising over the last decade.
- syntheweave 4y ago
  The center of cultural gravity has definitely shifted. In the 90's we were still firmly in the mass-market model of doing: if you saw something new in gaming it was probably through the TV or a magazine, and it was presented as some exclusive, earthshaking experience that you were buying access to like a movie ticket. Nowadays it's much more common to learn about something through "influencer" media, and part of the appeal is not within the game content, but in the game's affordances as a virtual world: being able to play with your Discord friends or the Twitch streamer you watch, and how much it supports roleplaying and "content creation". A lot of gaming is also purely online-competitive, too, a phenomenon that relies on widespread broadband connectivity and isn't really about graphics - witness the popularity of online chess. The experiential games that hit big and stay memetic for long periods have mostly been indie lately: the AAA stuff has nice graphics and courts a certain niche, but it just washes over the market without much lasting impact. Altogether, there are a ton of things that make it so that teenagers can be hyped, but not about the same things in the same ways. It's widely accessible stuff, and less clearly driven by the consumer-electronics relationship.

The age of that "wonder" feeling when you see a new game has ended. Most people already know what's going to be showns in E3, mostly things they don't care about

OJFord 4y ago

Has it? Or has it just ended for you? I don't really game at all any more, I just mean maybe teenagers are just as hyped as we were then; the age hasn't passed, but we've aged.

dylan604 4y ago
That still doesn't change the fact that the release news has changed drastically. Sure, teenagers today probably like to game more than yesteryear's teenagers that are all middleaged boomers now. News at 11! The point isn't a lack of nostalgia, it's that there's no mystery to reveal at a big show. Studios release teasers, arrange for "leaks", or any other ways of keeping they hype machine rolling.
- OJFord 4y ago
  But is that new, or do we become wise to it with age?
  - dylan604 4y ago
    really? 24/7 live coverage via streaming from the likes of youtube, twitch, or which ever social platform of choice delivered straight to your eye holes with a pestering notification for immediate consumption vs maybe receiving a magazine in the mail or at the newstand once a month. yeah, sounds the same thing to me. nothing new has changed here at all. i get you trying to check the nostalgia, but if you think news delivery is any where close to the same today as it was in the 90s, you must have had some future tech available to you in the 90s
strken 4y ago
In an objective sense, more new releases today are continuations of existing franchises than they were in the 90s. See https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average, which was on the front page earlier this week. Subjectively, the few teens I interact with seem hyped for new installments in old franchises, updates to existing games with more content, or remakes of old classics. I don't think there's as much excitement for new franchises, because of a wave of overpromising over the last decade.
syntheweave 4y ago
The center of cultural gravity has definitely shifted. In the 90's we were still firmly in the mass-market model of doing: if you saw something new in gaming it was probably through the TV or a magazine, and it was presented as some exclusive, earthshaking experience that you were buying access to like a movie ticket. Nowadays it's much more common to learn about something through "influencer" media, and part of the appeal is not within the game content, but in the game's affordances as a virtual world: being able to play with your Discord friends or the Twitch streamer you watch, and how much it supports roleplaying and "content creation". A lot of gaming is also purely online-competitive, too, a phenomenon that relies on widespread broadband connectivity and isn't really about graphics - witness the popularity of online chess. The experiential games that hit big and stay memetic for long periods have mostly been indie lately: the AAA stuff has nice graphics and courts a certain niche, but it just washes over the market without much lasting impact. Altogether, there are a ton of things that make it so that teenagers can be hyped, but not about the same things in the same ways. It's widely accessible stuff, and less clearly driven by the consumer-electronics relationship.