For the past few years, Tim Kane has been the creator of the legendary work Fallout franchise and a veteran of Interplay Entertainment and Obsidian Entertainment – worked and kept interesting YouTube channel he shared an ocean of knowledge and stories about the gaming industry and his time there.
Although Cain in the end plans to end his channel soon — he says he’s running out of topics to talk about and may also focus on one more game before he retires — he’s been making videos for now, one of his most exciting new “How the Internet Changed Game Design” was published last week.
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Cain points out that while there’s a positive side to this – finding a content creator you trust that matches your preferences means they can be trusted to bring you to your attention – games you’re likely to like – the caveat is that people don’t think for themselves and instead parrot someone else’s ideas.
“So they just find someone they like and then that person’s opinion becomes their opinion,” he added. “There’s a positive side to that; it’s easy to find someone who shares your preferences, and so it’s a good guide to finding new games… But the negative side of it is that more and more people are basing their judgment on the opinions of people they see online. It’s like, ‘I don’t want to think about this, you tell me what to think about it.'”
As a journalist who has been in the games critical space for almost a decade now, I completely agree with Cain. Over the years, there has been a huge increase in feedback that is simply fed back from content creators, rather than being independently shaped by players’ own experiences.
On the other hand, many decide that they like a game just because of an influencer or a speech they don’t like doesn’tI argue that it is equally ineffective.
In the end, it’s a reminder that criticism is only valuable if it’s given by people who have formed their own opinions, even if it’s natural to look to people we trust to see what they think. I hope honest, well thought out feedback will prevail going forward.
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