I think there are two highly-related problems with the culture around multiplayer games these days, and they’re feeding off of each other to create a downward spiral of toxic sweatiness:

• we don’t have a cultural understanding of what it means to play a multiplayer game “casually” (not trying to win. enjoying the moment instead of going after an objective) anymore. we unconsciously assume that everyone is trying to win as hard as they can in every match, and we resent them if they aren’t playing as well as we want them to (this is a big part of where toxicity comes from)

• the vast majority of multiplayer games are not designed to facilitate casual play and are instead designed to put a lot of pressure on each individual player

devs see the culture of competitive sweatiness, so they design games with competitive sweatiness in mind. then players see a landscape of only competitive sweaty multiplayer games and start thinking of “multiplayer games” as inherently competitive and sweaty. and these two things feed off of each other

it also doesn’t help that there used to be a lot of money to be made in esports. so devs were also trying to chase the money with their esport bait games

it really, deeply frustrates me when people generalize about “multiplayer games” and it’s clear that what they’re talking about are hyper-competitive SBMM PvP games. it’s like they just… can not envision a multiplayer game that is not a hyper-sweaty pressure cooker skill creep rat race. and they can’t imagine that someone would be playing a game in order to enjoy the moment, or try out a weird or goofy strategy, or for any reason at all except to try to win as hard as they can

imagine a hero shooter where only the losing team gets to use their ults, there are lots of purely RNG mechanics that subtly favor the losing team like in Mario Kart, the teams get shuffled around if the players get too unbalanced, and there are twelve players on each team instead of six (to keep the pressure off of individual players). also, the game doesn’t keep track of who’s winning or who’s losing and there is no incentive to win. that’s what a non-sweaty game looks like

I think we need a lot more games that look like that - because we need to rebuild and normalize the cultural concept of “playing for fun” and make sure that there are games and gamemodes that cater to that. otherwise the toxicity problem is only going to get worse from here

I’ve decided that I am Extremely Not the target audience for either of the two kinds of AAA games:

• interactive linear movies with a heavy focus on storytelling
• extremely fast-paced competitive SBMM PvP shooters

… now if only I could remember that and stop trying to gaslight myself into liking them T_T

something that #HideousDestructor does that I would love to see in more games with #milsim elements is that it’s stylized. the weapons are often quirky scifi tech that jams, cooks off, or has DRM that you have to work around. and that lets it contrive its mechanics for fun gameplay while still feeling verisimilar. for example I feel like in most milsims you’re forced to choose between a bunch of near-identical rifles that are meticulously based on real-world weapons. but in #HDest each weapon feels incredibly unique from every other weapon and each one has its own niche

the ZM66 is a piece of shit but it can pierce through armor, whereas the shotgun has incredibly plentiful ammo and is easy to aim but armor stops it dead. and even the shotgun itself has two firing modes, and both of them have interesting pros and cons (semi-auto can jam, which can throw off your firing rhythm, whereas pump-action is much slower but more consistent)

anyway idk I just want more stylized milsim-like games that have cool mechanics like that, instead of milsims that are set in beige-brown modern military land with super bland modern military tech

i don’t like when reviews are framed through an assumed lens of cynicism. endless youtube clickbait titles like “your art is shit,” “why your music isn’t as good as you think,” and “i hate poetry” attached to some well-edited 3 hour rant about everything negative. maybe they include a few positive things – especially when leading the video – to give the illusion of a nuanced, well-informed take. it probably does have fairly deep analysis on all the aspects they find problematic.

i complain about things a lot. however, if you know me well enough, you’ll know that i actually complain more about things that i like – games, music, movies that i love are less safe around me than things that i genuinely don’t like. it’s a quirk of mine that has endlessly confounded family, friends, and partners. the reason i criticize the thing i love is because – while i do find that thing genuinely inspiring and worthy of praise – it’s not perfect and finding its flaws it genuinely not an easy task for me. i want to see nothing but good in it because it’s something i enjoy. but it also brings me closer to what i love to recognize it for what it is: flawed but still lovable.

conversely, i will try to find good in anything that i don’t like (provided i don’t find it ethically abhorrent. punch nazis). this is either equally or more difficult than the previous task. when something is more flaw than gem, it’s difficult to see what good it does have.

circling back to “criticizing fucking everything and being overwhelmingly negative”: it’s boring, its useless, and i think it makes the world a worse place. disliking something and listing all the things you don’t like about something is fine. even better when you can give alternatives to how that thing can be improved! i believe that’s called constructive criticism. but genuinely tearing something down for the sake of tearing it down sucks. assuming that it’s not harmful, art and creation should be celebrated in all its forms even if you dont like it. creating is hard and requires a lot of courage. it requires public vulnerability which, known by most of us who spend our lives on the internet, is fucking difficult and scary. criticism, on the other hand, is much less vulnerable. you don’t need to confess deeply held beliefs or fragile emotions.

i’m not saying criticism in general is bad, to be clear. i just don’t like when its framed as “your X sucks” or “why Y is terrible.”