Over the past few years, Tim Cain, the co-creator of the legendary radioactive dust franchise and veteran of Interplay Entertainment and Obsidian Entertainment, has directed and maintained a fascinating youtube channel in which he has shared an ocean of knowledge and stories about the gaming industry and his time in it.
Although Cain finally he plans to end his channel soon — says he’s running out of topics to discuss, and also that he may end up concentrating on making one more game before retiring; is still making videos at the moment, and one of the most interesting new ones is “How the Internet changed game design” which was published last week.
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Cain points out that while there is an advantage to this – finding a content creator you trust and who aligns with your preferences means you can trust them to bring you games you’re likely to like – the obvious caveat is that people don’t end up thinking for themselves and instead simply parrot someone else’s opinions.
“Then they find someone they just like and then that person’s opinion becomes their opinion,” he added. “There’s a positive side to this; it’s easy to find someone who matches your preferences and therefore it’s a good guide to finding new games… But the negative thing about this is that more and more people seem to be abdicating their own judgment to that of the people they see online. It’s like, ‘I don’t want to think about that, tell me what I should think about it.'”
As a journalist who has been entrenched in the game review space for almost a decade, I completely agree with what Cain says. Over the years, there has been a huge increase in feedback that content creators are simply regurgitating rather than forming independently of players’ own experiences.
On the other hand, many also decide that they like a game simply because they don’t like an influencer or a media outlet. Nowhich I would say is equally unproductive.
In the end, it’s a reminder that criticism is only valuable if it’s made by people who form their own views, even if it’s natural to look to those we trust to see what they think. I hope honest and well thought out comments continue to prevail in the future.
Do you agree with Tim Cain that criticism of online video games is increasingly based on what content creators think? I’m curious to hear your opinion, so share it in the comments and in our poll.
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