Games Forums Have become mental health wards

[ARTofTOR]

Every time I visit a game forum these days, I feel like a psychiatrist at a mental health ward. There's mentally ill people everywhere, but I don't really know any of them or have to care about them at all.

It's these 'paid posters', usually working in conjunction with other 'pro forumers', that are actually advertisement representatives for some major company involved in videogames (look ma, no names!).

These people are known to overrun forums, bullying and crowding out legitimate users, until in some forums it basically appears as if the majority of the 'conversations' are simply the equivalent of ad-bots, spamming nonsense messages back and forth.

Ad-bots work by basically flatly denying objective reality, and simply continuing to promote their ideas or messages with positive, but incoherent or insubstantial statements, that do not bear the burden of proof. I think the responsibility for much of this is due to a shift in gaming culture, where games have become not a playground for nerds, but a battleground for political activism.

Do you think eventually some controlling interest that has societies' best interests in mind, a theoretical government entity of some sort, should eventually step in and curtail the amount of 'astroturfing' that major games companies can engage in? If only to make games forums look more like hobbyists' with shared interests and less of a mental health ward for insane ad-bots that warp and distort actual user feedback and communication about a game, with totally contrived, nonsensical ad-bot spam?

Is there much of a difference between a company making tons of false reviews to make a faulty product look good on major retail sites, and huge corporations using dozens, if not hundreds of fake, employee generated accounts and feedback on multiple game's forums on the internet, manipulating discourse and the perception of new users?

Imo, both are clearly unethical and illegitimate efforts to basically invalidate public opinion about a product, and supplant it with corporate sponsored advertisement. Why don't governments act to impose regulation on videogames in the same way that they would for other consumer industries?

 

[ipman]

Which gaming forums are you referring to?

I find the Steam forums to be okay, just gamers helping each other, sharing their enthusiasm and bugs that need fixing.
There are some 'political activists' who pop up but most people see them for what they are and call them out.
(often pointing out that they don't even own the game).

I'm just interested, where are these forums inhabited by 'paid posters' and 'fake reviewers', I haven't noticed that on here or Tom's Hardware, but I don't use others.

Also marketing is a long established method of increasing sales and monopolies, and in the past there were some dubious practices(check out John D. Rockefeller) so I suppose new marketing techniques are always developing and consumers adapt and become savvy to their tricks.

 

[ARTofTOR]

Steam, specifically. I mean, that's what government would have the ability to do, is audit Valve's communications to discover exactly how much collusion between them and major publishers is occurring, and what specific marching orders are being given to various employees.

I find the exact opposite, of an 'ok' state in the forums, that certain game's forums are basically entirely controlled by actual company employees who are unwavering in their support to such extreme degree they are parodies of real humans, while they post continuously, every single day, what are primarily entirely nonsense posts. It most closely resembles the behavior and mentality of the mentally ill.

For instance, it's super easy to make an alt account, ask any of the ad-bot spam people, but the greater question is, who would want to even associate with them at all, for any communication?

One of the most popular games going now, is one in which the playerbase has been programmed to think that spamming propaganda ad quotes from the game is the most clever thing a poster can do. It could be stated the industry is being directed intentionally to steer players into this kind of cuckoo nest (for lack of a better term) of mindlessness.

Stuff like that has never existed before, if you think about it. The occasional humorous Oblivion quote or whatever, when it was appropriate. The gaming landscape is clearly being changed drastically, and the government agencies that should have operative jurisdiction over their anti-consumer policies and practices are seemingly too embroiled with their own corruption to do anything about it. It shouldn't be the case where in this one segment of consumerism, which happens to feature a vast number of youth and underage people, companies are allowed what is tantamount to open warfare on their consumer base, plying them with psychological propaganda, silencing fair critique, and flooding public space with false narrative contrived by corporate agenda directly by their own employees.

We have just had a permanent steam policy change, based off one singular game. The game (published and developed by a massive corporation) attempted and succeeded to garner only positive reviews for a time-frame coinciding exactly with the launch window, by allowing players to pre-order the game, play it, and refund it during any time before the release of the game. This effectively removed every negative pre-release review. Now, the entire policy across the whole of Steam service is being changed off the back of that one game's nefarious strategy to make itself look more positive, at least initially. "Early Access" games available through promotional pre-order bonus will now be subject to the same two-hour return window as full release games. These companies are colluding to basically claim and take the stance that those people who bought, disliked the game, and refunded it according to the then existing Steam's refund policies, had done something wrong and should be denied the ability to leave a fair, if negative review, and also still owe the company that sold them the minimum viable product their money.

This is the kind of totally anti-consumer behavior in which major videogame companies appear, very obviously, to be colluding against consumer interest, contrary to what is permitted in other industries.

 

[ARTofTOR]

I should also mention it's not just anti-consumer, to have the largest corporations with the most money and influence singlehandedly changing policy or doing this sort of 'avant-garde' grassroots advertising, if that's how you wish to perceive it.

It's harmful to the rest of the industry. Smaller studios literally have zero say over what Valve and MS or WB execs decide in their secreted cloisters. A studio that would have wanted to offer a pre-order early access, confident their game would retain it's players, can no longer do so. A small studio cannot afford to have 20 employees on a given forum, constantly posting positivity in an armada to blanket out real consumer feedback.

If it's bad for both consumers and the industry itself, at what point is it too much? How uneven and unfair does landscape created by the actions of these largest corporate entities in the gaming sphere need to become before something's done?

I'd be better off copy/pasting this in an actual letter to the government, probably?

 

[Colif]

Not sure if we have succumbed to the madness here. We don't have enough active users for anyone to try to advertise anything... though we get plenty of people who aren't regular (I won't call the people here normal (just joking)) who do try to advertise but they don't last/stay long.

It is getting hard to know who to trust these days.

 

[ipman]

I suppose it depends on what you think Steam is and what it's allowed to do to promote games and basically make money.
I haven't really noticed what you are referring to and no offence but it sounds like you believe there's some big tech conspiracy to control the gaming industry which is probably true. Again marketing and creating monopolies is in the interests of all corporations and always has been. Self interest and profit are the major factors in any industry.

I'm not sure it's the governments in any countries place to police gaming platforms, gaming companies or tech companies unless they cross some legal guidlines.

And like I said most gamers and users of tech are pretty savvy to marketing techniques even if they are ever changing and becoming more sophisticated.

 

[ARTofTOR]

I don't work in games, or really have more than a passing interest in them anymore. Kinda getting old, myself. I'd just say it's sad to see, that when a government is corrupt and intentionally doing the wrong things and promoting the wrong ideas, that the abuses that corporations can get away with becomes extremely egregious. Particularly in the entertainment sector.

It's my opinion that a drastic decline in quality has occurred, the last game I bought personally was Tiny Tina's Twitty-Twister Adventure, and..., even knowing the characters and story were what they are, the basic gameplay loop of playing 5 minutes, listening to NPC's dialogue for 5 minutes was just atrociously anti-fun.

So, if indeed there is a conspiracy, to simply lower the bar of what's expected from the quality of a game down to where games that were once niche attain mass-appeal by default of there being no other pieces on the board, and it ends up in a situation where you have people just posting on the forums (the equivalent of) 'For Communism, For the Great Champion Marx and Genocide and Tyranny!' as some form of comedy, i guess that's a normal course of events?

At this point, it's interesting to me merely from a sociological aspect, to see how mass numbers of people can be easily controlled, manipulated by vested interests with large capital resource and no oversight interference. I think the rampant corruption, misleading, and maybe not technically illegal but certainly immoral activity taking place in videogames, is unprecedented in the consumer sector and has no comparison besides that of governments and military, the type of psyops and ruthless tactics they employ against opposition.

It's also strange to me, that players are so indebted to the form of entertainment, they'll permit such obvious abuse to themselves and continue to perpetuate their own mistreatment.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I dont really visit any Steam Forums, but here and the couple of other gaming forums I check dont have what you describe that Ive noticed. Some people here have said that the Steam Forum quality really varies by game, perhaps the ones youve been checking out are just bad examples, hard to say.

I strongly disagree that game quality has been decreasing though. Theres an argument that on average it has I could see, but thats only due to the fact there are way more games released than ever before by smaller studios and individual developers as its so easy to get a game on a store now compared to the pre digital days.

 

[ipman]

I don't work in games, or really have more than a passing interest in them anymore. Kinda getting old, myself. I'd just say it's sad to see, that when a government is corrupt and intentionally doing the wrong things and promoting the wrong ideas, that the abuses that corporations can get away with becomes extremely egregious. Particularly in the entertainment sector.

It's my opinion that a drastic decline in quality has occurred, the last game I bought personally was Tiny Tina's Twitty-Twister Adventure, and..., even knowing the characters and story were what they are, the basic gameplay loop of playing 5 minutes, listening to NPC's dialogue for 5 minutes was just atrociously anti-fun.

So, if indeed there is a conspiracy, to simply lower the bar of what's expected from the quality of a game down to where games that were once niche attain mass-appeal by default of there being no other pieces on the board, and it ends up in a situation where you have people just posting on the forums (the equivalent of) 'For Communism, For the Great Champion Marx and Genocide and Tyranny!' as some form of comedy, i guess that's a normal course of events?

At this point, it's interesting to me merely from a sociological aspect, to see how mass numbers of people can be easily controlled, manipulated by vested interests with large capital resource and no oversight interference. I think the rampant corruption, misleading, and maybe not technically illegal but certainly immoral activity taking place in videogames, is unprecedented in the consumer sector and has no comparison besides that of governments and military, the type of psyops and ruthless tactics they employ against opposition.

It's also strange to me, that players are so indebted to the form of entertainment, they'll permit such obvious abuse to themselves and continue to perpetuate their own mistreatment.

I was going to cheekily ask you if you worked for Ubisoft

If you are concerned from a political/sociological aspect about mass control and manipulation I wouldn't worry about the gaming industry, take a swipe at social media.

 

[DXCHASE]

Hey, we got Net Neutrality back today in the US, so the government did a very tiny thing right! lol



I literally put 0 extra thought into any gaming forum, esp. like the OP but thats because i rarely post on them. This PCG forum is the only one i use next to Gamefaqs but havent posted there in a decade.

The internet gives people a way to act a fool and be not like themselves and gaming forums are the perfect place. You cant expect a government to do anything about it other than just banning sites and apps, like the way Tik Tok is UNJUSTLY going.

 

[ZedClampet]

At least some of what OP is saying, including about Steam policies, is factually incorrect, and based upon spending a good bit of time on the Steam forums, I've yet to see any of the behavior reported by the OP and find it rather hard to believe. I assume the main game he is talking about is Helldivers 2, and I haven't been on that forum, but as much as people love that game, I would be shocked to go there and find much negative. Plus the comic quotes are fun.

If OP would like to give specific examples instead of generalities, I would love to investigate this, but I think there is a great deal of paranoia here.

One thing for the OP to consider is that a lot of us are sick and tired of toxic negativity, so if you go on a forum and write a long, obnoxious post and make a bunch of accusations, people are going to attack you, and those people are not employees of the publisher.

 

[ARTofTOR]

I strongly disagree that game quality has been decreasing though.

Really? I'd feel comfortable saying the only reason we aren't talking about 'the gaming crash of '24' already, right now, is because there is no physical landfill overflowing with copies of Redfall, Gollum, Suicide Squad, Forspoken, etc. that people can point to and say 'yep, gaming crashed'.

I was talking about Helldivers 2, a previously niche game that has attained mass-appeal because there are no other good new games right now, hasn't been any for awhile, and 'trains' it's players to use extremely bizarre communication. I have to hand it to that game, at least you can tell it's a 'real game' and not a mental health check in disguise, because the majority of threads on it's forum are concerning the game itself.

The other game I'm mentioning is Starfield, ofc. I didn't mention specific names because I find the trends to be generally true across all games without using specific examples. There isn't too much of a difference between what WB is doing with Suicide Squad and it's magical 80% positive reviews for a game with less than 100 players, Starfield with it's 2 out of 20 threads that are actually relevant to the game and it's magical journey of releasing to a near 90% approval rating and slowly but steadily dropping into the 50's. Both are games published by the largest companies in the business, and both are receiving 'special treatment' in terms of how they can use Steam policy, how they can change Steam policy, and how laissez-faire Valve becomes when it concerns oversight into the legitimacy and the ethicality of the actions of these players on the Steam storefront. It would be almost impossible to argue that nothing suspicious is happening on those fronts, that some kind of shenanigans is not taking place.

I'd point to how obvious the evidence is that companies are colluding to control narrative on gaming forums. On Starfield's Steam forums currently there are not one, but two threads going simultaneously on the front page, that are basically meet-up spots for Bethesda and Microsoft employees to recognize each other on their forums. To identify each other, 'team-up', and strategize against legitimate, actual players of the game and users of the forum. That is the real purpose of those 'Old Fart's Coffee House' threads, and it isn't cleverly disguised, but blatant, right-out-in-the-open, and in-your-face. To deny the truth of their purpose is to deny objective reality.

It's just my opinion ofc, but it seems to me Valve is allowing companies like MS and WB to engage in tactics aimed to undermine consumer feedback, supplant it with advertisement, and to take over public space meant for users with even more company sponsored advertising. That would not fly in any other consumer market and in no other market would consumers tolerate that kind of obviously unethical behavior. I just think it's a strange, and sad, circumstance.

 

[ARTofTOR]

I'll hit my own thread rather than disturbing another topic. Gamers, us, we on the 'just want to play some good games' side of things, have a tendency to refer to some entity like Bethesda as if they are some bumbling, incompetent buffoon of an individual rather than in terms of a sociopathic, soulless, single-purpose collective. It's incredibly blase, and does not match reality.

If you want to think that I'm just hatching conspiracies, ask yourselves, what user is going to start, open up, or go into a thread that's named something like 'Geriatric's Thread of Old Fart Smells and Adult Diapers filled with...Coffee Beans'?

Real cool place to hang out, to see and be seen, I'll see you guys there right after I finish this Mai Tai?

It's completely out of the realm of possibility that Bethesda has corporate espionage spies infiltrated into some mod project like London, keeping tabs and updated on progress, to know exactly when to coincide a mod-destroying patch with the planned release of the project? That would be pretty easy for them to do, right?

I have dealt extensively with people who are primarily driven by an inferiority complex, and the fear of being overshadowed, so it is easy for me to be able to recognize and identify it's signs and symptoms. A big part of the motivation primarily driving huge legacy studios like Bethesda is the worry of being obviously outperformed by those of much, much lesser means.

The No Man's Sky vs Starfield or F:NV vs F3+F4 comparisons would be that much more devastating between the official Fallout games and a free modding project.

 

[Colif]

Really? I'd feel comfortable saying the only reason we aren't talking about 'the gaming crash of '24' already, right now, is because there is no physical landfill overflowing with copies of Redfall, Gollum, Suicide Squad, Forspoken, etc. that people can point to and say 'yep, gaming crashed'.

probably isn't enough dirt in galaxy to cover that pile so its just as well really.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Really? I'd feel comfortable saying the only reason we aren't talking about 'the gaming crash of '24' already, right now, is because there is no physical landfill overflowing with copies of Redfall, Gollum, Suicide Squad, Forspoken, etc. that people can point to and say 'yep, gaming crashed'.

Talking about games a whole, really.

Sure you can mention a load of games that didnt come out well from some of the biggest developers, but what about all the ones that did from others? What about indie/smaller budget games that have been fantastic.

You could say that the average quality has dropped, like I said, just by virtue of the fact there are 10's of thousands of games coming out now and there's not a lot of quality control on Steam at least. But reviews, forums and other media lets us filter out a lot of the dross to find the stuff that we're more likely to enjoy so we dont have to waste time there if we dont want to. Theres more games than ever I want to try, to the point I wont ever have time to get to it all, even if I was to quit my job and game full time.

As for the possibility of marketing departments infiltrating Steam forums, I wouldnt put it past them to try. But at the end of the day of the product is not that good in a competitive market all the shenaningans in the world wont help with the variety of different ways we have now of finding out about games. .

 

[DXCHASE]

Bad games, bad gaming marketing tactics/releases and trying to control "narratives" around their products has been around forever. Its really up to you on liking a game even if the "narrative" is that its "trash". If you like it, its good gaming.

None of this stuff is really new and its not going to change. Everything has bad and good and everyone at the top of companies are corrupt and only in it for the money (like every other industry) , its a story as old as time just adjusted with modern ways and means.

 

[Colif]

stop making sense

 

[ARTofTOR]

Games used to be more 'complete'. In lieu of 2024 graphics, you had games that were designed as more of a tour-de-force of a total picture fully realized exactly as intended.

Everything made these days is so ham-fisted. I kinda jumped off the bandwagon with Bioshock: Infinite. Whatever other people saw to give that game really positive reviews, I did not see.

I think music is a huge part of games that goes under-the-radar a lot. Idk, it's a topic that splits into so many tangents, but I used to love games like Oblivion, New Vegas. I liked New Vegas so much I moved there, and listen to the playlist (which I've added a few more 'gunslinger ballads' to) almost daily. Yes, actually being here does make me appreciate the music more.

Other than graphics though, I don't think games today can hold a candle to games circa 1999-2009. I just don't buy, to play, new games anymore. I was really into VR for a bit, and think that's where the market 'should' have gone. If huge investment firms directing the industry had decided to do that, also in VR games, there might not have been the kind of market implosion that's happening.

In my secret of hearts, I think an avid, passionate player of VR games could easily design a game idea more groundbreaking than all Microsoft's horses and men, put together.

 

[ARTofTOR]

I was going to create a thread titled 'VR is for nerds', which if I remember, is an exact quote from a MS Exec.

To which the obvious reply would be, "yes, so are Videogames".

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Its 2024 May, Obsidians new game releases: Fallout: New Vegas, in all the glory of the Fallout 3 engine with VATS and its exciting combat. The graphics are Starfield quality but the mechanics, shooting, inventory, everything else is the same as the 2010 version.

Honestly, how well is it received? Metacritic of what? Are Fallout fans impressed?

 

[Zloth]

Everything made these days is so ham-fisted. I kinda jumped off the bandwagon with Bioshock: Infinite. Whatever other people saw to give that game really positive reviews, I did not see.

I think music is a huge part of games that goes under-the-radar a lot.

(Zloth nearly swallows his tongue)

You talk about not seeing anything that great about Bioshock: Infinite. Then, in the very next virtual breath, bring up how music is underappreciated!?

 

[ARTofTOR]

'Saddle the Pony' Just doesn't do it for me the same way 'Hong Kong Streets' does.

 

[ARTofTOR]

*deep breath*

Dual-wielding in 2D games is mostly a gimmick, just more DPS. In Skyrim it compromised the control scheme to be worse than Oblivion's. Dual-wielding in VR is legit. In Payday2 being able to lock down two different directions just by turning your head, or in Dead Effect 2, being able to wield a sword right-handed and pistol left-handed, swash buckle style, is not replicable on a flat-screen.

Dead Effect 2 is a cell-phone port. Yet has the best mix of dual firearm/melee combat in VR. Literally, the thing that makes VR great and unique is on the cutting room floor, discarded like waste.

So on the back of all these great and successful pirate-themed games *cough*, it would be simple really to take pre-existing assets from Oblivion and Skyrim, build an island-themed bestiary of pirates, jungle cats, goblins, and make a VR Pirates of the Caribbean where you piloted a small vessel around to different islands, exploring for better equipment, lost civilization, and buried treasure, in the hopes to summon the ghostship of Blackbeard and do battle against the damned legions, or join them, or whatever. Swashbuckling included.

Could have a 2D version, ofc Beth has already shown they could do that if they wanted (but don't), but the game would center around the gameplay and the ability to use dual-wielding, mix and combine firearms, melee weapons, and magic. Enemy AI could be far more aggressive and competent, because aiming and firing in VR is almost like a hack, a god-mode cheat, compared to what's possible in 2D. A jungle pirate VR swash buckling game would be so...impossible, I know.

*exhales*

 

[Colif]

Its 2024 May, Obsidians new game releases: Fallout: New Vegas, in all the glory of the Fallout 3 engine with VATS and its exciting combat. The graphics are Starfield quality but the mechanics, shooting, inventory, everything else is the same as the 2010 version.

Honestly, how well is it received? Metacritic of what? Are Fallout fans impressed?

I assume this doesn't exist and its just a question, as I would buy that... if it hadn't already played it... it is the only Failboat game I like.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I assume this doesn't exist and its just a question, as I would buy that... if it hadn't already played it... it is the only Failboat game I like.

New Vegas is the best loved of the Fallout games for sure, for the story and characters. But mechanically the Fallout 3 combat was bad even at release compared to other games at the time.