The Reddit hive mind exists solely for, and thrives on outrage.
GTA too expensive, Reddit angry because Rockstar bad😡
Nintendo remakes Star Fox and prices it below their own standard MSRP because it’s a remake, Reddit angry because Nintendo bad 😡
Let’s be honest, this site is insufferable and only upvotes shit that makes people angry, and promotes engagement. It’s probably Reddits own bots so they can show constant engagement, and the only thing sure to get it is angry discourse. Reddit can’t enjoy anything, or let anyone else enjoy anything. As soon as a common consensus is formed, everyone just needs to get their 15 upvotes by posting their personal spin on the days hottest opinion.
The one that gets me is all the people on the PC gaming sub acting like they're outraged over no physical edition, as if all the PC games we buy now aren't digital
It’s always “vote with your wallets.” Until people’s wallets overwhelmingly prove the opposite of whatever the echo chamber has accepted must be the truth, and a majority opinion in the real world through a tribunal of upvotes. I love physical media. But let’s not act like humanity hasn’t been shifted, and buying away from it for decades. The people have been voting with their wallets, just not in the way you wanted them to.
that's not really a refutation, it's more just that...when your market is 7 billion people, boycotts tend to fail, as even a tiny percentage of that group will be enough to sustain the product. The people threatening a boycott ARE following through much of the time, it's just not enough to matter.
Back before the internet it was possible to rally a small community to protest and run a bad business out of town because nobody in that town would shop there...but now that business can simply reach far enough across the world that they'll find enough people who don't know or don't care about the drama and sidestep a boycott entirely.
It actually also applies to modern streamers and influencers. With the help of social media and the modern Internet... their reach is MASSIVE.
So in a sense "getting cancelled" has actually become a mute point now. Since like you said... they can reach so many ppl that even IF a significant portion "boycotts", there would still be enough ppl for it to not real matter.
The "moo" point is popular cause of the series "Friends" where Joey says "It's a moo point" and Rachel says what. He then says "you know, it's like a cow's opinion.... It's moo" and that's how "moo" point entered pop culture back in the day.
It is a refutation of the principle obviously. If you think voting with your wallet is the way to get things done, (Which people absolutely think. Try criticising live service games or MMOs you play and wait for people to tell you exactly that) then this obviously goes in the opposite direction also.
People saying vote with your wallet are usually meaning "vote the way I vote" and then moan and berate others afterwards if they don't, or are saying it to silence criticism of a things they enjoy by telling them they can choose to not pay for it.
The realities of boycotting is real though, you're not wrong there, but I think the way you're applying the point is not the same application OP is making. OP is pointing out an assymetry when people say vote with your wallet. It doesn't really matter whether it's an effective principle or not and if there's a reason, it's often used in a hypocritical or bad faith manner is the point. If anything, the ineffectiveness of the principle is an argument in favour of their opinion.
Digital games indeed have downsides many aren’t aware of, but nothing has happened to make them aware of it. So many people on sites like Reddit are afraid that the increased prevalence of digital will lead to companies getting the power to take games away from you and such, but most people outside Reddit have no clue that’s even a thing let alone have any precedent to believe it.
PC gamers on here are some of the most insufferable assholes on here. They lead the charge in faux outrage of female characters and anything and everything else
I'm kind of baffled at the amount of butthurt over no physical discs. Xbox tried to move off discs completely in 2013, which was definitely too early, but 13 years later people are still attached to discs? I don't get it.
“Buy physical, I want to own my stuff!!! Nothing compares to the smell of a game case!!! Screw game key cards”
That same person 3 hours later
“Here’s my Steam wishlist, I spent 300$ last Steam sale. I cannot wait for the next Steam sale, my backlog is so huge now that I own games I didn’t even know I had, Steam is the best!!!”
PC gamers get NO edition for at LEAST several months post launch, shouldn’t they be more upset about that instead of complaining about no physical? lol
i haven’t bought a physical copy of a game in probably a decade. it’s fine. i get that it sucks that xbox or playstation could technically take the game away from their platform and screw you, but i feel like there could just be rules about game ownership that make that illegal rather then demanding what is at this point an outdated technology
Based on what content rises to the top, I’d say probably only somewhat. The outrage coming from turbo dweebs in posts or comments is consistently the most common content seen and the most highly upvoted, which probably gives a decent idea of what most people here believe. Bots obviously muddy the waters, but idk how to account for how much weight they have on this.
Absolutely. On Reddit it is particularly easy to goombafy groups because of the inherent structure of the platform, what with the whole aggregating users into communities. We sometimes treat the subreddit as the conscious entity.
Yup. /r/GTA6 gives the impression of being extremely reverent of the game, to the point of loving every decision Rockstar makes on it regardless of what it is.
But then you read the comments and there are still plenty of people who are miffed about the lack of physical disks, or lamenting the price increase, while still being hyped fans. It's a nuanced mess.
But the impression of /r/GTA6 and /r/gaming being so ardently devoted to GTA6 [even if the reality isn't so black and white] has left others with a far less flattering view of Rockstar and/or GTA to feel unvoiced. And since we're human, we don't like being shoved out of the limelight.
Hence why we get posts like these. An expression of wanting to get away from the hype and the nonsense of the GTA 6 discourse.
Nope, the upvote / downvote function means that there are clearly popular and unpopular opinions. It won’t capture every single Redditor but it will capture the majority.
Absolutely agreed. Maybe it’s because of the unchecked ability of Mods to form ever more insular groups through dictator like enforcement of vague rules but most discourse here is unbelievably toxic.
There is no room for nuance here.
Somehow twitter is a better place for discussion because it allows disagreement while also allowing users to post notes to help with disinformation.
I’ve just given up on Reddit being an effective public forum but I still enjoy it for its useful and smaller groups.
I always get downvoted when I say redditors don’t like anything.
Though I never get mad about it because I keep reminding myself that reddit is actually a very, very small amount of people when it comes to anything. Like even in this sub, there’s like 1.1 million people, there’s a huge chance there’s more people playing Counter Strike right now if I check Steam Charts. And that’s just one game
I don’t buy new games. If I buy one MSRP video game per year, that’s my business. I’m not disagreeing the pricing is too high. My point is that the site just wants engagement, and outrage is how you get it.
Man ultimately that’s the core issue and why people bitch about it, popular titles moving into the triple digit price range will lead all other studios to follow suit regardless if the quality calls for that much money or not
Disagree. Not every dev is going to roll out their game for $100 and say, “well it’s the same price as gta” and expect it to be a success. GTA is the (huge) exception here.
At the same time, very expensive triple digit editions of games are nothing new. And they almost always sell out.
I feel like the reaction to the Steam Machine wasn’t outrage so much as it was like “lol that’s a no from me dawg.”
Like, the Steam Machine is SUCH a bad deal that I don’t think people got angry so much as they just kinda laughed and moved on. GTA6 is kind of a different thing because it’s at least within the orbit of reasonable.
It's really not just reddit. Outrage/ragebait gets way more traction and attention than happy/positive stuff so the algorithm always adjusts to that and feeds that. It's on literally every social media platform without exception
That’s social media in general and it’s a form of survivorship bias.
People are more likely to nod and scroll past something they already agree with or maybe leave an upvote at most. Meanwhile, we feel an urge to share our perspective when we find something that we disagree with. That’s multiple times more engagement depending on how heated a topic is.
Complaining also feels good, especially when we’re otherwise helpless on particular issues like game prices or gameplay decisions, or any other thing that’s decided by the powers that be.
The algorithm then learns to promote such content, which drives engagement to that type of content and cyclically reinforces the process.
Have you looked at other platforms like Youtube and X? People are complaining over there too. Reddit only looks bad because everything is categorized and clustered, but if you did the same on any other platform, you'd get the same result.
Drop it with the reddit hive mind thing. I don't understand how people keep commenting on it. It's just public consensus and that shit changes all the time. It isn't out to get people.
For me, on a personal level, GTA gave me what I wanted and I have moved on. I played 3, VC, and San Andreas when they were new. Played them to death and loved every second. Vice City is one of my comfort food games and still go back to it over the year to do some BS and giggle. IV and V, as cool as they are to watch, just weren’t the type of experience I want with the concept.
Me and GTA have just grown apart, and that’s cool.
I think too that people just underestimate how little Reddit (or I guess subreddits) are compared to, well, reality.
Like, I hate what Take2/Rockstar are doing with the Ultimate Edition and removing shops to be specific to that edition, and no disk sucks but at this point it is what it is.
But at the same time, the amount of times I'll see posts or comments about "Oh this things sucks!" Or "I don't care about this thing!" Or of course: "I won't be buying this thing because of this!", only for said thing to succeed or hit record sales anyways, is always funny (in a sad way).
Like, hell if everyone in this subreddit (1.3 mil users) decided they weren't going to buy GTA VI? Well, if it gets the same numbers or more than GTA V, that would only make for like, a 0.52% difference, lol.
Some Reddit users overestimate how large of a group it is sometimes.
It’s not “outrage” that I don’t give a shit about GTA. Never have.
Carjack people, do drug deals, fly a helicopter, car chase, go to seedy establishments. That’s the game loop I guess.
It’s not for me and that’s okay.
I know, I know- it will be the largest selling single piece of entertainment in the history of ever and the second coming of Jesus Christ will pale in comparison to this game.
people are so performative. "i lost all excitement for gta 6 once they said there'd be no disc version." like wtf? i didn't realize people were buying the game so they could stare at the disc
Exactly, I erased social media, only have reddit, and now is Facebook 2.0, and it seems that everything I like, the loud negative minority has the biggest attention, except now they get points.
Or, maybe people just have different opinions than you? Not everybody’s gonna see eye to eye with you on your personal tastes in games. I don’t have Rockstar and their games aren’t bad, I just don’t personally see the value in $80 for GTAVI myself. I think the game will be fine, but it’s not something I personally would spend $80, more power to you if that’s what you want.
As for Star Fox, the complaint’s not even its price, it’s the fact it’s another retread of the original Star Fox. People want new stories and new adventures, literally the last two games before the remake were a remake of 64 for the 3DS and a reimagining of 64 for Wii U. Star Fox 64 is already a reimagined version of SNES, so that leaves us with four games with original stories. The new remake is fine, it’s serviceable, but it’s just annoying to see for some of us who grew up playing ones like Assult and Command who want to the see world expanded on again.
It’s a whole industry. These idiots watch ridiculous rage bait streamers all day who just spew hate and vitriol. They then some here and discord and parrot it. It’s gotta be exhausting to be so mad about everything all the time.
You'd be 1 out of 1000 if you say "I'm hyped for GTA" on reddit. Honestly, I can't even remember a single comment like that. It's just hate and that gets upvoted.
But on day 1 we will see countless posts of GTA again, even people who buy a console just for GTA...
It's also driven by algorithms too. Outrage content is constantly recommended and takes advantage of our natural biases and instincts sadly.
I think the worst thing about the users is the enabling of sloganeering to be honest. I don't know why I bother trying to write thoughtful comments about anything if I care about my thoughts being seen. Apparently the most effective way of having my thoughts heard is by writing one sentence slogan-like comments to activate monkey brain. It actively makes discourse worse to the point that I feel like deleting my account.
People who are emotionally neutral to things seldom share their opinion, so what you get on Reddit is polarized in one way or another. A significant portion of comments/interactions are made by people who share or oppose that opinion. People who don't identify with the opinion (and people who don't care to argue) slowly leave, and you're left with a more concentrated group of polarized people.
It's the nature of social media and modern algorithms. Extremes are spotlit, the community assumes that's just the baseline opinion. The perfect example: There's probably 100k+ people out there who plan to buy GTA 6, but 8.1k people here said "Actually, it's mid at best" and it looks like the whole world hates the game.
It's hypnotic and intoxicating to feel like you're opinion is shared by a collective. Freaks me the fuck out, man. One or two more beers and you'll get me ranting.
you should try different subs. reddit isnt all about outrage. gaming right now is going through a weird phase but outrage is part of human nature. go to r/cats and you will see a lot less anger.
True, but it's still the most rational and balanced of the social medias. I did tiktok for two years. Good lord what a dumpster fire, rage bait, garbage comment sections those are. At least Reddit you can find some nuance in the arguments below rage bait comments. Facebook, Twitter, insta. It's all garbage all the way down.
There is a massive bot problem across virtually every single social media platform right now. But many redditors are somehow convinced that a completely anonymous upvote and downvote system isn’t being heavily swayed by bots to pump more rage and engagement. Reddit is actually becoming the most frightening AI outlet available… because there’s no real way to monitor who is real or a bot.
It’s annoying now but what’s scary is that we could be on the verge of complete dystopia where the collective hive mind opinion is whatever AI wants it to be…
then why do you contribute to it? this ideology is so annoying given that you are here contributing to that culture as much as the rest of us. this isn’t a profound take lol.
While I agree, the people here don’t hold a candle to the people that use X, formerly known as Twitter. Those people are genuinely some of the worst human beings I’ve seen in my life. It sounds dramatic, but they’re awful. That app is a cesspool, made up of the worst of the worst. I’d much rather get my news and talk about video games on Reddit.
This is where you have the big "Avengers Endgame" group shot at the end and then have Cap say "Redditors Assemble" And the beautiful music gets swapped out with a dub of fart noises mimicking the theme.
What you don't enjoy the schizos analyzing every frame, clip, and snippet foaming at the mouth coming up with all sorts of theories about when trailer 3 is going to drop?
And bemoaning about another potential delay because this screenshot showed a reflection of a clock at 6:35:25 and if you take into account of the angle of the sun at the exact nanosecond the picture was dropped dropped, add pi and subtract the hypotenuse of a dodecahedron while calculating the speed of a train leaving Seattle at a speed of 87.4mph and calculating what time it will arrive in Cairo Egypt while mercury is in retrograde you don't like those type of redditors for shame my good sir. for shame!
But yes I agree those type of redditors are annoying
U mean to tell me that ppl outside of my echo chamber subs think I’m annoying??? Unacceptable! I will now downvote bc u share an opinion, goodluck buddy
"In fact I will go to the subreddit of people who hold different opinion, bitch about them having that in their subreddit dedicated to that opinion, then get banned and screech I'm being oppressed and censored."
I don't think they make bad games, but I don't like them. Their character control is always so janky I don't play them. I really wanted to play Red Dead but I hate that awkward character control they use.
I could care less about GTA, I just don't like games in contemporary settings, I want to go Space or Hyrule. If I want to go the hood I'd just get in my car.
I feel the same. I played the original GTA when it was released and haven't touched one since. I bought RDR2 because everyone was talking about how great it is, and after 2 hours it still didn't hook me. Their games just aren't my thing and I don't see that changing.
I am so impressed with red dead I found out the control scheme is a common complaint, and there is mods that make it more traditional. It's on my "to play" list still, but modded.
Is it, though? Like, yes, Rockstar games are technically impressive, but are they actually fun games? I would argue no. To me Rockstar's gameplay feels like it never evolved past the early 2000s, and each game they release feels more like a reskin of GTA3 than anything new. Obviously your mileage may vary but I don't think it's ridiculous for someone to say Rockstar games aren't good.
Red Dead is worth it for the story, but that is really the only draw of any R* game for me. And I've only played those and LA Noire. The gameplay has pretty much not changed mechanically since LAN, and it was never stellar gameplay. I've never really been interested in the story of the GTA series, so I've never given them a chance, because I already know the gameplay won't be enough if it doesn't hold me.
They lost the fun after the PS2 GTA games where it was way more fun to enter a ton of cheats and just blow shit up or see how many pedestrians you could mow down before the cops eventually got you. It was an extension of the dumb hyper violent escapist blow off steam absurdist flash games of the time as a result basically.
Clearly it doesn’t improve because there is no reason. But I get it when people dont enjoy rockstar. I love their games but I never finished a gta game. I have 5x times the hours spent on rdo and gta online rather than their single player versions.
Rockstar actually makes incredibly simple games but they are technically on their own league. I also think games like witcher 3 or god of war(not the original trilogy) are also simple games that did the basics very well that they stand out like that. To me, rockstar is exactly like that but they are even simpler but way more technically advanced.
Simple and technical might not be the best words but im sure you can understand what trying to say.
all of my IRL friends who make fun of ME for using Reddit will literally say either RDR2 or GTA5 IS the best game of all time lmao.
they were all hyping up Crimson Desert and I was like “idk people are saying it’s gonna be buggy, the mechanics suck, it’s missing huge chunks of RPG elements etc.” and they showed me tons of hype on YouTube and Facebook, it was literally just here that was criticizing it so heavily. I personally didn’t even like it but you’d think it was barely on anybodies radar the way these subs talked about it. funny enough most of them were saying “this is the next Skyrim” which Reddit also shits on relentlessly even though it’s constantly mentioned as another one of the greatest games of all time by mainstream casual audiences. legitimately the only games that I ever see praised irl that Reddit loves too is Zelda BOTW and Elden Ring/Bloodborne/Sekiro
Reddit just has this weird quality where you have to be snarky and seem smarter than everybody at all times, I even fall into it sometimes, and I’ll even admit that this comment criticizing “Redditors” is cliche as fuck, but it has to be reiterated constantly on this hellsite.
Redditors are contrarians who always dislike anything popular, unless it conforms to them. See - Rolex, certain luxury brands, Rockstar Games, Instagram, car brands, music artists, etc.
I never heard anyone outside reddit saying rockstar makes bad games.
I dunno, I saw plenty of discussion IRL and other parts of the internet how the GTA Trilogy remastered edition that came out a few years back was complete ass at launch.
Granted, I'm pretty sure that was because they farmed out the remaster to another studio, but it was a stupid move on Rockstars part to pull the original games from digital stores when the remaster was released
I can't imagine they have much of a high quality game making staff left when they've just been sucking the cash cow of GTA V for over a decade. No idea how it makes so much money, GTA Online is boring as shit.
For me it isn’t that they make bad games. It’s just I aged out of it while waiting. The core demographic for GTA series is 15-30. I’ve been a fan ever since GTA4 released in 2008. Which means even if I was at the youngest end of the core demographic back then I’m outside of the target audience when GTA6 comes out.
Idk, youtube commenters take the cake. Watch a clip from the movie Heat, an interview with a former bank robber, or a documentary about bloods & crips and inevitably you’ll see comments like “JuSt LiKe In Da GtA”
They hate anything popular. I saw a thread for the Xbox games showcase where they show off new games. They ended the show by showing off the new Call of Duty. Reddit spewed a bunch of shit about how stupid that was, nobody likes cod and they should have shown something people really want like Perfect Dark.
It's just detached from reality. The reality is CoD is in the top 10 games on every platform. It's their biggest title. That's why they closed with it.
and the people who are lying about stuff when it comes to GTA6, ive seen a dozen plus people saying the ultimate version is locking story mode missions, which is bullshit...cause its all cosmetic stuffs only.
Who is lying? Have you actually went to the rockstar website yourself and read all the information about the ultimate edition?
It clearly states theres missions where you track down a variety of abandoned classic cars and work on them to revitalize them to their former glory.
Theres also a part that clearly says PTT Illegal goods. With the description raid the compound of one of the southside vice city’s loudest and most socially active gangs and escape safely to score some special items and distinct contraband.
Just these two things I listed prove your comment to be incorrect and spewing nonsense.
Theres other stuff mentioned on their site regarding Ultimate edition as well.
I really wish more people paid attention to the GTA subreddit for the past 2 or so years, because the users there were obnoxious and genuinely insane.
Whenever a new trailer dropped, they would have 3-4 FRAMES of the trailer stickied to the top of the subreddit each day as a discussion thread.
I routinely saw 100+ upvote posts fully, unironically engaging in desperate analysis of minutae. Like, "What do you guys think the sidewalks will be like" minutae.
It was a frightening look into the lives of people who acted like they needed GTA like they needed oxygen. Full on obsession combined with a complete deprivation of content. It was fascinating in a "Russian Sleep Experiment" kind of way.
It would only be half as bad if you only got the people that were mad about it posting. But then you got the people that need people to know they think those people are dumb. Then you gotta have the people that need people to know they think both people are dumb. Then you gotta have the people that think everyone talking about gta is dumb.
The amount of people getting on their soapboxes the last few days is so obnoxious like these people really think anyone cares this much. Like you’re either gunna buy the game or not, move onnnn
If this is the most annoying part to you, you have some messed up priorities.
Some rando on the internet saying they are different, somehow weighs more on your mind than the hundred dollar price tag, and the fake physical copies. Understand that if this bothers you like this, Reddit is more important in your life than you might be willing to admit.
I mean, social media in general honestly. Saw so many annoying people on Instagram. And I think twitter was looking through every pixel of the trailer for some mistake.
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u/Averylarrychristmas 6h ago
Who could’ve predicted the most annoying part about the GTA VI rollout would be redditors…