When Breath of the Wild came out the first things I did were turn off the map, master
dodging, crafting, and didn't do any climbing.
Those weren't arbitrary choices mind you, but rather a playstyle I'd grown accustomed
to after dozens of action games like Devil May Cry.
But 50 hours later climbing became my main method of travel, horses were obsolete, and
by pure chance I started parrying and while that vastly improved my experience, I noticed
friends ignoring parrying while powering through every sidequest they'd come across resulting
in diminished satisfaction from a self-described magical first-3 days and that itself raised
a huge problem, especially for content creation and reviews in a highly competitive environment
such as YouTube where content need to be pushed out the gate as quickly as possible for the
largest returns possible, making the environment not too unlike that of MGSV's review bootcamp
where outlets were pressured for time and essentially forced into a specific playstyle
that resulted in exceedingly high scores because truth be told, diving into the side-quests
and experiencing all the game had to offer paints a substantially lower-quality game
than the one received by rushing the main quest with the bare essentials.
But consumer time is unlimited and styles of play are far more diverse than the probable
50-100 outlets scoring games, so aggregate websites like GameRankings or Metacritic become
a key source of determining a product's true value, but people don't operate on
averages, they operate on biases and habits.
So while your average player may have all the time in the world, they'll never do
more than what they deem as being necessary before moving on to the next hot product or
starting over from scratch.
But put that with YouTube Content Creation and it's a different ball game.
Depending on what your shtick is you're bound to play accordingly, so creative playstyles
leave better impressions for more humorous content than those with more grounded experiences
for producing standardized reviews or just shooting for 100% completion.
That's not practical, heck it's not even relatable to the average consumer with a less
diverse portfolio, and outright insane for games as large as Zelda, but what it does
is highlight how poorly designed and stretched thin certain game design concepts are.
They're fine in small quantities where they don't have time to fester, but after the
5th Trial of Strength they stop becoming interesting ideas and start to degrade the experience.
And that's only worsened by item farming for upgrades, prevalent glitches, and a lack
of new concepts to keep things fresh and exciting.
It's optional, something a lot of people won't experience, but that doesn't change
the fact that what was experienced was poorly managed.
Truth be told, playing games for fun and review is tackling two different beasts entirely,
especially as the incentive for content creators to consume more of the media with longer playtimes
is ever growing.
So things quickly devolve into an ever repeating process of consuming homogenized games that
blur together to the point where even the smallest of slices of originality are going
to feel more pronounced than they would to average consumers, especially in previously
unfamiliar genres like Dragon Quest Builders, but in turn those heavy moments of repetition
are going to build a deeper trench to slog through, and the longer that experience lasts
the more apparent those issues become, making future returns less appealing and longer playtimes
less exciting.
In fact, it's almost a shame reviewers and creators are so pressured to push material
out the gate, the less time to review, the less time to think, analyze, or test extra
material less you miss the game's highest point of traffic.
You can only trust your gut as your brain remembers those more standout moments over
the more varied and often mundane in-between ones.
Even if it is unintentional, it's dishonest as hell.
But the most detrimental place for creators is a nigh-unavoidable headspace entered the
minute you start thinking of potential video ideas or review material.
There's a shift in mentality to where even the most minute details like load times, enemy
formations, and spawn rates become exceedingly apparent, meaning there's less time to think
about what you want to do with countless hours of free time and suddenly those silent moments
inbetween action meant to relax the player aren't working as intended, which makes
it difficult to let go and allow for yourself to become re-immersed in the experience.
You're no longer passively consuming content and instead you're analyzing anything you
come across and that's beyond damaging.
In fact, those first few days either pre or post release are probably the most damaging
to any experience Get a game at release and you've likely
already seen reviews and articles on websites affirming reasons to be excited or avoid the
end product, and those notions alone are enough to instill negative or positive biases in
the player that inadvertently shape their experience.
That's only made worse in higher-end products where players often rush through games to
their conclusion in efforts to avoid social media in fear of spoilers, and that severely
hampers playing habits by pushing players away from a stable mindset or alternatives,
good or bad and easily shows in produced materials.
Oddly enough it's pre-release review copies where you're free to experience true gaming
bliss, free from having to worry about spoilers on social media or personal ratings compared
to points brought up by other outlets or creators, but the special treatment and "hype" that
comes with free early access compounded with pressure to release content as early as possible
create the perfect storm for clouding judgement, no matter how capable the user is at managing
their emotional state.
For an early creator, there is no such thing as a safe environment for content creation.
Regardless of how practical or relatable it is to consumers or the public at large, it's
not until months later when the honeymoon phase has truly worn off and hype has died
that you can objectively judge a game's worth.
Even if it means investing dozens of hours deep into content that lessens the game's
overall value, regardless of if it's optional or not since it's part of the game, and
every bit worth examining in full, because like it or not, this is your job, your joy
be damned.
Hey, thanks for watching, I have more videos for viewing alongside subscription and notification
buttons too, give'em a gander and tell me what you think of the video and maybe check
out the Patreon too.
Much love!
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