Over the past several years, Tim Cain — the co-creator of the legendary Fallout franchise, and a veteran of Interplay Entertainment and Obsidian Entertainment — has run and maintained a fascinating YouTube channel on which he's shared an ocean of knowledge and stories about the gaming industry and his time in it.
Though Cain ultimately plans to end his channel soon — he says he's running out of topics to discuss, and also that he may end up focusing on making one more game before retiring — he's still making videos for the time being, with one of the most interesting new ones being "How The Internet Changed Game Design" that was published last week.
In it, he discusses how the internet and online feedback has altered how game developers go about making their titles, and also touches on how the rise of influencer and content creator personalities has affected how people form their opinions on games. Many folks, Cain asserts, let influencers tell them what they should think instead of thinking for themselves.
"Now we're in the 2020s and many gamers don't even look to influencers for reviews. They look to influencers to be told how to think about the games. So people don't form opinions from the online video; they're handed an opinion from the online channel they're watching," he said.
"What this means is, I've seen reviews go from, 'This game has less combat, and more puzzles, and dialogues for you to interact with than this other game,' to 'This game is stupid and slow-paced and made for casuals, I think you should skip it.' That's a huge difference in how games are presented," Cain continued. "But more people are going for that latter. They're like, 'I don't have time, there are too many games, just tell me whether I should buy it, tell me if it's for me.'"
Cain notes that while there's an upside to this — finding a content creator you trust that aligns with your preferences means they can be relied on to bring games you'll probably like to your attention — the glaring caveat is that people don't end up thinking for themselves, and instead just parrot someone else's views.
"So, they find someone that they just like, and then that person's opinion becomes their opinion," he added. "This has a positive side; it's easy to find someone who sides with your preferences, and therefore is a good guide for finding new games. ... But the negative to this is more and more people seem to be abdicating their own judgement to that of people they see online. It's like, 'I don't wanna think about it, you tell me what I should think about it.'"
As a journalist that's been entrenched in the games criticism space for nearly a full decade now, I wholly agree with what Cain is saying. Over the years, there's been a huge rise in feedback that's just been regurgitated from content creators instead of formed independently from players' own experiences.
On the flip side, many also decide they like a game simply because an influencer or an outlet they don't like doesn't, which I'd argue is equally unproductive.
In the end, it's a reminder that criticism is only valuable if it's being given by people forming their own views, even if it's natural to look to those we trust to see what they think. I hope that honest, well thought out feedback remains prevalent moving forward.
Do you agree with Tim Cain that video game criticism online has become more and more driven by what content creators think? I'm curious to hear your thoughts, so please share them in the comments and in our poll.
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