this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2026
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Slop.

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They really think the industry is in the shitter and that studios are being closed and developers being laid off left and right because Gamers are boycotting video games that have too many female/gay/black characters or not enough booba and because video game studios don't employ enough white dudes. I know they're terminally stupid and wilfully ignorant but the way Microsoft's shitty hiring practices have affected Halo are well documented and they have nothing to do with developers having blue hair or pronouns on their bio

THEY WILL FIND OUT THE HARD WAY frothingfash

lmao

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[–] Damarcusart@hexbear.net 4 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I don't understand why they're always so angry about it. They think they've "solved" the problem and therefore anyone not listening to them is going to fail. But they get really, really mad whenever people don't listen, rather than the smug lib "told you so" sort of attitude I would expect.

I mean, it's probably because their predictions about "go woke, go broke" all rely on complete lies and deception, and on some level they probably understand their claims have no basis in reality, and that's why they're so mad, but it's hard to tell if they are actually aware of that, or they just don't know how to deal with the cognitive dissonance and that's why they get so mad.

[–] doublepepperoni@hexbear.net 4 points 8 hours ago

They're like angry conservative facebook boomers, they just want people to listen to their rants and take them seriously, except in this case it's not even their estranged kids and grandkids but, uhh... some vague randos on the Internet

[–] InexplicableLunchFiend@hexbear.net 8 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

Halo died when 343 took it over. Not because it got woke, just because it tried to become a Call of Duty clone. The last good Halo game, Reach, came out in 2010. The series has been defunct now for coming up on two decades - way before there was "woke" and "SJWs" and gamergate shit.

[–] doublepepperoni@hexbear.net 6 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

And some Halo fans didn't even like how Reach played

[–] InexplicableLunchFiend@hexbear.net 1 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

Reach was certainly trending in a bad direction (lower shields, sprinting) but it hadn't hit terminal COD yet. It was made by Bungie though so it still had that polish and smooth gameplay. The series certainly peaked at 3

[–] doublepepperoni@hexbear.net 3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

The multiplayer and gameplay sandbox, definitely. Halo 3's story felt pretty rushed and unambitious compared to 2 (because it's just the intended back half of 2 extended into a full game)

[–] InexplicableLunchFiend@hexbear.net 5 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

the sandbox/editor/custom map maker all in-game, the theater for watching and clipping replays, the online infrastructure for hosting and sharing clips and showing off your profile/rank, it was a total package that no other game has pulled off before or since

What other game could you make a custom zombie maps in game, make a sweet play with online in your custom game lobby, go and clip it in theater with whatever angles you wanted and then upload it to your profile to share at school with other kids on a browser? Real shit, it was so cool and it all worked flawlessly.

[–] doublepepperoni@hexbear.net 4 points 10 hours ago

It pisses me off to no end that they gutted the theater mode's functionalities in MCC. No saving clips or even entire films, it's just a temporary list of the last 10 games you played. How could you fuck this up so badly???

I still have clips of matches from almost 20 years ago on my 360's hard drive. Apparently when MCC originally released on the Xbone they justified it by saying saving Theater clips was redundant because you could just record and share videos with the Xbone directly which is utter horseshit

Bigass lossy video file versus tiny ingame demo file that captures the entire state of the game world with every object and player that you can view from any angle, wow! It's like I'm living in the future

[–] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 0 points 7 hours ago (1 children)
[–] doublepepperoni@hexbear.net 1 points 7 hours ago
[–] Adkml@hexbear.net 18 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

The most frustrating aspect of interacting with American hogs is their ability to accurately recognize a problem but somehow come to the exact opposite of a usable solution.

Xbox and Playstation are dying because they've raised the prices on a decade old genertion of consoles whereas previous generations got cheaper as time went on to expand the player base.

Gaming companies are now being explicit about the fact you don't actually own the game and they can shut it down whenever they want.

Studios grind developers into the dust then fire them the day after a game launches, even if it's wildly successful.

You have to pay upwards of $100 to get a game that doesn't intentionally have base aspects pulled out of it so the standard eddition of games are noticeably lacking.

Obviously all of this has nothing to do with capitalism and the only thing wrong with these studios is they included a female character that isn't wearing a shoestring bikini in this gritty post apocalyptic setting.

[–] segfault11@hexbear.net 9 points 13 hours ago (3 children)

it's weird seeing this because back in the 10s the consensus was that halo faded away because they kept reheating the same shit over and over. even as early as halo 4 you could see it, it just the same as halo reach but with a few "new" guns, reach itself being the same as halo 3 but with special abilities ("equipment"). i played a bit of infinite multiplayer way back when it came out and tbh it just felt like reach but like 10% faster.

[–] Damarcusart@hexbear.net 3 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

It is very strange seeing these people nostalgic for muddy brown FPS slop and demanding all games be exactly the same, when that was probably the worst the gaming industry has ever been.

[–] doublepepperoni@hexbear.net 4 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

Halo bucked the trend by not being brown and gritty, it was incredibly colourful and kinda goofy and lighthearted at least until Reach which tried to be a more serious game about serious military people

[–] Damarcusart@hexbear.net 4 points 8 hours ago

Early Halo started before that trend though, the first few were bright and colourful, but were radically different from your Dooms and your Quakes which were the cornerstone of the FPS genre at the time. As the brown muddy slop FPS market got started afterwards, Halo also jumped onto that trend, and become generic brown muddy military slop, yeah, around Reach like you said.

[–] InexplicableLunchFiend@hexbear.net 3 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

Nawh it's because they abandoned core Halo game mechanics in favor of becoming a COD clone.

Slow, methodical gameplay became twitch-based and fast. They added sprinting into the game. They added weapon drops for kill streaks into the game, breaking all the careful map balance needed for the interesting asymetrical map types. They got rid of the Xbox Live queues that you let you pick specific game types (for a while you couldn't even queue up to just play Slayer).

343 just also didn't have the juice that Bungie did. The talent wasn't there. Halo was great because it felt great to play, it felt smooth and polished and exact in its movements, its balance, its weapons. 343 just couldn't keep up that level of polish, couldn't design interesting asymetrical maps, etc.

[–] doublepepperoni@hexbear.net 5 points 13 hours ago

The sentiment I more commonly saw among Halo fans was that Halo faded away because it lost its identity and started chasing trends, especially COD with its multiplayer.

COD's modern warfare era showed up and just completely stole Halo's place as THE console FPS, then Bungie moved on and left Microsoft aimlessly flailing around for almost 15 years now

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 10 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (3 children)

I have completely the opposite opinion, the problem is actually that they're not brave enough to do anything different. All they do is rehash the same formula over and over again.

The fascist human empire needs a civil war to spice things up. Then you can sell the franchise to two different audiences through stories told from two different angles, the fascist viewpoint and the liberatory viewpoint.

In addition to that, since the war with the covenant ended, various independent outposts should seek their own independence again. This was exactly why the spartan program itself was created, as a child-reared assassin program to assassinate leaders of rebellions. Those rebellions should restart as various factions tertiary to the main civil war.

You would pretty much end up with One Piece in space. Then you can do whatever you want, throw the flood into conflicts every now and then for funsies.

[–] doublepepperoni@hexbear.net 4 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

It's interesting that both of Microsoft's big scifi shooter franchises feature evil fashy governments that the main characters serve in that suppress dissent, mass murder civilians and do horrible human super soldier experiments and just never get overthrown or even reformed

[–] Owl@hexbear.net 6 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

As much as I'd like to pin the faltering of the AAA console space on a lack of creative vision, I think plenty of people are willing to slurp up the same old spectacle. Instead I think the problem is just AAA development cycles have gotten so long that a franchise can miss a console generation entirely.

[–] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 3 points 7 hours ago

I think plenty of people are willing to slurp up the same old spectacle

but would they also slurp up this other thing that advances the setting in a materialist way?

[–] orlando@hexbear.net 5 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

they need the covenant to attempt human extermination to make the unsc sympathetic and not have the games just be about crushing insurgents. the flood is the one component i don't understand. it could just be a borg like communist metaphor but i don't know. could it be immigrants? the poor. i know there's a huge emphasis on inherited genetic superiority in he franchise

[–] razgriz@hexbear.net 3 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

The Halo 3 legendary edition bonus disc bestiary labels the The Flood's political system as "Utopian Socialism" lol

[–] orlando@hexbear.net 1 points 3 hours ago

fuck that game

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 3 points 13 hours ago

The flood is the communist enemy if you ignore the fact that communists literally exist in universe agitating the independence of stations and that's what the Spartan program was created to fight. They're very borg-like, join the collective through force, tidal wave of red, employing literal human wave tactics.

[–] UmbraVivi@hexbear.net 15 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

I just wanna know why these guys believe Microsoft etc. are so insistent on their "woke agenda". If DEI is causing boycotts which lead to studios shutting down, why are the corporations doing it? Personal convictions?

[–] WokePalpatine@hexbear.net 9 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I saw a chud on a gamer forum I no longer use post the Robert Conquest quote about "The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies."

It's just tautology and circular logic all the way down.

[–] nohaybanda@hexbear.net 3 points 13 hours ago

Cool cool cool

Then step aside and let us build our woke dei communist government. We'll be sure to hand it over to a secret cabal of Epic Gamers (TM) or whatever. Promise. owl-wink

[–] doublepepperoni@hexbear.net 16 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

If you dig down into these beliefs far enough in the end it's just the same old "jews doing cultural bolshevism to destroy the white christian race"

[–] Infamousblt@hexbear.net 10 points 15 hours ago

The right thinks the deep state is run by queer commies, and the center thinks the deep state is run by the right. The left knows it's just capitalism all the way down

[–] radio_free_asgarthr@hexbear.net 12 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (3 children)

I want to see the pretzels they contort themselves in if I point out that the original Halo was extremely woke, by gamer standards. Cortana has purple,short hair and small (by gamer standards and later sequels) breasts, Sergeant Johnson is black, there are many unnamed marines of color, etc.

I know that they will just self-contradict on their standards of "woke", but still.

[–] WokePalpatine@hexbear.net 6 points 14 hours ago

"pre-gamergate grandfathered-in wokeness doesn't count."

[–] doublepepperoni@hexbear.net 10 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

WHY ARE THEY LETTING THE GIRL DRIVE THE SHIP??? WHY IS SHE TRYING TO BOSS THE CAPTAIN AND MASTER CHIEF AROUND???

Time-displaced chud in 2001

[–] Adkml@hexbear.net 9 points 15 hours ago

"Seasame street didn't change you just grew up to be a bad person" is a pretty succinct description of modern day American culture.

[–] sleeplessone@lemmy.ml 6 points 15 hours ago

To chuds, if it hasn't gone broke, it isn't woke. See how they react to Baldur's Gate 3, or the flip flopping they did around Space Marine 2.

[–] Sanctus@anarchist.nexus 14 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

This is beyond terminally stupid. There are more games than there ever have been ever. Thousands a day. More chud shit AND more woke shit. Its just more everything. What is happening to the bigguns is capitalism is finally collapsing on itself. Oroborous has finnaly swallowed its tail. These collapses will continue regardless of the content or quality of the games.

[–] regul@hexbear.net 9 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

It is interesting to see how AAA dev budgets have ballooned at the same time that indie titles have exploded. Games seem like they're easier to make than they've ever been, but the big studios are spending like they're harder.

[–] Owl@hexbear.net 8 points 13 hours ago

AAA studios used to compete on graphical fidelity, but once that got deep into diminishing returns, they started pivoting towards competing on budget and scope. That's why everything is an open world action-whatever with crafting and every mechanic anyone has ever heard of, because it allows enormous teams to put enormous amounts of shit into them and still have the game hold together, in a way that a linear first person with 1000 levels wouldn't.

[–] Sanctus@anarchist.nexus 7 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Its because it isn't easier. It is more accessible. All these game engines made it easier for everyone to get in on the action. But what it didnt do was make a good game easier to make. Look at Cassette Beasts. I would say that has just as much content, if not a little more, than a Gen 2 Pokemon game. It is considered Indie. It took more than one hundred people working together to make. That sounds like it lines up with early 2000s GameFreak. Its not easier, more people just have access to game engines. Same thing with LLMs, its not easier, its just more accessible and faster. This is a good AND a bad thing if that makes sense. More good stuff, but also more bad.

[–] BeanisBrain@hexbear.net 1 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

As someone who has tried making games in Assembly, it's definitely easier now. Cassette Beasts also has a lot higher quality art/animation/music/sounds than Gen 2 Pokemon, a lot less jank, and a lot more quality-of-life features.

[–] Sanctus@anarchist.nexus 3 points 8 hours ago

Cassette Beasts had 10x the people working on it than Pokemon Gold and Silver did. Pokémon gen 1 and 2 had so little people working on them that all of them are listed at the top of the wiki page.

[–] Snort_Owl@hexbear.net 12 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

Definitely nothing to do with the onslaught of union busting, offshoring, intentionally buying out and killing competition, ai generated slop, saturated market, ue5 games that barely run, skyrocketing hardware costs, massive layoffs, huge inflation and constant chasing of the infamous forever game at the cost of everyone and everything for a market that had no interest in moving away from sportsball, cod and fortnite.

I am like the one true gamer and i barely can finish one game every 3 months these days. When theres thousands being released and every game insists on being 20+ hours at £80 when the alternative is my existing catalogue of titles, emulators etc why the fuck would anyone buy new games.

[–] Frivolous_Beatnik@hexbear.net 5 points 14 hours ago

Can you imagine living in the world they have in their heads, where they think it was freeze-gamer boycotts over DEI that caused these companies to autocannibalize instead of the natural tendency of capital to strip the copper from the walls

[–] mrfugu@hexbear.net 6 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

why pay big money for live service slop when whole catalog of old games and emulators free??

[–] haxboar@hexbear.net 3 points 11 hours ago

Also: Indie gaming is booming. There are so many good indie games coming out, that it's impossible to keep up with. Most of them for great prices, too

[–] BuhbyeLittleGumshoe@hexbear.net 4 points 14 hours ago

Average YouTube commenter (doesn’t have object permanence and can’t tell it isn’t 2016 anymore):