basicallilexi

@soulcake: Found them all again recently while doing some tidying (There's no order to this):

BTW after writing all this and looking at the pic I took of my Wii games too, I know what the thing I'm going to be writing next week is, so thanks for the inspiration!

The Simpsons Hit and Run (Definitely a favorite, even before we got our memory card)

Sly 3: Honour: Among Thieves (One of the few games I could beat, eventually)

The Golden Compass

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Ty the Tasmanian Tiger

Mr. Bean (Piece of shit hardlocked 10 minutes in everytime I tried to play... Ok that may have been shovelware)

Athens 2004 (This was pretty close to shovelware)

CRASH MIND OVER MUTANT(I remember seeing probably Crash 1, 2 or 3 at a friends house, think it looked awesome an only getting this one because it was newer... So it had to be better)

Spider-Man 3 (age saw Spider-man 2 at a friends house and was certain the newer one would be better

Super Monkey Ball Deluxe (This was a gem that was probably too difficult for me to appreciate at that time)

Wallace and Gromit 'The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (Remember playing a lot of this but never finished it and highly doubt it holds up)

Kung Fu Panda (Went to see the movie with my god-mother, loved it, she got it for my birthday don't think I could get past the first few levels. She always had terrible luck buying me games I remember she bought me a Bionicle game that worked on her family's PS2 but not mine and got me a god awful Toy Story Wii game for the same reason as Kung Fu Panda)

Rugby Challenge 2006 (A friend of mine had EA's Rugby 08 and they had added off-loading and I thought it was the greatest thing ever, Rugby Challenge 2006 was the newest edition of a rugby game the GamesStop had after one of my birthdays and I was very impatient... I didn't live up to the hype and I went back to Rugby 05 soon after.

Shrek 2 (I remember so little about this game but preferring the Shrek party game I play like once a year for 3 years at a friends house on the OG Xbox)

Dog's Life(Master piece)

Disney .(middle of the screen dot, not a colon for some reason, was wrong with the people that made mid 200 game spines) Pixar Ratatouille (they forgot the 's in the Pixar's Ratatouille and I remember the game reflected that level of polish)

LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game (This shit had a Gonk Droid you could punch!)

Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (This shit had a Gonk Droid you could play as!)

LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures (I real into LEGO)

EA SPORTS Rugby 2005 (a god among video games)

LEGO Batman: The Video Game (This game got me into a very brief Batman phase and was succeful enough to get its own spinoff series... Vindicated)

Crash of the Titans (I never beat this and even though MIND OVER MUTANT soft locked me out of it, I think I played more of that because the letters were all caps and the box looked cooler)

Sonic Riders (The only Sonic game I owned on that console, which I'm very proud of. Things got worse when I bought the Wii and thought all his games would be as fast feeling as that cart racer that I'm sure holds up real well)

Worth noting a friend also learnt me and my brother Star Wars Battlefront II and we played the ever love shit out of it for like 6 months before giving it back. We didn't have a memory card at the time but my brother still got to the end of a Galactic Conquest and became a god to me that day.

@bobobones Thanks that's great to hear, looking forward to Okami now!

There have been several articles circling around proclaiming disappointment around the first trailer for the third mainline game in the Borderlands franchise. Most of this sentiment seems to stem from the trailer’s slower pace, similarity to the art style of Borderlands 2 (we haven’t seen any gameplay and its presumptuous to assume gameplay hasn’t changed when we haven’t seen any) and general less explosive tendencies than that of previous games’ marketing. While some have read this as the Borderlands franchise taking a step back or horizontal, I think this is a tremendous stride forward and shows Gearbox’s understanding of what makes their franchise popular.

There is a quiet confidence to the original Borderlands’ introduction video. The camera lazily swings around a battered caravan taking a moment to examine each one of these inherently cool characters, as ‘No Rest for the Wicked’ takes it’s time, playing in full. This ragtag grouping of mysterious outlaws with nothing but their swagger, some guns and an inevitable grisly fate awaiting them is an alluring premise.

However, the longer the Borderlands franchise has gone on the more and more uncomfortable its seemed with its own sales pitch. The original game often sold itself as a life-or-death battle for nothing but greed and guns, which escalated into a fight to save Pandora, splattered with dark humour throughout, like bandit blood on the wall of an outpost. However, as the DLCs for that first game came and went and the second game loomed, the franchise became more bipolar in its presentation. Taking two core elements, Borderlands’ idiosyncratic sincere plot and dark humour, and pulling them to their extremes. A story about outlaws surviving only to ‘oops’ their way into saving the wasteland became a race for endless loot and power escalating into a fight for the fate of the wider universe, punctuated by melodramatic deaths and character reveals. Dark humour that would often only appear fast enough for you to realise you’d missed it became every sidequest dedicating itself to a crude punchline. These changes were subtle but meaningful nonetheless.

As often as Borderlands 2’s writing is praised as being either affecting or funny it is rarely cited as cohesive, it is, very much so, a game of two tones. This has led to a few great singular moments; like Tiny Tina’s turn from a crazed maniac, to a comic relief character deflecting from their scars with butt jokes, to a scared little girl who just lost her idol during her Assault on Dragon Keep. However, overall this approach leaves the game with an oscillating, indecisive quality; are you fighting Handsome Jack tooth and nail or doing zany side quests which will sometimes even benefit his Hyperion corporation?

This can be most clearly seen in both the marketing and contents of the Pre-sequel. In the run up to launch, the trailers featured blaring dubstep and boisterous anthems to show off both character badass-ness and the epic-ness of the narrative’s events which were interspersed with dance breaks and meme references. This is fine on its own. However, when the story of the game itself tried to show the downfall of Jack, the emotional teardown of his beliefs and his betrayal at the hands of those who he trusted most, and while every line of dialogue is packed full of innuendo and the gameplay has a ‘buttstomp’ mechanic it is kind of hard to know what the game wants from you. An emotional investment or to laugh at its absurdity?

This juxtaposition for juxtaposition’s sake has never ruined the franchise, more often than not it has just meant that fans have had to be fanatical about each aspect of the franchise in isolation. It is hard to praise Borderlands’ writing as a whole because, while it can be quite funny and very emotional, it never feels like these operate in tandem quite as you would imagine they should. It is similarly hard to praise its gameplay, when the early game is balanced to make you feel powerful only in fits and spurts to create a sense of ‘fighting back’, while the late game is a never-ending loop of health-gating, ridiculously big numbers and preposterously broken joke weapons.

For this reason, it has been a surprising delight to watch the new trailer and slowly realise that Gearbox may have finally twigged their own greatest strength, and it goes all the way back to that intro for the first game. The characters.

The thing that seemed to be a sticking point for many with this trailer was the pacing. It is much less hyperactive than anything we’ve seen from a Borderlands game before; shots have time to focus and the eye has time to absorb what it is seeing for the majority of the trailer. Yes, while still absurd and over the top, each character shown off in the new trailer is given a renewed sense of importance (to the franchise) as the camera seems to respect them enough to show them the time of day.

This trailer is made up of establishing shots of characters and places, you are given time to recognise the characters you’ve been getting to know for at least two to three games at this point (including Tales from the Borderlands). They are each treated with a reverence and respect in this trailer rarely seen in this franchise before, bar one character, Claptrap. While we’ve become expectant and almost weary of Claptrap’s importance being pushed in every piece of marketing related to Borderlands, it is a nice break that in this trailer he is given only one shot (where he’s being treated like a literal piece of garbage). Claptrap only reappears at the end, when the trailer begins to transition into the more traditional thumping dubs of ‘classic’ Borderlands as a way to break up the quick-cut montage of guns which now feel earned rather than done out of a sense of obligation. We’ve met all the major players, been given a taste of the game’s tone and now it is time for some glory shots of gun porn and call backs to inside jokes from games before.

Old Borderlands trailers would almost instantly overwhelm you, with over-active colouring and a constant need to be exploding. Here, several of our main cast are in all black attire, which previously would have bled into the background or become indistinguishable from any goons on screen, whereas in this trailer gearbox seems to be confident enough to give you the time and breathing space to recognise each one despite their more reserved designs. They seem to have learned that characters are more than just their design and quips.

This game already feels much more self-assured in its tone, it has something to show you and its going to take its time to get there. This is a game that knows that its players superficially are here for the guns and the explosions, and so provides on that front, but also knows that its players actually stick around because of its uniquely lovable characters. This is all surmised in its title. Many YouTube videos both before and after the trailer’s release proclaimed the game; BORD3RLANDS. Gearbox on the other hand have opted to go with the name that this game should have always been christened with: BORDERLANDS 3. It sums up everything this trailer sought to prove. This game is willing to take its time, it’s not interrupting and falling over itself to remind you it’s the 3rd entry in the franchise, they already know you love, it is willing to let you wait, playing on its own terms. This is Borderlands 3. It is confident in what it is, and it has plenty to show you, but it won’t be rushed in doing so.

Literally the only game on the Metacritic list she liked the idea of(I started skimming through it with her when we were done), to the point MY MOM convinced me to finally buy it on Switch. This is hilarious, you have no idea! I actually thought about mentioning this but I still haven't played it yet, so I thought it would be unfair!

Sorry the formatting is a bit messed up, this is what happens when you have too many images.

These rankings are based off of Metacritics list of the best PS2 games of all time, so it cannot be argued with at all. It is 100% FACT BASED SCIENCE.

Also sorry this is coming out the day after Mother's Day, I had some formatting issues.

When it comes to people and their early gaming days their first experiences are usually shaped by their first console. Hearing tell of someone either being a SNES or Genesis kid would allow you to infer a surprising amount. SNES kids still probably have some reverence for kart racers, sharp platformers and anything with a Nintendo Logo while Genesis kids will proclaim that they love games with too much tude for your parents and that they are ok with having to talk about the ‘blue man’once a month with their therapist.

The 6th generation of consoles was no exception to this and it was an exciting time. Life was given to the cool and edgy Xbox by the Halo franchise, birthing an untold number of foul mouthed youths in the process. Nintendo’s Game Cube may have under-performed at retail because, like its defenders do nowadays, Nintendo was living in the shadow of their past glory. The Dreamcast, well if you were a Dreamcast kid you probably were not invited to many parties just like Sega nowadays. The PS2 on the other hand was a juggernaut in every regard.

While the first PlayStation was a surprise success the PS2 was a runaway hit for a few reasons. The PS2 would be able to play all your old PS1 games on it and while the average DVD player cost about 200 Bones, the PS2 launched with one built in for 300. Third parties flocked to PlayStation 2 weary of the unproven Xbox. With Nintendo’s over reliance on their first parties weaker system, lack of online functionalities, use of microdisks and lack of a DVD player and Sega’s habit of being a dying brand, it wasn’t a difficult choice which horse to back. It also didn’t hurt they got to market 6 months before the competition. The first wave of high quality 1st party games hit at the end of the PS1 era and rolling into the next gen Sony had fallen ass-backwards into the perfect sales storm by doing little more than the bare minimum of what was expected from them.

It can be easy to forget now the incredible ubiquity of the PS2 as a system. Remember how it felt like everyone and their mother owned one of the 101 million Wii units sold but that pales in comparison to the PS2’s 155 million units . Everyone and their mother owned a PS2 and half bought a spare just incase. This even extended to me. Well my family. According to my mother the idea of a machine for killing people all day in our house didn’t sit well with my father however apparently our DVD player was beginning to age. Like many others this seemed like the perfect replacement once she could convince my father… After a reminder was put out as to who wore the pants in our house my mother went to our local GameStop and asked for ‘1 videogame, please’… what I’m saying is at this time they were quite tech illiterate so in her defence it’s a miracle we got a PlayStation 2 and not a Dreambox PlayingSaturn as our day-after-Christmas surprise.

I remember loving the PlayStation 2, spending hours playing it whenever I could, being heartbroken when I was kicked off it either by my older brother or by a parent that decided I should see the sun at some point. However, what I remember less are the games I loved. We were never a family to be duped so its not like we bought piles of shovelware. Despite having 5 years on me my brother was never pulled into the gaming scene so instead of going away and researching what hot releases to buy, in gaming magazines he was pursuing other nerd pursuits, like being smart. By the time my brother started to wise up to the concept of ‘hey good videogames are fun’ we had received a Wii for Christmas of ‘09/10 and it wasn’t long after that that thanks to the greasy palms of family members and the Irish Catholic church (confirmation money) I saw a PS3 around , his PS3. While my sister recently lamented her existence as a middle child proclaiming to me on Facebook ‘…dude I have no idea [what games we owned]. I was only allowed play the PS2 about 2 years down the road’. So that left me the one that was only 5 when the PlayStation arrived to divine how we’d be spending much of our free time. The biggest problem with this is I had no concept of value of games yet, receiving €1 or €2 in pocket money a week because my brother was getting a fiver and I didn’t want to feel left out meant that saving for a €60 release wasn’t ever going to happen. So my early memories of being in games stores consisted mainly of looking at the preowned section, stunned by €20 price tags and making mental lists of what to ask my parents to consider getting me as a special treat. All this meant that a lot of our games were licenced products or annualised sports franchises a few years out of step, rarely did we ever buy or receive PS2 mainstays because their prices just wouldn’t fall enough to a comprehensible level for me. So, the only time we were ever realistically going to see some of the heavily advertised PS2 classics was when our parents were buying us games sans any of our direction.

So recently I sat down with my mother to discuss the titles she chose to buy us when we first received our first family console and why none of them were any of the 10 highest rated PS 2 games of all time…

1. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3

Released: 28th of October 2001

Metascore: 97

Why didn’t my mom buy it for us? And what is a Benihana?

‘This is Ireland we didn’t do skating’. We did, turns out Ireland was famous for it,s skating counter-culture especially at this time. This paired with the staggering statistic that Ireland had the second most PS2s per-head in the world at 47% of households (beaten only by Japan) and the fact that it rains all the damn time here resulted in Ireland having one of the strongest Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater adoption ratios for the console. Still haven’t found out what/who a Benihana is…… we must have grown up in a gentrified area.

2. Grand Theft Auto III

Release: 22nd of October 2001

Metascore: 97

Why doesn’t my mom like GTA?

GTA III launched with the usual GTA fanfare, by which I mean hordes of talking heads decrying it and its contents while vast swaths of the gaming populous brushed off these responses as the wider media ‘just not getting it’. However, considering this was the first time the franchise stepped into the third dimension, all of this was amplified. Misinformation and genuine debate became one in a hailstorm of news bulletins and tabloid spreads. What did this result in when it can time for my mom to purchase some light entertainment for her first-time gamers? In her words, ‘I’d heard about GTA and how it treated women’. She gave it a pass. This left me thinking about society’s wider neglect of real discussion around the actual content of these games and this franchise in particular. I tried playing devil’s advocate to quickly describe the satirical nature of the franchise, how over the top it could get, how you could kill anyone in the game and everyone is caricatured to a comical degree and I presented her with the oft used ‘self-parody’ argument. I tried to present it to her in the eyes of a 2005 gamer. Tired of answering questions about a murder simulator by those that had never tried a similar game and who held an open distain for much of the medium. Most of the gaming populous already ‘got the joke’ of the franchise and was just annoyed that it seemed like the wider media didn’t. I asked her, in light of all this, if she was only buying for my then 10yrs old brother would that have made a difference?

The she gave me a look which indicated that this was a mistake, the devil shouldn’t’ be given a platform sometimes. I have way too many of these to get through to risk our relationship over settling decade old debates for news hosts and talking heads , so I just accepted her first answer of ‘it was 18s! and you were 5!’. Fair Enough.

3. Resident Evil 4

Release: 25th October 2005

Metascore: 96

Why does my mom hate one of the most important games of all time?

Resi 4, the game that brought a franchise back from the dead, birthed a new genre and set industry standards that still hold to this day. Truly a seminal experience any and all gamers should enjoy, but I never have. I know that I would have had the chance to get my older brother to buy it later on the PS2. I also know I had the chance to buy it on the Wii, PS3 and PS4 and I didn’t and now I’m going to still not experience this classic when it comes to Switch… but I feel my mother should’ve taken some ownership over my gaming encyclopaedia so that I wouldn’t wind up with it in my backlog of shame like it is now. But apparently in her words ‘Resident. Evil. 5’, a response which left me confused and reminding her, ‘No, 4’. At which point she attempted to explain ‘No, no, a game called Resident Evil? For a 5 years old? No, not going to happen’. Apparently if it was called House of Spooks that wouldn’t have helped either… And she wasn’t a fan of how the 4 in the logo looks like a knife. Can’t wait to show her the giraffe having sex that is 6.

4. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

Release: 12th November 2001

Metascore: 96

The fast one Kojima pulled on all of us with this release is still unparalleled in its sheer brazinness and surprise: marketing the entire game as Snake’s follow up to his espionage thriller, only to pull the rug out from under those of us into Raiden’s shoes after the first mission. It was a controversial move among fans, which they still debate. My mom however opted to skip the title because ‘Its name sound like a game about metal work’ and ‘the man on the cover looked like the man from the vile film in the hotel…what’sis called? Psycho, chimed in my dad, to which my mother claims that was exactly who she was thinking of. What? How did the conversation get here?

5. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Release: 26th October 2004

Metacritic: 95

(two days after I first went through this list with my mother)

Me: Hey, mom have you ever heard of GTA San Andreas’ Hot Coffee?

Mom: No… Why’d you ask?

Me: No reason.

6. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Release: October 27th 2002

Metacritic: 95

I got through two other GTA’s and she’s still willing to talk to me. I’m not risking a third. From here on out we’re just going to disqualify franchise repeats, where the franchise name carries all the likely impressions.

7. REAL 5. Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec

Release: 9th July 2000

Metacritic: 95

Why didn’t you buy us a racing game with our new consoles?

… If I’m being honest it took about as long as it takes for a GT game to be developed to get a quote out of her on this one. But we did get to give out about, ‘The Lanky British Fella… the asshole’ for a while when I told her it was a racing game. No one tell her the Grand Tour has its own game now, cause she’ll be pissed.

8. Real 6. MADDEN NFL: 2003

Release: 12th August 2002

Metascore: 95

Why didn’t you ask the scraggly teen at the Irish GameStop for an American Football game?

Her first reason was ‘you weren’t that kind of sporty kid’, which felt like the wrong answer. She panicked and realised this too, she began claiming John Madden looked like a used car sales man, but that wasn’t going to fool me.

What were we talking about?

9. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4

Release: 23rd October 2002

Metascore: 94

What was her problem with the last great numbered Tony Hawk’s game?

She’d forgotten about the franchise since I asked her about 3. This led to me meditating on the irrelevant nature of the Tony Hawk name and brand. Not dissimilar to how Tony Hawk must often contemplate his existence while at the airport being misidentified by someone at passport control or when he’s thinking up his next funny and relevant tweet.

10. REAL 7. Devil May Cry

Released: 16th October 2001

Metascore: 94

This one she actually thought she’d heard of before, so I quickly showed her the cover art and asked her what she thought the plot might be?

‘Looking at it, its probably, a game where you have a gun, there’s plenty of blood and you shoot rooms full of men…. I like her hair though. This is beginning to sound quiet good’.. I had to let her down on most fronts, but she seemed pleasantly surprised she landed on the same page as most of the fanbase when it came to the hair thing comparing DMC Danté to a character from Buffy

11. MADDEN NFL 2002

Released: 12th August 2001

Metascore: 94

According to my very Irish mother ‘it’s just not Gaelic Football or hurling, now is it’, at which point I showed her some gameplay of Gaelic Games Football, released in November of ’05 and all we’ll leave it at is nothing seems to be quite like Gaelic Games Football, nothing I’ve ever seen before.

12. MADDEN NFL 2004

Release: 12th August 2004

Metascore: 94

So wha-?

At this point she’d grown so tired of American football, it had turned her into a prototypical English mother and she just whispered ‘American tripe’ under her breath.

13. Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence

Release: 14th March 2006

Metascore: 94

While I would have loved to have asked my mother about the idea of waiting a real life week for The End boss to die of old age, I realised that I’d have to eliminate Subsistence, it came after she bought us our PS2. I guess she doesn’t have to justify herself to Kojmia fanboys… for now. Although if they do come for her she’ll be well prepared to check those yuppies at the door, as she callously told me that this sounded like a spin off to ‘one of those farming games you mock all the time’. Brutal.

14. REAL 8. NCAA Football 2004

NCAA Football 2004

Release: 16th July 2003

Metascore: 94

So mom what was your problem with American Football games?

‘What is game reviewers’ problem, liking them all so much’.

Damn, getting savage.

15. REAL 9. God of War

Release: 22nd March 2005

Metascore: 94

Before I even got a word in after saying the title my mother proved her supernatural skills by laughing to herself and saying, ‘he’s probaby just murdering and killing because he’s grumpy’. If I have managed to prove one thing it is that videogames sure are predictable.

16. REAL 10. Virtua Fighter 4

Release 17th of March 2002

Metascore: 94

Does the man on the cover look like a cool dude?

‘His neck looks like a building under his body, its too big’ and while its true that some games from the early PS2 days haven’t held up amazingly well under the magnifying glass of time- ‘they all look like Bruce Lee want-to-bes with bad haircuts’ … Listen, there were only so many polygons to go around and its not like hair matters that much… to a character’s design….

Honourable mention: right after this she looked at what would have been next on the list and decided that Burnout 3: Takedown sounds like a much better fighting game name. Yes, yes it does.

So, what have we learnt? Firstly; it seems that our DVD player dying may have been the biggest factor in us getting this cutting-edge technology in our house and had less to do with the software on offer. Secondly; game names are either oblique to the point of literally spelling out what the game is or a just a jumble of nouns with the occasional adverb written to confuse mothers. Finally, if you want to get your game to review well, make an American Football game for a decade old console.

Oh, and Rugby 05 and the first Lego Star Wars game were alright, I guess. Thanks for getting me into video games Mom, you’re the best.

The gaming press conference as we knew it is dead, replaced by a prerecorded games showcases uploaded to YouTube. The gaming convention is dying too but what will happen to all the communal energy that went there? That filled forums with their new? That was there lifeblood?

A trailer would enrapture an audience, then a smattering of applause, hushed woops and jeers, the signal that something had just hit home. Quickly giving way to journalists being pulled back into the reality of their dimly lit screens, typing reports of what they just saw, to be read by thousands who didn’t have the bandwidth to watch live. Each section of the industry pulled closer together for another two hours of self-congratulation-indulgence, only to return to their dedicated forums with the information they’d mined from the corporate suits to share with their subsection of the gaming community.

Press conferences were oddly intimate, communal things.

The traditional press conference presentation is dying. Nintendo, despite our ‘better judgement’ proved it was ahead of the curve running Directs for years. We see Microsoft and Sony follow suit with their own videocasts. This paired with the diminishing importance of trade shows and conferences as a whole has led to a question.

Where do communities focus all their passion and excitement?

In the past journalists would meet, listen to the suits in person, corelate the important information, while we would gather round the open fires of the videos and interviews posted directly to their websites (YouTube didn’t necessarily even exist at this point). Then when we returned to our niche tents with likeminded individuals we’d layout all the info we’d gathered about what could become our new favourite game. For something that took place mainly online, it was an oddly tangible system, like solving a mystery. What is this game going to be?.

This form of media briefing consumption is dead. But the passion is still there. No longer are we breaking down everything said in a conversation between a person that gets games and someone that is making our game, interpreting, analysing and questioning every statement. Forums are no longer littered with disparate threads trying to link interviews together, instead its just one mega thread with a link to the developers official statement on twitter or their website at the top, the scavenger hunt is dead and gone.

What happens to all that energy when communities no longer need to work together to break down statements designed for the wider public, into direct messages that matter to them, the diehard players? Now that developers and publishers talk directly to their community it means that the debate happens on the games forums, not a 3^rd party website. In a streamer’s chat rather than asking a journalist for more details.

It makes sense for publishers to wish their games’ community to become more disconnected from the rest of the games industry; if there is no one recommending other games or questioning what they’re currently playing it allows for more control and retention of players. This can create a disconnect, between the dedicated community and the more casual player base or even those reporting on the games at trade shows. A split between those that play games to pass some free time and those that free up time to spend with a game.

There are two directions a community goes when it becomes more disconnected from the wider gaming zeitgeist and begins to be directed by community leaders or developers and publishers instead. One sees them become isolationist and put a high barrier of entry on those seeking to get involved, becoming gated; whether it be ‘are you knowledgeable enough about a game’s lore, mechanics etc’. or ‘are you skilled enough at the game itself’. The second has the community become more inclusive and accepting; seeking to introduce more and more people to this unique and special thing that has been crafted by those with a common love. Developers and publishers usually would prefer their community be welcoming for obvious business and practical reasons, however the fact that the job title Community Manager exists proves this is easier said than done.

Games which launch to a mixture of fanfare and dissent can often struggle, falling into the former category as every conversation about the game descends into a debate or argument.

Sometimes it’s up to the community leaders to save the game’s playerbase from becoming a black mark against the game itself. Destiny was one such game when it launched back in 2014.

Destiny released mired in controversy and was constantly proclaimed dead by many message boards and forums due to how many people bounced off its rinse-repeat gameplay. I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but as it turns out people really seem to like these looter-shooters. They get something ticking in our head. More than just an addictive gameplay loop, many of the most successful ‘life-style’ games (Destiny, The Division, Warframe etc.) put loot at their centre because it drives their community. Comparison, investigation, experimentation all to figure out the best loadouts, all done co-operatively by communities acting as one.

However, for much of its first year the Destiny community became more and more insular and isolated, treating outsiders with open arms less and less and becoming more hostile, protective of an experience they enjoyed but constantly found themselves having to defend or justify. Looking For Groups for raids began to require you to have a short CV to prove you’d stuck with the game when others moved on, that you truly played it as the ‘lifestyle game’ some toted it to be. The competitive PvP scene became an unbalanced elitist mess of K/D’s and ‘number of times to the Lighthouse’, while forums seemed to be in a constant state of flux, either bemoaning the state of the game or bemoaning the state of how the game was perceived by those that didn’t play it.

In this time a collective of streamers, fearing that such a negative fanbase wouldn’t be long burning itself out, began an initiative. Whether it was raiding a smaller streamer’s chats with encouragement as they went offline or organising huge charity streams for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital streamers, like Gothalion (to only name one for sheer expediency’s sake) they began to change the tone of the community.

While you would often read headlines of those who fell away from Destiny early on or found it impenetrable to return to, these streamers were focusing on their core audience. The people who were staying with the game through its growing pain, ensuring that they were the sort of people you wanted to be sharing your lobby with. If these people, the stalwart players, became entitled or began to resent those that left the game when it was in a rough state, what hope would creators have of building up a larger followings for themselves or the game, it would be toxic on contact. They had to ensure that the community people would be returning to would be one where people felt at home; where you felt permitted to ask questions and ok with messing up during raids, without fear of being cursed out over voice chat.

Now, years later, after the highs of a resurging fanbase from the release of The Taken King and Foresaken and the lows of content droughts and major DLCs disappointing, the Destiny community is certainly a curiosity. With a huge community run Con, GuardianCon, in Tampa every year, and a large enough player base to allow Bungie the freedom to go independent, Destiny has been successful in establishing itself a resilient community. Despite times when the game was deemed borderline unplayable, due to it’s balancing and competition from other ‘lifestyle’ games, but a dedicated community has stuck by Destiny. And while many of its largest streamers have gone on to become multi-game-influencers, their impact lives on within the spirit of the daily players.

Destiny 2, the game, has gone from a bare bones check list of ‘improvements’ over the first game to a game deeply complex and nuanced in its story, gameplay and design. It also offers great onboarding and a satisfying learning curve for those that are willing to invest their time. The Destiny community is just as layered; made up of PvP and Gambit players, Fireteams of Raiders and solo players. Destiny 2 players use it as a competitive platform, chasing scores in PvP and racing for speedrun times and challenge run accomplishments in PvE. Destiny 2 players use it as a canvas to create montages and machinima or use it to weave tales of lore, making sudo-documentaries from abstract and obfuscated Grimoire. Destiny 2 is a social network allowing friends to party up and shoot the shit. Destiny 2 is something to half pay attention to while watching a Twitch stream out of the corner of your eye or listening to a podcast while doing your weeklies. Destiny 2 is many things to many people, but the foundation is a shared cmmunity. Built by streamers, YouTubers and moderators that saw the potential for something stabile, both in terms of content and community, something that could benefit players in a way rarely seem in games. By tending to and nurturing a supportive community these leaders allowed Bungie to focus on deepening the Destiny experience so everyone in the community had something they could be passionate about.

(BTW it’s at this point I feel I should say, I’m sure lots of this could be applied to Warframe too, but I never tangoed enough with it to be able to start making claims).

Here a positive community was formed by the will of content creators. Bungie was (understandably) busy trying to fix their game and create content for a live service that people weren’t happy with and could only do so much in the way of community management. In that time the creators that took to the forefront pushed messages of patience and positivity. Now not only is there a community with a lot fewer gatekeepers but one that actively seeks to share how much better an experience the game has become for all types of players. Players are reminded by creators to be appreciative for the current state of the game, and franchise compared to the launch version, while encouraging constructive criticism. Bungie, on their end, continues to enhance the game in as many ways as possible almost seeking forgiveness for the poor states certain iterations of Destiny had wound up in.

It is great to see a gaming collective evolve into a community of people supporting each other in and outside of the game. It is worth remembering though, that with more franchises and games than could ever be counted, the opposite happens. Instead of positive role models shaping the direction, those that are disparaging and shouting the loudest dissent become spokespeople, amplifying the already negative message of the vocal minority. These games wind up with (oft deserved) public perception of being exclusive and uninviting. Not to name names but ‘git gud’ has been everything from a community mantra to a meme because of how derisive some games’ communities can be (also the COD, Battlefield, LOL, some of the FGC, many more are guilty of similar them vs us wall building). But the Soulsborne franchise is easy to pick on purely because of how notorious it became for a while there for how dismissive and hostile parts of it were… Oops, I just named a name, didn’t I?

However, that franchise has had its harsh edge dulled down too by some degree thanks to the hard work of its own more positive subsets. The speedrunning and challenge running section have become favourites at charity events like GDQ. Even in what were once thought of as the most exclusive and exclusionary of communities, thanks to the hard work of several prominent community members, many games have become forces for good and positively. All this isn’t lost on developers. GuardianCon is strongly promoted and supported by Bungie, while Digital Extremes have taken to running their own convention for similar reasons, in their words it’s a celebration, of not just Warframe but their playerbase too.

Imagine someone using your product to entertain thousands, allowing many of them form friendships and bonds they would have never formed before. Imagine your art being a rallying point for pulling others up; streamers helping others turn their entertainment into a liveable income; giving those who’ve never experienced a raid a chance to claim victory over Gods and helping those with disabilities play competitively at levels they never thought possible. Imagine the motivation and lift in moral and drive that would give you to make your game better when you see millions being raised year over year for a children hospital by people only connected by your creation. Whether it be welcoming newcomers or raising money when a community decides to take a step in a positive direction everyone benefits, especially the players.

This is a creative piece I wrote which I'm not especially happy with from a technical point of view, if you have any feedback let me know!

What do we think will be shown at each? / What do you hope will be shown at each?

I think this could be an important inflection point. Sony could be looking to be draw a line in the sand and use this as a 'we're ditching E3, Gamescom, conventions on the whole and going the Nintendo route and playing by our our marketing rules from now on', basically saying they'll announce and show things as they're ready, including their next gen systems and won't be rushed to put something out just to compete. While for Mircosoft I feel an indie event is a pretty clear indication of what they plan their E3 to be; a lot of talking about the future, hardware and AAA games (which may not be ready to be shown yet).

Also, man, it never stops being funny that Nintendo was so far ahead of the curve when it came to communicating with its fans that we spent most of our time in the yearly days mocking Directs (and still do now).

PS I love that we now have all three major players doing these streams purely to see more people over hyping themselves and being let down over stuff that was never going to happen, usually we only get to see it once or twice a year, now people will be predicting a new Tenchu or Vanquish 2 every second week.

I Sekiro not believe your just giving this stuff away.... Does that work better when I saw it outloud?

No, not really, but I'm sticking with it because it feels better than just posting one word to be entered.....

@nutter: That's my basic feeling for their borderlands announcement (even if they were to call on some more of the BL1 style they lost over the years).

But Duke just feels lost to me, I played a couple hours of Bulletstorm on the PS4 then tried watching footage of the Duke version and it just feels like he doesn't land anymore. Everything he said was either annoying or felt like it was trying way to hard to shit on his on persona, maybe he'd work if they stuck with one of those but every incarnation of him has always annoyed me and I don't think Gearbox have the writing talent to change that anymore.

What do you want from a new Borderlands title, what else do we think Gearbox might announce and how far will your eyes role into the back of your head if the words 'Duke' or 'Nukem' are mentioned?

Personally I just really hope BL3 does chase the lifestyle game train too much, BL with dailies and weeklies for loot instead of just RNG based farming feels kinda wrong to me. One thing I'd be happy to see come over is meaningful character customisation, in the first few BL i felt like they were a few perks each character needed to be viable, but very few felt like they actually played a role in a team composition, even against raid bosses and cosmetics in the series have just been straight up bad for the most part.

I know that this one is by far the longest shot but I really hope the story and writing lean more towards Assault on Dragon Keep, Claptastic Voyage and Tales from the Borderlands, but considering the most the people that wrote those are gone and it not like Telltale is on board.... I'm concerned to say the least about the direction of the story.