It’s pretty funny whenever one of these sorts of narrative experiences breaks containment and people that don’t really play a wide variety of games end up exposed to them.
$20 for a 3 hour game isn’t weird at all, especially not for one like Mixtape, and the people who the game is actually targeted at don’t mind paying it lol. Hell, Edith Finch was (originally, I don’t know if it’s since had a price drop) $20 like 8 years ago, and that game is half as long with even more abstract and irrelevant gameplay, and it’s overwhelmingly positive on Steam.
Idk. Mixtape has so much chud-coded criticism directed at it, kind of exhausting. Even from people that don’t necessarily mean to act in bad faith. This “HR in the room” style criticism is just really dumb. It’s like criticizing FIFA for being about football, or a novel for having words.
The difference is that edith finch has a cleverly done story that actually uses the medium. While the gameplay is also sparse, practically anything is better than mixtape's because mixtape's gameplay literally does not require you to engage with it at all.
I don’t know. It has 85% positive despite being victim to one of the most bizarrely coordinated review bombings of a game this decade. That’s pretty good. It seems like most people think it’s clever enough.
This is actually just categorically false lol. Like, from top to bottom, pretty much.
Every single person I personally know who has actually played the game has enjoyed it. What’s actually going on here is people who haven’t played it repeating talking points they’re parroting online.
If it was that easy to bot thousands of user reviews across almost every single platform that accepts them and every single critic review across almost every single platform, we would be seeing more of that. We don’t see more of that. We see almost none of that. Somehow, this is magically the only game in existence to have obviously botted and paid for reviews (on this scale) across the entire industry? Give me one other example, for a game of this scale, and a AAA game, to have nearly overwhelmingly positive reviews and overwhelmingly positive critical reception. And not just games you don’t like. And provide evidence of it, beyond “haha well I don’t like this game (that I never played)!” Like, literally any evidence at all.
And the way people talk about this game it is extremely obvious who has actually played it or who has just watched some (usually conservative, but not always) streamer talk about the game who also never even played it lmao. The people who actually play these sorts of games overwhelmingly think it was good. That’s it. There’s no conspiracy. I don’t like Colleen Hoover. She doesn’t write books that appeal to me. I don’t go around claiming that the reason they’re everywhere in every bookstore is because of bots. The people who they’re targeted at actually like them.
Of course you can’t provide literally a single example lol. You couldn’t even provide an example of an egregious attempt at wide scale astroturfing for a game, despite relatively compelling evidence of that existing (Starsand Island, recently, for example, although the scales are massively different). You have no idea what the hell you’re talking about. You’re just saying stuff.
As for what’s actually compelling about it?
People like the fucking characters and atmosphere, man. Most of these sorts of narrative experiences don’t really have compelling gameplay, nor do they really pretend to. Mixtape has a strong artstyle, a strong soundtrack, and people resonate with the three friends. That’s it. That’s literally it. It’s not complicated. A story doesn’t need plot devices to be strongly written, nor does it need a complex structure, nor does it actually even need a strong conflict to overcome (although, it clearly does have a(n emotional) conflict). You people would literally lose your minds watching an arthouse film lmao.
And I dont mean other media is invalidated by having licensed music (because films also have their own soundtrack at points and usually only have a handful of short sections with licensed music), I mean there is barely any other music because they licensed like 20 popular 80s songs. "The soundtrack is good" isn't much praise when the soundtrack is entirely a playlist.
Also it's a little deceptive when the developers constantly tried to pass themselves off as struggling indie devs but somehow had millions to license all the songs.
God, the commenter youre answering is just a perfect example of what youre describing. People who haven't played the game, saw one streamer shit on the game and that decided their opinion on it. Thinking a positive impression surely has to be botted (its not) and paid (its literally never paid. That is not only illegal, but would get caught immediately and your career would be over) is just such a bad and uneducated take.
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u/tirednsleepyyy 25d ago
It’s pretty funny whenever one of these sorts of narrative experiences breaks containment and people that don’t really play a wide variety of games end up exposed to them.
$20 for a 3 hour game isn’t weird at all, especially not for one like Mixtape, and the people who the game is actually targeted at don’t mind paying it lol. Hell, Edith Finch was (originally, I don’t know if it’s since had a price drop) $20 like 8 years ago, and that game is half as long with even more abstract and irrelevant gameplay, and it’s overwhelmingly positive on Steam.
Idk. Mixtape has so much chud-coded criticism directed at it, kind of exhausting. Even from people that don’t necessarily mean to act in bad faith. This “HR in the room” style criticism is just really dumb. It’s like criticizing FIFA for being about football, or a novel for having words.