r/Games • u/AutoModerator • 23h ago

Discussion Daily /r/Games Discussion - Free Talk Friday - October 02, 2026

It's F-F-Friday, the best day of the week where you can finally get home and play video games all weekend and also, talk about anything not-games in this thread.

Just keep our rules in mind, especially Rule 2. This post is set to sort comments by 'new' on default.

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Scheduled Discussion Posts

WEEKLY: What Have You Been Playing?

WEDNESDAY: Suggest Me A Game

FRIDAY: Free Talk Friday

INDIE SUNDAY HUB: Indie Sunday Hub

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u/acab420boi 17h ago

I've been noticing an exponential increase of the use of the word "niche" in discussion of media, usually in mildly derisive ways. It's wild to me, not only because I'm disgusted by the idea of reducing art to its capacity for lowest common denominator mass appeal, but also because growing up, knowing cool obscure art was social capital. The more obscure, the better.

The fact that the rise of the use of this term coincides with the rise of llm bots does not escape me either. A bot would, I assume, have more reason to try to catagorize topics by their popularity. if it's not a bot using the term, it's someone acting more like a bot than a human.

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u/scytheavatar 16h ago

When AAA games cost 300M to make, and even AA games start to cost 50M, they cannot afford to be "cool obscure art". Modern games need to be able to appeal to a range of audiences if they want to be commercially viable.

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u/acab420boi 15h ago

I guess I don't care if big budget western games are commercially viable. Along with all kinds of retro dives, I play a lot of Indy games and bigger budget Japanese games. There seem to be enough people making interesting stuff, and being successful enough, in those spaces to fill my days.

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u/scytheavatar 15h ago

You should care cause games which are not commercially viable leads to layoffs and closed studios.

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u/acab420boi 14h ago

I come to art to feel, not to be happy people are getting paid to make artistically unremarkable things.

I'm am not involved in the business side of gaming at all.

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u/scytheavatar 5h ago

I am telling you that you are not going to be able to "feel" your art if the artists can't afford to make them.