Why have we forgotten how to appreciate what we have?

When great achievements in gaming like No Man's Sky are being torn to shreds by the mainstream media, and by a larger than ever community of gamer's; I wonder why is it so hard for most to enjoy the product that exists. Why do we have to latch onto the idea of what could have been so tightly, that we totally lose sight of what we have? No Man's Sky is just one example of a game being ripped apart, all simply based on preconceived ideals of what a game should be. Which makes little sense, especially when your a part of such an ever-evolving art form. 

I do understand being misled by advertisements and pre-release hype. Believe me, I totally share your pain in that kind of frustration; yet, even in that frustration, we can not lose sight of the most important fact. Were we truly being misled, or were we given a great depth of information on a product that was unfinished? Video games are art, game markers are artists, and when you are making art you will have many ideas that may never make it into the finished product; there are no two ways around that, for one reason or another, things are left out. As an artist myself, I know the tremendous dilemma of what to leave in and what to remove. You will notice in the beginning of the article I did refer to games more as products than pieces of art. This was intentional as the line in our culture seems to be quite blurred, a game console is more of a product than a game is; although ultimately this has more to do with our use of the English language, the greater meaning of words due to how many meanings words can have. Yet, it was important to bring up that idea of a product vs. art to point out the difference in development. A game is very much a work of art, this means it is being made to meet the artist's vision; now in many ways's a console fits those qualifications. However, there is a very important reason why we have to make a distinction, between something that is more art than product or vice versa; the reason is that when we lose sight of what something truly is, we lose focus on how to properly assess what that something is.

Art is created to meet a vision that the artist has to ultimately provide an escape, something that the artist thinks will move, inspire or just entertain the viewer; ultimately a console is designed to facilitate these ideals, which is how it becomes more product than art. I wanted to point out these distinctions, because the fact is we are judging art far more like a product, than we are as true art. Judging a console as a product is a good thing, it contributes to better quality control and can improve the final product; yet when you judge art as a product, even with good intent, it destroy's more than it could help. During a game's development, I see nothing wrong with voicing our opinions and saying what if you do this, because ultimately that can create better art. Yet, we have to remember that once art is created we do have to judge it for what it is. Technical flaws are a grey area due to how patches and games work today; I will say that at the very least judging a game based purely on technical merit is a bit more fair. Still that does no service to the gaming community trying to decide what game they want to play. People look to reviews to judge a game, instead of watching a review to see if the game is right for them. This is not really most people's fault, when reviews fail to word or write clear enough to provide a distinction between a game that is bad to them, and a game that is just bad; we will no doubt be confused. It does show that most mainstream critics do not respect the medium, if they did they would be more careful with their wording and their general way of going about business. If you're employed by a mainstream company that reaches millions, you have a responsibility to either improve your craft and be accountable for bad reviews that are more or less, just pure nitpicking.

We have a herd mentality, we follow what people we perceive to be respectable and intelligent. After all a critic surely would emphasize that he did not enjoy the game due his own sensibilities, rather than imply the game was truly bad right? Well sometimes it is not their fault entirely, they have deadlines, they have to meet certain expectations right? Well, when a game is released to meet a deadline needing a little bit of cleaning up, much like perhaps a review, the faults are acknowledged, apologized for and fixed. So why when a critic has misjudged a game based only on what he likes, does he hide behind the cloak of "it is an opinion." How arrogant do you need to be when presented with clear facts as to why your review was at the least worded poorly, at worst dead wrong, that you refuse to even consider the fact that you are wrong? I mean surely if you're firing such harsh and misdirected criticism at art greater than your own, you can take some sharp, deserved and directed criticism of your own work. I realize that I opened myself up for a pretty deserved barrage of conflicting or differing opinions of my own, which is the point. I want to start a conversation; if my only intention was hearing the sound of my own voice, well I would just talk to myself some more. Our culture has a major issue taking accountability of our actions, which is why if proven wrong we need to admit we are wrong, if only for our own growth.

We have seen the kind of games that this culture's mentality creates, some are great truly and I can see no fault in many great games like The Witcher III, that clearly tried to ensure they answered the criticism leveled at the industry. Yet, what kind of message are we sending as the gaming masses about games like No Man's Sky or The Order 1886 for example? Many gamers clearly loved both games for the same reasons that many despised them for; which is part of free will you know. Everything is subjective we do not all enjoy the same kind of art, we never will. We may find art that we enjoy like others do, but for every person that shares our opinion, there is another that finds our opinion harmful, annoying or anything in between. Yet when you can clearly see that the industry is hurting creatively, it is easy to understand why. New ideas are tried and criticized, far more than they are admired for having the courage to be different.

Artist's can only take so much pressure, sure pressure makes diamonds and as an artist, I get that; but, if the goal is merely to entertain, and the game is not broken in the least and many find it to be really enjoyable, who is right? You could say that it does not matter, and to a point, that is largely true. Perhaps if we were just discussing message boards like Reddit, and how trolls love to rip things apart in front of an audience; but, we are not. We are discussing why as a herd, a great number of us have forgotten how to appreciate what we have. When like it or not your the largest source of information for the masses, and you encourage or egg on nit picking like we have seen with No Man's Sky or The Order 1886, you need to take accountability. We used to deal with game's being legitimately broken, like bugs that keep you from finishing the damn thing! Which can still pop up now and again yet, now these things can be fixed; most of the time they are fixed pretty fast, and more often than not these problems are totally blown out of proportion. A fire is lit by the media proclaiming a game a failure those who simply do not enjoy the game, are misled into thinking the game is purely bad.

You can argue it is just an opinion, yet we have seen the death of creativity as we knew it in the gaming industry, is that not proof enough that perhaps we need to rethink things moving forward?