A Bold Opinion

Most of us retro gamers are plagued by draws on our time. Work, chores, social expectations, maintenance, the list never seems to get any smaller. The first victim of adulting is, and should be, our gaming time. My evenings and weekends seemed to go on forever when I was a child, but now it seems that the sun sets too early and my pesky endurance crumbles to debilitating exhaustion at an alarming pace. The time I have that I deem appropriate for retreating into the digital sanctuary of my gaming setup is little and precious to me. But I’ve found sustenance on platforms like YouTube that can keep me involved in the gaming world regardless of my ability to sit and play. Like an addict, gaming-tubers get me that little fix I need to get through my boring adult days. But in recent years, I’ve noticed a concerning trend among gamer news outlets and the game-tubers I have grown to enjoy.

I discovered channels that have since become the godfathers of gaming-tubers through being the target age group at the birth of YouTube. The generation that devoured potato-quality videos with nearly incomprehensible sound quality at a rate akin to a starving man that stumbled into an all-you-can-eat buffet. Amongst the endless cat videos and amateur stuntmen, I found James Rolfe, or as most recognize him, the Angry Video Game Nerd. My eyes had been opened to an entertaining, and informative outlet for games that I had never heard of. But, after having this first taste, I wanted more. I’ve seen countless creators come and go over the years. Some outgrew the YouTuber lifestyle, some specialized in games that fell out of favor and slipped away, and still some let their egos grow too large and were pushed off of the platform. We now enjoy an era of YouTube that has content for any game you can think of and reporting on general gaming news from the Big 3. Life is good….or is it?

In recent months and years, I’ve noticed more and more catering to specific brands and companies as well as toxic hate and positivity from many of my gaming news sources. I don’t remember having to vet my gaming news for favoritism and slanted stories before. Now, if I see a preview of an upcoming game or an interview with a company official, I have to look at what content creator it is to find out if I can trust anything they say. The “brotherhood of gaming” is fractured and combative in ways that put the old schoolyard competition between games to shame. I partook in my fair share of SNES vs Sega Genesis arguments and N64 vs PS1 arguments. Never getting overly hateful or aggressive with my opinions. I defended the console I had against the consoles my friends had. But, at the end of the day, we still sat in front of our TVs and played together as friends on either platform. Today, the political and commercial warfare between Nintendo, Playstation, and Xbox has infected even the smallest of content creators in the social media world. Outlets I used to take at face value are now being caught pumping up ratings for different games from specific producers based on politics (and in some instances, money changing hands). Finding 7/10 and 8/10 ratings for games that flop and disappear when they release to the public is becoming a more frequent occurrence. General gaming news being reported with constant comparisons and subtle jabs at certain consoles and companies is getting harder to avoid.     

I have no allegiance to any one platform or game producer. I have been lucky to have consoles from Nintendo, Playstation, and Xbox through my gaming career. I am a long-time fan of exclusives that have appeared on all three, be that the Zelda series, the Final Fantasy series, or the Halo series. My early years were my Nintendo years. Then I added Playstation when the PS2 was at it’s peak. I didn’t add Xbox until the tail end of the 360’s lifespan. Currently, all of the Big 3 are represented in my entertainment center, and I enjoy playing games on all of them. That being said, I’ve noticed more creators and reporters on YouTube showing obvious brand allegiances. If it’s putting down Xbox compared to some new PS5 feature, attacking Nintendo for being behind Xbox and Playstation in terms of raw power, or frequently plugging the Xbox GamePass service for no reason. And we all know the frustration of seeing a Top 10 video that plays obvious favorites with particular studios or companies. While it’s perfectly fine to be loyal to a particular company and create content about the games you enjoy, if you’re reporting news and information about the gaming industry, you shouldn’t be lifting your favorite company above the others in every video you produce. The way modern media is being constantly scrutinized for political bias and spreading the already painful fractures of our society, one would think that we gamers could do better.

After making such bold claims, I hope you haven’t stopped reading and deleted me out of your favorites bar. But it’s a topic that has been sitting in the back of my mind for some time. Like a nagging song that I just can’t get out of my head, I catch myself noticing these moments in the content I enjoy with increasing regularity. I plan to continue sharing my thoughts on the gaming world and the tech and games I enjoy, not showing any partial treatment to anyone. I’m committed to giving fair, honest, and authentic reviews and opinions. Hopefully fostering more unity and less division in our little nerdy world. So, let’s be gamers first and customers second, get ourselves out there together and continue to Game On!