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What game/genre labels or descriptions turn you off?


Fabulously Olivier
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What labels immediately reduce or kill your interest in a game when you hear them used to describe it? What kinds of games do you have no interest in?

 

 

For me, turn-offs include:

First person

Souls-like

The Dark Souls of...

Rogue-like or Rogue-lite

Survival or survival elements

DPS-test

Retro

Indie

Sandbox

Horror

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Cover Based shooter (First Person and Third Person shooters are great, but this specific extra label is a red flag)

Dating Sim

Walking Sim

Grand Strategy

4X (I like Skirmish style RTS games plenty)

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It's funny; I have no genre that excites me or increases my interest, but I can definitely think of a few that instantly turn me off:

1. Looter: I value experiences and intrinsic rewards in games. The gameplay and story need to be satisfying on their own terms. As a result, any game that's designed to put me on a treadmill of collecting loot that I'll have to replace two minutes later with slightly different loot that has slightly better numbers, only to inevitably end anticlimactically when I have the very best loot and there's nothing to do with it except brag that I wasted so much time obtaining it, will get a hard "no" from me.

2. Shooter (1st or 3rd person; doesn't matter): Instant nope; I don't like guns, and I don't like how the games are often tedious and monotonous. Hard no for me.

3. Horror: I'm just not a fan and I rarely see the point. It doesn't help that most of them are basically just walking simulators with cheap jump-scares.

4. Walking Sims: What's the point? Isn't the point of a game to interact and actually do stuff?

5. Dating Sims: I can enjoy romance as a bit of side-content in any game, just like I can appreciate a good romantic subplot in a show/movie/book of almost any genre (shame that so few actually are good), but when it's front-and-center as the only thing in the game, then it just gets a no from me.

6. MMO-lite: They all inevitably end up suffering the exact same problems: 

  1. The story tells you you're a unique chosen one when there's 40 of you running around
  2. The game is clearly unfinished
  3. The combat is boring and monotonous
  4. You can't play offline when playing by yourself
  5. It's inevitably a looter
  6. etc.

You'd think that they'd be trying to make something that has all the positives of MMOs and regular video games and none of the drawbacks, but they end up with all the drawbacks and none of the positives. I, given all these companies' resources and staff, could probably make a better MMO-lite than these companies, and I do not say that lightly.

I'm sure there are more genres, but I can't think of any more off the top of my head at the moment.

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Looter 

Online Co-Op only - It usually goes with the above.

Gacha (despite the fact I still play FEH)

FPS 

MMO

Dating Sim - granted, I'm not OPPOSED to them, but I like gameplay and story to be a component as well. I'm not interested in games that are exclusively about dating. Let it be the second-largest feature, not the largest.)

 

Ultimately, if a game forces me or is best played with multiple people online, then I'm probably going to be turned off by it. I like my single-player adventures, thankyouverymuch! 

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YOU LABEL ME. I'LL LABEL YOU

Any genre of game that's multiplayer with no cooperative elements. Except for fighting games since those at least feel like a proper test of skill. But generally I'd prefer to fight with my friends rather than against them.

For the most part the only things about genres that bug me are the naming schemes. Japanese Games with zero roleplaying elements getting called RPGs for the last twenty years. Hack and Slash and Beat em up essentially describing the same sort of game but only specifying whether you fight hand to hand or with a weapon. Not having a better name than "character action game" to describe something like Devil May cry where you're rated/rewarded on your performance. Castlevania getting equal billing in the name "Metroidvania", when Metroid has ten more years of history in that style of game and the primary innovation of the SotN-and-beyond games is just grinding experience and drops. 

I USED TO BE A LITTLE BOY

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PERSONALLY:

Stealth games

Behind-the-back POV gameplay (Like God of War 4 or The Last of Us)

Indie

Sandbox

Simulators 

That’s about it, really.

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Oh and Metroidvanias, too. With the exception of the first five Castlevania games. They were more sidescrollers rather than Metroidvanias, and Iove them for that.

 

2 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

YOU LABEL ME. I'LL LABEL YOU

So I dub thee unforgiven

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First person, social, open world, shooter, gacha, horror, survival, live service.

And also, not a genre but a word that gets used in marketing copy and always drives me away: "hilarious". Whenever I see that, I always read it as "tries way too hard to be funny but actually isn't".

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Looter shooter- I really like games with well-balanced item pick ups (Doom/Classic Tomb Raider or even Classic FE.) where the devs can build challenges around what they know the player will have, I also hate constantly having redundant weapons in games and Looter Shooters do the exact opposite of both in my experience.

"Cinematic" games -  In my experience, almost every single kind of these games are generic, boring cover shooters that most of the time have a trite story anyway.

Over the shoulder shooters - Sure, I still like alot of them but the early 2000's era camera of "above the player character's head " (Such as say, Mafia 1, Mercenaries or Shellshock 'Nam 67) always works far better and doesn't get incredibly awkward/janky around corners and walls. 

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"ThIs Is HaRdEr ThAn DaRk SoUlS!" "ThE DaRk SoUlS oF gAmEs!" - Really reduces my interest. Unpopular opinion, but Dark Souls has had a negative effect on gaming because now it seems like every game and their mother has to try and be as hard as Dark Souls and use it as a selling point.

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i don't think i actively dislike any videogame genre in particular, aside from Simulator games, which i find incredibly boring

i don't play horror games because i get scared super easily, and i don't play shooter games à la Call of DutyBattlefield and so on because they all look the same to my eyes, but it's not like i dislike them, i just prefer to spend my money on other things

6 hours ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

"ThIs Is HaRdEr ThAn DaRk SoUlS!" "ThE DaRk SoUlS oF gAmEs!" - Really reduces my interest. Unpopular opinion, but Dark Souls has had a negative effect on gaming because now it seems like every game and their mother has to try and be as hard as Dark Souls and use it as a selling point.

i kinda agree with this, i never trust people who say those things
what you're complaining about, though, isn't the game's fault at all: in fact IMO this is a thing that's usually said by people who have never played a single Dark Souls game, because if they did they'd know the DKS games aren't as hard as some claim they are, and i could also add that reviewers tend to follow this trend quite a lot (do you guys remember when the Crash N.Sane Trilogy was released? sadly, i do)
sure, being hard to beat can be a selling point for a game, but when i read things such as "it's the new Dark Souls" or "the Dark Souls of the genre" i immediately lose all of my interest in said game

Edited by Yexin
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6 hours ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

"ThIs Is HaRdEr ThAn DaRk SoUlS!" "ThE DaRk SoUlS oF gAmEs!" - Really reduces my interest. Unpopular opinion, but Dark Souls has had a negative effect on gaming because now it seems like every game and their mother has to try and be as hard as Dark Souls and use it as a selling point.

Thank you. I can't stand what Dark Souls and the "hardcore gamers" have done to the gaming discourse.

Edited by Fabulously Olivier
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13 hours ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

"ThIs Is HaRdEr ThAn DaRk SoUlS!" "ThE DaRk SoUlS oF gAmEs!" - Really reduces my interest. Unpopular opinion, but Dark Souls has had a negative effect on gaming because now it seems like every game and their mother has to try and be as hard as Dark Souls and use it as a selling point.

I don’t think so, Code Vein wouldn’t have happened then. While I do enjoy the Soulsborne series, I dislike any game that is “Hard for the sake of Hard”. I also dislike Sports games, most shooters and most open world. I have gotten tired is Retro and roguelike as well.

Edited by ciphertul
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FPS. In particular, realistic FPS. Call of Duty clones just don't do it for me. I'm not a big fan of realistic graphics at all. I much prefer games with a stylized look. I also don't care for gore. I'd rather my foes explode into sparkly bits than buckets of blood.

Sports, for the same reasons as FPS. EA Sports feels like the kind of game a stereotypical adult is expected to play, like when people dismiss the likes of Mario and Zelda as "kid's games" and tell you to go play Call of Duty and EA Sports 'cause those are "grown up" games. Bleh!

Idle. The whole point of playing a game is to play it. If you want to just sit there and watch what's going on, that's what TV shows are for. And chances are you'll get more plot out of a TV show.

Fighting, believe it or not. I really don't like traditional fighting games with multidirectional input commands, like Street Fighter. Learning my character's moveset shouldn't feel like doing school homework. I vastly prefer the Super Smash Bros. style of game with simple yet deep "direction + button" inputs which is all too rare outside of Smash itself.

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Shooter (unless it's Kid Icarus uprising, but that's honorarily not a shooter) - because move reticle onto enemy and hold button until dead never really appealed to me

Horror - I spook really easily and don't enjoy getting scared. 

Dating Sims - Just not intersted. 

Visual Novel - because 80~ percent of them are just Dating Sims. 

Online - If I need internet access in order to play, I'm probably not going to pick it up. 

RTS - I don't get this genre. 

Also games that list themselves as Platformers first and foremost are uninteresting to me. I do enjoy some level of platforming, but not a whole game based on it. 

On 4/29/2021 at 6:20 PM, Glennstavos said:

Castlevania getting equal billing in the name "Metroidvania", when Metroid has ten more years of history in that style of game and the primary innovation of the SotN-and-beyond games is just grinding experience and drops. 

I mean to be fair Metroid only has 4 games (and 2 remakes) in that style, whereas Castlevania has 7, and who's really played Return of Samus? Also, randomized castlevania is a lot more interesting than randomised metroid, but that could be more my opinion due to preferring rpg elements over skill based challenges. 

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Roguelikes for the most part, and any other game that is infamous for being 'Very difficult.' Call me a noob all you like, but fast-paced games that are very difficult aren't my speed and will only make me frustrated. Even if Hades's character designs make me want to try it out so bad.

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3 hours ago, Pengaius said:

and who's really played Return of Samus? 

More than any of those seven castlevanias in that style according to this list of best selling Konami games. Castlevania may have several times the amount of releases of Metroid, but the sales typically don't come close game to game. Besides, Metroid 2 rocks. Especially compared against other GameBoy titles, or the first Metroid.

3 hours ago, Pengaius said:

Also, randomized castlevania is a lot more interesting than randomised metroid, 

Until either series releases a game with a randomizer mode I don't see how ROM hacks are relevant. Those are fan games. Or how your opinion of them relates to discussion of the genre.

Edited by Glennstavos
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3 hours ago, Pengaius said:

I mean to be fair Metroid only has 4 games (and 2 remakes) in that style, whereas Castlevania has 7, and who's really played Return of Samus? 

I've played - and beaten - Return of Samus.

Why don't the Metroid Prime games count?

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31 minutes ago, Florete said:

I've played - and beaten - Return of Samus.

Why don't the Metroid Prime games count?

Because they're a totally different game. Maybe he's also not counting the Lords of Shadow games and the Castlevania fighting game.

 

Unpopular opinion - I liked Lords of Shadow.

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18 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Unpopular opinion - I liked Lords of Shadow.

A lot of people do, it's a good game, Despite all the snarky internet comments! It's almost like they cease to matter in the face of actually playing the video game in question.

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32 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Because they're a totally different game. Maybe he's also not counting the Lords of Shadow games and the Castlevania fighting game.

They're just 3D metroidvanias. Aside from being 3D, I don't see what's so different about them.

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5 hours ago, Pengaius said:

who's really played Return of Samus?

🙋‍♂️ And loved it. Oh, wait, I thought you were referring to Samus Returns, the 3DS remake. I played Return of Samus, too, but I liked Samus Returns more.

Edited by Lord_Brand
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1.Sandbox - sounds like a cash grab to me. You thought of this weird idea, spent a few months working on it, and put it out there to make a quick buck.

2.Roguelite - I do play games labeled as "roguelite" but I don't like this term because it's so broad and not specific. It doesn't quite tell me what you're game is about. Give me more.

3.1st Person Shooter - I'm never a fan of the camera control in these games.

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