It’s Just Nostalgia
I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve read some variation of this phrase whenever
reading discourse online in relation to almost anything, but especially entertainment. Books,
Movies, TV Shows, and of course, Video Games.
“You’re just blinded by Nostalgia” I don’t
get a lot of negative comments, but when I do, this is the most common critique in my comment
section. A fairly weak critique if you ask me. But I do acknowledge that Nostalgia can absolutely be
a powerful thing and will definitely blind you if you don’t know how to look at things objectively.
But, often overlooked, so can Recency Bias.
Now let’s define these terms so we’re on the same
page here. Nostalgia is a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically
for a period or place with happy personal associations. So someone who might view the good
old days to be better than they actually were, because of where they were at that time personally
in their life. Bittersweet feelings towards moments in the past. Recency bias is the cognitive
bias that favors recent events over historic ones; a memory bias. So almost the exact opposite of
Nostalgia. Meaning people tend to make conclusions about things based on recent events, often leading
them to make more emotionally based decisions rather than rational ones. Recency bias tends to
place too much emphasis on the experiences that are freshest in your memory even if they aren’t
the most reliable. Meaning people tend to forget. Especially if it was a long time ago.
Now swinging too far in one direction on this chart will easily blind you.
Now you’ve probably heard of the term “honeymoon phase” often associated with the early
stages of a relationship. But can also be applied to many aspects of life. Buying a new car, loving
a new restaurant, enjoying a new job. Or. Playing a new video game. And as someone who plays both
old games and new games all the time, there are some games released today that are fantastic. And
plenty more that are worse. But largely I would say, that gaming, especially Triple A gaming, has
gotten much worse over the last 10 years. Sure the graphical technology has improved, but the art
styles have gotten more stale. Sure there’s more voice lines and dialogue than ever before, but the
quality of the writing and dialogue has declined, being written by what feels like children. And
yeah there’s constant live service support, but the games are buggier than ever before, and
the games’ foundation is as shallow as a puddle.
Now I wanted to take a look at two examples
that made me want to discuss this Recency Bias versus Nostalgia in relation to my channel.
And the first is about Destiny. And the second is about Fallout New Vegas.
We’re gonna look at Lightfall, actually no we’re gonna take a look at Witch
Queen versus Taken King for a second.
Now, you are more than welcome to your own
opinions here and if you like Witch Queen more than Taken King. Fantastic, don’t let me
change your mind. But. I prefer the Taken King expansion. And just saying that you already know
there’s a bunch of D2 fans saying “YEP. BLINDED BY NOSTALGIA” and I would say that person is likely
blinded by Recency Bias. But maybe in reality, we might just value different things. I mean
largely these expansions brought the same things. A new campaign, New Destination, New quests,
New Exotics, New Armor Sets and Weapons. But, Taken King had 9 PvP Maps. 8 at launch, 1 more
launching a month later. 3 new PvP Modes. Plus 5 Vanguard Strikes. 4 at launch, 1 more a few
months later. The Witch Queen had 0 PvP maps, 1 remake a few months later, and 2 Strikes. So the
expansions were about neck and neck content-wise, up to a certain point. I mean Taken King still did
deliver more exotics (18 weapons versus 8 and 10 Armor Pieces versus 6), and more legendary weapons
and armor and quests, but really what I’m talking about is the fact that Taken King brought so much
good core content compared to Witch Queen. And for me, I value having more strikes and pvp maps, than
I do about having a Season of the whatever launch alongside the expansion for an extra 10 bucks.
Now if you love seasonal content, you probably like Witch Queen more. Or maybe you like the
campaign more and that’s fair enough. But 9 maps versus 0 and 5 strikes versus 2 and 18 exotic
weapons vs 8 isn’t Nostalgia. This is just a fact. Taken King brought more of what I personally value
for the game. Meaning lots of Strikes, PvP maps, and much more earnable loot. And maybe you don’t
want those things in Destiny, maybe you love grinding artifacts and weekly login vendor quests,
and playing the Seasonal Content. It’s fine if we want different things inside of Destiny, but just
screeching “Nostalgia” only makes you look like a dumbass when we actually compare apples to apples
because it really isn’t an argument at all.
Now on to Fallout. Many of you are probably well
aware of my love for New Vegas, as I’ve brought it up several times in recent videos and I’ve
praised various aspects of the quest design, the writing, and the immersive world. And I’ve
said how I prefer it to Fallout 4. So of course, even there I see “that’s just nostalgia” comments.
And the reason I find this one funny is I played Fallout 4 first. It was my first fallout game
in fact, I enjoyed it, but didn’t love it. It was one of those, I’ll probably never replay it
kind of games, and it left me pretty uninterested in the franchise as a whole. I figured
all the games were similar. But in 2020, a friend of mine convinced me to play New Vegas
for the first time. And I was hesitant you know, I didn’t love Fallout 4, New Vegas was a bit dated
at this point. But eventually I caved. I bought it on sale for like 5 bucks and began the game.
Completely Vanilla, no Mods. And dude. I have now played New Vegas, as well as the DLC’s 4 separate
times. I’ve put in hundreds of hours since then, and just finished my first Modded playthrough,
and just began another. The game is a literal masterpiece. And I thought maybe I was too
harsh on Fallout 4 and played through it again after my 2nd time through New Vegas and I
enjoyed Fallout 4 more the second time around, but it still doesn’t hold a candle to New Vegas
for me. I mean just look at the quest design of New Vegas compared to Fallout 4 or even Fallout
3, which I also played after New Vegas and thought was just okay. Now you’d think that if Nostalgia
was a factor, I’d be very nostalgic for Fallout 4, I played it 4 years before I ever played New Vegas
in 2020. And maybe you’d say that 2016 was a bad year or something for me so I associate games I
played that year as bad but no, I played Witcher 3 that year as well and that game I’ve put hundreds
of hours into. And if you’re curious why I didn’t play these games til a year after they released,
well it’s because I was addicted to Destiny for all of 2015. Some people say I’m nostalgic for the
old graphics, which also isn’t true. Graphics can be good or bad I do not care about graphics or
realism. Art Style and World Design is all that matters to me. And good graphics and good art
style aren’t mutually exclusive. Both can exist simultaneously. Games like Dishonored and Bioshock
look incredible both Graphically and Artistically, whereas games like Forspoken prove that Generic
Realism is less exciting than Beautiful Artistry. And even games with dated graphics like New
Vegas can still be incredibly immersive.
Besides those two games, there’s been a lot of
generalization about Nostalgia not just on my channel, but again in online discourse as a whole.
And it’s become somewhat of a trend to use it as an argument over the last few years because
10+ years ago, you almost never heard people throwing around the word Nostalgia when people
discussed movies or TV shows or video games, they would just compare and critique the media
at face value. There was a bit more honesty in the discourse. People weren’t so emotionally
attached to their side of the argument. Not that there weren’t exceptions to that, of course.
But generally you could compare something like Ocarina of Time to Twilight Princess and
people wouldn’t be just saying to each other that they’re blinded by Nostalgia if they
thought Ocarina was the better game. They would just agree to disagree after combing through
some objective reasoning and called it a day.
But now if you say something like “ya know, the
original God of War games were more fun and had a better story than 2018 or Ragnarok,” “you’re
blinded by nostalgia” Just because Kratos is now depressed and has a kid, and the graphics
and cinematic camera angles are the priority, doesn’t mean it’s a better story or video game.
And I know a lot of you might love the New God of War games. Again. That’s fantastic for you. But
I prefer my Kratos doing badass shit like this, rather than dealing with the very slow moving
cinematic camera view combat and quick time event platforming in 2018 and Ragnarok. It’s not
being blinded by nostalgia to prefer the gameplay of the originals. In 2018 every headline said that
God of War 2018 finally gave the franchise a good emotional story, as if the originals weren’t also
filled with emotional drama and tense character developing moments. Like when you kill Athena in
God of War 2 and she informs Kratos that Zeus is his father, and Kratos is basically in denial,
then in God of War 3 you finally get to beat the fucking shit out of Zeus til the screen is so
bloody you can’t even see, you’re just in this blind rage as an act of revenge against Zeus for
abandoning you, his own son. Again, just because the story doesn’t try to be ultra realistic with
Gen-Z friendly dialogue, doesn’t mean the original stories weren’t emotionally impactful. And I’m not
even saying that God of War games were the Golden Standard for storytelling in gaming because they
weren’t, but the best story moments in the new God of War game titles to me are when Kratos is
reflecting on moments from the original games.
Now I know that gaming has changed. The audience,
the trends, the social climate. I get it. Younger audience, more casuals. I also get that. I
don’t hate Young Gamers, or Casuals. I play games casually as there just isn’t enough time in
the day to play as much as I’d like. But I’m also not going to pretend that gaming hasn’t changed
for the worse to cater to broader audiences, like Young and Casual gamers, or unfortunately
to appeal to the Twitter bots who don’t even play video games and just love to bitch and complain
about how problematic it is that Witcher 3 is too White or Elden Ring is Sexist. And that’s why
games that are made for Twitter dorks always flop because they don’t buy or play video games.
They don’t represent the gaming community at all.
But I’m getting a bit off topic here a bit.
Nostalgia versus Recency Bias. Both of these things can blind us. Blindly saying an old game is
better than a new one without any real objective reasoning behind it, makes you likely blinded
by nostalgia. If you’re playing a new game you just bought and you’re enjoying it while others
are criticizing it for being worse than it’s predecessor and you’re kneejerk reaction is to
start attacking them and say that the new game is better and tell those people they’re blinded
by nostalgia, without any objective reasoning on your end either, then you might be blinded
by recency bias. And fanaticism of any kind on this chart will kill any chance of improvement.
The industry is obsessed with selling nostalgia for all the wrong reasons right now. Rehashing
old material and lacking innovation. And gamers are blinded by Recency Bias just eating up
and defending the corporations because they’ve forgotten how good gaming CAN be. IT’S TIME TO
STOP with this nonsense. You know, critiquing art, is the best way to see it improve.
When we stop critiquing, we start settling. Which is how the Triple A industry ended up
where it is today. Constructive criticism is very helpful. And sometimes getting slapped across
the face with some painful, but true criticism can be a big wakeup call to really implement some much
needed changes. I look at my own short time here on YouTube creating videos, and I’m constantly
getting feedback in more ways than just the comment section. But in the comment section, some
of the harshest critiques I’ve received has lead to me improving the quality of my videos. Even if
some of the critiques about me have been wrong, or someone misunderstood me, it doesn’t disregard
how I may have come across to certain viewers, so that pushes me to articulate and flesh
out my thoughts on something a little bit more next time as to better illustrate a point
I’m trying to make. Or improve my editing and my use of examples. Taking criticism to heart,
at least a little bit, you know don’t dwell on the hurtful parts, but really taking a step
back and looking at the criticism objectively, can give you a real advantage that most people
lack. Admitting you might have been wrong about something, or that you can improve somewhere.
That is the first real step to growth.
And that’s why it’s so important to critique
media. From Movies and Video Games to YouTube videos like my own. Settling for mediocrity only
leads to more mediocrity. Capitalism absolutely does breed innovation, but Capitalism also breeds
greed, and if you’ll settle for mediocrity, then a capitalist won’t bother innovating anymore.
They will just pump out mediocrity if the consumer accepts it. And unfortunately capitalism
is holding art hostage right now. Ideally, the best artists would compete for who can make
the best art and that would sell the most tickets, or sell the most copies, but instead, it’s
a competition for who can rehash and resell the most, take as little risk as possible and
spend as little as possible, yet still try to rake in billions. Now, there’s nothing wrong with
wanting to turn a profit, but I miss when media would try to do more than just that.
The only way to combat this, is to beef up your standards a little bit, stop making
excuses for buggy games, poorly written ones, and microtransaction filled slop. Vote with
your wallets. Use your money to support devs and companies doing right by their players. Nostalgia
can absolutely affect how we see older games, but I really think a lot of gamers have just
forgotten just how good gaming can be and when you go back and actually play an old game for the
first time, you might realize that. Were there bad games back then too? Yes of course. Not every game
of the 6th or 7th generation were bangers. But, as I pointed out in my last video, creativity
and innovation has halted in recent years with very few exceptions to that rule. But let me
know what you guys think in the comments.
