Volko Ruhnke was quite bold to include one of his own games as a pick for top 3 most influential games of the decade... In general I have a hard time accepting any of his answers for being all...
Volko Ruhnke was quite bold to include one of his own games as a pick for top 3 most influential games of the decade...
In general I have a hard time accepting any of his answers for being all that highly influential, primarily because I've never heard of any of them (which is my own bias, but I am around enough board gamers and designers that I feel like they'd at least once bring up one of the most influential games of the decade with me).
Volko is hilarious. I respect him as highly influential and brilliant, but generally hate his games. Labyrinth, IMO, is very interesting, and does a great job representing the situation in the...
Volko is hilarious. I respect him as highly influential and brilliant, but generally hate his games. Labyrinth, IMO, is very interesting, and does a great job representing the situation in the Middle East, but also strikes me a bit as a paranoid delusion unwilling to accept stark realities about the middle east.
The Polygon "most important game of the decade" article was posted here and part of the discussion was about how these lists are always going to be meaningless because one person's list is not...
The Polygon "most important game of the decade" article was posted here and part of the discussion was about how these lists are always going to be meaningless because one person's list is not another's. I like Spelunky, I yearn to have it on my Switch, but most influential of the decade for me? Certainly not. I'm not even sure how to choose something like that. Games are art and to say one thing is "most influential" is actively harmful reductionism, IMO. It ignores the complexities of the medium in a way that makes it overly simple and easily accessible and oh that's probably why Polygon is doing it.
Except Polygon seems to understand exactly that. That headline is part of a series where multiple games were given articles named "x is the most important game of the decade" from their various...
Except Polygon seems to understand exactly that. That headline is part of a series where multiple games were given articles named "x is the most important game of the decade" from their various writers. The titling is clearly tongue in cheek but people took it at face value for some reason.
It's crazy to me that so much attention was focused only on the headline, in an age where clickbait headlines rule and therefore headlines cannot be trusted.
Because they don't make it obvious that this is what they are trying to accomplish? Not many people are going to see a title like this and immediately think "I wonder if they published other...
The titling is clearly tongue in cheek but people took it at face value for some reason.
Because they don't make it obvious that this is what they are trying to accomplish? Not many people are going to see a title like this and immediately think "I wonder if they published other articles with similar titling in order to make a point about shitty journalism?"
It's crazy to me that so much attention was focused only on the headline, in an age where clickbait headlines rule and therefore headlines cannot be trusted.
Maybe because the headline is supposed to explain some of the intent of the author or at least set the tone or make a point.
If the goal is to point out it's untrustworthy or pointless, why not just write an article with no title?
It's not a point about shitty journalism (I don't think this has anything to do with journalism), it's just a pretty attention-grabbing naming convention. The goal is just to have a good series...
It's not a point about shitty journalism (I don't think this has anything to do with journalism), it's just a pretty attention-grabbing naming convention. The goal is just to have a good series reviewing the decade. I found it pretty easily by clicking their "Part of our decade in review" button that is at the start of all of their articles. It wasn't like it was hidden or hard to find, they were encouraging discovery after all. I don't think I went to any extraordinary lengths to find this out—this used to be the norm for consuming information.
And that used to be the purpose of headlines, before this age where clickbait headlines rule and therefore headlines cannot be trusted. Trusting a major outlet's headline to explain the intent of the author these days is kind of like hoping a GOP senator will be ethical. It's not something to be relied on, so it's baffling to me that people still do it.
Or you read the article and think "this seems shitty and clickbait"... I fail to see why I should be forced to dig into what the titles of other publications by the same source are to figure out...
Or you read the article and think "this seems shitty and clickbait"... I fail to see why I should be forced to dig into what the titles of other publications by the same source are to figure out the intent of a bad title.
For the same reason that you can't judge a book by its cover. The headline/title/cover is just the headline/title/cover. Judging the entire piece or work with it or against it is not fairly...
For the same reason that you can't judge a book by its cover. The headline/title/cover is just the headline/title/cover. Judging the entire piece or work with it or against it is not fairly judging the piece (or its place in the greater schema of the format).
I think you've taken the wrong issue from what I pointed out though. I'm not defending the headline as it stands (I don't think this is a good age for information) but I'm pointing out the assumption that Polygon really was saying that Spelunky—and only Spelunky—is their "most important game of the decade" based solely on the headline, and therefore Polygon's entire outlook is tainted by that "fact", is misguided. If one is to make such a sweeping judgement against the entire publication, the least they can do is look beyond the headline of one article that they've used to base all of their assumptions on.
Sure, but you've heard of Spelunky at least, right? We can disagree over whether it is highly influential, but surely you know it exists. To me, reading Ruhnke's influential games was like hearing...
Sure, but you've heard of Spelunky at least, right? We can disagree over whether it is highly influential, but surely you know it exists.
To me, reading Ruhnke's influential games was like hearing someone say "the best game of the 2010s is NeverDead." You'd go, wait, I've been reading video games news forever, and I've never even heard a whisper of this game before.
Volko Ruhnke was quite bold to include one of his own games as a pick for top 3 most influential games of the decade...
In general I have a hard time accepting any of his answers for being all that highly influential, primarily because I've never heard of any of them (which is my own bias, but I am around enough board gamers and designers that I feel like they'd at least once bring up one of the most influential games of the decade with me).
Volko is hilarious. I respect him as highly influential and brilliant, but generally hate his games. Labyrinth, IMO, is very interesting, and does a great job representing the situation in the Middle East, but also strikes me a bit as a paranoid delusion unwilling to accept stark realities about the middle east.
The Polygon "most important game of the decade" article was posted here and part of the discussion was about how these lists are always going to be meaningless because one person's list is not another's. I like Spelunky, I yearn to have it on my Switch, but most influential of the decade for me? Certainly not. I'm not even sure how to choose something like that. Games are art and to say one thing is "most influential" is actively harmful reductionism, IMO. It ignores the complexities of the medium in a way that makes it overly simple and easily accessible and oh that's probably why Polygon is doing it.
Except Polygon seems to understand exactly that. That headline is part of a series where multiple games were given articles named "x is the most important game of the decade" from their various writers. The titling is clearly tongue in cheek but people took it at face value for some reason.
Why Minecraft is the most important game of the decade
Why Breath of the Wild is the most important game of the decade
Why Kentucky Route Zero is the most important game of the decade
Why Gone Home is the most important game of the decade
Why Fortnite is the most important game of the decade
It's crazy to me that so much attention was focused only on the headline, in an age where clickbait headlines rule and therefore headlines cannot be trusted.
Because they don't make it obvious that this is what they are trying to accomplish? Not many people are going to see a title like this and immediately think "I wonder if they published other articles with similar titling in order to make a point about shitty journalism?"
Maybe because the headline is supposed to explain some of the intent of the author or at least set the tone or make a point.
If the goal is to point out it's untrustworthy or pointless, why not just write an article with no title?
It's not a point about shitty journalism (I don't think this has anything to do with journalism), it's just a pretty attention-grabbing naming convention. The goal is just to have a good series reviewing the decade. I found it pretty easily by clicking their "Part of our decade in review" button that is at the start of all of their articles. It wasn't like it was hidden or hard to find, they were encouraging discovery after all. I don't think I went to any extraordinary lengths to find this out—this used to be the norm for consuming information.
And that used to be the purpose of headlines, before this age where clickbait headlines rule and therefore headlines cannot be trusted. Trusting a major outlet's headline to explain the intent of the author these days is kind of like hoping a GOP senator will be ethical. It's not something to be relied on, so it's baffling to me that people still do it.
Or you read the article and think "this seems shitty and clickbait"... I fail to see why I should be forced to dig into what the titles of other publications by the same source are to figure out the intent of a bad title.
For the same reason that you can't judge a book by its cover. The headline/title/cover is just the headline/title/cover. Judging the entire piece or work with it or against it is not fairly judging the piece (or its place in the greater schema of the format).
I think you've taken the wrong issue from what I pointed out though. I'm not defending the headline as it stands (I don't think this is a good age for information) but I'm pointing out the assumption that Polygon really was saying that Spelunky—and only Spelunky—is their "most important game of the decade" based solely on the headline, and therefore Polygon's entire outlook is tainted by that "fact", is misguided. If one is to make such a sweeping judgement against the entire publication, the least they can do is look beyond the headline of one article that they've used to base all of their assumptions on.
Sure, but you've heard of Spelunky at least, right? We can disagree over whether it is highly influential, but surely you know it exists.
To me, reading Ruhnke's influential games was like hearing someone say "the best game of the 2010s is NeverDead." You'd go, wait, I've been reading video games news forever, and I've never even heard a whisper of this game before.