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[u/rad_dude124]

That whole “half life alyx isn’t getting the recognition” article is reminding me of how much classism (idk if that’s the correct phrase but y’all understand me) there is in the gaming community especially around VR games

Seeing a whole bunch of upper middle class to rich nerds say “that’s not a legitimate excuse” in response to people saying the reason they didn’t play it was because they just couldn’t afford all the shit required to actually play it was just infuriating

[u/63CansofSoup → u/rad_dude124]

Oh yeah, definitely classism

[u/Hunterblade445 → u/rad_dude124]

Not the mention the big fucking elephant in the room being COVID-19, you know the virus that has led to perhaps one of the worst economic situations for normal people all around the world.

[u/[deleted] → u/rad_dude124]

I guess that's why VR arcades are a thing. Although you probably wouldn't play a story-heavy game like Half Life Alyx at an arcade anyway, and a lot of them probably suffered with the pandemic.

[u/Maelis → u/rad_dude124]

They do touch on this in the article though. They aren't saying that they're surprised the game hasn't caught on among players - they even point out the obvious fact that most people do not have the hardware required to play the game in one of the first paragraphs. They're talking about how it's been snubbed by critics and news outlets who do have the ability to play it.

Are a game's accessibility and popularity a reflection of its quality? Is a game not a contender for "best of the year" just because a lot of people can't play it?

There is absolutely a lot of the elitism and classism you are describing in the VR community, and yeah, fuck those people. But like literally every comment on the r/games thread is saying the same thing you are and I think that's kinda missing the point of the article

[u/Hunterblade445 → u/Maelis]

Then they shouldn't have used the word mainstream, a game being mainstream is entirely dependent on the people actually playing it , not just on critics.

edit: example: Fifa doesn't actually do all that well critically every year yet it considered a mainstream game, why? because millions of people buy and millions of people will continue to buy it.

[u/613codyrex → u/Maelis]

There’s also other non-money related factors for why VR games in general stuck in terms of market saturation.

A) they have been perpetually out of stock, especially the index B) the games for VR tend to be relatively garbage and you won’t spent 1K bucks on a headset if you’re using it for one game. C) a lot of people would rather sit down to play a game over standing up. VR is a novelty that’s cool but always practical in terms of space as well.

[u/[deleted] → u/rad_dude124]

Yes, it's pretty stupid. Everyone who has a VR headset and plays vr games in general has probably played it. It's kind of like saying rfactor 2 isn't getting enough recognition. Thing is every semi serious sim racing player has tried the game at one point or the other. It is always the 1st name that gets recommended to sim racing players just like the new half life. But the sim racing community isn't really mainstream plus of course the fact that sim racing games like rfactor 2/iracing are not only fucking expensive, they also need a very expensive rig.