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Comment on 'Friendslop' dominated 2025 by proving time and time again that graphics are overrated

Rakqoi@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

I think your explanation is pretty accurate and I agree with your point that it has nothing to do with graphics. however..

there’s no reason you can’t make a game that does all of that but does actually have good polished gameplay, but so many games chasing (and catching) this trend do not.

Any time I see someone say this, they always fail to actually provide any examples of games that fit this description. I know you aren’t defending the term but I just noticed that parallel between your description and the explanations provided by people who criticize these sort of games.

The first time I heard of the term, and when it started getting popular, was around the time PEAK released. At first glance, it seemed like the game fit the term, but after a bit people started realizing that it actually was a fun and well designed game that has some longevity. Ever since then, people who use the term negatively always concede that their prime example doesn’t even fit their criticism, but fail to provide a list of other examples.

It really makes me feel like it’s just people complaining about things for being popular, without any actual basis for their criticism.

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alk@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I think among us is a great example of this, to take the first one that got popular. It’s just a form of werewolf, blood on the clock tower, town of Salem, etc. Just distilled and simplified and put onto phones and made accessible. The “gameplay” is that of a board game, just with a few moving pngs. I’d much rather play one of the games I listed above which has more engaging mechanics with the same premise. Among us is hyper simplified, and I believe it relied on social media and the pandemic and an extremely low bar to entry to gain snowballing popularity.

It’s not a “good” game in comparison to most of its competitors at the time. But its competitors weren’t as conducive to social media reactions and didn’t have that spark of luck at just the right time to start snowballing, or lacked the accessibility of simple mechanics.

I typically do not play these games, but I see a new one on a daily basis. The problem with naming and blaming is that someone who sees something they don’t like doesn’t investigate further, but starts to notice trends and patterns over time of the same “type of stuff” on their social media feeds over time.

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- GammaGames@beehaw.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  The Among Us devs didn’t rely on any virality for success, the game had been abandoned before it blew up
  
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  - alk@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I know this and that they didn’t specifically design for it, but it was the reason for it’s success, and the community instantly took notice and started designing to replicate that specific phenomenon.
    
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    GammaGames@beehaw.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Agree! Without twitch and the lockdown the game would’ve quietly died
    
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helix@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

Any time I see someone say this, they always fail to actually provide any examples of games that fit this description

Lethal Company is actually pretty fun if you’re playing it alone. That’s a positive example.

Another one is Don’t Starve Together. Great together, but Don’t Starve itself is also fun.

Among us on the other hand has no bots and you won’t have any fun without other players. However, you’d also not have fun without other players in Uno, Chess or Checkers.

Were these enough examples or did I misunderstand your point?

I don’t agree that you have to make games be good beyond the multiplayer experience. I’d love it to get my money’s worth, if I can play the game alone AND share the fun with friends I’ll gladly pay extra.

As it stands, many friendjank games only cost a few euros so I can live with them not being fun after a while or without friends. After all I used to buy cinema cards for my friends and I and didn’t have more than a few hours of fun, and cinema cards are often way more expensive than friendslop.

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