pretty much anything ea makes. Sports games especially.
What is a game you can’t understand why its so popular ?
Submitted 2 days ago by 64bithero@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world
Comments
reksas@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
gegil@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
Games with a lifecycle of a fly. This companies release the exact same game each year for full price, and people play it. How do people approve such behaviour from compaines? Do they actully not notice that its basicallly same game with some small changes enough to sell it as different game? Do people have that much money to spend on this overpriced games?
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It’s the opposite. It’s that those people are so into those games that what you see as small changes are big ones to them.
Atomic@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Some people pay $50-60 for the latest FIFA every year, some people pay $100+ for Netflix every year. Some people buy chips and candy for $100+ a year. Some people buy fastfood for $100+ a year.
How about we just accept that each person get to spend their own money on what makes them happy and leave it at that.
boaratio@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Minecraft. I’ll never understand why people like that game.
Sunny@slrpnk.net 1 day ago
Endless creativity!
biggerbogboy@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
I suppose the issue tends to be the feeling of too many options, especially for those with minimal creativity and lack drive to build something that isn’t materially useful, and that’s fine honestly.
It’s easy to get bored to, hence the meme of the “2 week minecraft phase”, since you can “lock in” and create the most intriguing builds you’ve conceived of, but then after that 2 weeks is up, you feel burnt out and play something else.
There’s also how you can achieve so much in a world, but get bored not because of burnout but because you’ve done all you wanted to that was achievable. For example, I have a snowy-slopes only world that I completed 3 bases, connected them via ice boat highway, and I have 4th base with the exterior almost finished, but I got bored since I couldn’t figure out what I wanted for the interior, but I might find something that drives me back again, which I hope.
It’s an amazing game, it’s just that the flaws in it aren’t its own, it’s the limits of people inherently.
knatschus@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
While i never played it myself, it’s very easy for me to see the appeal. It’s digital Lego.
IEatDaFeesh@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It’s missing a lot of QoL features in vanilla but people spend a lot of time curating the perfect set of mods for their server. It’s too much work for me but it’s an autistic person’s dream.
atopi@piefed.blahaj.zone 19 hours ago
you could also just download a modpack and be done with it
boaratio@lemmy.world 1 day ago
My kids love it, but I just don’t understand why people like it. The base game has no plot other than finding and killing the ender dragon. I tried playing multiplayer with my kids but all they do is build giant houses and make gardens and what not.
Like I said, I just don’t get it.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Well, it’s been going strong for 17 years because of unlimited creativity.
Nelots@piefed.zip 1 day ago
Terraria just had its 15th year anniversary less than a week ago and is more popular than ever. World of Warcraft is still popular as well.
drphungky@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Dota?
Droechai@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
Age of Empires 2 :)
Phunter@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Counterstrike.
kazerniel@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Guild Wars 2 is 14 years old this year, and you could argue that Guild Wars 1 is having a new renaissance after 21 years :)
kazerniel@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Yeah I hate voxel graphics, so it never worked for me.
Also not into creative sandbox games. Give me a problem to solve or situation to improve, and I’ll have fun. Give me a big sandbox with no goals, and I just get bored 😅 (Same with Sims and other life simulators. I’d much rather play stories other people wrote than come up with my own.)
frog_brawler@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
MTG.
I played vs friends back in the day (early 90’s). Won some and lost some. Every time, wondered how the F I got into a situation where I was playing this damn game again. So boring. So not fun.
stretch2m@infosec.pub 20 hours ago
TheHotze@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
It’s not the game for me, but I get why people like it. One of my friends will go on for hours about how she’s building her newest deck, and with the rng elements, someone else won’t build the same deck you will. Playing is less about winning and more about judging the deck you already made, and seeing what decks others have brought.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 20 hours ago
i love that game, but theres no one to play with and i dont attend things like local shops or leagues, plus there is no variant for online expect by paying or grinding alot apparently, and mtg recently have been releasing so much for newer fans they cant keep up with the cost. mtg, yugioh have become too fast paced , prices people out of the game. pokemontgc went in the opposite direction, but it still distilled to a few decks only, making most cards useless. mtg is much more complex than the Japanese released tgc thats for sure. yugioh kinda resembles mtg in some ways.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 20 hours ago
apparently the “POST-MASUDA midlife crisis” pokemon games, any of the swsh and on seem to be total slop.
Adincar@discuss.tchncs.de 19 hours ago
I don’t know if it counts, but I enjoyed legends Arceus, it was definitely a breath of fresh air compared to a lot of the other games.
Deconceptualist@leminal.space 1 day ago
Not a single title, but any incremental “clicker” game. What’s the point? Seems like “hurr durr number go up”.
Similarly, any game that’s more than a little grindy, where the grind isn’t a fun gameplay loop in its own right. e.g. I played Warframe for years, and the core gameplay feels great. But if it wasn’t for that I would have likely hated the game due to how repetitive it gets just to upgrade your gear.
one_old_coder@piefed.social 1 day ago
What’s the point? Seems like “hurr durr number go up”
That’s the whole point. I love it.
Deconceptualist@leminal.space 1 day ago
Huh? That’s like saying you love a shitty drug. You’re not enjoying a story or developing any kind of skill, you’re just raising your risk of RSI for a dopamine hit. What am I missing?
Mr_Wobble@thelemmy.club 1 day ago
Progression and tech trees are my favorite parts of rpg games. Good incremental games distill that part to a fine, highly concentrated progression liquor. I also prefer that they conclude in under a few hours. Fuck the endless ones.
Deconceptualist@leminal.space 1 day ago
Progression and tech trees are my favorite parts of rpg games.
Oh I like those very much too. They serve as a reward for playing the core game and unlock further choices and complexity so your skills and particular playstyle can expand.
Good incremental games distill that part to a fine, highly concentrated progression liquor.
Uh, no I would argue that they boil away everything interesting – narrative, gameplay, choices, skill, problem solving – and what’s left is naught but the kind of task 1960’s neuroscientists would set for rats with electrodes implanted in their crania. How is that appealing whatsoever?
early_riser@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Not a single title, but any incremental “clicker” game. What’s the point? Seems like “hurr durr number go up”.
I’m pretty sure idle games started out as explicit commentary on this exact idea, distilling the very essence of video game progression into concentrated form.
Deconceptualist@leminal.space 1 day ago
Sure. But what exactly is that commentary? To me it feels super cynical, like “Look, people are suckers and you don’t need to waste effort on story and gameplay, they’re happy to just mindlessly click buttons”.
bryndos@fedia.io 1 day ago
I'm glad this still exists.
https://progressquest.com/chunes@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
omg I used to love watching this thing back in the windows xp days. Thanks!
Deconceptualist@leminal.space 1 day ago
Oh wow I haven’t seen that in aeons haha
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Old RPGs.
They shouldn’t be popular, they should be wildly popular.
Canconda@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
I love old RPGs but they’re too grindy for me now or something.
Like I bought the Final Fantasy Tactics remake. Original is easily my favorite game of all time. And a HUGE Quality of Life improvement the remake added was the ability to fast forward the gameplay and the cutscenes (IYKYK).
Every time I try to pick up my 2nd all time favorite FF6(Snes) I find myself losing interest after my 10th random encounter. I like the story, the characters, the music(!), the puzzles/exploration.
But the gameplay itself, sadly, just doesn’t do it for me anymore. Like I burned many hours on my gameboy colour playing Dragon Warrior. So it’s not like I never liked the genre.
Cid@lemmy.world 1 day ago
You might enjoy the FF6 randomizer: ff6worldscollide.com It has a very active development and community (and most settings start with a moogle charm or 3 in your inventory)
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 hours ago
Yes😔 Always hated the unnecessary grind so my favourites are more Icewind dale than pokemon (it was so grindy it’s insane IMO).
But yeah, did knights of pen and paper 2 on mobile, most underwhelming story but like no grind so I even finished it (it’s not very long though).
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 20 hours ago
cough ORAS extremely grindy, i played pre-2007 and post 2007 and getting certain stuff was insane, im guessing thats why rs3 came out to mitigate that but pissy-gatekeeping fans wanted the old game back. and they never stopped complaining either, especially towards the rs3, especially what happened to rs3 recently.
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 1 day ago
As a D&D grognard since 1980 I’m baffled by why people think they have to keep upgrading to the newest version, and depending on a company to fix whatever’s wrong with old versions. There are other ways to make choices in life besides clicking on menu options.
jacksilver@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Back when I could only afford a game every once in a while oldschool rpgs were great. They took forever and some had decent replayability (like pokemon or classes in FF). Nowadays they just feel like a slog.
nycvin@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Disco Elysium
I gave it two legitimate tries. Just don’t get it.
DanceMomsSavedMe@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
WHAT. Oh man this hurts me lol how far did you get?
I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I completely agree. It’s like reading a book about a story you have zero interest in.
dalekirkwood@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
CyberPunk 2077
leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 hours ago
Fantastic setting (I could spend days just playing tourist around Night City), great story and characters (and the characters don’t just stand there talking to you like in Bethesda’s games, there’s actual acting in there), enjoyable gameplay, beautiful graphics…
Sure, it got a bit of flak when it released due to the console cartels forcing it to run on highly inadequate ancient hardware, but I’ve been playing it from day one on an even older but properly specced PC and I could count the bugs I’ve experienced on the fingers of one hand, with fingers to spare.
And CD Projekt kept improving and expanding it for years after release, so it’s even better now.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
I disagree here. The side quests and atmosphere are great. FemV nailed the voice acting. It has a lot of fun, bitingly memorable characters I still think of, sometumes.
The gameplay is satisfying… if, and only if, you mod it to not be bullet spongey and so grindy.
I’m not a 2077 apologist. Does it run well? Nope. Was it absolutely unacceptable at launch? An understatement.
But (in 2025/2026), it finally deserves the praise it gets, IMO. There’s a very good game in there.
dalekirkwood@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
The mods sound interesting - any you recommend? I find the whole thing a grind to be honest. And I hate watching a 40 minute cut scene to play for 5 minutes with guns that feel like they don’t actually do anything.
asret@lemmy.zip 19 hours ago
Seems easy to see why it sold well - The Witcher 3 was very successful and then they attached Keanu Reeves to it.
As for the game itself, it told some petty good stories, had some excellent characters, and managed to do this while still feeling like a game, not an interactive movie. It delivered well enough on the setting as well.
dalekirkwood@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
See, I feel like it’s more movie than game. That’s what bothers me. It doesn’t have the same feel as GTA V for example.
Siethron@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Most super mainstream games especially ones that are loosely based on reality in the modern era GTA, COD for example. I’m not saying these are bad as games, but they are so RIDICULOUSLY popular and I do not see the appeal.
Konraddo@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Clickers. I don’t get it.
wirelesswire@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
They’re simple and appease the monkey brain desire of “number go up”.
mrfriki@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Hehe, i didn’t even knew they were a thing until a played Selaco, which is an indie shooter that happens to have a mini game/eastern egg, which happens to be a clicker. I’m embarrassed at how much time I spent on it.
kazerniel@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Incremental games are that kind of braindead thing I can play for 5-10 mins at a time, when I’m too tired for proper games :)
But only with an autoclicker, otherwise it’s pure torture.
64bithero@lemmy.world 1 day ago
The lowest denomination of what a game could be …
TheGreenWizard@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
I love turn based RPGs, but I couldn’t get behind expedition 33 at all. I’m sure I just suck at the game, but dodging/blocking never worked. Made it impossible to care about the story cause I was so frustrated. Again I’m sure its just cause I suck, but I never got mad at yakuza like a dragon for its blocking/dodging mechanics.
Simon_Shitewood@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
I found the timing really difficult too, so I found a mod that slightly increases the dodge/parry window (something like 0.2s to 0.3s for parries) and suddenly I could reliable dodge and parry most attacks. Still requires precise timing, but now it’s a precise timing I can actually hit.
Katana314@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I play a lot of games with parry mechanics, and E33 was much stricter than most. It even made it impossible for me to play the game over a TV network link because the tiny delay made parries unreliable.
Omegamanthethird@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Uncharted 1 and 2 (didn’t play the others)
Drake is very charming. Everything else is just kinda okay. The action is kinda floaty, the platforming feels like it’s on rails, jump to a disapproved section and you die, the supernatural stuff always feels out of place, the story isn’t memorable, some artifact or something.
Senal@programming.dev 1 day ago
Life
Deconceptualist@leminal.space 1 day ago
Basketball. It’s practically the same game as soccer and hockey without the interesting constraints (no hands, or play on skates). I won’t deny that it requires athleticism, but then it has the non-skill requirement to be freakishly tall. If you’re not biologically tall, well too bad, that’s a huge handicap you have basically no hope of overcoming.
And NBA games are the worst, it’s always tied like 100-100 until the last 1-2 minutes which is where all the interesting plays happen (between a half dozen fouls) and the actual outcome is decided. The rest of the game you can often just ignore and not really miss anything important.
Simulation6@sopuli.xyz 20 hours ago
The Stanly Parable. Boring walking simulator with cheap philosophy.
Canconda@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
the one you just lost.
arockinyourshoe@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It’s gotta be the Sims.
I recall playing 2 and 3, only occasionally, because every time I would set it up, I’d play for a day or even just a couple hours. Then I go do other things, or I sleep through the night. Then come back thinking “what was I even doing?” Before deleting the save and uninstalling the game.
I don’t understand the time investment in a fake family, trying to make positive changes in a Sims life, and it only makes me feel worse about trying to improve my own situation. I don’t think I would get the perspective of someone who thoroughly enjoys this.
Nelots@piefed.zip 1 day ago
That’s a hard question. There’s tons of popular games I personally couldn’t stand but can still see the appeal of, like Baldurs Gate 3. But something I just can’t understand? I guess my best answer would be basically any purely PvP game.
I get something like a hero shooter where there’s cooperation and team play involved. But I’ve never understood how people get more than 15 minutes of fun in games like multiplayer CoD.
Ludicrous0251@piefed.zip 1 day ago
Literally any of the * Simulator games. Was just scrolling my Lemmy feed and “Car Mechanic Simulator” popped up, but there’s Farming Simulator, and Truck Driving Simulator, Power Washing Simulator, etc. etc. etc.
I can kinda maybe see the appeal of ONE of these games as a cozy break, but there’s like a dozen different ones, and they have like annual releases. Has the Simulated Car Mechanic experience really changed that much from 2015 to 2018 to 2021 to 2026 that you need a whole new game each time? None of them interest me, but the volume confuses me.
To a certain degree I feel similarly about sports games. I do more readily see the appeal of the genre, but do you really need to churn out a new full release each year? I can’t fathom why people are paying full price for a game that is 99% the same as last years version - same engine, rules, gameplay, but they updated that one teams away jersey to be the new shade of purple, kicked out the retirees and added the dozen or so notable rookies. That’s a $5 DLC, not another $60.
Antaeus@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Fortnite.
Battle royale games. Aren’t they stressful? MOBA. Same map, same heroes? Counter-Strike. Hasn’t this been played for decades? Other games exist.
DanceMomsSavedMe@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Minecraft. I’d rather just play with Legos.
Also I’ve had a hard time not down voting some of these but its peoples opinion so who am I to tell people their opinions are wrong.
But some of you are wrong. Lol
a14o@feddit.org 2 days ago
Factorio
ms_lane@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Cardbuilders - just why?
It’s just simulated gambling.
luthis@lemmy.nz 1 day ago
Beat saber. There’s 1001 better games for VR that are so much more fulfilling
Scio@lemmy.world 1 day ago
The Grand Theft Auto series, especially GTAV. The multiplayer one I understand, but the rest of them. Not a clue.
Skyrim, and to a much lesser extent, Oblivion.
I do understand the appeal of Expedition 33, I think. I shall leave it out of the list.
orochi02@feddit.org 1 day ago
Genshin impact gets annoying and grindy from what i’ve seen and there isnt even gooner characters like in zzz. (Take ts with a pinch of salt since i haven’t played it much)
Oka@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
Every popular game has a reason. The reason might be stupid, but it is a reason.
greedytacothief@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 hours ago
100% Orange Juice and those types of games. It’s not super popular but also people love it. Personally I couldn’t think of a more boring type of game, even with friends there’s boardgames I’d rather play.
mohab@piefed.social 1 day ago
Maaan, easy: soulslike. Combat so slow, they’re the closest real-time combat will get to turn-based. Everything moves at a snail’s pace in most of those games, holy shit.
If I want difficulty, I’ll just play Bayonetta or Ninja Gaiden or something, it does not need to be slow and boring AF.
flameleaf@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Are there any soulslikes that take place underwater or with moon gravity? I think you might be onto something with that description
jacksilver@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Another Crab’s Treasure - Its actually a pretty fast paced and fun souls like.