Toni -Turboherne-

Poor thing, she's dying from cringe 😔

I think that Mixtape is a fine game on its own for what it is - a visual novel that's a love letter to the pop culture depiction of the 90's - but the controversy surrounding it is primarily emblematic of a larger issue within the gaming community. My main concern with game reviews of Mixtape remain my same concern with all game reviews - too many people fixate on the score the game got, when the review's main purpose should be telling us who the reviewer thinks would actually enjoy the game. Review scores should never be considered universal, because a 10/10 MMORPG is not for the same player as a 10/10 FPS, which is not for the same player as a 10/10 visual novel. The target audience is different.

This isn't to say that I think Mixtape is a bad game. I think it's actually pretty good for what it is supposed to be - an extremely niche game that hits the [anemoia] receptors in its target audience. It's very heavy on the feelings and light on the gameplay. For those who are into this sort of thing, it does everything right. I think that players who are really into 90s Pop Culture Depiction Nostalgia (which isn't the same thing as nostalgia for growing up in the 90s... believe me, I was there), Mixtape is their dream game - it's the idealized imaginary depiction of the 90s the way they wish it was, rather than how it actually was. That said... there aren't a lot of players for this particular niche at all - we can clearly see that in Mixtape's player numbers. Somebody clearly spent a lot of money to build Mixtape (especially with the perpetual music licenses, those are not cheap) and they're assuredly not going to earn their money back. But that's ok too - not everything needs to be profitable to be successful. Rich people and vanity projects have been a thing for centuries¹.

I think the core issue is that there is an increasingly growing divide between game reviewers and the gaming community at large. Game reviews are increasingly not particularly helpful for what they ostensibly should be - the purpose of a review should be to provide context and information for players to consider when deciding whether to make a game purchase, and the largest deciding factor here is who the game is aimed at. Too many people look at a game's review score and treat it as a judgement on the game's actual quality, instead of what the review should tell you - who the game is for and how well it meets that specific target audience's wants. Instead, there are a number of standout reviews that feel as though they are putting the reviewer's personal preferences before those of their intended audience. Mixtape is one of those situations - it's a super niche title laser targeted at today's disillusioned adults who dislike their current life situation and yearn for the idealized 90s in the movies that have been "improved" for modern audiences. The Venn diagram you'd get from this demographic and the set of professional video game reviewers today would likely have a pretty big overlap. However, the Venn diagram overlap with most gamers today would be slim - as the devs intended. Mixtape was never going to be a mainstream hit, it was always a rich person's vanity project.

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💪 1997 Barret Wallace 💪