It's the Gen Z crowd. And here's why I think so:
us Millennial and Gen X gamers saw the transition from 2D to 3D to HD gaming. Every jump was so incredible and we were grateful for it.
Gen Z gamers are not grateful for shit. They complain and bitch and moan about the smallest things like "This is a AAA game and the frame rate is off by 2???? GARBAGE. Look how the shadows don't follow the character properly. GARBAGE. The water doesn't look realistic enough! GARBAGE! THIS IS 2025 NOT 2005!"
Whereas everything to us older gamers nowadays just looks "slightly more HD than the last slightly more HD game".
This is a true story:
I went to a party for my wife's karate group, and there were some Gen Z kids there, early and mid 20's whatever. I talked with one gamer about Nintendo and the topic of Pokémon came up. If you don't know, Pokémon has one of the most toxic fanbases ever. A lot of Millennials I know are completely oblivious to this - they all just play the new games no problem. But the younger gamers have a HORRENDOUS fanbase. They shit on Nintendo all the time about Pokémon. Now, when this youngin' mentioned how Pokémon Sword, Shield, Scarlet, and Violet (all most recent) are the worst games ever made (because of the usual complaints like frame rate and shadows and tree rendering whatever), I brought up the fact that out of all of Nintendo's IPs, Pokémon has the most stressed and overworked employees. This is true. IIRC, employees who churn out Pokémon games are the only ones who have deadlines. Zelda, Mario, literally anything else Nintendo makes doesn't have strict deadlines. The employees working on those games are much happier and dish out quality products all the time. Pokémon meanwhile has always been the most in-demand IP from Nintendo. So I explained that the reason a lot of their newer games may not come off as "polished" is because the employees have been suffering crunch time because of high demand. It's essentially a vicious cycle. High demand for quality games overworks employees and they dish out bad products which makes even more high demand for quality games which overworks them even more---
No joke - this kid started yelling at me. He made a few people turn their heads because he was legit like "BUT NINTENDO HAS NO EXCUSE FOR MAKING SUCH A BAD GAME. It's JUST BAD." And thankfully someone else distracted him with another conversation but I was thrown off by this because I had met this kid before and he was completely fine and quiet with his nerdy ways.
Also Gen Z gamers would totally not handle OG Tomb Raider or Metroid if they were released today. This is also a true story: I took my wife's nephew shopping to a video game store. He's a little insufferable (more on that later in another thread actually, if I feel like it). He wasn't sure what to get and I saw that the Metroid Prime Remastered was out and I said, "Hey have you ever played Metroid?" and he groaned saying, "They keep putting women in video games nowadays." And I looked at him and went "Metroid has been a thing since 1986, dude." And he shut up after that like "Oh....didn't know that."
us Millennial and Gen X gamers saw the transition from 2D to 3D to HD gaming. Every jump was so incredible and we were grateful for it.
Gen Z gamers are not grateful for shit. They complain and bitch and moan about the smallest things like "This is a AAA game and the frame rate is off by 2???? GARBAGE. Look how the shadows don't follow the character properly. GARBAGE. The water doesn't look realistic enough! GARBAGE! THIS IS 2025 NOT 2005!"
Whereas everything to us older gamers nowadays just looks "slightly more HD than the last slightly more HD game".
This is a true story:
I went to a party for my wife's karate group, and there were some Gen Z kids there, early and mid 20's whatever. I talked with one gamer about Nintendo and the topic of Pokémon came up. If you don't know, Pokémon has one of the most toxic fanbases ever. A lot of Millennials I know are completely oblivious to this - they all just play the new games no problem. But the younger gamers have a HORRENDOUS fanbase. They shit on Nintendo all the time about Pokémon. Now, when this youngin' mentioned how Pokémon Sword, Shield, Scarlet, and Violet (all most recent) are the worst games ever made (because of the usual complaints like frame rate and shadows and tree rendering whatever), I brought up the fact that out of all of Nintendo's IPs, Pokémon has the most stressed and overworked employees. This is true. IIRC, employees who churn out Pokémon games are the only ones who have deadlines. Zelda, Mario, literally anything else Nintendo makes doesn't have strict deadlines. The employees working on those games are much happier and dish out quality products all the time. Pokémon meanwhile has always been the most in-demand IP from Nintendo. So I explained that the reason a lot of their newer games may not come off as "polished" is because the employees have been suffering crunch time because of high demand. It's essentially a vicious cycle. High demand for quality games overworks employees and they dish out bad products which makes even more high demand for quality games which overworks them even more---
No joke - this kid started yelling at me. He made a few people turn their heads because he was legit like "BUT NINTENDO HAS NO EXCUSE FOR MAKING SUCH A BAD GAME. It's JUST BAD." And thankfully someone else distracted him with another conversation but I was thrown off by this because I had met this kid before and he was completely fine and quiet with his nerdy ways.
Also Gen Z gamers would totally not handle OG Tomb Raider or Metroid if they were released today. This is also a true story: I took my wife's nephew shopping to a video game store. He's a little insufferable (more on that later in another thread actually, if I feel like it). He wasn't sure what to get and I saw that the Metroid Prime Remastered was out and I said, "Hey have you ever played Metroid?" and he groaned saying, "They keep putting women in video games nowadays." And I looked at him and went "Metroid has been a thing since 1986, dude." And he shut up after that like "Oh....didn't know that."