Then, responding to those who have said he’s “only doing this for the money", Szymanski tweeted: “Yes, no fucking shit. I make games for a living. If I didn’t want to earn money from them I wouldn’t charge money for them.”
The game follows the premise of being trapped in an underwater submarine out of necessity to capture deep pictures.
If I can set aside the zingers for a second: kind of.
But this only works because we know there can’t be objectivity here. Minotaur even says that in one of his arguments.
The problem—and this is a huge pet peeve of mine, it’s kind of the reason these conversations always turn into pissing matches—is that this is an opinion disguised as a fact statement. Probably, to appear more important than it is.
If they had said “I wouldn’t pay $8 for this.” Well, that’s fine. They can do whatever they want. They’re dismissable.
But who wants to be dismissed, right? Is it fine if they’re the only person in a room of 100 who wouldn’t pay $8 for this thing?
It’s not fine because they’re not actually arguing about the game at all. They’re arguing about what has consensus.
“This game isn’t worth $8,” countered by “Yes, it is.” It should have had more content; the content it has is fine. The graphics should be better; the graphics are tastefully retro. This doesn’t lead anywhere. It can’t.
You can’t argue about what the game is or isn’t because it isn’t either one. So, what people end up arguing about is which opinion is more popular. The “correct” opinion is the one that has the larger army. This ends up being exclusively about social power. And, this is the reason why these conversations get so heated. Both sides, both incorrect, are fighting for the right to be correct.
So, can “this game isn’t worth $8” be interpreted as an opinion? I mean, sure. I do that all the time. It has to be said in good faith, though. If you start implying people are wrong to think it’s worth more, then you’re betraying your real purpose here a bit.