Does everyone just think they can make a living playing games? Trying to search for Diablo 4 info gets you nothing but mountains of useless clickbait youtube videos. Gotta waste my time jumping thru the video just to find out the guy is dumber about the game than I am.
Like I get it, YouTube is the only place you can monetize your “game knowledge”, but still… Why are there are only like two sites with build guides and info? And those two sites don’t even have community builds, its just a couple guides written by some l33t dude we are suppose to trust. Why is there no useful discussion forums, discords, or at least something not in video format? If people care about becoming gaming influencers so much why can’t we at least come out with a new monetization platform that doesn’t suck and has a dislike button.
Anyone else sharing my rage?
I wouldn’t lump this in with the whole “enshitification” issue.
This is the end result of gamers not placing any value on the content they consume. People want free content, regardless of quality, over anything else.
So, as you would expect, what you are seeing is free content, regardless of quality, being created en masse.
It seems to be the combination of two things: Diablo is now truly a mass market product, not just a gamer’s delight. Games now make more money than movies. The audience to be reached is enormous and attracts the eye of infotainment professionals, and no longer just people who are really into the game and decide to maybe try a guide. These people start with the cheap content machine first and Diablo is just the topic du jour. after a while they will be on to something else.
All this points at the second topic, which is the way paid creator video platforms have evolved. There’s now significant commercial opportunity and competition is fierce. No longer does the deeper guide win but rather the one that games the algo most, appeals to the broadest audience most, and has the most production value (money) behind it.
I suspect there is actually more high quality game guide content than ever, but you aren’t going to find it with just a “Diablo” search because there is an enormous pile of cheap crap on top of it.
It really is though. Remember back when we just had gamefaqs guides? Or actual game wikis that weren’t plastered with ads?
It’s especially apparent in the japanese gamersphere. There used to be great (grassroots) wikis for basically every Japanese game, now they’re all run by e.g. game8 and their clones.
Enshittification really does mean something quite specific and is not just a word meaning “things aren’t very good anymore.”
If you haven’t read Cory Doctorow’s essay that coined the term, definitely do. It’s a modern classic.