Only thing I have ever heard about Bloober Team is that everyone hates them

I looked up their games and I'm unsure if I've ever heard about any of them, but since the Silent Hill thing on Playstation State of Play I keep hearing that "everyone hates Bloober"

Why do we hate Bloober?

Who is Bloober?

Is their stuff actually good and people just be hatin'?

I really enjoyed Observer, and The Medium was decent.

Blair Witch was decent too, and I didn't hate Layers of Fear. I think the remake will be fine.

The biggest complaint I've seen is that they don't have the best track record on portraying mental health. I've seen Jesse Cox play Layers of Fear and I seem to remember the protagonist's disability and mental illness led to him being an abusive parent. And I've never played The Medium, but supposedly the ending there implies that the protagonist should kill herself because she's mentally ill .

But in googling this to try and get more specifics, I honestly just found more posts talking about how these complaints are overblown and/or misinterpreting things. All else aside, they're horror games, so things probably aren't going to work out too well.

bloober team makes very formulaic, derivative horror games that are absolutely terrible at what they are attempting to achieve. even when they are ostensibly trying to do something different they make the same thing where the "symbolism" has all of the subtlety of a sledgehammer and they just beat you in the brain with it until you pass out

while I haven't played it, I watched a playthrough of the original Layers of Fear, and I thought it was pretty dope for the kind of game it was.

I think it was about an obsessive painter, who brought his family to ruin, and how repentant he is, or not, is based on in-game choices/stuff you need to figure out.

pegusus123456 posted...

And I've never played The Medium, but supposedly the ending there implies that the protagonist should kill herself because she's mentally ill.

ummm.... she was not mentally ill, she's a medium, and killing herself was a way to keep an evil entity from escaping it's confinement in an abandoned vacation resort where the game takes place. the ending leaves it open as to what happens to the main character.

if people are misinterpreting their games that badly then I have to think some of these gamers think they are smarter than they actually are and are overblowing how "pretentious" they think Bloober games are.

for clarity, The Medium is the only game I have played by them and while the gameplay was so-so I do think they nailed crafting a creepy horror atmosphere. Silent Hill 2 will be the first game they actually have a combat system in, and if it is halfway-decent and combined with that craft for creating great horror atmospheres than SH2 should be really good.

CrimsonGear80 posted...

if people are misinterpreting their games that badly then I have to think some of these gamers think they are smarter than they actually are and are overblowing how "pretentious" they think Bloober games are.

"It's the fans fault that no one likes Bloober. They're just not smart enough to understand what Bloober was doing."

That just sounds like Bloober sucks tbh. You're talking like Principal Skinner.

Psychological horror games are also the WORST genre to develop games for if you don't want your games to be interpreted and analysed.

At that point just make a point and click puzzle game

CrimsonGear80 posted...

ummm.... she was not mentally ill, she's a medium, and killing herself was a way to keep an evil entity from escaping it's confinement in an abandoned vacation resort where the game takes place. the ending leaves it open as to what happens to the main character.

Mental illness might be the wrong word for The Medium, moreso trauma. From my googling, the monster you were talking about it is birthed from the trauma of her (or her sister's? I didn't read that clearly) childhood sexual assault. Some people thus take the message of the game to be, "You'll never get over your trauma and all it's doing is hurting other people, so you should just kill yourself."

Which obviously that wasn't what they were going for, but I see how you could interpret it that way if that vague plot summary is accurate. From what I know of their games, this comment kind of reads true in that the problem is more that they go for these themes to justify the game they want to make and don't explore them beyond that, so you end up with these unintentionally bad messages.
https://www.reddit.com/r/silenthill/comments/pm86ed/comment/hcg7ezh/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

But my thinking on them remaking SH2 is that if your biggest problem with them is that they don't write very well, then you shouldn't be too worried about it because SH2 is already written for them.

konami should have let capcom remake silent hill

Maze_ posted...

"It's the fans fault that no one likes Bloober. They're just not smart enough to understand what Bloober was doing."

That just sounds like Bloober sucks tbh. You're talking like Principal Skinner.

if people think Bloober sucks how does that make them "fans" of their games?? Seems like these people already made up their minds about them, so why placate them? Hate if you want, I said my opinion.

Maze_ posted...

Psychological horror games are also the WORST genre to develop games for if you don't want your games to be interpreted and analysed.

that doesn't mean the people doing the interpreting and analyzing are any good at it or that they don;t have bias that affects their responses.

seems like Bloober is being held to a pretty unfair standard compared to other horror game makers. I'm not saying they're perfect but you'd think they ruined horror games for everyone the way some people describe them...

pegusus123456 posted...

Some people thus take the message of the game to be, "You'll never get over your trauma and all it's doing is hurting other people, so you should just kill yourself."

again, seems like those people who say that are just looking for something to criticize them over.

I mean, Silent Hill 2 actually covered themes of suicide in a, let's face it, a more loosely and poorly written way and it was celebrated for it...

CrimsonGear80 posted...

if people think Bloober sucks how does that make them "fans" of their games?? Seems like these people already made up their minds about them, so why placate them? Hate if you want, I said my opinion.

that doesn't mean the people doing the interpreting and analyzing are any good at it or that they don;t have bias that affects their responses.

wut

They're fans of video games dude and TC asked why people hate them.

Going "Well people who paid money for the games and like other games in the same genre who don't like bloober don't count because they're not fans" is moonspeak.

And going "Why do they need to placate video game fans if they're making enough money to exist by churning out bad games" is an odd point

TC asked why people hate them and you kinda summed it up. They don't 'placate' people who spend money on horror video games by the action of making good horror video games.

That's bad

seems like Bloober is being held to a pretty unfair standard compared to other horror game makers. I;m not saying their perfect but you;d think they ruined horror games for everyone the way some people describe them...

I dunno dude, if anything I've seen people bend over backwards to defend them just like you're doing, literally blaming the fans.

I mean Layers of Fear got immense praise despite being pretty mediocre.

Now compare to what Daymare or most smaller budget horror games got in coverage.

I think Bloober get treated immensely well considering their track record and blaming the fans who gave them money for being let down is insanity.

Its not a good idea to get defensive over a corporation that doesn't care if you live or die. And then get mad at consumers for wanting better products . That's an ultra capitalist nightmare worthy of psychological horror

CrimsonGear80 posted...

Silent Hill 2
poorly written

Blooper team is great, the fans are the problem and SH2 is poorly written?

lol OK

See TC, this is why people hate Bloober Team

Because of one internet contrarian?

DodogamaRayBrst posted...

Because of one internet contrarian?

Yes precisely lol

No because they consistently make bad-mediocre quality games that have the potential to be better than they are and seem to have no desire to improve since they make enough to get by with a poor quality output.

And people are butthurt that a company with that track record got given SH2. Especially off the back of how good the REmakes were.

It's like if after the success of Lord of the Rings movies they gave Game of Thrones to Uwe Boll

Maze_ posted...

See TC, this is why people hate Bloober Team

I'm not Bloober team...

but you basically saying people hate them because some people may actually like them is pretty....contrarian yourself.

how many of their games have you played?

calling silent hill 2 poorly written compared to anything bloober team has ever made tells you everything you need to know about that person

bloober team has been trying and failing to ape what made that game work in literally everything they have ever made. their sole game is essentially "silent hill 2 for people with head trauma"

People are just hating. Why? Just because. Their games are great.