I'm Russian, but a major part of my cultural code is formed by American (or Anglosphere, to be more precise) media. I have great memories of entertainment that pleased and inspired me. Games and movies and music and literature. But lately I got a bit too many disappointments from entertainment sources that I got accustomed to during my childhood, teens and early adulthood.
So, what about games I liked before?
Everything Blizzard is raped by Chinese Actards. HoMM went extinct. Fallout and TES are shat upon by Bethesda. Total War series can’t be seriously played anymore without total conversion mods, like Europa Barbarorum. Civs after 4 are wankery. Paradox is shovelware. “Classic RPG revival” is meh incarnate. nuThief is a disgrace.
The only game series I still care about is Dominions and it’s made by basically two people.
I try to find new games I could like, but almost all of them are disappointing somehow. Darkest Dungeon doesn’t allow me to speed things up or skip animations. Same goes for Cultist Sim. Anno, Foundation and Dawn of Man are uninspired samefaggotry. Frostpunk, a game with a map area of 10 square meters, lagged and crashed on me. Void Bastards are forgettable (had to actually google the name), just like Borderlands. Subnautica fell apart after something like 6 hours of gameplay. Battle Brothers is a tactics without terrain. Disco Elysium is a zoomer logorrhea.
Pathologic remake is okay, but it’s Russian and a remake. AoE is a remake. Into the Breach is but a puzzle, even though it’s nice.
The latest games I did enjoy are KSP, Factorio and Rimworld. Note the similarity: they’re sandboxes, electronic lego grindfests I play as I like, without plot or characters or anything resembling art that's not introduced by me or fellow players. And they’re made by microcompanies not representative of gaming industry as a whole.
I’ve also liked The Witness and it’s also plotless.
My disappointment is not limited to games.
Among movies, again, only occasionally am I able to find anything that would interest me that was filmed during last several years. The Vice, The Wife, The Martian, Bohemian Rhapsody... The decline is much more prevalent. Superhero movies are strait out of chinese clonefarm. Lion King remake got blacked with nigger Simba. Star Trek is dumbed down. The last Star Wars movies were made 37 years ago (even though I like Mr Plinkett’s fanfics). I can easily watch old movies, some of which were made long before I was born, dozens of them, just not modern ones.
Then I turn to the music and turn it off, because the majority of musicians and singers I like are either dead or nameless synthwave-electro-trance-step composers or single-shot youtube remixers or sing in opera or called Lizzy Hale.
Books... Suffice it to say that most books I read are more than 30 years old. I’ve recently began reading The Wealth of Nations (which I bought in Latvia for mere 4 euros, in a discount corner with Plato and Shakespear, because obviously it’s a barbaric country that has no interest in classic literature).
In most parts of service sector of economy I turn to I see decline.
Software? Even fucking Win10 is an abortion. Spying, internet shop in an Office interface and no customization of the Start button are the things I just begin to fuel my rage with. And to think that those bloody hindu MS shillers even tried to force me to move to Win10 from my prestigious Win7!
Politics? American city upon a hill? After recent wars it looks more like a High Castle. And all I’ve heard from American mass media for the last several years was nigger faggotry, sjw drama and stupid memes. All I see in their economy is an endless debt multiplication and prestige-based income redistribution, iPhone style. Sad! During Cold war they used to have quality cultural propaganda.
EU is more like SU mk2. I remember a bit of mk1, just enough to see where it all goes. At least they still write good music, keep good books and make decent consumer goods.
I reread all of the above. It really wasn't my intention to sound like a salty old boomer. Because, firstly, I’m a millenial. Secondly, I manage to live an okayish life in top 10% or 15% income strata of my country. And, lastly, I manage to entertain myself with new knowledge, work and media almost every day.
I simply counted a bit and came to a conclusion that most media I consider good was made long time ago. And gaming, yes, in my opinion is in decline. Just like a major part of western cultural medium.
And when I see that goddamn Blizzard, that used to make quality shit, makes common shit, it reinforces this conclusion and I become disappointed and rant in the internetz.
