In Praise of SoT's Core Design Philosophy

I'm making this post, because I think that many of the posts here and on Reddit are being a bit hyperbolic regarding SoT and content or lack thereof.

Unfortunately, a significant portion of the gaming community is toxic to everything it touches. You see this in some of the "political movements" that have emerged within gaming communities, and in daily interactions that people have in online spaces. I think Rare/Microsoft wisely intended to design a game that attempts to encourage positivity and social interactions in a marketplace currently dominated by pessimism and highly competitive shooters.

In many ways SoT the core mechanics feel refreshingly vintage. I think of multiplayer games of my youth like Mario Kart, Mario Party, Halo CE. None of these games had vertical progression. Games like Mario Kart had a handful of unlockable characters, but beyond that the core of what made these games fun were the bursts of excitement that these games provided around their core game mechanics. In my opinion, Sea of Thieves provides this. My life doesn't revolve around playing videogames, and I like that I can pop into Sea of Thieves with a group of friends, almost always have a good time, and have unique social interactions with other users playing the game.

We're living in a weird time, where on one hand people are complaining about loot boxes and microtransactions, while simultaneously praising games that include lots of microtransactions and gameplay that encourages grinding.

I appreciate Rare's sense of vision behind this title. Lots of people feel like Rare is not listening to them because they have not implemented everything requested here or on Reddit. However, I still feel like they've given us unprecedented access (especially for an Xbox title). I also like that there seems to be a creative team at Rare who has a macro vision for they're trying to accomplish with this game. This is something that's been missing since the Xbox 360, with the departures of creative studios/creatives like Bungie (Joe Staten), Epic (Cliff Bleszinski), and Lionhead (Peter Molyneux).

Too often with late life cycle Xbox 360 games through Xbox One, it seemed like Microsoft was focus group-ing their franchises to death. It got to the point where it felt like every game coming out in the Microsoft ecosystem was catered to e-sports or the hardcore crowd. What I like about Sea of Thieves, is it seems like this is Rare/Microsofts genuine attempt to buck that trend, and create a game that encourages a larger audience to be interested in a Microsoft first party franchise. If the larger gaming community is annoyed with Rare that they didn't create an experience that rewards only the most dedicated players, I say let them be mad.

So now we're here, the games out, and the larger gaming community seems split on the game. On one hand, I agree that the bugs need to be ironed out, and the game needs to be continually developed, but some of the larger negativity surrounding this title needs to be ignored. I truly believe that much of this negativity is simply a reaction from gamers who are unfortunately accustomed to the negative feedback loop that exist in modern franchises. Which is to say 1. Play more 2. "Git Gud" 3. Kill More 4. Pull the slot machine lever for arbitrary digital item 5. Repeat. I for one am thankful that Sea of Thieves is consciously not that.

On a final note, I don't want people to twist my words here. I do think that there is plenty of room for improvement, and I hope Microsoft continues to fund a full Rare development team in order to continually update this title and add new mechanics and features. I'll definitely stick around for the long haul, even while acknowledging that there will continue to be some bumps in the road.