There was a window of time in the mid 2010's, around the peak of Unreal 4's ubiquity, where you could crank games to Ultra settings and not even have to think about it. No time spent experimenting, tweaking individual sliders or toggles, nothing.

PC hardware was relatively cheap, the consoles were powerful, and games still looked amazing, for a good 5-8 years. A generation of players came of age during this time without ever having to learn the vital skills of 1) tempering expectations and 2) tweaking settings. So they now see ANY friction, ANY dropped frames, ANY need to mess with settings, as a personal sleight. The PS5's "Performance vs Quality" toggles are the ONLY thing they'll tolerate now.

The worst of us have been like that for ages.

I never monitor my fps. I literally do not care unless it drops to like 20. It’s a game and I’m used to them running at 30.

When Crimson Desert launched, the sub for it was absolutely raided by kids crying that they weren’t getting 60fps every second they played and no joke-

I saw screenshots of dips as low as mid 50’s. No joke, theere were people demanding refunds and sharing methods on how to successfully get them knowing that a dip in fps wasn’t an acceptable reason.

Essentially, they all helped one another lie to get their money back because they lost 10 fos every now and again.

It’s fucking pathetic. Between this spoiled-ass’d shit and their obsessive need to have others validate them- they’re fucking ruining games.

Yeah I feel this, but I don't think it's bad; I want new games to be such a high bar that it's raised peoples' expectations, because I get to play those games too. I can still go back and play FF8 and Nox and even Pax Imperia, but I don't need kids to be able to appreciate those games, those are my nostalgia-bong hits. If they're all clamoring for GTA6 graphics, it doesn't detract from my old games.

Bloodborne’s got an unofficial PC port now. Playing it at 60+ FPS is a night and day difference. Helps a ton with reaction time.

the Genesis/Mega Drive Super Hang-On port runs at a staggering 15 frames per second. when someone else manages to make a game as good as that, we can worry about a 16th frame

People are not spoiled for wanting good performance it's expected.

Yes we are. Because we have options and they're not good enough.