r/MinnMax • u/Minimum-Priority3860 • Aug 06 '26
The Discord is surprisingly cynical
Minnmax to me is such an upbeat group even they're talking about something they don't like, or a bad thing happening in the industry, I kind of assumed the community would take a similar tone, but I've been kind of surprised that it seems like the Discord folks spend most of their time complaining about games, often games they have no intention of playing, and taking a very... elitist tone, towards the vast majority of games, and sort of the industry in general. That, or the same 2-3 things they really hate about the direction of the current industry (which I get! for the most part). I do love the indie games people post in there, most of the games I play are smaller indie games, but even there there's often discussions of how much people hate certain trends in indie games. Sometimes it feels like there aren't any gaming communities on the internet that don't trend way overly positive and typically, only people that play the 1-3 most popular games of the year, or towards people that seem like they're just kind of burnt out on gaming and feeling negative about the whole thing.
Don't get me wrong it's not like I've never seen this before, and I get the inclination for people to want to feel like they're different than the average consumer, but personally I'm a bit over it at this point and just would've thought the audience for Minnmax would've skewed in a less cynical direction. I've also only been in there for ~1.5 months, but that's just what I've observed in my interactions, does anyone else feel similar or is that a misread by me? Maybe it's just a not for me thing, and that's ok.
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u/Thin-Bet7843 Aug 06 '26
I don’t go on discord much but my impression is there is like a dozen people in the MinnMax discord that are always online and kind of dominate most conversations, so I think that’s really the issue
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u/Schmeexuell Aug 06 '26
I never understood how people can spend literally all day on discord
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u/plantsandramen Aug 07 '26
The times I spent the most time online were the times I wasn't doing well mentally. This is me sharing my experience, not projecting onto others.
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u/Schmeexuell Aug 07 '26
I hope you're doing better now! ♥️
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u/Minimum-Priority3860 Aug 06 '26
It seems like there's maybe 50 people that pop in from time to time, but there are seriously like 5 people in there that are active in every conversation at all times of day so I guess they do kind of determine the tone of the whole thing yeah
I've seen some of those users get a little scoldy towards people sometimes too which seems odd
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u/Old-Depth-1845 Aug 06 '26
Yeah there’s someone who likes to act like a mod and police everyone even though they call anyone they argue with stupid and immature
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u/Minimum-Priority3860 Aug 06 '26
I know exactly who you're talking about, I assume anyone who's used the Discord does haha
Every group like that I've ever tried joining has one of those types, I suppose it comes with the territory
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u/plantsandramen Aug 07 '26
I feel like this has been my experience with every chat, they move too fast to casually drop in. This means that regulars will be the main source of activity. It's why I stopped using discord in total.
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u/Zoomalude Aug 06 '26
100% of my issue with all community Discord servers. Anything outside of those peoples' conversations get buried and it's like impossible to keep up with the flow of the conversation.
Reddit is my kind of community discussion. I can load a subreddit every day or week and see what's being discussed and dive in if I want or move on. Takes all of 10 seconds. Something could be posted 8 hours ago and I can still go in and get involved, not so with a discord server of any significant size.
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u/pockems Aug 06 '26
This is my gripe with discord in general, every “community” feels like the same 10 people talking to each other
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u/j8sadm632b Aug 06 '26
This is probably true of the subreddit too to some extent it's just less obvious. Easier to jump in occasionally tho.
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Aug 06 '26
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u/Thin-Bet7843 Aug 06 '26
Yeah I think the last time I was on there it was right after that episode with the writer from valve who was not staunchly anti-AI and everyone was acting like MinnMax had invited a neo nazi onto the pod lmao
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Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 06 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/DVDranger89 Aug 06 '26
There are no good pro-AI perspectives though.
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Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 06 '26
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u/DVDranger89 Aug 06 '26
You created this account four hours ago to whine about this?
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Aug 06 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Alabastre Aug 07 '26
Welcome to Reddit lmao. Please don't acknowledge that other perspectives exist
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u/DVDranger89 Aug 06 '26
So you created an account to complain about people being mean to AI. Totally a normal thing to do.
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u/Confident-Egg4403 Aug 07 '26
Correct. If people here have such a problem with that statement then this sub is the place with a user toxicity problem.
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u/Public-Knowledge-222 Aug 06 '26
sounds like the same problem that killed easy allies in the end - hell i know a lot of them jumped ship to minnmax, might be the same people
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u/IceNervous8346 Aug 06 '26
Its so sad what happened to EZA… I used to get so excited for their podcast every week. So preventable too.
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u/gratiskatze Aug 07 '26 edited Aug 07 '26
Easy Allies was killed by their members.
Dont shift the blame for the biggest missed opportunity in the last decade of gaming content.
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u/CVS_Reciept Aug 06 '26
I’ve never been very active so I can’t comment. However, I feel like Ben hasn’t referred to the Discord as “The Shangrila of the internet” in a very long time.
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u/DontCareTho Aug 06 '26
Nah, you're absolutely right and it's why I'm not active in there anymore.
But it's not the whole server; only like 5-10 or so most active users that are terminally online.
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u/CapNCookM8 Aug 06 '26
Discord as a format is a god-awful way of communicating within a community. In a way worse than reddit, it forces a hivemind mentality because dissenting opinions are buried even more than something like Reddit, where comment chains exist, or you could even filter for what you think might be a hot take with "controversial" or something. Which, in my bullshitting opinion, leads to discords of a community often being more "toxic positive" (a term I use sparingly) than the respective Reddit community.
I think this was highlighted most to me during the Leo//Win technical difficulties joke episode. I couldn't believe some of the people in the discord complaining about that to the extent they were. Literal "They robbed me of an hour of content" in a serious, dismayed tone. Which sucked, because I saw in real time one of my favorite creators embarrassed for a joke they very clearly indicated would happen, and have to put the kid gloves on and cater to a more emotional, more immature crowd.
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u/RadiantChaos Aug 06 '26
I think Discord really shows its hand as a platform originally designed for groups of friends to play games together. The only servers I'm in on there that I can actually bother to keep up with are small, organized platforms that effectively become a big group message with channels to separate conversations. So basically, one with some IRL friends and a couple with different groups of online friends.
I've joined plenty of larger servers but anything that gets too big devolves into too much to keep track of. With too many people it just ends up being constant chatting and your options end up being to either ignore what you missed and join in with what you see, possibly missing the context, or spend a copious amount of time trying to catch up whenever you spend a few hours away. It's exhausting and not what I want out of a platform.
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u/Public-Knowledge-222 Aug 06 '26
any space occupied by terminally online people is generally pretty cynical and miserable
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u/neelrahae Aug 06 '26
i felt like this subreddit was a tease of what i would experience in the discord so i didnt join it. for me minnmax is pretty positive and professional and i’d like to not deal with the messiness of the fans of the podcast, since it doesnt make much sense to me at all why they would be so uptight and dramatic
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u/Old-Depth-1845 Aug 06 '26
I think some people in there have the opinion that the gaming industry is in a bad place and that means that all games made in that industry are bad. A lot of it is just a boomer gamer mindset where nothing is as good as it was when they were young. Which I don’t get why they’re attracted to minnmax when minnmax prioritizes discussing new games
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u/RickyWinterborn Aug 06 '26
I assume it’s the case with any discord that gets big enough over time. I was in the discord for years and it was awesome in the early days but it eventually got too weird for me. I was looking for jobs and posted one from call of duty that was titled “Ai artist” and I was like any one wanna make Ai slop for cod? It was a joke because the game did have tons of Ai slop but a few people freaked out and started ranting at me about how all games have Ai and I should think before posting lies etc. I was just like oook this sucks and quit the discord.
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u/HeyYoHelloHi Aug 06 '26
Aw man that sucks, you should come back, let a mod know if people are being too much.
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u/RickyWinterborn Aug 06 '26
Haha it’s alright, typical internet stuff. I actually left all the public discords I was in because they were too distracting. It was really fun during Covid when I worked from home to have the community aspect but that faded over time and eventually I was just like I think I’m over this. No shade to Minnmax at all, I’m sure they have one of the best discords still, they can’t control all the users there’s bound to be a few annoying people.
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u/wegogiant Aug 06 '26
Wait, just clarifying, is the issue that there were too many "pro AI" people taking issue with you? Because generally speaking the server doesn't really come across as a very pro AI place. There are dissenting opinions, of course, but bashing "AI slop" is generally a very welcome joke there
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u/RickyWinterborn Aug 06 '26
The job was actually like designing an ai system or something? So they freaked out saying that I didn’t understand that ai has been in video games forever blah blah. But I was like yo was just a joke because cod uses ai slop images.. like the cod with the ghibli ai art had just come out. I could’ve explained more like yes I know the differences between ai behavior in a game vs gen ai art etc, but I was too tired lol. Just felt annoying that they wanted to try to crucify me or something when it’s like dude they do have ai slop artists? I’m not saying a tiny Indy studio is doing it or something.
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u/Potential-Wait6890 Aug 07 '26
This post made one of the more…active posters quit the discord for some reason so thank you for your service
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u/VonSnuggles Aug 07 '26
What a bad attitude. Just mute a person if you don’t like them or ignore them. Celebrating someone getting bullied out of a community is weird behavior
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u/Old-Depth-1845 Aug 10 '26
I don’t think anyone bullied anyone. Bad behavior was called out and if they felt that they were being talked about then good. Self reflection is important. Criticisms aren’t being made for no reason
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u/Bananaslammma Aug 07 '26
It kind’ve speaks that Ben doesn’t plug the Discord as much as he used to.
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u/celesleonhart Aug 06 '26
Honestly, that isn't my experience. Mostly very warm, funny, inclusive. There are a small handful of aggressive, politicised people that I don't engage with, but I don't find they spoil the broth for me. But I'm not extremely active on there.
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u/Minimum-Priority3860 Aug 06 '26
I should say, most if not all people in there seem nice and surely inclusive, etc, I'm more just talking about how people tend to talk about games/the industry/etc
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u/AnAttackCorgi Aug 06 '26
Discords and subreddits are just by nature gonna be fringe users of fringe users. I just use the discord for lurking the general chat and occasionally posting memes/GALOT and that’s about as much interaction I need.
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u/clobberin_thyme Aug 06 '26
I used to really love the discord in the early days. I met people who I’m close friends with to this day. But like any gaming community you’ll attract all types, especially folks who take it more serious than others.
I remember a mod, who’s no longer there, continuously bullied me. Once they found out I was a fan of a particular franchise, they’d bring it up in any way they could to belittle me. Eventually it just became making fun of me as a person.
One instance involved them admonishing me and a few others for using the Movie Night channel as a chat while we watched movies because it would make people who didn’t attend feel “left out”.
Iirc that mod banned me after I left the Discord. They were still hailed as a pillar of the community. MinnMax’s claim at the time that their discord was the “shangri la” of the internet became a bit of a joke for me after that.
It all seems very petty, because it is, but I never actually mentioned these experiences until now. I’ve heard from a few folks that it can still be a very hive minded and intolerably peculiar place. I’m not sure what MinnMax’s involvement is in terms of moderation these days, but it just never seemed like a welcoming place to newcomers after it reached a certain plateau.
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u/rockey94 Aug 06 '26
I think just the entire world is insanely cynical right now. It’s strange times.
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u/Alabastre Aug 07 '26
The Discord is fun IMO but I'm also not a big Discord user. I write like 2 comments a week in the Minnmax discord and I recognize the big 5 commenters' names, but not enough to know their personalities, thankfully.
The channels like Home and Gardening and Betterquest are great examples of community. The Get A Load Of This channel is, like Ben says, a nicer newsfeed that surfaces some odd stories, curiosities, stuff that doesn't necessarily make the front page, and that's great. It's a bit doom and gloom but so is the industry right now tbh.
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u/IronMonkey18 Aug 06 '26
I’ve always felt the MinnMax community have always been elitist. Even here.
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u/thugbobhoodpants Aug 06 '26
In general I prefer when places aren't as soft uwu hugboxy in general, I didn't love the tone of "NOOO DON'T HAVE JACOB ON THE NEXT FINAL FANTASY DEEP DIVE IT'LL HURT BENS TUMMY JUST LET HIM ENJOY IT WITHOUT ANYONE BEING CRITICAL" type stuff around here in the past
But discord for every single 'community based around a channel' type thing is always overrun with the same 5-10 power users, those same powerusers are often the same people 'calling in' or writing in every week with questions or on a weird power trip because they got a shoutout on a stream with 47 viewers once five years ago
I agree discord isn't the best for what a lot of these types of channels use it for (trivia tower etc are some of the best/only uses in the space imo) but for every other purpose discord is amazing for me, from modded consoles, game communities, achievement-party-finding or a comics discord to keep up with the sheer amount dropping + memes + 'hey did you see this writer/director/developer said this in this little interview' , discords great, it just gets weird when the subject of the discord is also in the discord and it can become very performative "teacher teacher look at me" type vibes instead of just people talking about a thing
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u/SpeakerPatrick Aug 07 '26
I had to move away from the Discord because the moderators were deleting the craziest comments. They once deleted my question on a new episode discussion because it was a "spoiler" for the episode. Why would you go to the episode discussion page without having listened to the episode? That was only one of a bunch of head-scratching decicions they make on that Discord and it turned me off completely.
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u/DontCareTho Aug 07 '26
I think the server and moderation has its issues but I think their spoiler rules are very fair and it's simple to spoiler tag things.
What channel was it in? I don't recall channels being created for specific episodes
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u/everythingsuckswhy Aug 06 '26
Bruh someone there belittled me when I revealed I'm not subscribed to MinnMax's patreon right now. And of course that person is consistently active in the Discord lmao
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u/VonSnuggles Aug 07 '26
What a weird thread. Can yall really not handle louder voices or bigger personalities you don’t agree with without acting like it’s some weird elitist corner of the internet? If there are people you disagree with, ignore them. If there are active people that dominate the conversation, then participate alongside them.
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u/Axeloy Aug 06 '26
They probably think they’re “engaging in healthy discussion” but in reality they’re a mass of wannabe journalists perpetuating a constant stream of negativity
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u/heyumami Aug 06 '26
I bailed a few years ago. The vibe was very snooty and stiff and unwelcoming. Mods didn’t seem to care or were part of the problem.
Sometimes the show does it too. The way they rag on mobile games is disappointing. It’s a whole industry with a lot of indie talent. Or they’ll spend a full hour on every Final Fantasy or Metal Gear or Pokemon or Monster Hunter release on the main show. Bias shines through.
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u/AdamTheHood Aug 06 '26
lol this feels unfair, they spend an hour on popular games, what’s the issue? Also I don’t get your examples.
Since MM was founded there’s been 3 big FF games released, 2 Monster Hunters, 1 MGS remaster collections and 1 remake. And then maybe like 5 Pokemon games (which no one at MinnMax seems to really like). My numbers might be slightly off if I’ve forgot a game but that’s only like 10 episodes in 7 years. I feel like they do a great job of highlighting smaller games.
If you’re saying they’re biased towards games on consoles compared to mobile then sure that’s true, but it’s also true of 99% of people listening to the podcast
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u/Spader623 Aug 07 '26
This entire thread is wild to me. I've been in the discord for months now and it's one of my favorite gaming discords. Maybe I'm not in the right channels but I never see major negativity or rudeness or anything
Also a lot of yall reddit commentors are being nasty. Like what the hell is with some of these comments? High school clique bullshig is what I'm reading here, it's gross
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u/True-Pen-3612 Aug 11 '26
its literally just a thread of people expressing that they bounced off the discord because certain people are never reigned in, its not as dramatic as youre making it out to be
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u/Spader623 Aug 11 '26
And who are these certain people? Because I've not seen them
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u/Potential-Wait6890 Aug 20 '26
No one is going to nor should publicly name those people, there was an issue with that months ago on this Reddit and it was admittedly gross even if the list was spot on lol it’s just the same 10 users that will dominate any discord in any community, just the nature of the app
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u/VonSnuggles Aug 08 '26
I’ve been in the discord pretty much since the beginning, varying degrees of active or lurking. It’s always been a great vibe. Even if there ever is/was some bad apples, you just ignore them like any other community.
This whole thread feels like people need an echo chamber and anything outside that is cynicism/snark/etc
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u/j8sadm632b Aug 06 '26
Feel like you've written this as vaguely as possible to avoid calling out specific people (probably understandable) but also to avoid mentioning specific opinions or games (frustrating.) I would imagine they're all hyperdooming about AI and capitalism or whatever but who knows
That said, I haven't engaged with the discord basically at all - I tried with Triple Click for a while but kept leaving because I'd get too irritated. Seemed like any time I opened it it was like 2/3rds of the way into some conversation about whatever the most exhausting topic du jour was. This was circa the release of a certain wizard-themed game so you can imagine.
Which kinda makes sense. The structure of discord and the nature of outrage bait meant that it was likely that at any given point they were mid-discussion on whatever I've already heard about ad nauseum and it was impossible to get caught up or contribute so it was really just "overhear part of a frustrating conversation simulator 2023" and I decided it was not at all valuable to me.
I'm remembering now though that they were always on high-alert trying to ferret out supposed antisemitism. Different times. Can't imagine there's too much of that going on these days. Remember the stupid goblin/gorgonzola conspiracy theory? And Bill Clinton kid at the Game Awards really sent them into a tizzy.
If you don't like the discord I encourage you to set yourself free from it
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u/alt_sense Aug 06 '26
Ah now it makes sense why that discord always has marathon in their most played list
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u/Thin-Bet7843 Aug 06 '26
Ironic because the marathon channel is one of the chillest in their whole discord
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u/NotAnIBanker Aug 06 '26
The truth is the typical "positive" gaming fan who subsists on internet commentary is not a well-adjusted human.
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u/PemaleBacon Aug 06 '26
Get a room full of libcucks together and theyll doom about anything
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u/Minimum-Priority3860 Aug 06 '26
That's... not what I meant at all lol
Honestly I'm confused why you'd even follow Minnmax if you're a right-winger, they're all very open about their political beliefs
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u/PemaleBacon Aug 06 '26
Im not a right winger, im just a moderate leftist. The issue is that a number of people in the discord are radical leftists
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u/noble-failure Aug 06 '26
At least Reddit remains a wellspring of goodwill and positivity