Seriously.. people saying there's nothing to do in Elite then post videos like that of things to "do" in SC?
Is this joking/trolling or something?
A bit of the latter, with a whole lot of general ignorance mixed in. We have a kind of a Hanlon's razor:y situation here, with a choice between malice or incompetence (or, if you like, outright lying and more or less wilful ignorance), but it's hard to figure out which is which.
You'll notice that, when talking about SC, the phrase “has never been done before” comes up frightfully often, and always in relation to some feature that has been done lots of times before. The fundamental issues is that, just like Chris, many of these people simply haven't kept up with the PC gaming industry since the turn of the millennium. They've missed out on the whole rise and refinement of sandbox gaming; of persistent multiplayer; of MMOs; of faux-sim shooters; they've been out of the loop or on the resurgence of indie development; of niche games; and of high-concept experimental games. Hell, we've even seen Chris try to tout as new and exciting features that were in Duke 3D, 20 years ago(!). So in practice, what has really happened is that their particular niche hasn't been well catered for, and consequently, they haven't had anything to grab their attention and use as a grounding to keep up to date — only now, when niche gaming is back with a vengeance, are they being sucked back in.
So there is a pretty strong trend among these people to… well… not be that observant, let's say, of what has happened outside their tiny bubble. They have also been fed a very peculiar narrative to fill in the gaps in their knowledge — one where nasty ebil publishers have kept development from happening (and, even more ridiculously, that they are
afraid of new developments), where PCs have been marginalised and held back, and where nothing new ever comes out. All of it pretty much contrary to reality, and yet a very easy foundation to use for filling in the gaps about the state of the industry and for imagining what goes on outside that bubble. Basically, if you don't know about something, it
must be because it's a case of publisher consolification and retreaded old concepts, and thus inherently of lesser quality and beneath you to care about. And it certainly can't be new and innovative — only the thing inside the bubble is capable of that.
Now add in an aspect that they're very much a part of, because it was around even back in the day: game tribalism. Everything outside of the bubble is bad because it is; anything else inside the bubble is bad because it's not part of the tribe… and in fact, it's probably bad because it's just like those horrible things outside the bubble. Hence why “only
the thing” — singular — is capable of anything new or interesting.
Thus we arrive at the razor. Sure, there are some that
do indeed understand that things have developed a lot; that the bubble does not exist in a vacuum and that what they're rooting for is perhaps not quite as impressive, comparatively speaking, but they have to say so anyway because of the tribalism. These are your trolls. There are others who simply don't know any better because they haven't had any reason to keep themselves informed, and they rely on in-group sources of information instead — sources that say that there is a vacuum outside the bubble, possibly with dragons in it, either because they're the aforementioned trolls or because
they too don't know any better. These are your ignoramuses. You can't actually look outside and verify for yourself, because that would be a betrayal of the tribe, and after all you
already know that you don't like what's out there so why even bother?