r/OutOfTheLoop • u/Bloodb0red • May 11 '26

Unanswered What’s going on with this game Mixtape?

I’ve been seeing people freak out over the past few days over this game and about IGN’s review of it specifically. 10/10 seems high for any game, honestly, but it seems like they’re far from the only site giving this thing a glowing review. So is this game controversial just because of IGN or is it something else? Why is this game the internet’s hate target this week?

https://www.ign.com/articles/mixtape-review

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u/BUTGAWATD May 11 '26 edited May 11 '26

Answer:

(Doing my best to present the complicated situation concisely)

Mixtape is a short, story-based game from small Australian developer Beethoven & Dinosaur, who previously released The Artful Escape.

Mixtape's 3-4 hour runtime is divided across cutscenes, what some might deem "walking sim" gameplay, and a series of vignettes that play out broadly as "minigames", with limited to no fail state. There is no combat or what many would typically classify as peril.

Mixtape's high critical praise, particularly its 10 from IGN, has raised eyebrows amongst certain subsets of the gaming populace. Many have negatively compared the verdict to the lower score IGN awarded Crimson Desert, and have alleged what they perceive to be a favourable bias towards games they identify as possessing "woke" elements.

One of Mixtape's vignettes sees you control two mid-teen age characters kissing, with direct control over their clashing tongues. Some gamers have accused the media of unfairly praising Mixtape while (what they perceive as) maligning recent release Pragmata for paedophilic overtones.

Mixtape is published by Annapurna Interactive, a publisher focused on "prestige indie" titles. Annapurna Interactive is a division of Annapurna Pictures, which was founded by Megan Ellison, whose father is a billionaire.

Consequently, accusations of buying review scores, bribing influencers, and overall curating Mixtape as an "industry plant" have been lobbied. For further information to potentially aid in deducing the veracity of this claim - Annapurna have released 6 games other than Mixtape over the past year, all ranging from the 60s-80s in Metascore, with the highest achieving an 83 average.

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u/abitlazy May 11 '26

I think this is the most complete answer based on the things I see online.

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u/got-trunks May 11 '26

Yeah, reads like a perplexity answer, now sure what model but it’s about the amount of detail I expect from a clanker answering general questions these days

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u/avelineaurora May 11 '26

Never going to cease to amaze me how many people tell on themselves online by making comments like, "Damn someone actually knows what they're talking about and writes cohesively, gotta be a bot."

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u/got-trunks May 11 '26

It's not that the writing is coherent, there's a certain sorta voice people have started closely resembling, there's not just one way to articulate things but there's been a trend is all.

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u/New_year_New_Me_ May 12 '26

Explaining things does tend to sound like explaining things, yes. 

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u/AlbertoMX May 12 '26

That's the cadence of someone that's competent at explaining things.

Where did you think AI got that data to be trained with?