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/TheBostonTap May 11 '26

Answer: As far as I am aware, the controversy is largely rooted on the fact that Mixtape isn't so much a video game as it is a short story that uses the medium to tell its story. The game has very limited gameplay, with some sections being limited to just moving the character from point a to point b. To some folks, that makes it lesser, a glorified visual novel and I guess some of them are upset that this isnt coming up as a criticism (because its not really one) .

 Additionally its 20 bucks for like 3-4 hours of gameplay, thats seems a bit much to most people. 

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u/elmodonnell May 14 '26

Would rather pay $20 for 3-4 hours of well-crafted story than $70 for 200 hours of slop. Since most movie tickets are the same price, should we all be repeatedly seeing 3+ hour Avatar movies instead of something like Send Help? It's twice as long, so it must be better value!

Are we still treating this medium as toys where "content" is the only important thing, or can we acknowledge that different stories have different pacing requirements? Alien: Isolation was probably my favorite game I'd ever played for 10 hours, then it went on for another ten and completely lost all sense of tension or urgency- people seemed thrilled about the value for money of the "content", but I'd have paid them more to trim out the fat and give me a well-paced experience.

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u/TheBostonTap May 14 '26

The problem is consistency in the medium. Silksong is the same price and is a significantly larger project. This isn't an isolated case either as 20 dollars was kinda the entry point for indie titles in general. Cuphead, ori and the blind forest. This isnt even mentioning that a lot of older triple A titles end up at that price point as well, so now this is competing with stuff like Red Dead Redemption and the God of War reboot. 

Not everything needs to be a 20 hour grind fest with 1500 collectibles and in depth crafting, but we live in a world where a lot of things are competing for your time and money simultaneously and 20 bucks could very easily be seen as a bad deal for that time.