Jandau said:
Yaaaay! Broad generalizing statements piling an entire group of gamers into the same insulting label! Great work! [/sarcasm]
There are douchebags and idiots on all gaming platforms and PC is no exception. Singling out PC gamers and saying they should "get over themselves" and such is just plain hypocritical. Also, just stating "PC gamers" implies all of them. This in turn likely means that the person who is using the term in such a broad sense is likely the one who needs to "get over himself".
No, not an entire group of gamers. And it's hardly JUST PC gamers who have this attitude, I just haven't had occasion to write about anyone else yet
Baron Khaine said:
Just to go back to my original point in this, the problem is not a sense of entitlement, its the fact that the PC Community feel's that Infinity Ward has turned there back on us, after everything we did for them in the early day's, they've run off with there new hip friend's, the 360 gang. It's exactly the same as happened and is still happening with the Wii, it's pandering to casual gamer's, and the "hardcore gamer's", if such a term can be used for the Wii, feel left out, and dejected, by a company that they helped support by buying the Gamecube, Mario series etc.
Infinity Ward turned there back on PC Gaming, on the thing's that made us unique from the console's, and people won't just forget that.
Er, to be fair, that's *exactly* what I mean by sense of entitlement. That people feel the company owes you something, and are put out when it tries to cater to another group as well.
TMAN10112 said:
I'm not buying the game at this point, so I don't really care anymore.
But just to clarify:
GonzoGamer said:
They aren't depriving the game of content like some other companies do to their pc versions.
Yes, they are.
They've gotten rid of the ability to use mods (Not to mention that the max player count is 9v9 now), removing dozens of hours worth of play time and free content. As a matter of fact, the Nazi-Zombies mode in COD:WAW was inspired by a zombie mod for Modern Warfare.
Not... really. In comparison to, say, COD4, maybe. But it isn't like there's stuff on the console version that they are actively withholding from the PC version.
Wizzie said:
I like the article, however I can't really agree with it because it's only based on the MW2 protest. There's more to cover than the dedicated server issue and even then it stretches a little further than "we're not getting them".
As someone who used to play competative CoD4 alot, dedicated servers where the back bone of the scene.
Clans could have their own server, which they could lock and invite people into for friendies or ranked games or just have a practice session.
I'm curious to see how the competative scene will take to MW2 right now, simply because of the fact they can't do what was once so easy.
Without tools for modding too, basic comptetative setups like PAM are now out of the window.
As a CoD player, I'm not bothered about loosing the servers but as a competative player, my opinion would switch one hundered and eighty degrees the other way.
Had this article been based on something else, perhaps I'd agree a little more.
And like I said, there ARE genuinely valid reasons for people to be concerned about the game. I just don't think that the sheer vitriol I've seen on this form and others is a good way to get your point across, since it A.) makes other people more likely to dismiss it as simple ranting, and B.) drowns out any chance of honest discourse.
dududf said:
Would you be annoyed that a game on, lets just say 360 came out and they didn't use all of the tools on hand, and expected you to like it?
That's how PC gamers feel, we are perplexed as to why companies are not USING the tools at hand, instead every game feels like a downgraded port.
Just imagine every game you play as a crappier version even though, from a tech perspective is a superior console.
It's just madness, and people don't understand that our out cry is not justified. Think next about games, now that a big step to killing PC games has been taken? A game that (for the life of me I can't remember, it was mentioned in a escapist post) has taken away ( or mostly considered taking away) Dedicated servers, because Activision took the plunge.
PC gaming is going to die very much quicker do to Actvision, when in maybe 15 years time we will be joyed when Wii sports 982 plus is ported to the PC for 500 bucks ( Obvious exageration)
>_>
Oh yeah and mouse and keyboard For the win! :]
First, I'm going to have to disagree - given the timing and how early on this type of choice has to be made, I think the decision to drop dedicated servers for Rage had to have been made well before now, but IW's announcement led Carmack to come clean about their plans, too, since they were no longer the first.
Second, I'm not sure how you mean it's a "downgraded port." I think that if you have a gaming PC capable of playing MW2 on maximum, you'd be a fool to get it for any other platform. It'll still look better, it'll still control better, and you'll still be able to customize the gaming experience in ways you can't ever do on the console. It still outstrips the console versions by a good margin.
paketep said:
I think the rage comes not so much of a sense of entitlement over dedicated servers as for the fact that INFINITY WARD LIED BLATANTLY TO US, and waited until the last moment to throw the shitbombs, not to mention that they stole ideas from mods and don't even give them credit. That's where the attitude comes from.
And, frankly, I can't say I disagree. fourzerotwo has been a little *****, and when reasonable questions in a calm manner have been presented to IW, they've responded by either "that breaks the balance" or "this is going to be better, so STFU".
Piracy?. Please, someone did an study this week, and pirates are only about 3-4% of the people playing COD4 right now in the net. Plus, you see the amount of piracy there has been for the 360 with MW2 this last week. ¿Are they getting punished for it?. No. The piracy argument has been BS for a long time.
Micropayments. That's what they want, and they'll say whatever thing that passes through their minds to justify it. They work on 3 or 4 maps, easy as pie, they put them out there at $10, and a million consolers buy them. Lots of profit with almost no work. Why not force PC gamers to do the same and buy them?. Also, if we don't let them make maps anymore they'll have even more need of new content. Mods are out, too!.
I'm not buying MW2, and I'm NOT losing the attitude. I feel it's more than justified. Perhaps it isn't, but in that case, fourzerotwo is doing a pisspoor job as PR head, sorry, creative strategist.
You know, if you think about it, he IS doing a really pisspoor job.
As covered in the piece, I don't think IW's response helped matters at all. For all his intention, Bowling (aka 402) did nothing but throw fuel on the flames. Honesty on IW's part wouldn't have gotten rid of the anger, but I think active deception only made matters worse.
Cheeze_Pavilion said:
CantFaketheFunk said:
What I don't understand - and what frankly has made me increasingly ashamed to call myself a PC gamer over the last few weeks - is the attitude. There is what seems to be a strong current of entitlement beneath it all, and the message from many of the protesters is clear: We deserve something above and beyond the call of duty (har har har) because we are PC gamers, and our platform of choice is special. In other words, "You owe us, Infinity Ward."
Wrong.
The message is:
We (well, you: I play FPSes on the console where they belong, but that doesn't mean I can't have sympathy for my PC brethren) deserve exactly the same thing we've been getting all these years.
If you want to call that 'entitlement' (btw, I find it interesting to see a term--"entitlement"--that was used as a shorthand for all the ideas around it issue of male privilege [http://www.feministing.com/archives/006450.html] working its way into common usage) that's fine: just don't attack a strawman in order to do so.
Personally, I don't see how it's 'entitlement' to ask a company not to start *taking away* features from a game. If PC gamers were complaining about consoles getting a feature in a sequel that was only available to the PC in the first game, that would be entitlement. When did it become 'entitlement' to complain about things being taken away from you? They got you to buy the original using that feature. Maybe you never would have bought the original game in the first place without that feature. This smacks of the whole 'first taste is free' mentality.
I think you're arguing against the wrong thing here. I'm not trying to say that people shouldn't be upset at the removal of these features. The thing that interests me - and that frankly irritates me - is the repeated suggestion that these people are angry at the idea of their version having anything to do with the mere console versions.
Now, by all means, return to your regularly scheduled protests, but remember that the most powerful protest tool at your disposal is your wallet. If it infuriates you so much, don't buy the game. Don't be a tool and pirate it - that just gives developers more reason to flee the PC platform entirely - but a refusal to purchase will speak louder than angry internet rants ever could.
Nope.
Refusing to buy the game is no different than piracy in this case: if enough people refuse to buy the game...guess what? That "gives developers more reason to flee the PC platform entirely" the same as piracy. Or at least, to justify taking out "graphics customization, text chat, and mouse & keyboard control" in the next game, using the same logic you are relying on to justify this reduction in features.
I mean, you say: "There's a difference between complaining about a PC title that is genuinely inferior to consoles (for a recent example, see multiplayer in Borderlands) and a PC version that's merely "not better enough."" Well, if you're asking the question: "what sense does it possibly make to allocate extra time, money, and manpower to their smallest fanbase" then why not ask the question: 'what sense does it possibly make to allocate EQUAL time, money, and manpower to their smallest fanbase'?
Just like the fact that you have a moral problem with piracy and not with boycotts doesn't mean they will have a different impact on the decisions of profit-driven corporations, the fact that you see asking for dedicated servers as an entitlement while asking for equal mulitplayer in Borderlands as justified will have no bearing on how companies behave.
Well, I suppose that stems from me thinking pirates are tools, and a boycott is perfectly legal within the confines of the law. I think that if you find that a game is not worth the asking price, you shouldn't buy it - but that also means you shouldn't get to play it.
vivaldiscool said:
Funk, entitlement doesn't mean what you think it means.
Entitlement isn't even a word that applies in consumer culture. The entitlement argument could be an argument against piracy, but for someone who's shelling out $60 for the game, they are perfectly
entitled to say we want a good game. If the dev was making it for free, and we complained, that would be entitlement.
In summation, you say dedicated servers are a good thing, but we paying customers are not entitled to them.
funk said:
Gamers don't deserve good games
This isn't fucking altruism funk, the devs are getting payed for this, we give them our money, we are
entitled to the best game they can make. That's the basic concept of capitalism.
You'd have a point if you'd already forked over the $60 and then found out it was going to drop the features. As it stands, you still have the choice to not pay them a dime because you don't think it's the "best game they can make." If it turns out no one buys their game, then clearly it wasn't good enough. Again, the 'entitlement' largely stems from people being offended that their version is comparable to the console version.
ratix2 said:
Cut down because this is getting a bit too long already
Well, this was already a stretch enough for my column as is

The reason you haven't seen it is because I haven't had occasion to write about it yet. For the record, I think console elitists are just as irritating (and it's strange to see the parallels in this case between PC diehards -> console gamers and console diehards -> casual gamers / the Wii).
Valiance said:
Personally, I don't give a damn about this game at all, so I don't mind. I get the feeling that people will have an entertaining multiplayer experience anyway, even without the features that they want. I get the feeling that this game will take off and sell fine anyway, and in the future, maybe we won't have dedicated server support for anything. That's kinda terrible, but hey, maybe there will be an interface that's good enough that the players will manage to enjoy anyway.
Long story short, I just mean to say that all this bitching is going to do nothing. Things will change anyway.
The thing that really interests me here is the idea that "Nothing can ever be better than dedicated servers, we got it totally right with that, if it ever changes it's going to suck."
Now, don't misconstrue this as me saying P2P is a superior solution to dedicated servers, because as I said there are clearly advantages to the latter, but it makes me wonder what will happen when something that
is genuinely better comes along. Which eventually it will.
Aaaaaaaand that's enough responses for right now.