I've been gaming for quite a while, but it was just about 5 years ago that I joined any gaming community. The first instance I remember of gamers taking a stand against anything was the Modern Warfare 2 boycott. At first I was like, gamers boycotting a well-established franchise because they are charging console prices for a PC game and taking away dedicated servers? Cool!
Then MW2 launched with barely a dent in PC sales.
http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/18j48weujcgewjpg.jpg
And I've seen the same thing happen over and over again. When Diablo 3 was launching as an always-online game, every forum was ablaze with internet hate. We were flooded with Error 37 jokes, how the Auction House affects drop rates, etc. But at the end of it all? Fastest-selling PC game, with 14 million+ copies sold. Same with SimCity 2013. That PR nightmare of a game ended up selling 1.2 million+ copies in the first 2 weeks.
In fact, gamers seem to care enough about EA's exploitative practices on both consumers and developers to vote them as the worst company in America twice in a row, but apparently not enough to avoid buying the next Battlefield, Mass Effect, Dragon Age or FIFA.
Considering how gamers have recently taken it up to be the arbiters of principles and ethics, I think it's a pertinent question. Do gamers at large abide by their own principles? Or are gamers hypocritical and just predisposed to hopping on bandwagons? Perhaps, principle-espousing gamers are a loud vocal minority and don't really matter?
Then MW2 launched with barely a dent in PC sales.
http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/18j48weujcgewjpg.jpg
And I've seen the same thing happen over and over again. When Diablo 3 was launching as an always-online game, every forum was ablaze with internet hate. We were flooded with Error 37 jokes, how the Auction House affects drop rates, etc. But at the end of it all? Fastest-selling PC game, with 14 million+ copies sold. Same with SimCity 2013. That PR nightmare of a game ended up selling 1.2 million+ copies in the first 2 weeks.
In fact, gamers seem to care enough about EA's exploitative practices on both consumers and developers to vote them as the worst company in America twice in a row, but apparently not enough to avoid buying the next Battlefield, Mass Effect, Dragon Age or FIFA.
Considering how gamers have recently taken it up to be the arbiters of principles and ethics, I think it's a pertinent question. Do gamers at large abide by their own principles? Or are gamers hypocritical and just predisposed to hopping on bandwagons? Perhaps, principle-espousing gamers are a loud vocal minority and don't really matter?