"Gamer Entitlement": Current state of gaming journalism and industry

[Polite Sage]

With many new heavily marketed and hyped titles bombing harder than god damn Chernobyl, "prominent faces" in the industry have shifted their focus into belittling and insulting their very own customers using words like "childish", "nerds", "losers", "whiners" and obviously everyone's favorite buzzword "entitled".

This is not exactly a new thing though; Mass Effect 3 had many fans riled up for various good reasons (such as plagiarism, cut out content sold as on disc DLC, using stock photos from the internet, lackluster visuals etc.) while the developers tried to downplay all controversy and openly insulted their fanbase in the process. Didn't like the game? You're just mad about the ending! And you hated Dragon Age 2? You're just a homophobe misogynist who doesn't like Hepler's writing because she is a woman!

Spoiler: Fan vs. Bioware reactions *click to expand*

Due to Bioware's horrible PR I decided to abstain from buying both of those games (and Bioware titles in future), though I didn't pay much attention to how stuff developed after that. I wasn't much a fan of their games in the first place despite enjoying both the original ME and DA so the controversy didn't manage to hold my interest and I thought that this was just one unfortunate case.

That is, until DmC: Devil May Cry was announced. Being quite a fan of the old games (specifically 3 and 4) I was intrigued to see where Capcom would take their new game. Even the first promo trailer managed to hold my interest until discussions about the new main developer slapping his face onto an established character (and admitting it in an interview), changing engine from MT Framework to Unreal, abysmal writing, less moves over more buttons etc. started pouring in. Let's disregard the actual game and it's end quality for now (there are plenty of discussion surrounding it already) and focus on how Capcom and Ninja Theory handled this. Let me quote a user comment from Erik Kain's "Are Fans To Blame For Lower Than Expected 'DmC' Sales?" article.

For the Deus Ex reboot Human Revolution, the development team set out to create a new experience and a new way of playing. However, amidst all of their changes and radical new ideas, the team and the marketing around it focused on how it was a celebrated return to the series, how it was something the fans would enjoy, and most importantly, they didn't mock or belittle the worries of the fanbase to which they were trying to sell their game. They treated the fans with respect.

Contrast this to Ninja Theory and Capcom's handling of the fans of the franchise, where fans were belittled, their arguments reduced to a simple "it's about the hair!", and no reassurances from the developer or Capcom that while the story was changing, the gameplay was going to be even more nuanced and fun than ever before.

Were I in charge of marketing at a game company, I'd be drawing up lesson plans based around not doing precisely what Ninja Theory and Capcom did from the moment the first teaser trailer dropped.

As you can guess, Capcom and NT's handling of the situation was an instant turn off for me and majority of other fans and as such decided not to buy the game while advising others to do the same. Many were expecting the controversy to end with that, until the gaming journalists decided to partake in shitflinging and bashing of former fanbase and other potential customers.

Spoiler: Fans vs. professional gaming journalists on DmC *click to expand*

I am all for differing opinions and good debate, but I assume you don't need pointing out why the "professional gaming journalists" aren't acting very "professional". Of course, with both the developers and journalists badmouthing gamers left and right it's going to have at least some negative impact on your sales, right? Many claimed "the game is it's own things, it's not made for you, just don't buy it you whiny babies". With Capcom lowering sales expectations from 5 million to 2 million to finally 1.2 million this situation could have ended here and there but now the journalists decide to blame the fans for NOT buying the game. Yes, they're attacking the very same people they personally told to fuck off and not care about the reboot "which is superior to originals in every possible way".

Again, disregarding the fact the original DMC games already were "21st century" (which presumably refers to the fact that he has no idea what he is blabbering about) you'll probably see what is wrong with these kinds of articles.
In essence
Reboot a franchise > fans are not interested in the reboot > tell fans to fuck off > complain when said fans don't buy it

Erik Kain wrote a few good pieces regarding DmC, including a review and the game's general response. While I do disagree with him saying "DmC would have been a good game as an original IP", his article pretty much nails the reason why everyone is so giddy about the new reboot.

Companies are not entitled to my money and they should have no right to insult a customer on multiple occasions for not buying their products, then raging when their product fails.

Even if you're not a fan of either series I mentioned you still should take a look at these. He makes some painfully obvious observations that most "respected journalists" are failing to make.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/01/22/upset-dmc-fans-are-entitled-because-thats-what-we-call-people-who-complain-about-video-games/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/02/05/are-fans-to-blame-for-lower-than-expected-dmc-sales/

 

[Antari]

Thankfully I could care less what people call me for whatever I do. If I'm entitled for not spending my money on something I feel is mediocre, then so be it. Your right on the point that game companies are the ones who are acting overly entitled. Just because they make it doesn't mean we have to buy it. They made the game, its on them if its successful or not. I certainly wasn't the one who just wasted X number of years and however many millions of dollars on a guess.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

Oh good; it's a combined ME3 and DMC rant thread.

This will end well.

Reboot a franchise > fans are not interested in the reboot > tell fans to fuck off > complain when said fans don't buy it

If the fans are dedicating so much of their time and effort to badmouthing a game that's actually pretty good to the extent that they'll petition the White House to have the game pulled from the shelves?

Yes. Capcom has a right to be upset about that. That's bad press, and it'll affect their sales. More importantly, it's totally unjustified, because by all accounts the DMC reboot is actually a decent game.

Here's an example;

As you can guess, Capcom and NT's handling of the situation was an instant turn off for me and majority of other fans and as such decided not to buy the game while advising others to do the same.

Every DMC fan you met, you told not to buy DMC. For...what reason? Is it a bad game? Had you played it? Have you played it? Did you say "Don't buy this awesome new game because the publisher has shitty PR"?

To Capcom, every DMC fan you "advised" is a lost sale. And throughout all of this, you haven't said why DMC is a bad game. You're offering no reasons that justify you telling other fans that they shouldn't buy that game, and then you're conveniently forgetting the fact that you told people not to buy it when the time comes to address the reason why people didn't buy it.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

I liked the new DmC. It's cartainly not a bad game by any standard. Sure, it's not quite the Devil May Cry we know and love, but it's a still a very solid title and I had a lot of fun with it.

If it was a new IP, I think it would have been the start of something great, but because of its ties to the earlier DmC titles, it's always going to be compared unfavourably to them.

I think the general attitude towards the title have been childish, but there is a lot of good arguments against it that certainly go further than 'they changed his hair colour'.

Gaime joornalizm indeed.

 

[Stavros Dimou]

There is a saying from where I am from: "You will harvest the grains you sown".
It means that depending on your choices,you will have the appropriate consequences.

Unfortunately many developers lately have a bad habit of making bad choices. And these choices often are to make a completely new game different than anything else they've done,and give it a name they had already used for some other game in the past. They have fresh ideas and want to implement them somewhere,but instead of making a new franchise,they choose to use the name of an old one,because they count on fans of that franchise blindly buying the new product that shares the same brand name,even if the product itself works and is quite different.
That's the use of a brand's power to sell something irrelevant to the main products of the brand.
You can see that in other scenarios too,like for example in the Super Market you might find Star Wars chips.

There is generally no danger in doing something like this,but when the brand name is used for a product of the same kind as the original main products that started the brand,things may get 'dangerous'.
The reason is that we tend to associate brands with certain characteristics and features,which are the ones we like and we come to expect,and that's the reason people trust brands anyways. So when a new product of the same brand comes out,and doesn't have the features that made people like this brand and prefer it over others,costumer's trust in the brand is shaken and weakened.

And that happens with games,as it also happens with any other kinds of brands,like movies,electronic devices,cars,even restaurants. Yet it is only in the software industry where companies are blaming and whine against their possible costumers for not liking and/or buying their products. It is usual in most other industries for companies to be diplomatic and treat the costumers/possible costumers with great respect,even if it is a faked one.

In the games industry for some reason,most publishers and developers seem to think that they never have responsibility for their products not selling well. It is always someone else's fault. They blame it to gamers, reviewers, piracy, metacritic, anything and anybody except their own selves! That's boring and hypocrisy.
Many publishers feel like they are entitled to always demand whatever they want,yet never being asked to do anything.
Things like always online DRM,online passes and stuff shouldn't even be allowed,yet they are,so if anybody is entitled is the big corporations. When they make poor ass games and they doesn't sell,its not the people who say that the game is poor ass on metacritic who are responsible for doing that,its that the game is poor ass. (Not saying that for DMC as I haven't played it,I address that in general)

Most of the times people don't like reboots. Because it's usually on reboots the things they liked disappear. The appropriate thing to do for a new game would be to keep what made an older one distinct,and improve on that,refine it, and make it work better. In the end,if you are a developer and you see you have no other ideas left for an IP except from making a game way different than what the franchise was all about,make another franchise,duh!
But no,they think they have to keep using the same names whatever it is they will make. But this only works on a handful extreme cases,and trying it is a very big risk. The only series that can do that without penalties are Mario games, because anything with Mario will just sell. But that's the exception of the rule,not the rule. Perhaps developers and publishers shouldn't take for granted that once they find a game that sold good they must keep making games with the same name forever after that.

Some games or movies that are good should just stop there and not have a sequel. V for Vendetta was an excellent movie and is now a classic,but it never had a sequel,and I believe that was for the best of it. Imagine if they kept making V sequels until today. Now on the other side look how new sequels deteriorate the overall image of a franchise if they are bad. Look what happened to Star Wars,or at Jurassic Park. Not everything that was good has to turn in to a series. Not only it would be hard to make new products that stand up to the original,something which is hard,but if the new products are bad they also do bad in the brand name and the original good piece itself even.

 

[Olikar]

So many "fans" dont just want to pay the ticket and get a show. They want an ego stroke along with their ticket. And when their ego stroke is denied they rage.

Really? I thought most fans just want a game that is good and lives up to their expectations, And they rage when shitty Devs like Ninja Theory take a dump all over the series they love and then tell the fans to go fuck themselves.

 

[Polite Sage]

Great job missing the point of my thread.

Current state of gaming journalism and industry

As I said, I'm not here to talk about the individual qualities of the games and there are other threads that already discuss their issues, but I did borrow and play through DmC. What I am talking about is how shitty companies handle their own fans and possible customers, in addition to "free and unbiased" journalists joining and spinning up shit in order to alienate them even more, then complaining about people being unwilling to support companies or writers who keep insulting them on a regular basis. I merely used these two recent events as examples.

*****, *****, *****, is that all you do?
What losers.
Grow up gamers.

Who are they trying to attract with these types of statements? Certainly not the old fans, and I'd presume anyone not familiar to DMC series or the reboot controversy would be really confused and see the writers as very immature individuals. Who benefits from writing this crap? The writers get bad rep, the companies get bad rep, the game gets bad rep and the old fans are even more unlikely to buy the new game now that the journalists decide to antagonize them.

Essentially a fan scorn is a destructive force to your sales beyond the one sale they represent.

They said on multiple occasions that they don't care about the old fans and that the changes they made should not matter to them. "Wider audiences" have been mentioned quite many times. Where is this "wider audience" now? Why are they complaining about people who the game was never made for deciding not to buy it? Did I unknowingly ruin numerous game companies because I decided not to buy some game based on my own tastes?

Many fans saw the changes and simply said "nope, I'm not interested in such a game". Even if hypothetically the only reason people dislike DmC was because of the hair the fans would still be in the right. They have no obligation whatsoever to spend money on a product that doesn't cater to their specific needs and tastes and they have every right to voice their discontent with an inferior product. Sorry, but that's how free market works. Fans are not a company, nor they have any obligation to the developers or publishers. It's the companies' job to appeal to their audience, not the other way around.

And that happens with games,as it also happens with any other kinds of brands,like movies,electronic devices,cars,even restaurants. Yet it is only in the software industry where companies are blaming and whine against their possible costumers for not liking and/or buying their products. It is usual in most other industries for companies to be diplomatic and treat the costumers/possible costumers with great respect,even if it is a faked one.

This is exactly what I'm trying to get at.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

While I'm not going to speak for the DmC debacle, as I've done my utmost to stay the hell away from anything to do with that debate, meaning it's not a subject I'm particularly informed on. However, with the Bioware examples you gave, I have to say I agree with Bioware on every single count. I'm sorry, but what you're not showing about that whole affair is the wave after wave of fans who acted like utter children; and if you act like children, your going to get treated like children. That's how human social interaction works and being on the internet doesn't change that. What you call "horrible PR" I'm inclined to call admirable restraint, because if I'd been on the receiving end of the sort of abuse Bioware employees were subjected to, it's intensity completely overriding any possible provocation for said anger, I know I may well have responded far more aggressively.

By all means, if you have a problem with a certain game, tell the people who made it that you have a problem. Tell them precisely what your problem is and why you think it's a problem. If you express yourself in a calm and reasonable fashion, and they respond with aggression or condescension, then they're the jerks in the situation. However, if you think telling people who have just been doing their jobs to make a game you can play to go fuck themselves/go kill themselves/that they betrayed you on a personal level/that you hope they all lose their jobs etc. (and yes, I saw all of these examples during the big ME3 shit-fit, multiple times) constitutes a reasonable complaint, then don't expect anything you say to be taken seriously, even if you do have some valid points in there; because the developers do not deserve to be forced to sit though such waves of wanton abuse when all they've done is make some decisions regarding a game that they are allowed to make as the creators of the game, regardless of any protestations people might have against those decisions.

 

[King Billi]

In my experience alot of the whining and criticism one reads on the internet for various controversial new or rebooted games is some of the most dimwitted and in alot cases openly hostile bile you could ever hope to find.

For this reason I have absolutely no problem with developers calling people out on this, they have every right to defend what they've created from anybody who has something harsh to say about it?

To be honest I'm actually glad when I see devs responding with honest opinions and even throwing some insults of their own back... It shows we're dealing with real people who are actually affected personally by what others say about them. Thats much more refreshing in my opinion than some faceless PR department trying to placate everybody and keep all parties happy.

 

[Olikar]

So many "fans" dont just want to pay the ticket and get a show. They want an ego stroke along with their ticket. And when their ego stroke is denied they rage.

Really? I thought most fans just want a game that is good and lives up to their expectations, And they rage when shitty Devs like Ninja Theory take a dump all over the series they love and then tell the fans to go fuck themselves.

Are you going to argue that the complaining first happened when they had the game in hand? A game that is decent btw.

No I acknowledge that people hated it before it was even released and the hate was well justified, you didn't need to play the game to see that they had completely ruined Dante's character.

Also DMC is not a decent game it's terrible.

-The characters are terrible and unlikeable
-The story is just plain dumb
-The music is tedious
-The gameplay is poor and much weaker than the previous games

The only thing it's got going for it is a solid visual design.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

As I said, I'm not here to talk about the individual qualities of the games and there are other threads that already discuss their issues, but I did borrow and play through DmC. What I am talking about is how shitty companies handle their own fans and possible customers, in addition to "free and unbiased" journalists joining and spinning up shit in order to alienate them even more, then complaining about people being unwilling to support companies or writers who keep insulting them on a regular basis. I merely used these two recent events as examples.

I haven't seen Capcom badmouthing too many people. Maybe some insults on Twitter; not exactly a press release to the effect that their fanbase is dumb and stupid. What I have seen is a lot of articles written by journalists that criticise the fan reaction to the DMC reboot, sometimes in a rude way.

That's journalists. Journalists can and will write whatever they want. Capcom doesn't control what journalists write. More importantly, they don't control the Penny Arcade report, [http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/dmc-is-a-rebooted-devil-may-cry-with-heart-social-commentary-and-a-great-co] whose opinion I trust to be unbiased. Blaming Capcom for stuff journalists said on the spurious basis that Capcom controls the gaming media is just you conflating two targets together in a paranoid and baseless fashion. It's like blaming Barack Obama for something Stephen Colbert said.

To the extent that Capcom has been "bad-mouthing" fans - as you say, blaming the vocal anti-fans of the reboot for its lower-than-expected sales - they actually have a point. You yourself admitted that you went around telling people not to buy the game, and that you did so since the early stages of the game's marketing - before you'd even played it. Those people are Capcom's potential customers, and you poisoned their opinion of the game before either of you had even played it.

To Capcom, the fact that their anti-fans are out on the Internet raising baseless bullshit about a game they haven't played is a serious issue. It damages people's perception of the game, unfairly and without justification. That's not "entitlement" in the sense that people now use the phrase. Capcom isn't entitled to have people buy their game, but they are entitled to have it judged fairly, on its own merits. They're entitled to not have a small but vocal army of anti-fans running around telling everyone that their game sucks before having played it.

 

[Polite Sage]

You are lieing to yourself if you think fans just went "nope, I'm not interested in such a game" and moved on. It is quite obvious that many want to see it burn.

And reason for that is what? Do other reboots get as much hate? Why didn't Human Revolution get hated and boycotted to death? Is it because majority of DMC and ME fans are more childish than Deus Ex fans? Note that many people played the demo and judged that it's essentially slightly improved Heavenly Sword wearing a Devil May Cry skin, there are PLENTY of videos explaining the reasons it's generally seen as inferior to earlier games.

Maybe other reboots don't get as much hate simply because the developers usually don't outright flip off and antagonize their former customers? You're obviously saying that "majority of fans are manchildren who want to destroy a franchise" but what are you basing this claim of "majority" on? We have plenty of proof about these companies and reviewers flipping off their customers, but where is the proof that "majority of customers are sending death threats and only care about the hair"? I'm in no way excusing that kind of behaviour, and that also means I don't have to take insults and be expected to buy your products.

 

[Rawne1980]

I find it amusing that some folk still think some of us hated ME3 and DMC for the ending of ME3 and changing pretty much everything in DMC.

It's not all that true.

There is a hell of a lot I didn't like about ME3 which i've gone into detail about a few times so will spare you my rantings. I didn't find it a "good game", it barely hit average for me and for the same reasons a few other people didn't like it.

DMC I didn't like and not because of the changes to the story or Dante.

DMC: Devil May Cry is Devil May Cry light .... Babies first Devil May Cry if you can take the insult for a second i'll explain why.

It's far too easy.

Even on harder modes, Dante Must Die and Hell or Hell mode that I just finished. There is zero challenge AT ALL.

Style points are far too easy to rank up.

The combat bored me. I had to play it 4 times to unlock the difficulty modes and then another just to see if Hell or Hell mode would be worth a dabble.

So no, I didn't think DMC was a good game. I got my money's worth out of total playtime but that was due to having to hunt down a challenge that never came.

 

[Polite Sage]

So are you going to argue that this hate only showed up after people played the demo?

That is not an argument you will win.

Show me where is said that, please. I am aware that many people didn't like the new character model, and the hate was only fueled more by Ninja Theory's "deal with it" statements. What I'm saying that once people got to playing the demo, they were pretty fucking sure what kind of game it was going to be. If you've ever played a DMC title you can instantly say that the new DmC plays nothing like the old ones, without even touching on the quality, speed or difficulty.

As I said, I didn't follow the game's early stages and personally had no problem with the new design until all the other shit started showing up and yes, then I told other people to check out the demo first before shelling out money on a completely different game, despite the reviewers adamantly telling "also satisfies the old fans".