So I did actually read pretty much all of your post, I hope you enjoy my response that I spent a fair amount of time on and typed up at about 3am.Phlakes said:
Now I can say that the observations of the OP are pretty much true. There are in fact a lot of people who often claim a game will be utterly terrible or a series is "dead" based on pre-release information. This does seem to be quite the irrational thing to do. You know what else is equally irrational? The tons of people proclaiming Skyrim to be the absolute god and ultimate game evarrr before it came out. Another insane thing related to Skyrim was the IGN (I'm vaguely aware of their reputation as mad people) article proclaiming that Dark Souls would do something along the lines of "eat Skyrim's face" (or something like that) before Dark Souls came out. Madness.
I think with the "irrational" behavior from both ends of the spectrum, extreme hate, and extreme love, the answer would lie somewhere else. I don't believe that the issue is simply the idea that there is "too much hate" in the gaming community. I think it's more that in today's "fast-paced modern" society the majority of people are taught, and actively encouraged, to think in simple binary terms. E.g. "This is good." or "This is bad." So I'm sure that if one were to look at the majority of comments at almost any pre-release information on a game it would either be a lot of extreme negative comments damning the game before it even comes out, or a plethora of positive comments praising something that hasn't even been played.
After reaching a somewhat decent level of emotional maturity I've never complained about a review of a game. I know that I, along with everyone else, am free to have a different opinion from the reviewer without getting angry or "hating" the reviewer. Those who would think otherwise are just being irrational. I always thought that those who would get up in arms about a review were children, as in actual real life children. I know I was just a kid when I really cared about the scores a game got. At this moment in time the only time I would actually care to comment on a review would be if there was something factually and objectively wrong mentioned in the review. Then I'd be a little bit annoyed, not for myself, but for those who might read the review never knowing the mistake made on the part of the reviewer.
I would personally disagree with you on your desire for a shift in perspective on how people in general should view the gaming industry. I believe that it is best to view those who work on video games simply as that, as people whose job it is to work on video games. If they do that job well they will receive praise from the community in the form of praising the game they worked on, the game is bought more, and the company they work for continues to prosper. However if the product that is released is not up to standard, then the consequences that follow such as a low opinion of the game, and a low opinion of the company that not only released a poor product, but for most AAA games charged $60 or more for the product knowing full-well the quality of the product. If people do their jobs well then the community will like them. If they do their jobs poorly then the community will not like then in general. However, I will agree with you that it is wholly inappropriate for any personal attacks to be made on the individuals part of the development team, unless there is hard evidence that singular individual is responsible for the actions they are accused of. I believe that in the case of the Mass Effect 3 ending debacle, some poor individual writer was personally attacked on twitter because the ending was judged to be of poor quality. This should not be tolerated since it is simply unnecessary and cruel. I don't think that hatred directed purely at the product itself is bad at all. That should be just fine, it's simply the fact that some people take it too far and commit unjust personal attacks on people.
Overall the irrational hate and love directed at games pre-release doesn't really bother me nor do I believe it has any real effect on those who work on the game, at least it really shouldn't. Those who would make such comments are simply ignorant and thus, should not be taken seriously to any capacity. I don't mean that in an insult, just an objective description. They are forming an opinion based on incomplete information and/or a lack of experience, so their opinion is should be taken as seriously as my claim that (really had to struggle to think of an example here) The new Spider-Man movie will be complete shit because I love Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man. It's basically meaningless noise, or I suppose in the case of text meaningless scribbles not to be taken seriously.
Also, to comment on your view of the use of petitions, such as the case with Dark Souls. I would like to redescribe that for the OP.
Rather than viewing petitions as a sign of distrust, I believe that the creation and signing of petitions is just a new and exciting form of actively voicing consumer opinions. People are really enthused about the opportunity to actively let developers and publishers know their opinion. I can honestly say that other than having a movement so massive that gaming media makes a report on it, I have no idea how a gamer, the common gamer, could give developers their opinion in terms of something other than buying or not buying the game. The petition to get the Dark Souls DLC onto consoles wasn't made because gamers didn't trust the developer enough, it was to assure the developer that there is in fact a market for that DLC. It was an attempt from a (presumably) large number of people to tell the developers "Hey! Don't be worried about the resources needed to make this DLC, we are definitely interested! Go for it!"I'm kind of reading the post from the bottom up, just to go over things so this response might seem a bit backwards.
I just wanted to say that the companies that develop an "us vs. them" reputation usually deserve the reputation. More often than not, the company earns this reputation through business practices that are harmful to the consumer(gamer). Examples of this would be Ubisoft and their often terrible DRM that ultimately punished genuine consumers rather than punishing pirates, or EA with?Origin?....is it bad DLC? Actually now that I think about it I can't really think of why people hate them at the moment. I?m tired. Another example would be Capcom and the terrible on-disc DLC malarkey. A company such as CD Projekt, which often rewards its consumers certainly doesn't generate an "us vs. them" mentality. Based on the comments that I've seen the mentality of that company is one of "They make great games and fantastic business decisions, so let?s support them so they continue doing fantastic things for the video game world". In most cases it?s only when the consumer is antagonized, does the community turn against a publisher/developer. I mean, if someone kicks you in the balls it's pretty hard not to be mad about it, and if someone gives you free some delicious cake it would be difficult to hate them afterwards.
If anything I hope that anyone who reads this post will learn that pretty much anything can be described to be positive or negative.
P.S The whole Mass Effect 3 ending debacle is just way too much to get into at this time of the morning. I don't even know if you've played it or what-have you. Suffice to say based on your short section where you say
While whether or not people actually expected Bioware to change the ending I believe that they those who wanted the change of the ending definitely had the right to voice their opinion. It was Bioware's call on whether or not they would change it, and I suppose I can say that no one should have automatically expected that Bioware would change the ending.Phlakes said:
Personally I think the sentiment of betrayal that came from the Mass Effect 3 ending was fueled by the fact that people did feel betrayed and lied to. Bioware outright stated, claimed, promised that we, the gamers who loved their previous games, would not get a terrible ending that would simply be choose A,B,C. They really hyped up the ending as something that would in fact take into account all the choices the player made. Then the ending happened and all of those promises became lies. Of course people felt betrayed. Everyone trusted Bioware, everyone believed Bioware, everyone thought highly of Bioware. Bioware failed to deliver of the promises made, and so everyone was quite angry about it. To ignore their previous statement would be equivalent to not holding them to the responsibilities of keeping a promise.
Honestly, after experiencing the ending I was just disappointed. I didn't expect Bioware to actually change the ending because it would simply be too monumental a task to undertake to please people who had already bought the game. All I wanted was a simple statement admitting that they knew, that they knew that their ending was terrible and potentially have them apologize for failing to deliver on an adequate ending.
P.P.S Captcha: respect me
Ha!
P.P.P.S OMG CAPTCHA ERROR WTFBBQ New Captcha:have an inkling
Not as funny...
