Knee-Jerk Reaction said:
So, the very recent fiasco regarding the features of D3 has finally caused me to notice something I should have noticed very long ago: gamers have an extraordinary affinity towards knee-jerk reactions. As a somewhat seasoned MMO player, this is something that somehow eluded me until now, but I realize I've been seeing it for the last 7-8 years. In every MMO I've ever played, every time the devs decent to nerf a class, or change a feature, there is always a segment of the player base who immediately threatens to quit, or acts as some kind of harbinger of doom, weaving prophecies that these changes will destroy the game. Yet, these players more often or not never quit, and the game avoids a bottomless pit of fiery perdition for yet another day. I've been guilty of it myself, and I am sure that everyone who has played an MMO has been guilty of this at one time or another.
Yet, this is hardly exclusive to the MMO community. Just look at the dozens of D3 threads scattered across gaming forums all across the internet. All of them are littered with people demanding boycotts of the game, and declaring their adamant refusal to purchase a game they were once looking forward to. This happened with the always-on DRM on Ubisoft's Driver: San Fransisco as well, and I am sure you could name dozens upon dozens of other games where individuals boldly decried the "atrocities" of the developer (i.e. they added a feature the hoi polloi didn't like), and vowed to never purchase the game. Yet, odds say that these exact individuals who SWORE that they would never purchase the gaming equivalent of a war crime probably ended up buying it in the first week of the game's release...
Now, you should not mistake my words for the defense of these features, or the various features that have riled up gamers in the past, nor am I implying the reactions are never justifiable (just extreme perhaps). I am not white knighting Blizzard, Ubisoft, or any other developer who has managed to systematically piss off some segment of this community. These are merely observations. Now, don't get me wrong: there is nothing wrong with stating an opinion, nor disagreeing with certain development choices a company might of made; however, isn't it a little too far to swear to the high heavens that you won't purchase this game, or to have a violent and angry reaction, when it hasn't even come out? Shouldn't one perhaps say that they aren't as optimistic about the game before, or maybe even straight out pessimistic about the future of the game, instead of threatening not to buy it, or buy some close equivalent? It just strikes me as rather... silly, especially since I get the feeling that all these changes won't prevent a solid majority of the folks from buying the game, despite them telling you otherwise.
So, what do you think about knee-jerk reactions among gamers? Why do you think this community has such a propensity towards them? Do you even think the community has a propensity for them, or am I just imagining this? This thread isn't about what you think of D3, or D:SF, but gamers reactions to choices they don't like.
