Undue Entitlement: A Growing Issue?

[ERaptor]

Because Bioware lied.....if something was sold on false pretenses(the BBB thought there was false advertisement at work)then people have a right to get their money back.And you condemn the people who were outraged over the ending yet you ignore the insults that were flung from the otherside.The gaming media revealed their true colors when they attacked the consumer and Bioware did nothing but egg them on.

I just made a quick google search about "insults" towards Fans, and the only thing I found was one Employee appearantly calling ME3 Fans "Basement dwelling Nerds" on Twitter, after the outrage started. If you have addiotional cases where Bioware insults their fans, feel free to deliver. But even if you do, its pretty much Kiddies insulting other Kiddies because they insulted them first! I'd probably taken the high road and just ignored the carnage on the Forums etc. before delivering that ending-DLC, instead of digging a even deeper hole.

Again, im not defending Bioware. The ending was horribly lazy and like a cliff after a great rollercoaster. But the whole fan reaction was around 90% an overly dramatic, childish retardfest of whining manchildren.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

Okay. Deep breath. Gonna try not to flip out.

Anyone who thinks "we all share equally in the blame, press and publishers and *paying customers* alike" is beyond "smart". Customers are the reason any of this shit happens. If some of us are unruly, ungrateful, entitled, etc., guess what? As a legit business entity, you take the high road, suck it up, and move on with your day. You don't antagonize, you don't nickle-and-dime, and you don't act like you're doing all of us some magnanimous favor by accepting billions of our dollars in exchange for military FPS #1809838.

The entitlement running rampant in the world today isn't on the side of consumers. That linked article says it all; the industry isn't killing it the way they were 5+ years ago. Part of that is a general economic downturn, but maybe another part of it is people seeking out other hobbies. I know I find myself gaming less and less as the product continually shifts focus from entertainment to monetization.

 

[Asmundr]

I see a lot of entitlement more along the lines of unreasonable expectations and desires. After getting into a few closed betas the amount of whingeing over how many bugs, the lack of content, or just general "feeling betrayed" if it doesn't fit "lore" is frightening.

I have no idea how to solve this (though it will never be truly "solved" as the root cause of all this stems from a variety of issues throughout our various societies) save for discussion and reasons. I know it might seem like a pipe dream but it's at least something.

To be honest I think its just a sense of ownership taken to the extreme. For example I had friends who complained about the ME3 ending along with everyone else. We debated and such but when I said I was okay with how Bioware handled the ending, and though I would be in favor of DLC, it wasn't a "base-breaker" for me. I told them that if Bioware hadn't be doing their job then you wouldn't be here to complain about how your favorite characters died or how the story ended up.

Again, I think its just the idea of ownership taken to ludicrous levels.

 

[Pat]

But $60 IS too expensive!

 

[blackrave]

Umm... I'm not entirely sure "entitlement" means what you think it means.

Zhukov, let professional explain it better
That is how I feel most of the time anyone uses word "entitled"

Yes, because a "finished" product is always going to be considered much better than a buggy and glitchy game that requires several patches for game breaking bugs and major glitches. I mean, it's not like there's an incredibly successful game, and that the parent company just stopped patching that REALLY buggy game after a while because they figured the fans could do it, right?

Oh, wait.

I would disagree with you.
Bethesda's open world RPGs have 50/50 chance to be glitched
For me they have worked like a charm (and if not it was because I modded them like a madman)
And they pack so much content it is easy to forgive occasional glitch
Especially when it's funny

 

[ERaptor]

Because Bioware lied.....if something was sold on false pretenses(the BBB thought there was false advertisement at work)then people have a right to get their money back.And you condemn the people who were outraged over the ending yet you ignore the insults that were flung from the otherside.The gaming media revealed their true colors when they attacked the consumer and Bioware did nothing but egg them on.

I just made a quick google search about "insults" towards Fans, and the only thing I found was one Employee appearantly calling ME3 Fans "Basement dwelling Nerds" on Twitter, after the outrage started. If you have addiotional cases where Bioware insults their fans, feel free to deliver. But even if you do, its pretty much Kiddies insulting other Kiddies because they insulted them first! I'd probably taken the high road and just ignored the carnage on the Forums etc. before delivering that ending-DLC, instead of digging a even deeper hole.

Again, im not defending Bioware. The ending was horribly lazy and like a cliff after a great rollercoaster. But the whole fan reaction was around 90% an overly dramatic, childish retardfest of whining manchildren.

You're kidding me right?The game media did more than call those who complained about ME3's end nerds so don't even try to downplay the amount of bile that came from their side.

They called people stupid,developed a obnoxious arrogance talking about how they "got the ending",and were flatout hostile to anyone who criticized Bioware and how they handled the whole thing. Forbes even had to step in and take the customer's side because the gaming media sure as hell was'nt going to do that since most are buddies with the publishers/developers.

Like I said they revealed their true colors and sites such as IGN payed for it when they lost almost a majority of their site traffic.

....The Game media? Seriously? I didnt even talk about those. I was talking about the sh*t that went down between Bioware themselves and the Fans. The Medias response is an entirely different thing, a thing I dont remotely care to talk about. Reviewscores and "opinions" being bought is absolutely nothing new. Look at the one article IGN made about the EA-hate. Or at sites like Metacritic were 80% of all Reviews are either biased or unreliable because written by either Fanboys or haters(Or again, Reviewers who received some "motivation" to write a good review.). If you want to talk about false advertisement, refunds and a fanbase going apesh*t, Mainstream-Media can be safely disregarded, as most of them will be biased anyway.

 

[Gorrila_thinktank]

I think you are probably just seeing selection bias in a medium driven by page clicks. Nobody did a cover story on me, an average guy disliking the ending to ME3, but mail some cupcakes to a company and you suddenly hit the front page of every gaming site. Forums are primarily echo chambers of discontent, so without solid numbers I can't really conclude anything.

I do think the internet has enabled anyone with an opinion to voice it, whereas in most situations said individual would probably do the most good keeping their mouth shut. Especially as connections become cheaper and more widely used, the most vocal will be the most visible.

Very well. I concede that point. I admit that selection bias probably clouded my logic there.

The only problem I have: how exactly do you tell the majority from a really vocal minority with several different forum accounts?

I'm not criticizing your point. I'm really not. I'm just curious as to how I'm supposed to judge the majority of a subculture that mostly uses the internet and social media without falling into selection bias again.

Hello!

I think that the inability to filter the voices of the masses is one of the real downers of the internet and our increasingly digitized modern society.

Its like what the wife of bath from the Canterbury Tales is famous for saying "experience vs. authority. BRO." (plesae note, Not a direct quote ^_^)

Say what you will about the elitist scholarship of the past ages, but elitist scholers made sure that most of the idiots didn't get a huge platform to speak from. I honestly think that what your getting at, the underlying issue you are addressing, rumdumconundrum, will the be the thing we all need to fix during this scholastic paradigm.

But like you said, I have no real idea how to fix this problem.

Besides a hive mind.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

The rise of people misusing the word entitled as an insult are the real problem here. If I pay $60 for a game and I'm not happy with it then I'm very much entitled to complain about it.