None of that is really entitlement with the exception of pirating a game. When you pay for a product, its not entitlement to expect some minimum standards, especially when you have other products to compare to. It's especially not entitlement to expect the product to deliver on its core value product. Expecting that Mass Effect ought to have a quality ending is like expecting a baseball bat to help you hit home runs; its tied into the very product you're buying. Not only are AAA titles like Mass Effect some of the most expensive games on the market, but when your game focuses on delivering a quality roleplay narrative experience, you don't want to screw up said narrative experience.rumdumconundrum said:
Undue Entitlement: A Growing Issue?
- Thread starter rumdumconundrum
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I think the false and useless labeling of the term "entitled" at the drop of a hat is a far larger problem.
So what if people got mad? The have the right to get mad. Just like they have the right to demand a refund or rewrite. Just like Bioware has the right to ignore them.
People are entitled to speak out in whatever way they choose.
Besides, even if you can somehow make the case that they feel entitled to something they aren't actually entitled to, so fucking what? How is that a problem? People ask for things they can't have every nanosecond of every day.
In fact, i think holding thing to a higher standard no matter what is overall a good thing. Always aim for perfection and never let something go criticized even if it's nearly perfect.
As for piracy, people are "entitled" to exactly as much as they can take. It's a simple fact and my opinion and yours makes absolutely no difference on the matter.
So what if people got mad? The have the right to get mad. Just like they have the right to demand a refund or rewrite. Just like Bioware has the right to ignore them.
People are entitled to speak out in whatever way they choose.
Besides, even if you can somehow make the case that they feel entitled to something they aren't actually entitled to, so fucking what? How is that a problem? People ask for things they can't have every nanosecond of every day.
In fact, i think holding thing to a higher standard no matter what is overall a good thing. Always aim for perfection and never let something go criticized even if it's nearly perfect.
As for piracy, people are "entitled" to exactly as much as they can take. It's a simple fact and my opinion and yours makes absolutely no difference on the matter.
Can I just say I despise the word entitlement? It just has a negative feel to it. But anyway...
All of your examples are perfect examples of undue entitlement, but there are an a very high amount of due entitlement. The Mass Effect ending is a good example. We were told that we would not get an A, B,and C ending... we got exactly that. That is just entitlement. We were told we were to get something, we did not get it. Now going ahead and filing a lawsuit is taking it way to far, but the claims against the ending were not entitled.
But I do see undue entitlement as a small issue, but one that can be easily ignored by avoiding internet forums. If people want to go ahead and ***** over DLC costing money or waiting for patches that's fine by me. Makes for some entertaining reading.
All of your examples are perfect examples of undue entitlement, but there are an a very high amount of due entitlement. The Mass Effect ending is a good example. We were told that we would not get an A, B,and C ending... we got exactly that. That is just entitlement. We were told we were to get something, we did not get it. Now going ahead and filing a lawsuit is taking it way to far, but the claims against the ending were not entitled.
But I do see undue entitlement as a small issue, but one that can be easily ignored by avoiding internet forums. If people want to go ahead and ***** over DLC costing money or waiting for patches that's fine by me. Makes for some entertaining reading.
There's still a sizable chunk of the community who believe they are owed or deserve games. This does fit with the concept of entitlement, whether we can do anything about it or not.Sir Thomas Sean Connery said:
Isn't spin a magical thing?Elfgore said:
Maybe I am alone in thinking entitlement is actually the right word to use.
This was one series. If it happened to pretty much any other, that would be a ridiculous complaint to have. Some games have bad endings, deal with it. But considering it was Mass Effect, a trilogy that sold itself on in-game choices having consequences, for it to contradict that is a legitimate complaint.rumdumconundrum said:
Four kinds of DLC: DLC that is extra content deliberately crafted as an expansion to the experience. I have no problem with this. DLC that is inconsequential and ridiculously priced for how shallow it is (and I'll group DLC that exists only to give players an advantage out of the gate that regular players don't have). In this case don't buy it. DLC that was probably cut from the game during production. This is vague, if the development cycle was shorter and the game less extensive than previous games in the series, it could be a legitimate complaint, seeing as it's going for the same price. Lastly, DLC that is content that was part of previous games in the series, and has been made a paid feature. Legitimate complaint.
I happen to think it is too expensive for many games, but whether people pirate it or not is neither here nor there.
What is this one from?
It is not unreasonable to expect a product that is released to function as intended, and publishers have a moral responsibility to make sure a game isn't broken on release, and can be played by someone without modification adequately. In the case of things like weapon balance or small bugs, it's fine, although patches still shouldn't be mandatory before the game is started. In the case of things like malfunctioning DRM and game-breaking bugs that don't allow the player to proceed past a certain point, that's pretty inexcusable. At launch this is especially true, because people bought a game new to experience it as soon as possible rather than look around for a better price.
since mass effect 3 was used as an example i am going to say: come on mass effect 3 is not and was never art like most (if not all) AAA titles they are entertainment products not art just like Hollywood blockbusters and mass market paperbacks and the devs hiding behind the excuse ooh its art was just insulting just as as insulting as trying to fob people off with that lazy bull shit they called an ending and i seriously question the mental age of people who say calling for a change was "entitled"
hell the gaming industry doesn't know how good it has it they have this massive resource telling them what they did wrong and instead of listening to the hell mouthed beast they are poking it with a stick and the media is worse since they are doing the most insulting calling us entitled pah i don't think most of what is called entitlement is any such thing consumers are putting their money down and demand a quality product and i reiterate it is a product not a piece of art
OFC on the other hand you do have idiots who do want something special but that is much fewer and further between than most people who have an issue with it seam to blow it out of proportion that LoL Halloween event was the most recent one that springs to mind well its the only one that springs to mind and even then there are levels of subjectivity here
but bandying around a word like entitled is not helping anyone
hell the gaming industry doesn't know how good it has it they have this massive resource telling them what they did wrong and instead of listening to the hell mouthed beast they are poking it with a stick and the media is worse since they are doing the most insulting calling us entitled pah i don't think most of what is called entitlement is any such thing consumers are putting their money down and demand a quality product and i reiterate it is a product not a piece of art
OFC on the other hand you do have idiots who do want something special but that is much fewer and further between than most people who have an issue with it seam to blow it out of proportion that LoL Halloween event was the most recent one that springs to mind well its the only one that springs to mind and even then there are levels of subjectivity here
but bandying around a word like entitled is not helping anyone
Yeah, it's not like the fans explained in great detail how ME3 was the exact opposite of a number of specific promises made by the designers.
No, the reality is that ME3 was made in a vacuum, no promises were made to the fans, and so the game could be whatever it wanted.
And then that vocal minority which comprised most of the fans rose up in an angry wave of entitled entitlement and tried to ruin it for the poor innocent developer by doing things like raising money for charity and sending cookies to said poor innocent developer.
Cookies of pure hatred.
What could Bioware have possibly done but turn on its fanbase and crucify them in the media? What could the gaming media have done but follow their lead? Media is, after all, not meant to be for the benefit of the public. Nay, it is just a tool for selling Doritos and Mountain Dew, and anyone who expects anything else is just an entitled whiny baby who whines and babies.
Down with the evil consumer. It is time for the corporation to finally rise up.
No, the reality is that ME3 was made in a vacuum, no promises were made to the fans, and so the game could be whatever it wanted.
And then that vocal minority which comprised most of the fans rose up in an angry wave of entitled entitlement and tried to ruin it for the poor innocent developer by doing things like raising money for charity and sending cookies to said poor innocent developer.
Cookies of pure hatred.
What could Bioware have possibly done but turn on its fanbase and crucify them in the media? What could the gaming media have done but follow their lead? Media is, after all, not meant to be for the benefit of the public. Nay, it is just a tool for selling Doritos and Mountain Dew, and anyone who expects anything else is just an entitled whiny baby who whines and babies.
Down with the evil consumer. It is time for the corporation to finally rise up.
Hate having to rain on your parade, but Merriam-Webster isn't exactly a reliable dictionary. Proof:rumdumconundrum said:
Definition of LITERALLY
1: in a literal sense or manner: actually, "took the remark literally", "was literally insane".
2: in effect: virtually, "will literally turn the world upside down to combat cruelty or injustice".
Sorry, but I am not accepting that "false advertisement"-stuff as an excuse for the huge retardation that ensued afterwards.spartandude said:
We had Bioware threatened with harm, whole Forums flooded with insults and the Internet pretty much grinding to a halt for a few days, to watch the ME3-Fanboy parade waltz around. And again, its fine to call out Bioware for bullsh*t like delivering a substandard of what you expected (Even if its just the very last part), but in my eyes one has absolutely NO right to demand money back for a game, after he sunk so many hours into it allready.
"Yeah, so i played the game you put a metric fu*kton of hours into, but the ending wasnt what you said it would be, so I will take my money back now, please."
I've said it somewhere else allready, thats the equivalent of eating in a restaurant, a whole 4-part menu, and then demand your money back because the cook delivered a bad dessert. If you want to make a stand against stuff like that, dont buy their sh*t anymore until they fix it.
To be honest, I had a hard time understanding the "refund"-part, even _if_ you agree that the ending alone would justify one. We had games that were delivered in a much worse condition (i.e. Buggy, with goadwful DRM etc. etc.) and you didnt get a refund on those either. What made people think that they would get a refund on an absolutely functional game, AFTER they allready played trough it? Thats just delusional.
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.the hidden eagle said:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Zhukov, let professional explain it betterZhukov said:
That is how I feel most of the time anyone uses word "entitled"
I would disagree with you.rumdumconundrum said: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.
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
....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.the hidden eagle said:
Hello!rumdumconundrum said:
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.
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.