When game hate becomes laughable.

[ERaptor]

Mass Effect 3 was the biggest one. It amazed me that some people put hours into the game, but managed to demand a refund because of the very last part. It made surfing around the time horrible, since you couldnt make two steps without the entitled whine-brigade that is "Retake Mass Effect" banging their heads against the wall. The only good thing about that whole incident was that some of the posts and declarations from these Neckbeards where actually pretty funny, and it was horrendously easy to make them loose their sh*t by calling them entitled little crybabys. It was pretty much a few weeks of free flamebait for everyone and got old really fast. It was sad tough that the people who tried a reasonable approach were complete drowned out by their whinier counterparts.

Company of Heroes 2 comes to mind. I dont remember who exactly, but appearantly some russian blogger unleashed a horde of his fans onto Metacritic to give the game a lot of 0, because it depicted russians in a bad light. (Demonstrating btw, that Metacritic can be safely disregarded when you want to know how good a game is, the Userscore has at least a few idiots rating 10's or 0's) I actually looked up the issue, which was the depiction of russians getting shot by their own men when they wanted to retreat, this is historically accurate as i found out. So it was pretty much a horde of idiots demanding that the game should not depict what actually happened, but instead make something up to make them look better. Wat.

And ofc Rome 2. Yes the game needed the patches it eventually got very badly, but the amount of hate it got was ridicolous. There were countless accounts around creative assembly-forums who would spam every thread with "This franchise is dead." "I want my money back." yadda yadda. Even after the first paches hit and improved a lot of the issues, some people were still shouting full volume everywhere, wether it was relevant or not. Alternatively, just posting Angry Joe's Video around 40 times per thread and going "Hes sooo right." "Listen to him." all the while ignoring that the Developers WERE at work improving. I mean, its okay to voice your discontent, but do it in a calm, constructive manner and dont turne very paltform around the game into your own personal battleground. Geez.

 

[Mersadeon]

Anyone remember Skyward Sword?

"HE'S RIGHT HANDED! BWAAAAAH!"

Or Sonic:

"HIS EYES ARE GREEEEEEEEEN! RAAAAWR!"

Those kinda fans, they are all awful! It makes me cringe.

This was especially dumb. I remember when Twilight Princess came out simultaneously for Gamecube and Wii, and the Wii version was naturally flipped so that Link was right handed - because you know what, it's really awkward to use your right hand to move Links left hand, and a majority of humanity is right handed. Calm down guys, this is clearly a necessary "sacrifice" to effing convenience.

(What I truly did ***** about, however, was that some parts of the game still referred to the wrong side. I was glad I owned the Gamecube version and saved myelf confusion.)


But the biggest one for me is the Elder Scrolls fans. Oh my god. Everytime a game comes out it is a disgrace to the franchise because it's different from Morrowind. Seriously, EVERY GAME IN THE FRANCHISE HAS BEEN SUPER DIFFERENT.
Oh, and also all those idiots who claim that Morrowind was somehow perfect. I love that game, but man, it is very far from perfect. And the fact that most of the people complaining about the Elder Scrolls franchise "going downhill" and "becoming to mainstream" have never, ever played anything before Morrowind.

 

[Ishal]

Mass Effect 3 was the biggest one. It amazed me that some people put hours into the game, but managed to demand a refund because of the very last part. It made surfing around the time horrible, since you couldnt make two steps without the entitled whine-brigade that is "Retake Mass Effect" banging their heads against the wall. The only good thing about that whole incident was that some of the posts and declarations from these Neckbeards where actually pretty funny, and it was horrendously easy to make them loose their sh*t by calling them entitled little crybabys. It was pretty much a few weeks of free flamebait for everyone and got old really fast. It was sad tough that the people who tried a reasonable approach were complete drowned out by their whinier counterparts.

I might be one of the few people to not care about the ME3 hate, in fact I'm glad it happened. It's one of those things that was going to happen in the industry anyway. It was the perfect storm in almost every sense of the phrase.

Now, I think demanding they change the game was kinda stupid. I never wanted the game to be changed. It should have remained the jumbled mess to be a reminder for how much they screwed up. But the big takeaway from that was that Bioware deserved it, and I literally mean that. For everything the haters said, they did nothing but pour fuel on the flames. They did this too themselves, and I can't be more clear about that. They were on record saying things that didn't happen in the game. These complaints weren't coming from nowhere. Bioware had been saying for years that they considered their fans to be "co-authors." Yeah, until they screwed up and people called them out on it. Now they're all a bunch of whiners and entitled brats. I actually think when examined in its entirety, this fuck up might be one of the worst in franchise history, beating out even the Star Wars prequels. It was that bad, no I'm not kidding. It was that bad. And I reiterate, it wouldn't have been if Bioware had handled it better. But they didn't, they had the EA PR squad filling in for that whole mess, or so it seemed. There is way more to say, but I digress. The entitlement crowd is something that I never took part in or endorsed, but the general ill will toward Bioware was justified. I didn't want them to change the ending, I didn't want a re-release, and I certainly didn't want any DLC. I just wanted them to admit their mistake, learn, and move on. But they acted as much like petulant children as the fans did.

OT: This isn't really game hate, but Console Wars. I suppose game hate can be tied into that with exclusives. Nintendo fanboying gets me a little salty as well. There isn't even that much Nintendo hate. I mean LEGIT Nintendo hate. Simply thinking they aren't the greatest thing in the world and calling them on their mistakes is so often conflated with hate its sad.

 

[babinro]

Diablo 3's forums have been actively laughable for well over a year now.

You get people calling the game the worst pile of %^$& they've ever played and yet they've poured well over 1000 hours into it. You have people claiming boycotts and coming back with each patch while demanding certain features in the expansion pack or they won't buy it. I guess boycotts only last a couple months...

You have people who spend all their time pimping other games as the 'true Diablo 2 sequel'. That monicker has been used frequently with Torchlight 2, Path of Exile, Marvel Heroes, and somehow even Guild Wars 2! Hilarious!

Other popular topics of late:
- Why was the PC version a 16 month beta test for the console?
- Why were features cut from the original game that we have to pay more for in the expansion pack?
- Why do barb/Monk get 30% damage reduction when all classes fight at melee on MP10?
- What's the point of playing this game when we know the expansion is coming out sometime in 2014?
- Here's why getting rid of the AH will kill the game / save the game

The forums offer sheer D3 haters/ D2 fanboy entertainment and I gladly defend the game (while pointing out it's faults) on a regular basis.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

We people argue about devices like xb1 vs ps4 vs pc vs WiiU and it gets to the point where people start promising that their device of choice hands out cake and free blow jobs. Its ridiculous the amount of bullshit people will spew to defend their platform from NOTHING. Why can't people just look at a device and say...

It really has the most appeal to me.

That^

Two things though:
On Mass Effect 3, the ending was (and still is) pretty horrible and I would say it came close to ruining the game for me, but I agree that some people were overreacting (especially with the petitions and the legal actions). However, what really bugged me about the discussions at the time were the defenders of the ending.
Not the "it was okay" or the "well, it wasn't exactly good, but I have seen worse" guys, but the ones that were running around calling other people children for complaining and trying their hardest to divert the conversation. I solely blame these guys for the common misconception that "the complainers were manchildren who couldn't deal wit their character dying, boo hoo", and they are the reason why you can not have a civilized conversation about the ending even today at moist corners of the net

I totally agree. It annoyed me when people would be like "lol, its the smallest part of the game so its still good". True, and while it doesn't detract from the whole series, the reason most people started playing the game was because they thought they were going to build their own in universe and they were going to end the game's conflicts for better or worse and see how their decisions played out. That was literally the hook that set it apart from other games. No shit people were pissed when they got to the end and nothing happened. Its ridiculous how much of a "us vs them" attitude people get into on the Internet. Once people started dismissing the comments of the people who were super pissed over it, then shit blew up

 

[CrankyCorvus]

Valve. I mean, if you say anything bad about them, prepare for an assault. Why do these people think Valve's so great, anyway? They're not much better than EA... Okay, maybe not THAT bad, but not great either.

Off-topic: Could someone please tell me why some people call Valve Volvo? This makes literally no sense to me. They must know Volvo is a thing too, right? What the hell do they have to do with eachother? I probably shouldn't be so annoyed by this but... Why?

 

[Legion]

Anything negative about Valve. Saying that Valve isn't the gaming equivalent of ALL of the deities that have ever existed, ever isn't the problem. The problem is the tidal wave of Valve fanboy reaction that is guaranteed to show itself. And boy oh boy does it get vicious ever so quickly.

Hello, My name is Sarge034 and I dislike Valve as a company.

My name is Pink Gregory, and somehow, I have never EVER seen Valve/Steam fanboyism on the internet. Honest.

Then again I stay the hell away from the Steam community ever since I glanced the community hub for XCOM Enemy Unknown...

Probably lucky.

I haven't either, but I do see a lot of people complaining about them. It happens quite a lot actually, where I see people complaining about a certain kind of person being everywhere, but never actually seeing that kind of person themselves.

Like people who apparently think Gordan Freeman is a good character. I have not once seen anybody say this, but apparently it is extremely common to the point of annoying people.

Mass Effect 3, by far, Mass Effect 3.
Not just because people overreacted, but how.

The ME3 controversy went so far down the rabbit hole, it culminated in the introduction of the misuse of the phrase "entitlement" into internet culture; often reducing the meaning of the word to ridiculous strawman argumentation.

Seriously, I've seen misuse of "entitlement" applied to fucking EVERYTHING.
Bad games, relationships, feminism, religion, preference of fucking COFFEE.

All because some gamers threw a huge tantrum over the ending of a video game.

So yeah, I have a bit of an axe to grind with that.

In the most common context of its misuse, "Entitlement" implies someone is wrong for demanding beyond their rights, but by the actual definition of "entitlement", that isn't true; in that context "False sense of entitlement" is true.

And, no internet, you can't just shorten the phrase to "Entitled/entitlement" as lingo or laziness.
Because by that logic "Don't Stop" could be shortened to "Stop".

It's fucking ridiculous.

Even worse is the way it is used like this by game journalists and reviewers as well.

OT: Pretty much all hatred is laughable unless it has an objective basis, and I do mean that in the correct usage of the word.

People who were angry with getting SimCity and Diablo3 to run at launch were justified, because they bought a product that was essentially broken. The reason it was broken was due to the unnecessary requirement of being online to play it, even in single player. Being angry at buying something that demands you rely on a service, and not having that service provided, is perfectly justifiable.

When you get people losing their heads because Dante has a new hair colour, or because some game with an over-the-top art style has a buxom character, it starts to become something you either laugh at or at the very least roll your eyes over.

 

[Hero of Lime]

Console hate is one of the biggest jokes of them all. We own different machines? Cue all the unnecessary hatred and animosity! It's funny when detractors of a certain console try to insult an exclusive series, yet if that series was on their preferred system, they would defend it to the death.

Hate on the likes of Call of Duty, definitely not the biggest fan by far, yet people swarm to hate on the games just because they exist. If you think it's a bad series don't buy it, but insulting people who like it never makes you look better. COD haters should focus on the other developers that try to emulate COD and end up hurting their games, not hate COD for it's influence and success.

Hate on anything that isn't perceived to be mature, usually Nintendo gets most of the hate on this front. It's sad when people hate on games that kids and adults can have lots of fun with, because reasons I suppose? I actually don't understand the mentality of those types of people to be honest.

Mass Effect 3 comes to mind, it sounded like a lousy way to end a well loved trilogy, but to say there was an overreaction is an understatement.

 

[Flutterguy]

I can't tell if people get pissier when it comes to games then other media, or if having a younger fanbase then the average movie die-hards that causes such rageing.

 

[SomeGuyOnHisComputer]

Wii/WiiU hate can get pretty silly from what I've witnessed. Given Nintendo has been doing some pretty shitty things since Wii came out, but literally none of the outcry is directed towards that. It's like people don't give a shit about what actually matters and would rather complain about games becoming more accessible to their mothers, or graphics, or motion controls. It got to the point were silly "conversations" like this happen: I showed a friend Mad World because he wanted to play it, another friend who was hanging out with us immediately started mocking it during the intro. Him: "I don't think my mom would want me seeing this, it doesn't actually show anything". Me: *flat what* Him: "Oh I'm sorry for making fun of the fucking little kids system."

He even stuck his nose up in the air, and there was a lot of anger in his voice when he got to the last part. All I got to say to people like this is grow up lol.
Don't even get me started on the dweebs who sit on GameFAQs 24/7 solely to troll the Wii boards.

 

[Tom_green_day]

I find anti-game fanboys the most hilarious. People that dislike games like CoD, Skyrim or any GTA for reasons which show they obviously haven't played it. Calling each CoD the same shows that you don't play the game. I find that hilarious.

 

[Edl01]

SONIC HAS GREEN EYES? RUINED FOREVER!!!

 

[Cid Silverwing]

Pursuing legal action because you thought the ending was a breach of contract? ...I'm speechless.

Uh no, we are literally entitled to do that when Bioware PROMISED us an epic conclusion and they failed to deliver. It's called "false advertising", I strongly advise you look up just how illegal that shit is.

OT: I don't usually see laughable hate on anything, although I do get served not-so-laughably infantile presumptuous hate on games that I love that my friends inexplicably hate. One person I no longer talk to, I casually mentioned I was playing Minecraft at the time, he said he hates it because "there's nothing you can do". Being the crusader of truth I am, I was obligated to tell him that's not true, you give yourself your own projects, and he immediately got defensive and was all like "don't try to sell it to me". Didn't talk to him much more since for his belligerent ignorance of the concept of a "sandbox".

 

[FrozenLaughs]

Yes, read the responses to BF or CoD gun tweaks.

*we've lowered the rate of fire on the Famas by 0.1 sec and adjusted the x-axis recoil by + 0.2*

Followed by 500 posts of completely bi polar arguments about either "you've nerfed the gun to hell it's unusable now!" or "lol the gun was OP now nobody will use it. Noobz"

This one (was going to post it, glad I read your post first)
By the bitching about it you'd think they'd made the gun fire peace and happiness instead of bullets. Didn't that change get some people to give out death threats?

It was just a general example, but yes, CoD desugners received death threats after similarly minor adjustments to guns in BO and BO2

 

[ThePuzzldPirate]

Every console release, Something about new gens kicks entitlement and self-worth up up past 11 to 12 and the gaming communities cannibalizes itself. Any news, good or bad, fact or rumor, will be used as a weapon to support/dismiss there brand of choice. Fanboys fight, journalist capitalizes, developers and publishers lie, it's a mess that I stopped finding entertaining weeks ago.

The Mass Effect 3 ending. It's not the fact that the ending was bad that annoys me. It's the fact the ending was so bad that it gave everyone amnesia over how bad the rest of the game was.

 

[Vigormortis]

I can think of three major "fan-rages" that have occurred in recent years that have stuck out to me.

1: The Mass Effect 3 ending snafu

2: Dark Souls 2 "easy mode" freak-out

3: Dota 2's lack of a Halloween event

Of these three, I'd say the first two were the worst. Most notably Mass Effect 3.

Even so, all three demonstrated just how immature, irrational, ridiculous, and whiny the gaming community can be. All three made me ashamed to be associated with "gamers".

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Been playing Battlefield series a lot more often now with BF4 just released and me playing a lot of BF3 in anticipation for BF4. Their absolute toxicity against anything with CoD is the biggest circlejerk I think I've ever run into in a game.

If you play CoD, according to Battlefield players, you're underaged, unskilled, can't deal with 'realism', a blind fanboy, have bad taste, hate vehicles, can't handle large maps, don't know class balance, don't know gunplay, don't know guns, have a bad taste in audio quality, a hacker, have a bad taste in graphic quality, can't hand melee that isn't one-hit kill, don't have no idea how military styled shooters work, never use teamwork, can't snipe, can't use tactical advantages unfairly, use tactical advantages, a fucking camper, the cancer of Battlefield, the cancer of shooters, the cancer of gaming, the cancer of the world, use overpowered guns because you suck, use underpowered guns because you don't know how the game works and because you suck, ruin this squad, ruin this team, ruin this round, ruin this gamemode, ruin this map, ruin this entire game--

I could go on for a while. Battlefield, despite being praised as one of the biggest squad-based FPSs there is, has one of the most hostile and arrogant communities I've seen in forever.

 

[tippy2k2]

Second, the fact that someone sent a formal complaint to the FTC, which is probably the most civil reaction out of all the things on your list, is what renders you speechless and makes you hold as the ultimate and worst thing of the bunch but not the death threats, is what makes me speechless.

My apologies for not having the correct terminology for the legal action but...

Still doesn't change my opinion. Still a ridiculously over-the-top reaction by a handful of people who hated the ending.

As to your last point, I put "death threats" lower because, while depressing and doesn't make it right, death threats are a dime a dozen on the internet. A lawsuit over an ending? That's something we've never seen before and therefore got put over "death threats" in my list. Both are still comedic over-reactions to me and both give me a warm chuckle over how preposterous some people get over things.

Although I suppose the funnest part (which could prove my main point wrong or right ) is that there have been a handful that have agreed that a lawsuit was preposterous and there have been a handful of those who agreed that the lawsuit was the correct course of action. Just goes to show what a splitting force Mass Effect 3 really had in the gamer community

 

[Barbas]

Spoiler

Yes, read the responses to BF or CoD gun tweaks.

*we've lowered the rate of fire on the Famas by 0.1 sec and adjusted the x-axis recoil by + 0.2*

Followed by 500 posts of completely bi polar arguments about either "you've nerfed the gun to hell it's unusable now!" or "lol the gun was OP now nobody will use it. Noobz"

If I recall correctly, the Famas had its properties altered so that it had the highest fire rate, higher than was really necessary. That meant it went through ammunition very quickly. Its magazine capacity may or may not have been changed. Its reload speed was quite slow, meaning that it was now a weapon with bewildering properties that wasn't really a good choice in any situation. It couldn't really be relied on for accuracy or for spraying people at close range.

The trouble with Battlefield 3 was that it took months for the developer (DICE) to release information on patches, resulting in a lot of people leaving the game through frustration caused by others abusing weapons that were clearly the best in any situation (generally this power applied to one weapon, then changed to another when the first was nerfed). Others would take out their anger on the forums, exaggerating the issue until DICE thought it was worse than it was. When the patches eventually came, they improved a lot of things but usually left another weapon too powerful, while rendering the first one too ineffective to be practical. This became the new source of grief for people. Thanks to the breakdown of reasonable discourse, the cycle continued ad nauseum. This occurred with things like vehicles and suppression (target accuracy debuff) effects as well.

I wanted to enjoy Battlefield 3, because people painted it as a vastly entertaining antithesis of the Call of Duty games. Unfortunately, because of problem after problem and little in the way of communication from the developers, I had to decide that the game was not worth the money. Far better to buy it at a discounted price several years down the line, or not at all.

Smaller, more moderate changes are what is required. Not as small as you describe, but not too far from it.

 

[Product Placement]

As to your last point, I put "death threats" lower because, while depressing and doesn't make it right, death threats are a dime a dozen on the internet. A lawsuit over an ending? That's something we've never seen before and therefore got put over "death threats" in my list. Both are still comedic over-reactions to me and both give me a warm chuckle over how preposterous some people get over things.

Thing is, so what if death threats are dime a dozen? That doesn't make them any less of a ridiculous and ultimately imbecilic thing to do because... we never truly know if it should be taken seriously or not. A death threat requires police attention because every once in a while, someone comes along who's actually willing to put down money where his mouth is. Receiving a death threat is therefore a very legitimate reason for cause someone a concern, especially if the threats are extended to that person's family. It's a waste of police resources to needing to look up a stupid remark left by a frat boy, who did it "for the lulz" and it could potentially ruin his life [http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/02/tech/social-media/facebook-threat-carter/] (stupid gamers aren't the only one's capable of over the top responses, you see).

While on the other hand, filing a formal complaint (not a lawsuit; I already explained this) to a department that specializes in combating unscrupulous business practices, is somehow worse? Had the FTC agreed with the complaint, they would have pursued legal actions against the company, possibly forcing them to refund the product. In this case, they didn't agree with the complaint so the matter is done and buried. Nobody got thrown into jail and hell, if the FTC had agreed with this, they might have actually forced the company to refund the game. Doesn't sound so bad, in my books.

So, that was the first time you heard about FTC complaints? Well, FTC complaints are filed all the time and I can guaranty you that Mass Effect is not the first game to have someone filed a complaint against. You're just not used to seeing the media hyping up one of those complaints but then again, the Mass Effect fiasco was a very special case that the gaming media loved to report on.

So again, you're actually willing to place a FTC complaint as a more heinous act then deaththreats but riddle me this: Which sounds like a more clearheaded action? Someone who's so pissed off about a product that he's willing to go through the paperwork necessary to file a proper complaint or the one who writes an email to the director, threatening to shoot him and his kids?