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Veteran Member - Level 13
Hate is really such a strong word, it implies that there is absolutely no love whatsoever or any chance that you could ever forgive someone/something. Yet despite all this people on the internet "hate" things all the time. Now that word might not be legitimate, but scrolling through comments on several video game sites particularly on stories involving several of the larger games and publishers, it would seem that absolutely everything is inherently crappy with a product or service. In particular I'm talking about EA and Call Of Duty.
It seems that at some point we gamers have forgotten that our tastes are not the tastes of other's, or that our opinion really truly matters at all given the sales numbers of these products. Yet despite that we'll head on out to our favorite sites and clamor and moan about how terrible a game is, and how we don't understand why people keep buying it, and then we'll complain about review scores. "Why does X game get a better review than Y game?" "This company is evil look what they did to Z publisher."
Truly we are entitled to our own opinions, but when your opinion comes off as some elitist "I comment on a video game site, over these people who don't" then you sound like an arrogant jerk. Quite frankly just because you don't like something, doesn't mean that everyone has to not like it as well, simply because something is "killing" video games doesn't mean that you'll only get bro fist bumping games from here to eternity. Call of Duty sales on top of Skylanders make it possible for Activision to finance smaller more "core" friendly games. EA pushing Bioware to add MP to Mass Effect 3 only helps bolster the companies earnings. Yet we decide that it must be some evil conspiracy to kill off our favorite hobby.
Unless a game is truly disgusting or offensive to the moral foundation of someone, there should never be a reason for vitriol against the players of the games, or the games themselves. Two years ago Modern Warfare 2 was the greatest thing since sliced bread, now the mere mention of a new Call of Duty game draws groans and mumbles of oversaturation. The industry has been inflated for years before this latest sequel every year trend, the problem is that we failed to stop it. When I hear of games like Max Payne 3 only selling 650K in its first month, Especially with gamers complaining about a lack of good games to play, I simply shake my head. Meanwhile basically unfinished and broken games like Skyrim top sales charts, because we continue to allow it.
So why all the unnecessary hate? Because the consumer still continues to allow sales trends that violate the basic trust of their unwritten contract. If you continue to support, buy, and play the same games that release on a yearly cycle, then the same games will continue to sell. Meanwhile it seems that Max Payne will now truly be a man of the past, because gamers didn't give the guy a chance. In the end though we all hate the ones that we truly love, and we continue to do so unnecessarily because we can't stop allowing the abuse.
I'm glad to hear someone else call Skyrim broken and unfinished. I'm not saying it's not fun, but Bethesda should have delayed the launch. Nice blog
I think there are a lot of passionate gamers out there. With passions comes love and hate. Also, when someone buys a brand new game for $60, and it doesn't deliver in their eyes, it is easy to "hate" that game.
good blog, arrogant people all over the world need to read this
I couldn't have said it better myself. I might try to later, but I couldn't right now. Very nice post.
Nice post. There is some serious stupid hate out there. I give skyrim a pass because there are some bugs that the devs don't see or think of till people start playing the game for real.
I wrote something similar to this on my main blog a little while back and you hit every point that I tried to make myself. It seems like certain people just can't accept that someone might like a game that they hate or vice versa. Instead of accepting that, they call the person names and try to discredit them. Same thing with game reviews. I've seen Game Informer publish so many letters where people were complaining about a review, all I can do is smile anymore because it's so silly. "How could you rate this game better than that one? It's the best game EVER!"
My friend Mike exemplifies the difference between how I see some games and how he sees them. When Enter the Matrix came out several years ago, I played it and just couldn't do it. The gameplay was broken and there were so many bugs that it was unplayable, for me anyway. My friend Mike? He loved it. He could play it for hours and even when the game fatally crashed on him, wiping out his save files, he just started over and wasn't fazed by it.
A lot of the hate that you see is a result of the fact that people can comment on the internet anonymously. I can say stuff that I would never say if people knew whom I was. This is not limited to video games either. How many racist, homophobic, and generally hateful comments do you see on websites. Many people, even if they sincerely hold these views, would never actually espouse them publicly if their identities were known.
I think that there is also, when it comes to video games and other forms of entertainment, a notion from the fans that the product belongs to them. In fact, however, the fan really just is a consumer of the product. This means that a consumer has a right to complain about defective products, like say the bugs in Skyrim. Consumers should demand that fixes be made for these problems. However, its getting to the point where the fans are taking things to an unfathomable level. People threatening reviewers that gave the Dark Knight Rises a bad movie review, or freaking out over a bad video game review. Then, if a game like COD gets a good review, it is only because the reviewer was paid off.
This is a bunch of people that think that their opinion is always right and anyone who disagrees is an idiot. I have had people call me an idiot because I actually really liked the ME3 ending. I thought from an intellectual and philosophical standpoint, it was really well done. I can understand, however, that the ending is not for everyone and do not think that those that hated it are stupid. Unfortunately, many have no respect for differing opinions, and anonymity of commenting on the internet allows them to scream out their opinions and bash anyone who disagrees with them.
You kind of contradicted yourself on the fact that there is an unneccesary amount of hate in the gaming industy and then continue to insinuate that people who bought Skyrim were supporting faulty business practices simply because the game's glitches weren't a dealbreaker for them. If your don't like Skyrim for it's glitches or or whatever that's fine, but don't bring unneccesary hate upon those who had a higher threshold than you (and there is nothing wrong with having a lower threshold) for bugs.
Great blog; way to call attention to the issue at hand. Hope to see more from you like this. Great introspective piece of writing.
Skyrim was not the perfect game everyone called it. Thanks for saying it.