SvenBTB said:
Oh I see, yea that makes a lot more sense now. And I agree, I think if you're a real fanboy of something you should stick to your guns and not be wishy washy about whatever it is you like. But at the same time though, like you said, they should absolutely hold the creators of their favorite series to high expectations, and not be afraid to point out what doesn't work. That's the reason why Nintendo has been releasing games from series they started 20 or more years ago, because the strong fanbase (generally) holds them accountable. I'm sure I don't have to say anything more than "Other M" as proof of what happens when a company DOESN'T respect their fanbase.
Other M has to be the most startling example, how much that game was lambasted for it's MGS2/Phantom-Menace level betrayal of the series value.
But I think most indicative was Wind Waker.
That was actually quite a good Zelda game. Quite. But not quite right, and the fanbase did not let them get away with that. Twilight Princess was a return to form even though Nintendo delayed it for a whole year at the end of development just for more polish.
So I suppose in a way
Nintendo Fanboys are the best Fanbase. Because they actually improve things with their high standards and such a consensus of vision.
That's my metric of a good or bad fanbase, how good are they at holding the creative talent to account. Keeping the standard high and holding back the creator from destroying their own masterpiece with contrivance and compromise.
I suppose although Lucas' betrayal the vision Star Wars it was just so sudden, the fanbase have been so self involved in the Expanded Universe that they didn't see it till it was too late, then they couldn't stop it.
It wasn't a Universe any more, it was a marketing brand for the lowest common denominator, that was an idle amusement of millions, rather than a passion for thousands.
But I'd have to say the Star Trek fanbase are worse because that was a franchise had a slow and steady slide yet really depended on its fanbase for success. If they had stayed true to the visions of the franchise and refused to accept the compromises and held the movies to the same standard as the Star Trek movies of the original cast (oh glory). But now the trekkies have failed to defend their Star Trek, as McCoy said it best it is "worse than head, his brain is gone". Star Trek has now been lobotomised to a popcorn summer blockbuster, no real reverence for the characters or the stories or the history, the significance of it, it's nothing but an overproduced SNL skit played straight not for laughs but PG-13 violence.
I can't truly claim to be a Star Trek fanboy, I wasn't there to say "Insurrection, that's bullshit. Try harder or don't try at all". I came in looking over the series compressed in time with the benefit of hindsight. I saw greatness, so much, and squandered potential.
But I will say I am a true Metal Gear fanboy, that shit means something to me. By Steven Spielberg's metric of whether games can be art, I cried at the end of MGS1, in 1999 I knew that games were an art-form.
And that's why I trumpet MGS3 so much, because although it wasn't all that good, it WAS true to the Metal Gear vision, something even Hideo Kojima loses sight of.
