Mad about video games. A lack of our own creativity?

[runequester]

This is NOT about the latest twitterbook+ war so leave that stuff behind.

Ever since the internet rage surrounding the Mass Effect 3 ending, Dragon age 2 and a few others, I've been wondering about this:

A lot of people got super angry, tried to organize boycotts, raise money, write angry letters, send death threats and all the other stuff. Same thing happens with Call of Duty on a somewhat regular basis (as regular as a new game coming out, it seems).


So some of this, I'm sure is part of the general culture of outrage we live in, fuelled by the instant speed of communication. We fundamentally like being outraged and angry because it adds meaning, confrontation and a narrative to life that most of us lack.

I'm sure some of it is due to the nature of the internet making echo chambers easy to find. Start a thread about Mass Effect 3 even today, and you'll get people still shouting about the ending.


But I've been pondering this: Is part of it that most of us lack any kind of creative talent and hence, we invest in the creation of someone else instead?

The majority of people are not particularly creative. They don't write stories, they don't write or play music, they don't program, they don't create art, they don't design games.

That isn't a value judgement, it's just fact. You could replace "creative" with most any other skill or trait, and the same is true. How many can fix a car? I certainly can't which is why I pay nice people to do so for me.

However, creative output has become a norm in our society. We consume it constantly. TV shows, books and yes, video games. We're surrounded by a constant stream of creative output because even if only 1% of people are creative, that's still a LOT of people out there.

And since consuming some sort of creative output is the default mode of entertainment, it seems pervasive.


My pet theory is that because again, most people are not creative types at all, they instead put that investment into the creation of others and that's a big part of where you get the over-the-top internet rage. Same happens for music (new album comes out, is slightly different), movies and so forth.

From personal experience with people I've interacted with, once someone has gone through the pains of actually creating something: Coming up with a concept, putting in the hours, screwing it up, doing it again, having that piece criticized by the world at large it tends to make you a bit more appreciative of even a failed effort or one you disagree with.



Thoughts?
On to something or terribly wrong?

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well I do know quite a few creative types and apart from some of their snobbery I don't recall them being apathetic to the works they enjoy. There may be some variance with their fields because they have a more in-depth understanding of the creative process, but that is usually more of an apologetic stance (i.e. "I won't call this shit because I would probably do the same for that extra buck").

I would still propose it's the internet that makes people look "rage-y", because text not having the context of a person expressing their opinion means we can read anything we want into it. In person you can jokingly call people names and everyone will have a brief chuckle/frown about it then move on, but try doing that on social media and people will insist the apocalypse is coming and you the Antichrist have started it, then demand you get fired and all sorts of insane crap.

 

[The Wooster]

Absolutely not. I create shit all the time (whether or not it's good shit or just shit is up to the viewer) and I still rage hard when fiction I like fucks up. The reason you see a lot of creative-types stay away from more "brutal" criticism is because a: they know how hard taking criticism on something you've worked hard on can be and that empathy softens their judgement b: there's always some asshole who'll point out that their own work has flaws too and imply criticism of other work is hypocritical.

I think the same emotions are there: That feeling of anger and powerless when a creator seems to be trying to sabotage his/her own work. But a deeper understanding of how the creative process works makes them a bit more understanding.

 

[Erttheking]

As someone who has written a Mass/Effect Fallout crossover that is well over half a million words long...NO!

 

[briankoontz]

The OP's premise is flawed - all humans are creative. It takes creativity just to carefully select one's own words in speech.

There's a lot of anger in the world in general - this is (primarily) the result of the dying world and has nothing to do in particular with media creations. Consider how angry the denizens of Borderlands 2 get about pretty much anything - at least most people aren't armed, which they could be tempted to employ during their anger.

It's very straightforward that in a healthy world there's happy people and in a dying world there's unhappy people.

When people become "irrationally angry" about something their anger might be more rational than you think - the thing with anger though is that it always has to be directed AT something - no animal in history has mastered the art of expressing anger at complex non-discrete topics like "the death of the world" so what happens is that people "take out" their anger at something convenient - whether that be the ending of Mass Effect 3, the Call of Duty clone sequels, and whatnot.

Raging at Mass Effect 3 is healthier than beating one's spouse, so there's that to be said for it.

 

[giles]

Everyone is creative. Creativity is part of being human. Just because they don't come up with something you consider a form of art doesn't mean that creativity is not involved. Maybe they're a good cook. Maybe they're good at conversing with people without resorting to fixed patterns. Maybe they're athletic. The most creative things I can think of involve abstract math or hard science, not drawing a picture or writing music. That's perspective.
Being a "creative type" is like being a particularly good breather. Yea, it's useful to be good at it, but ultimately it's something everyone does. It's a means to an end.


Do you consider yourself lacking in creativity? You call yourself a designer so I don't think you do. This whole thing is not founded in logic. You assume that people have some kind of basic urge to create artsy things and if that's not fulfilled that can somehow be converted into anger over someone else's creation. What on earth is that even based on?
You're apparently not one who got mad over Mass Effect 3 and you apparently don't consider yourself lacking in creativity. What, then, are you doing here other than judging people you don't understand with a baseless hypothesis?

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

The OP's premise is flawed - all humans are creative. It takes creativity just to carefully select one's own words in speech.

I think it's obvious the OP is using "creative" as in "creates stuff". He said it wasn't a value judgement. For example, I don't find U2's music creative at all artistically, but they are creative in a worldly sense - they put out music and sell it.

 

[Squilookle]

If anything I'd say it's the opposite- there is loads of creative talent out there, and the rage you're talking about most often materialises when someone thinks "Even I could have come up with something better than THAT" combined with the frustration that you need so much resources and a big dev team in order to even having a shot of proving yourself right.

 

[zen5887]

Nahhh

There are a lot of reasons for blind internet rage but "people not being creative" isn't one of them.

I kind of see what you mean. By having ourselves invested time, money, sanity, and gods knows what else into a creative project, we should be more sensitive to people's other peoples investments of the same degree. I know how shitty and painful it can be to make an album, I should be more aware of someone elses album. I should know that sometimes x and y issues pop up and sometimes the project suffers for it. And I guess I am sensitive to that assuming I know the context. But that doesn't make me like it anymore, nor does it make me less critical of it. Perhaps if it was a friends project and I knew first hand the struggles that came from it I'd be more considerate, but I'm probably not going to go on the internet and be angry about a friends work anyway.

When it comes to getting mad at shitty games though, there are a couple of different rules.

First off a AAA game is going to much much more of a commercial product than a piece of art. Yeah, there might be artistic intentions present, but the primary function of a AAA game is to make money. Unfortunately. Thankfully this is getting less and less true, but for the most part we are able to judge a game sort of in the same way as we judge a table or a kitchen knife or any other product we buy for a purpose. primarily, did I get value out of it? And did it function as advertised? I don't know too many people who buy a painting and say "I liked it but I only looked at it for 3 hours, plus the early version of it had way more vibrant colours" (man, I'm definitely being facetious here but you get the point?). The people I've talked to about the Mass Effect 3 thing have been angry because they felt ripped off. They felt the ending didn't live up to the promise that Bioware made (or something... I haven't played the game). They were unsatified, rightly or not, with the product Bioware had produced.

Jesus, what am I even talking about anymore...

Uhh..

Your theory is wrong because AAA games are presented and consumed more as a product than a piece of art.. Or something.

 

[zedcavalry]

The way I see it, internet rage on something like a game's narrative isn't related to an investment on creativity - it's got more to do with a generational issue of entitlement. In this day and age, gamers believe that they are owed something by developers, and thus, NEED a certain ending. We all have our preferences in games, we all have our specific styles and genres. The issue is that now, the relationship has gone from a "we make something and you react to it" into a "we make something and you shout until we change it" type of deal.

With the internet, the voices of the entitled are louder than ever. I'm under the belief that unless a product is not fit for purpose (eg - broken), then the judgements made on games are subjective pieces of data. The problem isn't that we rely on creative minds to satisfy us; the problem is that we demand that creative minds follow our expectations, or else be subject to the wrath of the internet.

Just my two cents.