Too Much Hate. Too Much Drama.

[Arnoxthe1]

Nowadays, nobody wants to talk about the games themselves. What they liked. What they want to see in future games, etc. None of that. Why?

Exactly. It's like, who cares if Nike is using child labor in SE Asia? Their shoes are actually quite comfortable!

Once you reach a certain level of social awareness, you start to look at the companies that make all the shiny baubles. And a lot of the big game developers are engaged in business practices and policies that some people find disturbing, offensive, and/or reprehensible.

Until they get their shit sorted out, there's little point in talking about the quality of their products.

Well, that's a bad example. Children making shoes in Asia compared to some rather large prices for game/console or poor quality or what have you? C'mon, give me a break. They don't compare.

 

[Foolery]

CapchA: om nom nom
team fortress reference? really?

Isn't that a Sesame Street reference originally?

Yup. Courtesy of the good ol' COOKIE MONSTA!

But anyway back on topic, yeah I agree with the OP. This is the most melodramatic forum I've ever been to. Haven't been here long so I can't make any long term judgements but a decent number of threads are just plain ridiculous.

Some examples.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.822202-Well-Square-you-finally-did-it-you-killed-Final-Fantasy-A-Rant
Aren't rants against the COC?

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.821819-Uh-Oh-Sexism-in-Video-Games
Yeah, ok. Like we really needed another sexism thread.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.822356-Mainstream-Casual
Another exercise in futility.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.822236-Could-Nintendo-go-third-party
This topic has been done to death.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.822322-Why-have-video-games-become-cool
Not that different from the 'mainstream-casual' thread.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.822223-A-new-challenger-appears-for-the-most-inane-yet-successful-Kickstarter-scam
Troublemaking. Plain and simple.

I could go on. Fortunately the mods are pretty great around here and nip things in the bud before they get out of control.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Well, that's a bad example. Children making shoes in Asia compared to some rather large prices for game/console or poor quality or what have you? C'mon, give me a break. They don't compare.

So where do you draw the line then?

On one end of the spectrum you have Union Carbide gassing half a million people with methyl isocyanate and on the other end you have Electronic Arts refusing to pay overtime compensation to hundreds of employees.

At what point in that spectrum do you stop buying that company's products?

Dude, I'm not advocating shoddy business practices. Please read OP.

 

[Skops]

It's the internet, regardless where you go, people think it's cool to be constantly cynical. I won't sit here and claim I haven't done the same, we're all guilty of it, justified or not. For myself, some time ago I would be that guy that would just post negative, and overly critical things. And truthfully, I don't even know why. Like pointing out all the flaws in games was fun, but all it ended up doing was make me a bitter person.

So, over the last year or so, I just stopped coming here (daily) for the forums. Even my approach to video games is just for fun now. Getting overly critical about games like Call of Juarez: The Cartel just saps any amount of fun you could be having. If you look for flaws, you're going to find them. Some games this is more apparent than others.

A perfect example of why I stay away from the community for the most part now is in the Ultra Street Fighter 4 trailer thread. Seriously, not everything in this industry is made JUST FOR YOU, and regardless what you think of releasing "the same game 4 times", it's a successful business model and it keeps the online community alive and fresh.

 

[balladbird]

the internet's a caustic place, and honestly, some of the bile fascination makes sense. people are drawn to bad reviews and the like because they're generally more interesting, simply by dent of something so bad as to be noteworthy being something unique. The Godfather was a far better movie than Birdemic: Shock and Terror, but the latter always has more interesting conversation surrounding it.

I won't be so elitist as to say that if you don't like an aspect of the culture here, you should get out, but alas, struggling against this particular current will just leave you older for the experience.

 

[Strazdas]

CapchA: om nom nom
team fortress reference? really?

Isn't that a Sesame Street reference originally?

i looked it up and you appear to be right (i never watched sesame street, though cookie mosnter should have taken career in a metal band with his voice [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BovQyphS8kA]). i only knew the Team fortress variant. learn something every day.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

I've read your original post. Three times now. And I still maintain that it's pointless to discuss NCAA 2015 given EA's business practices. Just as it's pointless to discuss any "cool new feature or features of an upcoming game" when the company producing that game does not deserve our money.

If you want a circle-jerk about how Mass Effect: Teh New Wun really needs to have space ponies and a 3D backrub minigame, then you're always welcome to start a thread to discuss it. But, as you've pointed out, many people here prefer to discuss less frivolous issues, like the steady erosion of consumer rights.

Who says you have to discuss NCAA 2015 or any recent games for that matter?

And why do you want to keep talking about such depressing subjects all the time? I'm pretty sure we all know the negatives of the industry.

 

[Xdeser2]

As a consequence of that i am struggling to find any difficulty in the modern games i play and breeze through almost all games in 1-2 days on the hardest difficulty.

Hold the phone, maybe you've just become better at games over the years?

And

They diluted the gamer pool by making games accesible for people with no real ability or attention/interest and then used the watered down pool to benchmark new games.

Holy shit man, when did you become judge, jury, and executioner of who gets to play video games? The games of yesteryear didn't require any more thought than today. When did we forget that games were meant for FUN?

 

[Zeh Don]

I'm NOT telling everyone to stick their heads in the sand. The opposite of it, actually. For example, if a publisher does something that you can't put up with as a gamer, simply don't give them your money. There is no need to write a thesis on the forums about how terrible that company is, how great gaming was back in the day, and so on...

Again, why? Clarification is everything.

I don't buy EA Games' products because of EA Games' overall business strategy over the last generation of games, which was amounted to little more than "Fuck y'all, we gon' get ours."

If this isn't made clear to them, they might suspect that the games that they are making are terrible or on engaging, and thus they don't deserve to be made. Which is actually not true. Dead Space 2 is actually my favourite Survival Horror game - but I bought it second hand so that I didn't support EA Games with my money. This needs to be made clear to them and others, so that change is made and pressure on them to enact said change is created.

Otherwise, they'll just kill more studios, or turn more franchises into Call of Duty-esque nightmares because they'll assume something is wrong with the games, as opposed to something being wrong with themselves. For example, they killed the Online Pass system because it was made clear that gamers were actively not buying any game that shipped with it - as opposed to the games that shipped with it being terrible, and not worth continuing with.

Your "silent" approach is indistinguishable from either "complacency" or "disinterest" from a Publisher's quarterly statement. If we don't tell them, loudly and continually (see Xbone Reaction), they'll never change.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Again, why? Clarification is everything.

I don't buy EA Games' products because of EA Games' overall business strategy over the last generation of games, which was amounted to little more than "Fuck y'all, we gon' get ours."

If this isn't made clear to them, they might suspect that the games that they are making are terrible or on engaging, and thus they don't deserve to be made. Which is actually not true. Dead Space 2 is actually my favourite Survival Horror game - but I bought it second hand so that I didn't support EA Games with my money. This needs to be made clear to them and others, so that change is made and pressure on them to enact said change is created.

Otherwise, they'll just kill more studios, or turn more franchises into Call of Duty-esque nightmares because they'll assume something is wrong with the games, as opposed to something being wrong with themselves. For example, they killed the Online Pass system because it was made clear that gamers were actively not buying any game that shipped with it - as opposed to the games that shipped with it being terrible, and not worth continuing with.

Your "silent" approach is indistinguishable from either "complacency" or "disinterest" from a Publisher's quarterly statement. If we don't tell them, loudly and continually (see Xbone Reaction), they'll never change.

Ah, but that's why I said that if you have to talk about a problem, present your case civilly with strong supporting facts and be non-antagonistic. Which is exactly what you're doing now, good sir.

Let's all be professional and let us let the good times roll wherever and whenever we find them.

 

[veloper]

Sure, the forum is already at risk of becoming stale, so let's aim to make it even more yawn-inducing still.

There's only two things a gaming board can offer: entertainment and rarely, useful information.
The drama is the entertainment and the complaints, in aggregate form, make up 99% of the information, serving as red flags.

Without the genuine fanboys, the haters and the flamers, the only thing left to do for the serious posters would be to respond to the occasional troll wandering in. They could theoretically write informative game reviews in the review section instead, but they won't, so here we are.

The usual suspects on the gaming boards are what the libertarians, warmongers and social conservatives are to the religions & politics board: they are targets that give the other posters a purpose.
Cherish our antagonists and if a recycled topic bores you, just don't click on the subject title.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Sure, the forum is already at risk of becoming stale, so let's aim to make it even more yawn-inducing still.

There's only two things a gaming board can offer: entertainment and rarely, useful information.
The drama is the entertainment and the complaints, in aggregate form, make up 99% of the information, serving as red flags.

Without the genuine fanboys, the haters and the flamers, the only thing left to do for the serious posters would be to respond to the occasional troll wandering in. They could theoretically write informative game reviews in the review section instead, but they won't, so here we are.

The usual suspects on the gaming boards are what the libertarians, warmongers and social conservatives are to the religions & politics board: they are targets that give the other posters a purpose.
Cherish our antagonists and if a recycled topic bores you, just don't click on the subject title.

False. While drama can be entertaining sometimes, having it be an often occurrence is very tiresome. There's more to forums than drama and hate. It's mainly about socializing with others who, usually, have at least one of the same interests as you.

 

[veloper]

Sure, the forum is already at risk of becoming stale, so let's aim to make it even more yawn-inducing still.

There's only two things a gaming board can offer: entertainment and rarely, useful information.
The drama is the entertainment and the complaints, in aggregate form, make up 99% of the information, serving as red flags.

Without the genuine fanboys, the haters and the flamers, the only thing left to do for the serious posters would be to respond to the occasional troll wandering in. They could theoretically write informative game reviews in the review section instead, but they won't, so here we are.

The usual suspects on the gaming boards are what the libertarians, warmongers and social conservatives are to the religions & politics board: they are targets that give the other posters a purpose.
Cherish our antagonists and if a recycled topic bores you, just don't click on the subject title.

False. While drama can be entertaining sometimes, having it be an often occurrence is very tiresome. There's more to forums than drama and hate. It's mainly about socializing with others who, usually, have at least one of the same interests as you.

How much drama you witness here is only up to you; read fewer inflammable threads when you get tired of it. The subject title often says enough about the prospects.
You can try to socialize with anonymous guys from behind the keyboard, but you'd still need live topics to talk about. The threads where every post is moderate and agreable tend to die fast. No quotes, no fun, just shortlived strings of boring comments aimed at nobody in particular.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

lol no.

Honestly though. A bit of truth (because publishers are trying to screw gamers over and other groups are trying to assert that gaming causes violence/sexism, etc.) and a bit of confirmation bias. How about you start by not referring to negative views or opinions as 'hate', and then not thinking that the only reason people start topics is to get views (although in some cases it's true, often not).

snip

I disagree with the idea that you can lump everyone into 'gaming', take a broad assessment and say all is good. There are different markets in gaming, and if you're not being catered to, it's not something to sit back and accept. Forgetting hardcore and casual for the moment, which is basically what it is, should fans of stealth games be happy that stealth games are becoming more like action shooters? Yes, there are plenty of great games to play, and I don't think NES was the epitome of gaming or what games should strive towards (in fact I find a lot of the older games to have artificial difficulty as a cheap means of extending playtime), but why is it that games like Dark Souls are standouts rather than just another good game, and why are mods like Day Z and indie games like FTL so popular? There are niches and tastes, one of which is challenge, that aren't being attended to, and linear action games with prompts you can hardly miss are seen as the 'safe' game that will earn reliably and that series should become more like to broaden audiences. I think this is a problem.

 

[SonicWaffle]

snip

I disagree with the idea that you can lump everyone into 'gaming', take a broad assessment and say all is good. There are different markets in gaming, and if you're not being catered to, it's not something to sit back and accept. Forgetting hardcore and casual for the moment, which is basically what it is, should fans of stealth games be happy that stealth games are becoming more like action shooters? Yes, there are plenty of great games to play, and I don't think NES was the epitome of gaming or what games should strive towards (in fact I find a lot of the older games to have artificial difficulty as a cheap means of extending playtime), but why is it that games like Dark Souls are standouts rather than just another good game, and why are mods like Day Z and indie games like FTL so popular? There are niches and tastes, one of which is challenge, that aren't being attended to, and linear action games with prompts you can hardly miss are seen as the 'safe' game that will earn reliably and that series should become more like to broaden audiences. I think this is a problem.

I think you've just undermined your own point; you show examples of tastes which aren't being catered to and then provide examples of games that cater to those tastes. If you like challenge, you can play Dark Souls. It's a game suited to your tastes. You can play indie or web games like I Wanna Be The Guy.

What a lot of peoples' issue seems to be is that their particular preference isn't being catered to enough, or in the case of the guy I was originally disagreeing with, that their particular tastes aren't being catered to to the exclusion of everyone else's preference. There's something out there for everyone. It may not be the AAA game-of-the-moment, but there will be games coming out that suit you. I don't disagree that there may be a problem with the homogenization of major titles, but all that does is spur smaller developers to target the niche markets that those bigger games aren't appealing to. Given the advent of crowdsourced financing for video games, it's even easier for players to see that whatever it is they want to play, someone out there is probably trying to make it.

Basically, if you feel your interests are a niche market that isn't being catered to by the big boys of the industry, then don't go to the big boys of the industry expecting games that interest you. Give your money to people who make smaller games which fit your requirements rather than expecting the bulk of the industry to sacrafice profit in order to appease a niche market.