When game hate becomes laughable.

[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?

 

[tippy2k2]

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?

From all the sources I read, they were treating the FTC complaint AS a lawsuit. It sounds like that is incorrect based on what you're telling me...

Still a silly over-reaction to me but I do agree about the death threat thingy after hearing your reasoning and I will adjust my original post accordingly.

 

[Product Placement]

From all the sources I read, they were treating the FTC complaint AS a lawsuit. It sounds like that is incorrect based on what you're telling me...

Well... it's definitely not a lawsuit but the ramifications are pretty much the same. If the FTC were to deem that the complaint is legitimate, they have all the legal oomph that they require to make sure that the company will repent for their crimes. For one, it's a federal department, meaning that what they say trumps state laws, the same way that the FBI trumps the local state police. Now, I could write a long essay about their history but I think I'll allow this handy 3 minute youtube video to explain it for me, instead.


Normally, the first thing that the FTC does is to contact the company, have them cease the illegal activity and then negotiate a proper penance. The FTC normally tries to get the company to cooperate and they usually will, but only if the company refuses will this become a Federal lawsuit, where the FTC acts as the prosecution.

P.S. Since when have you heard of the media not sensationalizing their newsbit.

 

[Saltyk]

Most people aren't very good at criticism.
They can tell they don't like (or love) something but can't analyse why that is, and then identify some superficial thing that bothers them and blame it.

Like with Jar-Jar in SW-prequels, or the furry/human romance in Sonic 2006.
Yeah, the latter thing was stupid and badly written, but saying that's why the game sucks is overexaggerating.
It's just easy thing to ridicule.
(It's obviously not bestiality, since Sonic isn't exactly a normal animal. The problems I have with that are the art-styles not fitting together, there being no reason for it, and the writing being terrible.)

I was pretty sure Sonic '06 was just plain broken and nigh unplayable. Thus, making it bad. The rest was just icing on the shit cake. Honestly, I haven't played it, but I have seen videos, like GameGrumps. And early one it was bad, but I think the later levels actually got worse. Somehow.

 

[Ironbat92]

I'm going with CoD hatred. It's both annoying and quite Humorous.
Metacritic user scores are some of the funniest "reviews" I've seen so far.

 

[Soundwave]

What about smugness? They're like the burnt out ashes of hate. I can't even count all the "rolleyes ____" or "You made the mistake of playing/trusting _____". It's not as funny as regular ol' hate, sure. But I can't help but think it's toxic and unnecessary and worth of scorn in and of itself.

That being said, people who were mad at resident evil 6 "for not being scary, or survival horror" would be my contribution. Only because resident evil stopped being survival horror at 4, and scary as of like, ever, really. Surely 6 being the way it was was not a surprise to anyone.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Bayonetta 2 hate was pretty damn laughable. If the choice is either no Bayonetta 2 or Bayonetta 2 on the Wii U I know which one I'll pick.

I loved this!

Fans: "We want more Bayonetta, We want more Bayonetta..."
Platinum Games: "Coming soon...Bayonetta 2..."
Fans: "WOOOOOOOOOOO YAY RAUCOUS CHEERING"
Platinum Games: "...Exclusively to the Wii U"
Fans: "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WHY GOD WHY HATH THOU FORSAKEN US!!"

---

I've been taking more than a passing glance at the gameFAQ's forums and the place is just made out of trolls. It would be funnier if it wasn't so sad.

 

[DugMachine]

The fan outrage over GTA 5 not getting a perfect score by every reviewer in the world. No game is perfect, especially not GTA which I find to be a pretty meh series of games overall. People have different tastes in games and not everyone is such a blind fanboy to think their favorite game is perfect.

 

[KazeAizen]

Bayonetta 2 hate was pretty damn laughable. If the choice is either no Bayonetta 2 or Bayonetta 2 on the Wii U I know which one I'll pick.

And I remember seeing several going for the option where it doesn't exist. I laugh even harder though knowing that if it did go to Sony and Microsoft it would still be on their new console and they'd still have to get a new one to play it. A more expensive one at that. Say what you will about Nintendo but managing to stay the most economical console on the market for two generations is good for them.

 

[bug_of_war]

snip

Just a quick thing, depending on how you played the ending of ME3 actually did make a lot of sense. Just my 2 cents, take it how you will.

OT: Ummm...I'm a go with: Dragon Age 2, wasn't a bad game, in fact it was quite fun. Sure the re use of dungeon layouts was lazy, but they did it in Mass Effect 1 and that was generally well received. The story wasn't all that bad either, and the characters were mostly pretty fine, though all of them wanting to bang Hawke regardless of Gender seemed a little odd. So yeah, all things considered while you don't have to like it, sending death threats to developers and writers is just fucking wanky.

Also, honourable (<---Fuck you spell check that is how it's spelt) mention to the extremist fans of Valve and David Cage.

 

[SKBPinkie]

Honestly, I played ME3 once all of the DLC came out, and I gotta say - it was fantastic. Not as great as ME2, but still fantastic.

I honestly don't get what problems people had with it. In my ending, everyone lived (Shepard included), and with the exception of losing the Mass Relays, everything else was pretty much A-okay.

 

[Something Amyss]

When there's no justifiable reason for it.

Which makes a lot of it laughable, TBH.

I disagree when people say "death threats" or the like. There really isn't anything funny about "I'm going to kill you for making this game!"

Pursuing (potential) legal action because you thought the ending was a breach of contract false advertising [footnote]Changed since a number of people noted that a FTC thingy is NOT a lawsuit as I formerly thought based on what I read. Still silly to me but I have corrected the post to have the accurate info[/footnote]? Come on guys, this is getting silly.

Honestly, I think this is a more practical option than the whining and moaning. Companies should be held responsible for claims they make. A couple decades ago, this wouldn't have been considered so extreme. This is why we get half-assed games, people. We became shitty consumers.

All you have to do is go over to GameFAQs for stupidity. At least on the PS3 board FPSs are referred to as PAAGGs (play as a gun game) and games like The Last of Us are called Interactive Movies.

You're not playing as a gun?

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.

Err...No. It was already introduced and popularised. It had been used in gaming culture and just about every other place you'd mentioned.

 

[Something Amyss]

Honestly, I played ME3 once all of the DLC came out, and I gotta say - it was fantastic. Not as great as ME2, but still fantastic.

I honestly don't get what problems people had with it. In my ending, everyone lived (Shepard included), and with the exception of losing the Mass Relays, everything else was pretty much A-okay.

So you played the revised ending and don't understand why people had a problem with the original one (which was the set of endings that received most of the animosity)?

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

All you have to do is go over to GameFAQs for stupidity. At least on the PS3 board FPSs are referred to as PAAGGs (play as a gun game) and games like The Last of Us are called Interactive Movies.

You're not playing as a gun?

And in Mirror's Edge, you play as hands.

 

[Dragonbums]

The hate for anything David Cage does differs between utterly sad and completely hilarious.

 

[SKBPinkie]

Honestly, I played ME3 once all of the DLC came out, and I gotta say - it was fantastic. Not as great as ME2, but still fantastic.

I honestly don't get what problems people had with it. In my ending, everyone lived (Shepard included), and with the exception of losing the Mass Relays, everything else was pretty much A-okay.

So you played the revised ending and don't understand why people had a problem with the original one (which was the set of endings that received most of the animosity)?

Oh man. I didn't mean to type that. Should probably sleep instead of taking 5-minute internet breaks from my homework.

I meant to say that I didn't have an issue with it as much as other people, but even without the extended endings, I don't think the game deserved a shitstorm of that degree.

 

[Quid Plura]

For me this all sums it up: "Hating a game before ever having played it".
A lot of people hate a game because it is part of a specific franchise (CoD, BF), made by a specific developer/publisher (Activision), belonging to a specific genre (FPS, JRPG). Now I have to say a lot of games just dont appeal to me, but for some people that's reason enough to start hating a game.

 

[Qvar]

For me this all sums it up: "Hating a game before ever having played it".
A lot of people hate a game because it is part of a specific franchise (CoD, BF).

You say that as if CoD games had any difference compared to eachother.