Entitled, Insatiable Whiners. Yea, I'm Looking at You Gamers
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Gamers, that most thankless sub-culture of righteous, misanthropic critics. We are never pleased, often discontented, and consistently better informed (or so we like to think) than our video game loving counterparts in every other part of the industry proper. Who could love us? Who could put up with our ever changing standards? Who would devote themselves to making games for an audience of ingratiating fools like ourselves? From petitions listing demands to comment sections rife with snide vitriol, to those who respect their beloved past time so little they would stoop to rampant, merciless piracy, we are a tougher crowd than most. Is it any wonder then that so many prominent creators feel the need to blow off steam every once in a while? To shout out into the mob, the great unwashed, and ask, “Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here?!”
Some were jubilant, “THIS IS WHAT I WANTED!!!” Some were nonsensical, “[T]he ending is now completely pointless and has near zero effect on the future and you know whot?” And some were absolutely rotten, “I’m NOT satisfied, so I have all rights to further complain and I can’t see a real effort in this loveless piece of crap.” But who could be surprised by the naysayers who, despite having gotten what they wanted, or at least the only thing they could have reasonably hoped for, still troll like spoiled bridge dwellers? Casey Hudson certainly wasn’t, as evidenced by his prescient admission late last week that, “You can never completely satisfy everyone.” Hudson may have come to terms with this, but the truth of his words haven’t stopped some from voicing their frustration with the unruly consumers they hawk their digital wares to. Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada made headlines when he landed into series fans, stating, “I believe that, before whining and complaining about everything, you need practice at taking a step back and analysing things objectively. And also at being an adult.” His didactic comments were motivated by the gamers who spam his Twitter feed daily with suggestions for how to do the voice work for Tekken Tag Tournament 2. Speaking at length on some of the finer points of sound production in video games, Harada concluded by saying, “After this lengthy explanation, I will be quite surprised if there are still people who don’t get it. Thanks for understanding, or not understanding. Whatever.”
“One of the things that, on one hand, I love and, on the other hand, that troubles me tremendously about not only our fanbase but about the gaming community at large,” the Nintendo Exec told Kotaku, “is that, whenever you share information, the perspective is, ‘Thank you, but I want more.’ ‘Thank you, but give me more.’ I mean, it is insatiable.” Fans have been waiting for a new Pikmin game. Now Nintendo announces a new Pikmin game, and fans pine for a new Zelda or Metroid. And you can be sure that at the next E3, if Nintendo announces a new Metroid or Zelda, fan reactions will probably go something like the following, “But what about Donkey Kong and Star Fox? And where’s the new Super Smash Bros. you promised? And why don’t you guys have any new IPs? How disappointing.” I think there are plenty of legitimate criticisms to level at Nintendo, but in this regard I totally feel for Reggie. Will this ever end? On the other hand, IGN‘s Colin Campbell makes the point that just because someone is always complaining somewhere on the Internet, doesn’t mean that all or even most gamer critiques aren’t valid. “Today’s fan are more knowledgeable, noisy and demanding than ever before. This is a good thing, for those companies that understand how to harness these powerful emotions,” writes Campbell. “People say that it’s the vocal minority who make the most noise, but these are the most invested consumers and therefore the most likely to hold strong opinions and the most able to swing mainstream opinion.”
In addition, each of these categories overlaps to some degree, with gamers now blogging and creating in addition to playing, something made possible by the Internet, to the benefit of everyone. This results in a thriving, if serendipitously tumultuous discourse that few other art forms can lay similar claim to. So we may be a bunch of complainers, always insatiable, and act sometimes, in some people’s eyes, entitled, it is, for worse but often for better, just part of the energetic background radiation that propels gaming forward. We could all do better, each and every one of us. And we will. It is only the beginning. |
There is definitely a case to made that many games have enabled this attitude too. We are put into worlds where everything we do matters — the fate of the galaxy depends on us! Nothing happens unless we move first, the games react to us. Then, when faced with the authors of our content, we don’t ask for more, we demand it. After all, consumer voice and choice rule the day — they are, in fact, always right goes the saying.
I also really like your optimism about writers being important, but the sad fact is that, even for those who might know development studios better than “that one that makes the Call of Duty games, you know, Activision,” we still don’t often know the writers of the games themselves. This might be the extended beginning of those pillars mixing, as you said, but it’s still a struggle to acknowledge the importance of all three groups to one another.
Gosh, I think I’m a little bit in love with Katsuhiro Harada now.
Having an insatiable, whining and very loud fanbase is better than if they were people who simply accepted everything the companies shoved down their throats. And despite all the whining and the complaining and the demanding, we still see companies making bad games, bad business decisions and people still giving their money to them, regardless of how bad their beloved franchise has become. People need not only to be even more vocal, they also need to grow some balls and boycott stuff they don’t like. Many people I know still buy a bad game just because it’s from a franchise they love so much, thinking they can’t do anything to change that situation.
@razikain “Having an insatiable, whining and very loud fanbase is better than if they were people who simply accepted everything the companies shoved down their throats.”Any game developer in the world, even the ones who are not part of this dark corporate conspiracy you’ve cooked up, will tell you this is false.
@nitemaremodenet oh god not this shite again
@frasersharc Stop whining! 😛
I don’t believe for a second that this is a case of gamers being at fault. The issue here is that these companies have set standards fro themselves that they have not or are not reaching.In the case of Bioware, the ending of ME3 does not reach the same standards as the rest of the games and although the Extended Cut provides slightly more closure, it is still way out of touch in terms of quality and underlying theme. It is in no way a case of artistic opinion, but rather a sheer lack of interest, love and effort by Bioware. I could go on and on with proving and justifying these statements, but that’s for another time.Then we look at Nintendo, those guys are way out-of-touch with their core audience. It’s been so long since they catered to their long time fans(Gamecube days), that they’ve obviously forgotten what they care about. Pikmin 3 looks great, but by itself it’s not going to sell systems, nor will it appease such neglected fans. Other than that, there is nothing shown on the Wii U designed to appeal to core gamers. New Super Mario Bros U is a clone of a clone of a game no longtime Mario fan ever wanted in the first place, and Reggie talks about it like he’s doing them a favour.These are not complaints of my own, rather observations, or if they are complaints, they are against the industry as a whole, where a shift towards a casual audience has watered down not only game quality but also developer accountability.
@CaleBarnett This is a joke, right?
When you whine about the “casual” market ruining games, you’re being entitled.
@TB_Love @CaleBarnett Not at all. The advent of casual games has been one of the biggest things to happen to gaming. The audience for casual games are people who don’t usually play games and therefore have lower expectations on the quality and quantity of content. This, in turn, has influenced many developers with the idea that they can do less work for just as much return. Nintendo is the biggest culprit here. Before casual gaming they worked hard at making new, rich content for their franchises. Now we look at titles such as Skyward Sword and New Super Mario Bros, both of which are core franchises now being aimed at a casual market (and are worse for it, according to most core Nintendo fans).Yes casual gaming has done lots of good things too, but it HAS watered down many of gamings favourite franchises. I could go on if you like.
@CaleBarnett @TB_Love Every single post in this thread is proving the point of this article.
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