This is kind of building on what Jim Sterling wrote about earlier but is mostly based on some of my thoughts and experiences with gaming communities and my disgust with the malcontents that form them.

I'm not having a go at people who like or dislike the series/games mentioned for legitimate reasons.

I’ve limited it to five series’ because it seems neat; even though five is an odd number.


5. Command & Conquer “fans”


Most gamers dislike the way companies like EA, Activision and Ubisoft gobble up great developers. This is understandable since they usually take all the profitable franchises, lose the talent and leave a husk where the creativity used to be. EA however continue to be a great supporter of C&C and in my opinion have done a lot to improve and refresh the series without a lot of the Westwood talent. They still do.

I remember reading through the forums at Planet C&C when Command & Conquer 3 was announced. I had been a lurker at the site for quite a while and the common complaint was that EALA were too busy “ruining” the franchise with sequels like C&C Generals. So when browsing the forums after what should have been a very exciting piece of news, I found the same people now complaining about C&C3 and wishing that Westwood was still around. When the demo came around and they had restored the sidebar, brought back Kane, updated classic units and even brought back the speed lost with Tiberian Sun (a Westwood developed title), I thought the “fans” that EA had clearly been trying to please, must be happy. They weren’t. Apparently it wasn’t C&C 3; it was a “Generals total-conversion-mod”. I guess the same way the original Red Alert was a “total-conversion mod”. With opinions like this, I became disgusted with the community and promptly left but I can only guess what the group-think now says about C&C4.

The Command & Conquer fans are low on the list but I consider their community one of the best reasons for completely ignoring fans when developing sequels. EALA seemed to actually hold back fresh ideas and innovations from Generals to keep C&C3 “pure” and they still didn’t win any friends.



4. Retro Heads


Not really what you would call a homogenous community but basically a group of gamers that think only the games they played as children were any good. I’m not crapping on the past when I define Retro Heads because I still enjoy a lot of old games, on a regular basis. There are also many that are a lot better than newer hits today. Retro Heads however are always ready to sneer at any beloved franchise that is brought into 3D or reimagined altogether. No matter how successful, nothing will ever be as good as the NES/SNES/Master System/Genesis or even the Arcade. As far as they were concerned: Metroid Prime had nothing on Super Metroid and Super Mario 64 was no Super Mario World. It didn’t matter that both of these titles were considered great because they managed the almost impossible task of feeling like their prequels while being quite different.

Some gamers in this group also have funny OCD habits about only playing on the original consoles. Which often results in a dismissive attitude to emulators or re-releases because of barely noticeable audio or graphical glitches. They could also have a strange fondness for pixelated images and possibly fear polygons.

What makes this group all the more infuriating is their cynicism when there are attempts at making new 2D games like Metroid Fusion or Zelda: The MInish Cap. They are getting what they want but it’s still not good enough. For example, New Super Mario Bros. could be considered bad because there weren’t enough Yoshi levels. Or Bionic Commando: Rearmed is bad because it looks really nice.

I really can’t stand reading or hearing comments from gamers like this. You will know when you hear or read them because they transcend legitimate criticism by simply being based on nolstagia. You can’t really argue with it and it is best to ignore it.



3. Resident Evil “fans”


I think it is fair to complain that both Resident Evil 4 and 5 were not survival horror games. I agree that Resident Evil 5 is an action game at its core and that Resident Evil 4 wasn’t far off. That being said, if survival horror requires awful controls, confusing static camera angles, unwieldy combat and trial & error gameplay (that can leave you replaying an hour because you didn’t have an ink ribbon to save); then I don’t want anything to do with it. I loved both Resident Evil 4 and 5 because they were fun. I’m not opposed to the idea of survival-horror but if you can only develop suspense by restricting the player in cheap, annoying ways then you need to think about it some more or just develop more action games.

Resident Evil fans epitomize the main problem with “fans” – conservatism. Not a conservatism in the political sense that favours slow organic change but a nostalgic conservatism that wants nothing to change unless it is regressive. You will notice if you ask the average Resident Evil “fan” about which games are the best, they will say either the original or RE2. They will be quick to complain about the changes in 4 but they don’t seem to have a problem with the lack of change in the preceding three. They’re preconceived opinion is that the sequels will NEVER be better but want NO change despite this.

Full disclosure: I liked the first Resident Evil movie.



2. The Sonic Community


There seem to be many types of people in this community so it is hard to pin any one complaint on them.

For a start there are the fans of the newer games who keep buying (and apparently enjoying) games like Sonic Unleashed and Sonic & the Black Knight. This poor taste allows Sega to remain financially unpunished for developing and publishing awful Sonic games.

Then there are the old school fans (basically more Retro Heads) that are literally never happy with anything. The major problem with this group is that Sega seems to listen to some of their complaints. The apparent lack of “speed” is one example and it probably resulted in the poorly designed levels of Sonic Rush and the total lack of option to do any exploring or normal platforming.

Finally there is the creepy furry community that I can’t quite explain. This is also the sole reason why this community is so high on the list. I think they also fit into the first group because they are the one group that enjoy having new humanoid animals. You know, that Sonic can have sex with.

On the whole, both a pathetic group and a great argument for retiring the hedgehog altogether.



1. Fallout “fans”


When Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel was announced for PS2 and Xbox, I was puzzled but interested since I loved Fallout 1 & 2 and even enjoyed Tactics. The “fans” however were anything but happy with a new Fallout game. Now I can understand that a PC only game getting a new console exclusive would vex PC gamers. From that perspective, it was just as bad as the announcement of Starcraft: Ghost. I can’t have a problem with the complaint about a console exclusive for a popular PC franchise but I could never understand how the game was automatically awful. I loved the Fallout games as much as any of the “fans” but I just couldn’t share their hatred of something they had never played. I did indeed play it on release and it was as bad as expected but it was the dismissal of anything different without even having a go that had me puzzled.

So by the time Fallout 3 was announced I had a pretty good idea of what to expect. You would normally assume that a popular, if not high-selling game on PC getting another chance when it seemed like there was none, would please fans. But Fallout fans are not like that. It was the same situation: Fallout 3 was already awful and it was just a matter of playing it and saying the same thing with some actual examples. I now consider myself lucky to have not played the Elder Scrolls games before Fallout 3 as I think it made my experience with the game even more enjoyable. After playing it and loving it, I read through all sorts of comments about why it was bad. It was funny to read that it wasn’t original because it was so similar to Oblivion and the “total-conversion-mod” comments also came up. But as is normal with group think, the opinions became completely incoherent, yet were all considered right as long as the conclusion was: Fallout 3 is bad.

As Jim has covered: what the “fans” really wanted was not originality. They wanted the same isometric RPG as Fallout 1 & 2 (Fallout 2 has typically never been referred to as a "total-conversion mod). There was more to it though. Even if Bethesda had made an isometric RPG that copied exactly what the originals did, it still wouldn’t have been good enough. What the fans really wanted was “Fallout 3, developed by Black Isle, exactly the same as the original and even then Fallout 1 or 2 would have been the better games. Watching them drool over Van Buren was good proof of that.

One thing I also want to add was that by Fallout 2 the series had departed strongly from its inspiration. Memorable locations like San Francisco and New Reno looked almost untouched by the war. Fallout 3 actually gave the series back a lot more reality despite all the working computers and unexplained food supply.

Fallout fans are number one because they have almost all the negative attributes of the others and are an even tighter community. They are the ultimate gaming malcontents.