[A recent experience that the normally cheerful Wry Guy had playing online games prompted him to write this article on some problems he sees in the gaming community at large. While it doesn't quite fit the theme of this Month's Musing, I decided to promote it separately because we all thought it was a great read -- JRo]
So a little while ago I was playing Call of Duty: Black Ops with Funktastic and his crew. I've got to say I am embarrassingly bad at the game. If you watched from the outside it might have looked like I was a double agent sent to sabotage my own team. FPS games were never really my thing. It's not that I don't find them fun, because I do. Just consider the fact that the last time I was really into a multi-player FPS game was the era of Unreal Tournament, Counter-Strike, Tribes 2 and the original Halo. I haven't played an FPS competitively for nearly a decade.
That said? Black Ops is a pretty stellar game. I can't say anything bad about it except that I couldn't make myself finish the single player campaign. Despite all the hate Activision gets, their poster child series has earned all the money it's made. Call of Duty is well made and has a massive amount of general appeal. As a series it's probably done more good for gaming than any other franchise I can think of in recent years. Pretty much everyone plays Call of Duty. It's helping making gaming a normal part of peoples' lives.
For the most part I've had a really pleasant experience with Black Ops. When I played with my friends. When we were in a party on XBox Live. When we couldn't hear anybody else talk. For me nearly any online game becomes unbearable when you add random people. That night with Funktastic we played Hardcore, which in certain modes will not allow private chat. We met some incredible jackasses who did not understand the meaning of the word fun. I was actually screamed at for not being good enough at the game... by someone on the other team. Think about how pathetic that is.
It made me contemplate something. I really dislike the stereotypical gamer. They just care too much about games. That's my biggest problem with "gamers" in general. They very often act in a horrible, shameful manner and all because they care too much about things that don't matter. Priorities are a huge problem in the gaming community. With the year 2011 upon us I'd like to delve into the top three things "gamers" should care less about.
Every once in a while I get into a gaming conversation. I'm asked what systems I currently own and I mention that I'm a 360 owner. At this point the other person will often assume that I must hate PS3 owners. Little do they know that the PS3 would have been my preference, but I'm happy with my 360. I find it ridiculous that anybody even cares about console wars anymore. Why does it even matter? This probably has to be the least justified console war ever. I have never seen a generation of gaming in my life where almost every game is available on multiple platforms with barely any differences between them. The 360 and PS3 have almost all the same games. All the biggest games this holiday season were NOT EXCLUSIVES.
Console wars have never been justified, but this generation reveals the complete stupidity that has always backed them up. Multi-platform gaming used to mean something. Playstation 1 ports were notably different than Nintendo 64 ports. XBox ports were significantly different than Playstation 2 ports. Arcade ports were different than home ports! You could tell the difference! Now companies like Capcom have constructed methods to produce the exact same game onto both the Playstation 3 and XBox 360 platforms. Gamers today are whining over loading times and 1080i versus 1080p, and the worst part of it all is they actually think it matters.
Nintendo bashers are quite annoying too, as people love to pull out the old "I haven't played my Wii in months" line. For the average, modern gamer the Wii will probably not fulfill all their needs. Most people like to think of it as a supplementary system, if not just because of the console's limited online. That much is understandable. No matter what, real people are more compelling than anything else you can add to gaming. It's hard to go back after you've been in the 360 and PS3 camp. That said, the Wii has a lot of redeeming factors and people who think it doesn't have its place in the industry really need to shut the fuck up.
If you keep your finger on the pulse of niche gaming you may need a Wii more than any other gaming console. When you eliminate the factors of visual fidelity and online gaming, the Wii has an incredibly interesting staple of games. The Wii is where you'll find retro sensibilities and good old fashioned fun. For a lot of older gamers the Wii is where home is. The Wii is basically the new NES. Accessible. Cheap. Family friendly. If you grew up around the gaming crash in the late 80s and the rebirth of gaming with the NES you'd see a lot of parallels. You'd also realize the Wii is creating a whole new generation of gamers that will be big spenders in the coming years. It's one of the single most positive things the industry has going for it no matter how much developers want to complain that their games don't make money.
If you own a Wii and all you do is play first party Nintendo games it's your own fault you're not playing it that often. I'm not even going to start with the people who talk down on handheld gaming, especially the DS vs PSP debate. If you have any desire whatsoever to talk up your gaming consoles as the superior choices, you care way too fucking much about this. Then again, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we really should constantly argue with each other over what gaming consoles we own. Perhaps we live in truly desperate times because PSP HAS NO GAEMZ.
Some people really don't really understand what a game is. Games are recreation, but by nature they're a form of mental stimulation that helps us learn and adopt new skills. What's more they allow us to do this away from the danger of the real world. One game that does an incredibly good job of showing off this fact is Chess, which was in fact created to simulate war. When you start getting deeper into the strategy of Chess you can see it does a good job of it too. Most people have played games in some manner or at least taken an interest in them. There's a ridiculous range of things that qualify as games. Consider that even some wild animals play tag.
You know something that games aren't, though? They aren't REAL. There is nothing wrong with being good at a videogame. If you love a game enough to constantly practice it more power to you. If games have helped you understand the meaning of good sportsmanship then that's even better. That's an outright skill that games have helped you gain, and it's one that will help you greatly in life. There's also nothing wrong with being bad at a game. Again, it's not real. While there are benefits to being good at videogames you also don't lose anything in life by being bad at them. Who gives a fuck if you can't do a 32-hit combo or get a 10 kill streak in fantasy land?
Sad fact of the matter is that some people really do care. Some people think it really does matter if you're good at games or not. These are the sort of people who get mad at themselves for not winning a game or look down on you for not being good enough. Why? I don't even know. There are just some people who are only having fun when they think they're better than someone else. They're born snobs. They're wannabe alpha dogs.
Alpha dog syndrome is something that really holds gamers back. Gamers feel a constant need to belittle each other. Sometimes I wonder if they even understand the meaning of the word "community." It's this thing that we all live in, and it's a thing that's better off when people are being friendly and helpful toward each other. It shouldn't matter if we're being competitive or not, being civil is in everyone's best interest. You'd think it would be easier to understand these sort of things when playing a game. You don't have to suffer the stress of real life while you're playing. You should have plenty of time to think. That's what games are supposed to make you do. Sadly many gamers can't get it in their heads that they're just playing a game and it wouldn't kill them to be just a little cool to each other. They don't even realize that if they can't have fun playing a game, they probably shouldn't be playing it.
As a fighting game specialist I wrote an article a while back. I felt that alpha dog bullshit helped to kill an entire genre. The worst part of this whole thing is that I'm largely speaking about online gamers. You know, people who play video games with strangers. Who cares about strangers? What benefit is there to being a dick to somebody you'll never meet? A lot of people like to pull up the excuse, "Hey man, it's the internet. I don't care." That's not true. If you didn't care about something you just wouldn't do it. I genuinely don't care about being an asshole on the internet. If I'm playing with strangers I'll usually just mute my microphone so I don't need to get involved. That's what you do when you don't care. Whenever somebody does something, there's a reason for it. Again, the problem is that gamers care too much about things that don't matter.
Why stop at helping to kill a genre, though? Lots of companies think that online multi-player games are the only ones worth making anymore. With some luck and the right circumstances maybe this mentality could spread far enough to help kill gaming in general.
One thing that gamers care way, way too much about is finding ways to talk down on games. They learn from the best: Game reviewers. Think about it. It's basically a game reviewer's job to think of reasons a game doesn't deserve a perfect score. The industry's obsession with a "perfect 10" game is entirely pointless because there's no such thing as a perfect game. Despite that reviewers obsess over reasons that a game is not perfect, essentially turning them into professional whiners. If you ask me barely anybody in the gaming industry is genuinely qualified to review videogames. Far too often game reviewers can't do a good job complaining. They think just because they don't like something that it's an excuse to put little thought into their reviews. Some common, stupid complaints reviewers like to use include: "This game is repetitive." "This game lacks variety." "This game has too much variety." "This game is not challenging enough." "This game is too challenging." "This game lacks replay value." "This game is too short." "This game is too long." "This game doesn't have enough story." "This game has a bad story."
By these standards a perfect game must not be repetitive and have variety, not be too challenging or too easy, not be too long or too short, have replay value, have a story and have a good story at that. Great, now find me a room full of people with their own minds and their own opinions who will agree on what game fits that perfect description. Now see if you can get that whole room to agree on what makes the difference between a game that deserves a 10 and a 9.
What other industry grades its material like it was a high school assignment? At least your old teacher had to have a real reason to lower your test scores: You got something wrong. The games industry doesn't exist in that realm, though. We're dealing with something more complex than facts being right or wrong. We're dealing with opinions. If this industry had any common sense it would embrace the fact that it was dealing with opinions and go with the same "thumbs up," "thumbs down" method that many movie outlets use. It's not as though sites like metacritic would suffer either. You can still get a review percentage for a game if you really wanted to. Check out Rotten Tomatoes. Hell, we could at least adopt a simpler 5 star system. It's pointless enough that we use a 10 point scale. Some reviewers actually go with 100 point scales. I would LOVE to see a rational argument for what makes Game A a 9.5 and Game B a 9.8.
Most reviewers are not that good at their jobs. They presume themselves to be critics when you don't need to critique something in order to be a reviewer. I've heard the argument that reviews would not be interesting if they were not negative. Personally I just don't think the majority of reviewers are skilled enough to appreciate the things they have been assigned to evaluate, and I think it rubs off on the gaming community. Ultimately most reviewers will just come to the conclusion, "Well I really like this game and found nothing wrong with it, so it's perfect. You should buy it. Oh, I didn't like this part, though. Nevermind, you shouldn't buy it." It's an extremely simple minded way to look at things, and it has indeed spread to a large portion of the gaming populace. The grand majority of people who review games cannot understand that the things they dislike are not universal signs that something is bad.
One of the biggest obstacles in gaming's way is our industry's snobby attitude toward itself. I've seen far too many gamers snub each other over something as stupid as what games they like. Have you ever tried recommending games to people? I have. Quite a lot. You shouldn't ever recommend a game based on how well it reviewed or how much you liked it. Your opinions are yours and nobody else's. Everyone has something different that they look for in their games. Everyone has different expectations. Unless you know EXACTLY what will appeal to somebody, you will fail to make good recommendations. It's got absolutely nothing to do with you and your tastes, unless by coincidence the person likes the same sorts of things you do. It's more useful to simply know about games so you can describe them properly and describe the appeal to it. People are far more grateful for your knowledge and insight as opposed to the reasons you disliked something.
Anybody out there who writes reviews should think about this before they decide to write another rant in a review about how repetitive or short a game is. I think most reviewers would be humbled if they could see how truly useless their overly opinionated reviews are to the average person. Most reviews and most of the gaming community in general are too jaded and negative to deserve to be listened to. Reviewers should spend their time trying to appreciate games as opposed to knocking them down. Gamers care far too much about their own opinions. You can tell as much when they spend so much time trying to debate over what numbered score their opinion deserves.
And there you have it. I should let it be known that I don't care if you call yourself a gamer. After all you need to call yourself something and there's nothing wrong with that. When I use quotes around the word I refer to the overly negative and self-involved stereotypes that I see far, far too often. There's too many people out there that think in the way I've written about in this article. I have to spend a fair amount of time around them. Thanks to this, I don't care about being a gamer. I don't respect the gaming community as a whole enough to want to be bunched together with it. I want to become the anti-thesis to what gamers are known for: Caring too fucking much about too many things that don't fucking matter. I just love video games and I will talk to anybody about them. I openly acknowledge that games are my hobby and nothing more, even if almost everything I do revolves around games. If I could become a widely heard voice I'd focus my attention on cutting the bullshit out of this entire industry. Positivity is something in sickeningly short supply in the gaming community. It makes me think that some gamers have no ability to genuinely love something. That's pretty sad.
How's this for a New Year's Resolution? Stop caring about shit that doesn't matter. Just learn to be happy with your hobby. If you want to do any one thing to help make gaming a normal part of society that's exactly what you'll do. Don't suck. Wasn't that a rule around these parts one time? If any particular gaming community can overcome all these roadblocks, I think it's Destructoid.
Contest:
7:00 PM on 01.07.2011 | 
One of the many reasons I enjoy the FNF crew is the sense of community. We play games. We have fun. The end. We aren't out to win every match. It's nice to win but it's certainly not the point. Having fun and laughing together, that's what its about. Good times.
This is the only statement out of this massive blog that I disagree with. This year saw plenty of exclusive games for each system, all of which were undoubtedly big sellers on their respective platforms. I'm talking about Super Mario Galaxy 2, Halo: Reach, Gran Turismo 5 and others. Besides that, this is a great blog. I agree that gamers should take a deep breath sometimes and just relax. There are a lot of issues like the console war and game reviews that juts get blown way out of proportion. It's like the old saying goes, STFUAJPG!
Nintendo gets an automatic pass since most of their big games are exclusive in the first place and their games have an ungodly shelf life. New Super Mario Brothers on DS is still selling brand new copies on a consistent basis.
On the higher end consoles the exclusives weren't the top dogs. At least not in my area.
You're right that this year as well as the past few years, have seen a rise in the importance, quality and sale of 3rd party titles. However, exclusives are still around and play their roles. Most people still decide what system to buy based on the exclusives, not how the controller feels or other things that would seem more important if there were zero exclusives.
Still, I feel that I'm nitpicking and your blog has inspired me to be even more positive than I usually am and I don't want to take away from the excellent message you've presented here.
I did pick up Tekken 6 (for $10!!!) in a black Friday deal, and so far I'm loving it. It's been awhile (Tekken 3 PS1, though I picked up Tag Tourney for PS2 and didn't play it much, Damn Halo!!!), but I like Tekkens balance because of the character depth and technique's are there for those looking for them.
Also, you should consider giving the 360 FNF crew a shot (if you haven't already), while I've only joined in a few times it, reminds me of the good old days hanging out at the arcade. They play for fun, you won't hear anyone bitch about your K/D or W/L ratio, and you might find a few like minded friends.
Good Times!
It's all about sportsmanship.
@Fame Designer: I'm sure I'd be the same. I actually got a bit better since I started writing this article, but I'd probably still go down pretty hard against people who are actually serious about shooters. I might join a FNF some time, but typically when I'm on XBL I have a select few number of people I prefer to play with.
@Wry Guy: We'd be happy to have you. The FNF guys are a lot of fun and really open to new people joining up. Understand the select few people thing, I am really quiet until I get comfortable. It took me a few games with everyone until I felt like talking a bit. Just wanted to throw that out there.
The point on which you had me is the part where you elude to the embarrassment of being a gamer for the previously mentioned flaws with the community. The question then becomes... what is a gamer? With all these people consumed in all this immaturity, aren't we included with this bunch?
Despite our radically different reactions, in your final paragraphs in the essence and fire that drives me.
And please, enough with this "What is a gamer" stuff. It's not a complicated question. A gamer is a person who plays videogames. End of story. That's why I don't actually mind if a person feels a need to call themselves a gamer for lack of a better term.
Those aren't the people I'm ashamed of. Who I don't care for are the people who think using the term "gamer" all of a sudden makes them part of a sub-culture where they have to act like everyone else. Everything I'm referring to is a negative sub-culture that's created the stereotypical gamer. That's why there's a hive-mind when it comes to being excessively negative, stupid, and close minded about videogames. People group themselves together, thinking that if they act and think the same way they've become "gamers." It's a natural occurrence. People like to feel like they're part of something. It's also extremely annoying when people don't stop and think about how much of their time they're wasting.
Any sub-culture tends to treat itself like an exclusive club, which is more than enough reason for me to not care about being involved. I'm a person who loves video games and cares more about being open minded than being accepted as part of a group. I'm a gamer. Just not a stupid one.
What exclusives interest you most. What system do your friends have? Which is more important to you?
Here is the silly thing about the console wars and review scores (and even "winning" to some extent). Neither one affects my enjoyment of a game. For example, Dale North gave GT5 a perfect 10. Most other sites have knocked it in comparison with Forza 3. Does that mean Dale North enjoyed it less? Does it mean that the PS3 is inferior to the 360? Hell if I know! All I know is that I'm enjoying it too, and I'm not even "winning."
As you said, they are just games. Even with sports (again, games), as a consumer of said product I'll enjoy watching a game, even if my team is loosing. And there is always next year...
"A Stand for the Loyalist Gamer"
Would you come to believe that the sub-culture gaming as overtaken the image of what is generally accepted as a gamer? And how do we differentiate the two different gaming lifestyles?
My main concern is this: as gamers, when public opinion is justified in their negative views on the simple label of a gamer. Can't you make the connection as to where it comes from? It's everything you wrote right there (and more) that is the essence of what is identified as gamers nowadays. You wrote this:
"I should let it be known that I don't care if you call yourself a gamer. After all you need to call yourself something and there's nothing wrong with that. When I use quotes around the word I refer to the overly negative and self-involved stereotypes that I see far, far too often. There's too many people out there that think in the way I've written about in this article. I have to spend a fair amount of time around them. Thanks to this, I don't care about being a gamer. I don't respect the gaming community as a whole enough to want to be bunched together with it. I want to become the anti-thesis to what gamers are known for: Caring too fucking much about too many things that don't fucking matter. I just love video games and I will talk to anybody about them. I openly acknowledge that games are my hobby and nothing more, even if almost everything I do revolves around games. If I could become a widely heard voice I'd focus my attention on cutting the bullshit out of this entire industry."
That's some bold shit.
But real question is this: What would it take clean this stereotype up? Again what you said there is my motivation for what I do. Now, I know you don't agree with how I've been going about it. But the only way I can figure to break this is two main strategies.
Identify, uplift and expand the idea of a gamer
Discourage, eliminate and marginalize the stereotype as its 'own' label.
There's something to be said when I talk down about 'gamers', but then realizing that I'm considered one as well. There was a period where I didn't even want to be called a gamer because of this stereotype, but then I realized that it's not true gamers that should lose the title; it's those out there that have forgotten the whole point of gaming that should!
This is the whole theme of my blog. It's the real major issue too with whole industry.
Likewise there's no need to identify what a gamer is. It's already been defined. People that play video games. Giving the word "gamer" any purpose beyond that is what makes people want to turn it into an exclusive term in the first place. Obsessing over who qualifies as a gamer and who doesn't is exactly what created this mess.
If someone wants to say they're a gamer, very well. Unless anyone can be a gamer, we're just making life harder on ourselves. What happens if you're one of the walking stereotypes I'm complaining about and all of a sudden the term "gamer" can refer to anybody? All of a sudden those people can't justify their behavior because they're gamers and that's what gamers are supposed to do. Anyone who makes games their hobby is now a gamer. Now that their title doesn't mean anything special they're just overly opinionated assholes with anger management problems.
If you want to know how to fix this problem, the answer is just focusing on being better rounded people. Not gamers.
But yeah, I agree with a good chunk of this article. Perhaps the emphasis of 'competition' and 'Us & Them' in video games themselves have made us view everything related to video games with the same mindset, creating a perpetual cycle of negativity.
It also seems like this console war is even worse that the ones I grew up with. Sure, back then, we have our loyalties to either Sega or Nintendo, but I still valued my friendship with my friends who had a Genesis when I didn't. How the hell else am I going to play Sonic 2 or Gunstar Heroes?
But now, we don't really need to go to a friends' house to play their games - because we can play the same game with only a few, very slight differences. Perhaps this has only created a further divide. While the Saturn had 10-Player Bomberman and N64 had GoldenEye 007, the PS3 and 360 don't have any exclusives that can easily appeal to everyone. Worse yet, we don't even have many games that bring people into the same room, with online gaming bringing 'Us' closer together and keeping 'Them' farther apart.
I don't get it. Maybe I'm just old and perhaps seen a bit more of life than a fair few here but this negativity added with the meme spouting, no brain culture makes be want to delete my destructoid account and throw my consoles off a bridge.
I used to (many moons ago) post somewhat frequently on the boards over at IMDb. There was always this seeming trend with the latest hit blockbuster to immediately label
it as "overrated". This of course stems more from the feeling of going against the current. The one movie I remember was "LOTR: Return Of The King" which had won it's 11 oscars and you should have heard all the talk of the movie being an "overrated POS" and "Sam and Frodo are gay". Some even went to as far as " The Oscars don't mean shit" which is a pretty obsurd view to have. You may disagree with the Oscars sure, but when the Academy Awards won are highlighted in a DVD case there's a reason for it.
As far as reviewers are concerned well atleast on here I find every reviewer I've read have kept an even keel with the exception of one person and that person is Jim Sterling. Now I don't say that to trash Jim but Jim knows what his strengths are so when he has something negative to say that really got to him he doesn't hold back because he knows it's shit people will read. In Jims defense when he loves something he makes it known too but unlike every writer on the site he's known for controversy.
Sadly no matter what it is kn the Internet your sure to find someone who'll come along and inject some negativity because I think we really are drawn to controversial subjects and "idealistic" individuals.
I think we come to understand the same problem with the culture but there's a difference in opinion in some areas. I can agree with your last line:
"If you want to know how to fix this problem, the answer is just focusing on being better rounded people. Not gamers"
That's very true. Although, I come to believe that moving into that lifestyle is progressional and blissful. That what my studies on the whole ordeal has shown me... It has a lot to do with insecurity (especially in the ages of 14-17). I've come to understand that video games narrow a gamer's ability to become 'better rounded people'; Its a side-effect of the medium in excessive doses.
The whole gaming population at one time have been identified as a class of respectable culture, but with the advancement of an even LESS dynamic gaming environment and with stereotypes feeding of each other in narrowed interest and increase immaturity, the whole title of gamer gets defaced with a mask that it was never suppose to wear.
Which brings me to another point I want to clear up...
Ultimately, I don't believe in labels to define the beholder of them. That being said, there's a need to reform this stereotype for the good of gaming. We all know that people outside our gaming culture perpetuate negativity based on some ignorants on the dynamic. But when I start to see whole culture divide its self, for a whole medium so young and so criticized, it's troubling to me.
Also, you renounce gamers holding a certain degree of standard (because you claim that the confines of the label, creates this whole marginalization), then what is your bases to criticize the sub-culture? And how do you identify them?
and I believe that the core issue overall. Basically, the crossover we have as gamer have merged the mature with the immature, the cultured with the ignorant, the passionate with the radical, the gamer with the vidiot. Not everyone that drinks, is an alcoholic. But you see, there's no label for this other sect. So we look at 'gamers', therefor 'ourselves' as the issue because we are being misrepresented, to ourselves and everyone around us.
"I don't get it. Maybe I'm just old and perhaps seen a bit more of life than a fair few here but this negativity added with the meme spouting, no brain culture makes be want to delete my destructoid account and throw my consoles off a bridge." -Bakewell
I agree about console wars. It's such a blight on the community. Those sad, deluded, militant, toadying fanboys. If only they could see how ridiculous they are.
I also agree about review scores. It's always baffled me when reviewers use a score out of 100. How they can pluck such a specific and precise number out of thin air. As you mentioned, how exactly can they explain the difference between say a game that they scored 82% and a game that they scored 83%? A simple score out of 5 or 10 will suffice.
I really love this rant. Once you realise it's just a hobby, you do start to take games for what they are, games. Just like board games.
@Bakewell
I really think growing up and experiencing new things other than games makes you a better person, in a gaming world or anywhere for that matter.
@garethxxgod: Unfortunately I don't look at Jim as a very good reviewer because of the fact that he lets himself get carried away in his negativity. Liking some things immensely and disliking other things immensely. To me he seems to very much so fall into the trap of "I didn't like this so fuck it." I honestly don't care when he gives really high rating to the games he loves. I feel he represents a lot of under-appreciated genres when he does so. What does it matter if he loves Dynasty Warriors? All of Japan loves that shit. There must be something to it.
I think he then does himself a disservice by blasting other games. He lowers his credibility and thus people won't listen to him when he goes "No, really guys! This game's pretty sweet!" When you go on a negative rant about a videogame, there's a huge chance you're flat out wrong. People going on rants about games rarely stop and think about what they're saying. It's when you you start relying on lazy analysis because you're too mad to be objective. In the end you're just alienating your audience and placing the community into factions.
The factions thing applies even moreso when people start to argue. All of a sudden you have people defending Jim's negativity going "It's just an opinion! Fuck off! Your game sucks anyway!" All of a sudden there's a lot of people who see no problem with going around going saying "Man, this game sucked."
Awesome. Great to know my taste in games sucks.
@Chris: I regret to inform you that it's gotten to the point where I do not understand what you're trying to get at.
Many thanks to everyone's thoughts on the article.
Now, should people put so much stock into the difference between a 7 and an 8? Absolutely not. I've long been a proponent of the five star system. Like I said, I think you have a good idea about the extreme on one side, but suggesting that the solution is to go to the extreme on the other side doesn't make sense either. I care about reviews insomuch as I use them as a tool to decide whether a game is worth my money. If I like a game and it gets bad reviews, or I don't like a game and it gets good reviews, that doesn't matter. But that doesn't mean I don't care about reviews.
Because I believe that more stock should be put on the actual writing of a review than the scoring process, I am considering going with a thumbs up, thumbs down system. I don't believe it's an extreme. I think it's simply eliminating an overly complex system. Getting rid of fluff. Do I think everyone should have to go with such a system? No. I did mention the five star system too.
The truth is that I care very much about reviews. I care about well written ones that acknowledge that games are just games, and that opinions will vary.
But seriously, competition for me is something I really, really enjoy. Whether it's video games, sports or even school, I never get more absorbed into what I do without a little competition. But I'm also not much of a "sore winner" either. Friendly ribbing yes, but nothing more than that. But as Funktastic would probably say, it's because I'm a Leafs fan and don't have much reason to cheer in life :P
But console wars and rage over review scores definitely need to be done away with.
PLAYSTATION RULZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I care about the whole console debate mostly as an after though. Im a 360 guy myself, though I do own a DS, want a 3DS and own a PSP. I do some PC gaming, but not enough because my pc is shit. My only real problem with the ps3 is the cell processor, as I discussed with one of my engineering professors at the time of its release (so I'm not saying its not possible now) the chips around the cell processor were not powerful enough to unlseash its full potential, so you were basically paying for unusable power, which is a no no in my book.
As for reviews, I trust my gut mostly, but a good review for a game I want basically reinforces what I already knew, or gives me that extra push to buy it. Like for instance Hamza's review of Reach pushed me to buy it because I was on the fence, and I dont regret it.
As for winning, yeah winning isnt everything, but losing over and over again isnt fun. I have had a lot of fun losing at some games like Raskulls, or League of Legends, or racers.
So we actually have one and only one perfect game
I PC game as well and I know their are fine looking and a multitude of great games out there as well and play them as well, but I just HONESTLY LIKE MY WII. Not that hard to comprehend. It goes with my tastes. I'm not just CHOOSING to like it because I'm some deluded fangirl. I could easily afford another console and have access to them because of roommates as well.
It's just, I'm good, guys. I'm good. I like Wii... that's it! I'm not ignorant either.
That said, getting all pissed off and screaming when you lose is gay, totally agree.
- Collector's Editions
- Cosmetic Micro-Transactions
- Paid DLC
The more of this you buy, the less you will be able to get by just buying the game itself. And the stuff is never _really_ worth it.
If you feed the Bobby Koticks of the world in this fashion, they will come back to your campsite or car and tear shit up because they know they can get more food from you. Don't feed the animals.
P.S. I bought the map packs for Modern Warfare 2 PC and my waiting time for matchmaking skyrocketed. I suspected it was because it put me in a new matchmaking bracket for DLC owners (which must have less players to choose from than the vanilla version). I don't know if that's how it actually works though. :)
Drunken Wry Guy thanks you.
"The whole gaming population at one time have been identified as a class of respectable culture..."
...Care to say when?
I don't know, but console-debate as healthy? Looking at the comments section of youtube, this site, and any other place that has such debate? No, it's not healthy. So okay, the problem may not be with the thought(the debate itself), the problem's with the individuals(the ones doing it...???).
Now i'm confused.
Here's a question, what would you do if we are finally in the position where, " we are the respected members of the society"? What's your next step?
One time a kid complained to me that Dead Rising 2 wasn't good because the graphics weren't up to par. My head was spinning. I thought that game looked pretty decent. Zombies. Chainsaws. Paddles and duct tape! It all looked pretty decent! What more did you need!?!?
YOU COULD WEAR FUNNY GLASSES AND A CAPE WHILE CARRYING A LASER SWORD. YOU ARE PISSING ON MY CHILDHOOD, KID!!! WHY MUST GRAPHICS DESTROY THE WONDER IN YOUR HEART????