Why do gamers hate games?

Yes, I am being facetious in the title, but this is a trend I'm seeing more and more of with every new game reveal. People come out in full force to just totally tear these games apart, even if all they show is a little snippet of gameplay or literally just a picture of box art. At least wait until they actually show something significant or even better until people actually get their hands on it. What used to generate hype now seems to generate hate and criticism from a lot of people. Don't get me wrong constructive criticism is a very good thing as long as it is just that, constructive. We don't want them to sit on their laurels after all, and we always need to call them on BS, but that's a whole other thing entirely.

Destructive criticism and blind hate on the other hand can be counter-intuitive to the industry. Developers might be hesitant to show off a game out of fear of backlash, they might also not be as willing to take risks because of this as well. Personally, I want them to take risks. I love new IPs and AAA games, along with everything else in between. I don't want yearly watered-down versions of the same games because they know it's a safe horse to bet on or because they're afraid to try something new.

As gamers we should be happy right now, we're in a 'Golden Age' of gaming, so to speak. We've got shiny new consoles and a ton of new games on the horizon. E3 is right around the corner and there are going to be tons of new announcements for everyone. The variety is awesome, not every game is going to fit into every gamers playstyle and they need to learn to accept that. Not every single game is tailor-made to your individual needs, they never have been, never will be. If a game doesn't appeal to you cool, move on. Maybe drop a comment about certain aspects that don't appeal to you, but there's no need to just blindly bash a game or tear it apart just because it's not your type of game. I know internet anonymity allows people to act differently, but that's no reason for the lack of respect that's so prevalent right now (there's also room for that in a blog of its own).

Developers need our support, they're busting their asses for our amusement and entertainment and they deserve more respect than they've been getting lately. We need to lighten up a little bit and enjoy what's happening right now. We're gamers after all, shouldn't we be a little more playful?

[DragonKnight]

Good blog overall, and I'll address the main point in a second, but I just had to bring this up...

"As gamers we should be happy right now, we're in a 'Golden Age' of gaming, so to speak."

Disagree. The Golden Age of Gaming was from the SNES to the end of PS2 era I'd say. That's because devs weren't afraid of taking risks, didn't hold anyone's hands in games, and we didn't have people trying to infect gaming with their social justice agendas everywhere.

These days it's all about corporate greed (Watch Dogs has 5, count 'em, 5 special editions and none of them offer the complete experience. Meaning, you'll have to buy all 5 to get the whole experience), milking the same ideas over and over but with better graphics, and social justice warriors everywhere.

Now, to address your overall theme of gamers hating games, depends on what you mean. If you're talking about fanboys of one system hating the games of another system, it's not really hate. It's the same kind of group mentality that exists in things like sports or sci-fi fandom.

If you're talking about people being overly critical of games in general, which you touched on in the blog, then you have publishers and the gaming media in general for making this kind of attitude acceptable. No one is more venomous when it comes to game criticism than the pseudo-journalists of the gaming media, and publishers promote the attitude of competition to insane degrees.

That said, the thing I personally hate are all the fashionista gamers who bicker over graphics, resolution, and framerate. I swear I'm just going to post the theme song to Queer Eye for the Straight Guy in every comparison or graphics article because when you see gamers arguing about which version of a game has better ambient occlusion then they may as well have their own diva theme to argue about dresses over while they do it. It's sad.

[fenome]

Totally agree with you on the 'Golden Age' of gaming being SNES and PS2 days. I've just noticed a trend lately and wanted to post on it, I guess I should have put more thought in it. I just kind of threw it together after posting some comments.

I was about to touch on the console wars as being probably mainly why some people go out of their way to downplay or undermine some games because they have an 'agenda' or just out of jealousy. I decided against it because it's my first day off after a lot of overtime and I didn't want to spend all day on it, it just kind of 'popped in' and I felt the need to write about it :p

I should've just saved it until I could put more effort into it rather than submitting it right away.

I'll have to spend some more time and thought on my next one, I just had to get some things of my chest. I guess I'm jaded, I don't know. I just miss the fun of gaming, and being able to have an honest discussion about games without the BS (like this). I don't scrutinize pixels or study the frame rate. As long as it's fluid and I'm enjoying my time with it I don't care about anything else.

[starchild]

Totally disagree. Been seriously gaming since the mid 80s on the NES and gaming has never been more diverse or offered more quality game experiences than it does now. The indie scene alone is as good as the SNES days.

This was a good blog and I agree fully with it.

[DragonKnight]

@starchild: I've been gaming since the NES as well, and in my opinion you aren't paying attention to what's available today. Most games are clones of games that were successful or just sequels, in terms of AAA studios. The indie scene is actually just like the NES to PS2 days where devs took risks and there weren't so many people trying to call every game racist, sexist, misogynistic or anything like that.

[uth11]

Console wars doesn't explain the amount of hate Watchdogs got, for instance.

No matter how good the game looks, it got hated on because it 'doesn't look as good as the E3 preview', or 'doesn't look as good as GTA V', or not enough resolution or FPS.. This is before anyone even got to play the game.

Some of these gamers act like spoiled children.

[DragonKnight]

uth11: Those are the fashionista gamers. Just mock them. They aren't worth brain cells. Everything they say is akin to someone who's critiquing an outfit.

[mikeslemonade]

Saying something is golden age is nostalgia.

The only time it's not nostalgia was when 2D became 3D with Super Mario 64 and FF7. That would be the only time where you can definitively and argue that "jump" was big.

And back on topic people don't hate games, they're just being critics. And they sound like they hate it because they disagree with the other person's opinion.

[NewMonday]

2 kinds of haters :

1) the standard troll passively hating anything on rival platforms, the reasoning is inserted later and continously shifting whenever debunked, would go full retard and double down on stupid instead of owning up and walking away

2) the selfish reclusive who only wants things his way and anything that doesn't match his particular taste is a failure, and if a game matches his taste anyone not liking it is a biasd troll

[NewMonday]

want to add more after reading the Battlefield:Hardline thread @NeoGaf..

3) auto dismissive hyperbolic "the sky is falling" knee jerkers

[garrettbobbyferguson]

@Uth

Watchdogs got that amount of "hate" because that is what Ubisoft was pushing. "THIS IS A NEXT GEN GAME FOR NEXT GEN CONSOLES, OUR GRAPHICS REQUIRE 8 GIGS OF RAM MINIMUM!"

And then you have the game coming out looking like it does; a glorified Grand Theft Auto look alike, with worse physics, boring simplified hacking, etc. Remember that original reveal video? How Ubisoft claimed it was running off of high end PCs? That's where part of the backlash came from.

Now what I don't understand is, if people want games so much, why not Nintendo? They're so far the only company these last two gens focusing on making games and not the next big thing, or cinematic 2deep4u movies. But they get hated on because they didn't release the world's most powerful console EVAR. But I digress from my point.

[Darkstares]

DragonKnight wrote,
"That's because devs weren't afraid of taking risks, didn't hold anyone's hands in games, and we didn't have people trying to infect gaming with their social justice agendas everywhere. "

They still take risks it's just that those AAA big budget games have gotten out of control as far as budgets go. Instead of a few guys making games back then you have hundreds. What some tend to forget unlike the days on the SNES is we have multiple platforms to play our games on now. One could spend an entire year just playing games on Steam for example that take many risks. There are lots of games on mobile too that take many risks. Marketing has pushed us to play those blockbusters instead and then we whine there is nothing to play in between. Even on consoles we still see risks like The Last of Us. Many also forget that during the SNES days software was limited. They spread out these games so that you were not over-burdened with software. This meant we also held onto games longer. Gaming nowadays is being recycled so fast because there are so many games now. Everywhere you look you have used games for sale and places like E-Bay. Think back during those SNES days and you were hard pressed to see a big selection of used games. We cherished those $50 titles back then too because that was a lot of money. Now it's not uncommon for people to buy 3 or 4 games in one month. That was unheard of then.

It is true, we've become very negative and I'm not sure why when there are more game studios than there were during the SNES days. We also have multiplayer that adds infinite replay value. DLC has also become common to help further the life and interest as games. But instead we see these things as negative because we think those days of the SNES were so good. That's is a fallacy, it's just us thinking back to our childhoods and those memories. Now that we've grown old we have become harder to please. We also have those who get way too involved in the politics of gaming. So instead of talking and playing games many argue about why this developer hates us or why this company hates us. We talk about these things all day long instead of simply playing games like we did as a child. It's no wonder those who partake in that on a daily basis have become pessimistic about the industry.

DragonKnight also wrote this earlier,
"georgeenoob doesn't care, he's too blinded by his Xbox/Microsoft fanboyism to not be culturally ignorant.
So georgeenoob, exactly which Xbox console has ever performed well in Japan? I ask because you're calling it "the King" which implies that it's going to outsell everything else. I don't know if you study history at all, but the Xbox brand has done worse in Japan than any other territory it's ever sold in. What makes you think the Japanese audience wants a tv box?"

So why would anyone get involved in this commentary? Is this the sporting nature of fanboys you were talking about that isn't hate, just simple rivalry? To me this is sad that grown adults act like this here. Going back and forth. When we were kids playing the SNES is was fun to tease those who maybe had a Sega system but adults still doing this decades later? How sad indeed.

[DragonKnight]

Dude, you're what's sad. I'm sorry but it's true. You undermine yourself by acting like that which you're arguing against in your comment.

I mean, in order to come up with the second quote, you had to have the intent of making someone, in this case me but it could have been anyone, look bad in some way. In order to do that, you had to go into comment history and find a quote, subjective to your own sensibilities, to post in order to make someone look bad.

In that thread there were dozens of comments, and you specifically chose one. The reasoning behind that is pretty clear and just renders anything you have to say completely irrelevant as you are being what you claim to be disappointed by.

[fenome]

I think that with how much information we get through the internet people get into a weird mentality where they feel closer to the industry almost 'inside' it, I don't know, it's hard to put what I'm trying to say into words. A lot of people follow finacial reports now and know about people who've gotten hired and fired. Nobody followed that stuff before, everybody was like 'Cool, a new game!‘. We have access to so much more info than we used to back in the day, and I think that might be something that gives some people a false sense of entitlement.

I'm not gettin' involved in the rest of that, that's between you and DragonKnight. Bubbled out, gotta go. Play nice! Lmao

[Darkstares]

DragonKnight this blog is about hate and negativity and you were the first to respond. However much of what you first commented on is hypocritical. That's because you partake in social agendas here and this whole notion that rivalries between fanboys is like sports is hilarious. You've made it very personal with XBox fans and made it even more personal with Microsoft. Then you sidetrack the issue of how I used you as hate and negativity while ignoring much of what I said.

So don't comment on a thread about hate when you yourself are part of the problem unless you want to be accountable.

This is like your first comment here many years ago,

http://n4g.com/news/64129/y...

"Second, no MGS4 and FFXIII will not be jumping ship. The developers know their games, and if they say it's not possible, then you better bet your ass that it's not. Maybe not from the technical side of things, but MGS4 and FFXIII were designed for the PS3, down to the last pixel. FFXIII has bee stated to be for the PS3 because "the PS3 is the only system that can realize our dreams for the game.

After Halo, what does the 360 have? Nothing. At least not until Gears of War 2. And I know, all you xbots are going to cry with your Mass Effect, Bioshock etc.... garbage, but those won't sell on a Halo level."

I can pick you apart all day long but it's pointless because you don't think there is anything wrong with how you conduct yourself. You think they are the problem, not you.

You're just one example. You have XBox people like this too and Nintendo people. This was ok back in the SNES days because as mentioned by me, we were young. That was normal. Is this normal for adults to act like this now?

Many seem to hate each other, many seem to hate certain game developers and as we can see many seem to hate the companies who provide the hardware. The only way to stop the hate is to start enjoying this hobby more and focus less on all the politics behind this medium. Nintendo back during the SNES days were not nice people. They did not play nice with third party developers. Funny how we didn't seem to care about that back then.

fenome wrote,

"I think that with how much information we get through the internet people get into a weird mentality where they feel closer to the industry almost 'inside' it, I don't know, it's hard to put what I'm trying to say into words. A lot of people follow finacial reports now and know about people who've gotten hired and fired."

Yes, we call them armchair analysis. It's very easy to be critical from the comfort of your own home while putting no effort or resources into the creation of the hardware of software only to pick it apart from the inside out. That game only got a 7, it's terrible. Funny how we are so quick to turn on them aren't we? We also get sales reports thrown in our faces. The market will always correct itself but many of us have become too insular. We only think from our own bubble. The fact is there is no shortage of games for us to play but we live in a society of entitlement.

[DragonKnight]

Ok Darkstares, this is my last reply to you because it's been painfully obvious what your attempt has been.

So I'm going to say two things.

The first is that you're sad. You haven't been part of the site for a month (unless this is a dupe account) and you're already stalking people's entire comment history, even going so far as to go years back to find a comment. I'm actually interested in the specific comment you've chosen actually, thank you for choosing it because now I get to watch something. Your commenting style is quite interesting too.

The second thing I'm going to state is that you're a hypocrite. I don't even need to elaborate, you just are.

And the final thing I'm going to say is an answer to this...

"So don't comment on a thread about hate when you yourself are part of the problem unless you want to be accountable."

Get over yourself. Anyone can comment anywhere on this site. You are not Judge Dredd, you are not the law, you do not make the rules, and you do not hold any right or responsibility to claim who will or will not be held accountable for something.

Good day sir.

MM

[Ogygian]

Lol the stalking is strong with this one XD

[kingdip90]

I think a lot of it has to do with the business of video game journalism.

In a quest for clicks and ad revenue video game "journalists" build hype, sensationalize things and most often try and create controversy where none should exist.

Sometimes it is in the guise of social injustice, sometimes in the guise of from rate and graphics issues, sometimes it's legitimate but often times not. Everything is overblown just to turn a quick buck and since we as the consumer have had this crammed down our necks since the internet became so mainstream we to have begun seeing things in just as sensational a way (us meaning gamers in general not you or I personally).

Our moral outrage/competitive spirit is being fueled and then exploited to make money and we buy into it, the pseudo console wars that fanboys fight whenever there is a chance is proof of it. These divisions inspire very real passions and I'm sure are driving console sales higher.

[starchild]

True, but our responsibility as gamers is still there. We aren't mindless puppets. Or at least we shouldn't be.

[kingdip90]

This is true of a lot of things not just gaming, we should be responsible for what we accept and believe and that is a perfectly logical deduction to make.

Unfortunately many people are emotional beings and news/opinion pieces often pull at the emotional core of a person and without thinking that person is ranting online in outrage over this that or the other.

If only everyone were logical ;) things would make much more sense.

Live long and prosper lol.

[Ogygian]

When an unpopular argument is shown, we jump to attack it. When we do this, it gets lots of hits and blows up, prompting other such articles.
Non-gamers on tumblr then start agreeing with the social justice argument and commenting in favour.
Companies seem to look at the media+tumblr and apologise rather than have the guts to stand strong and tell the vocal minorities to observe their place (as people who are often neither the target market, nor people who would ever consider buying the product).

Thus we *are* responsible for this, but then in a way, so is the media. Perhaps we should start criticising the websites which encourage writers to publish social "justice" articles which only seem to make us upset in stronger force.

[thorstein]

We don't have to approve their stories here, do we?

Maybe N4G should have a report for "clickbait." I often report it as "other."

I would love the overworked mods to delete the stories we report for this very reason. Give press and clicks to quality journalism that is well thought, well written and not fake.

Oh, and vote down those sites. It makes it harder for their site to get approvals.

[kingdip90]

I agree that would make n4g a better place but you run the risk of crying foul about freedom of speech blah blah blah.

Unfortunately n4g isn't seen by the whole internet and these guys are everywhere. Something needs to happen in journalism in its entirety that somehow brings the journalistic integrity that they used to be famous for.

[GrandpaSnake]

I believe someones mature level can be gauged by the way they express themselves. Although many are very intelligent and very literate most can't grasp the idea of being wrong. Information is easy to attain on video games but it is becoming ever so difficult to figure out what the truth is. In order to be accurate in our opinion we sacrifice the emotions of others sometimes. A opinionated person who believes in their truth can be wrong.

I hate to hold peoples hand when it comes to information but if you want to prove a point you have to be very aware about everything! people might dislike other people going through their messages but that's the life we live in. I hate evil and people who intentionally go against good nature individuals but i love the opposite.

[DCfan]

Good blog.
I also hate how some people count out any game thats not AAA, or make fun of it. Like whats happening with Drakengard 3

[Roccetarius]

Since publishers / independant developers take sales for granted, it only makes sense to hurt their bottom line. The Video Game Blogging isn't much better either, so they're not without blame.

Being able to see through lies is a great ability, which is why i'm saving a lot of money myself. There are very few developers on my good side, and one of them is obviously CDPR.

[BillytheBarbarian]

The problem comes from gamers who think their console of choice is elite and that the company loves them for helping bad mouthing the competition.

They don't care. They're just trying to sell.

Golden age died when Saturn and Ps1 came out.

[ArtificiallyYours]

The golden age died when deadlines were set ahead of polishing and quality control. Your game requires X amount of updates, please continue.

[fenome]

That's totally true, at least these recent game delays gives me hope that some companies have a higher standard and want to take the time to polish and create a quality product.

A lot of that stems from big publishers giving unfair deadlines and breathing dow the developers necks. I hate the 'it's close enough, ship it, we can patch it later' mentality that some companies go by. Just because you can finish it after release doesn't mean that you should. What happened to taking pride in your product and taking the time to ensure that its quality is up to the standards you want to create.

I think it's awesome that they can improve games over time and add featues after launch now, but it pisses me off when they use it as a crutch so that they can release an unfinished product get that cash grab and fix it later. That just screws over the people that supported their game from the start. Those are the people who spend full price on a buggy mess, some games are pretty much charging premium prices for a 6 month beta test while they iron out the kinks and it's completely unacceptable.

[kewlkat007]

I truly think gamers used to enjoy games back in the day...I've always owned every console release at some point of the generation.

Now it's so polarizing based on your console of choice, I just do not think gamers enjoy the diversity of games and different platforms as there was back in the day..

Now many put themselves in a "box" and badmouth anything that is not on their platform of choice.

The internet of today doesn't help either. Whatever happened to gaming because you enjoyed games, period.
Personally, I think it hurt the industry and the devs.

[snookiegamer]

There actually is a vocal minority spouting negativity anywhere they can, about a high profile, up and coming game.

I don't feel these people deserve the tag 'Gamer'.

They tried it with Watchdogs (failed), and I suppose the next target will be Destiny. Just you wait and see everybody.

Destiny hate incoming....

[fenome]

It's funny that you mentioned that because leteraly just saw an article titled 'Desiny, destined for sameness?'. It's already starting. Haters everywhere, I guess we should just ignore them and hope they go away. lol

[thorstein]

Fantastic Blog. Without a doubt this is even more relevant on the release of Watch Dogs.

I have never seen the hate so bad since this generation launched. It is really bizarre. I even wonder if these haters even like gaming. Or is it like some sort of assignment.

But consider the following games and their pre-release hatred:
Ryse
inFamous Second Son
Assassin's Creed IV
Grand Theft Auto V
and now... Watch Dogs.

All of the "fear" has been put to rest. Still hate the game? Then join gearnuke at trying to create a controversy over a technical hiccup on PSN. Not actually affecting the game, mind you, because, as we can see the reviews are in and the verdict is that this is a great game.

The gamers that bought this game see how beautiful it is and how much fun it is to play a new IP.

My prediction for the spread of stupidity will go thusly:

Driveclub (yes, there is a distinctly PS4 tone to the hate)
the Order 1884
The Division
Destiny
Dying Light

[DefenderOfDoom2]

People all over the world have real life problems! My guess is, that they use video game sites to vent their anger.

[peanut72]

Because that is what modern games are teaching gamers.

[Blacklash93]

Yeah, the online gaming media and community can be very hostile and venomous, toward the industry and themselves. People love taking things for granted, dwelling on the negative, and being militant and fickle about everything. The Internet just happens to be the perfect place for childish histrionics concerning those things. It's not new.

[TuxedoMoon]

Why do gamers hate games?

Because Gamers aren't all the same. People like different things, expect different, and experience different things in games. Not everyone's going to like a game and criticism IS GOOD (if it's explained)!

I'm speaking in a general sense about all this, but sometimes people just won't like something. If a person doesn't like the taste of ketchup and you do, can't you just accept their reason being that they simply don't like it? Same can go for games. I'M not a fan of simulation type sports games. Why? I have no interest in it. Simple as that. I guess people can go in depth to explain their reasons, but even if they did you'll still keep your OPINION in the forefront. Few people would change their opinions after hearing the others explanation as to why they don't like ketchup or a certain game. In the end of most conversation, both parties will stick to their OPINIONS.

Being more specific to the blog, the blind hate comes mainly from trolls. The online gaming environment can be pretty bad when it comes to sharing opinions too. Most of those trolls just hate the game (Using watch_dogs as an example) because other people are doing it. Unless they have some understandable reasons (and they have actually played the game before release somehow), then I guess it's okay for them to share their opinions?

Like I said above not everyone reacts the same way with new games. Even with the pre-game-release haters complaining, don't those games (COD,BF,Asscreed, Mario, ETC) still sell extremely well? They're loud, but they're ultimately the minority in all this.

[JimmyThompson]

I'm just picky. If it's not open world, then I probably won't like it. If it has closed instances, turn-based combat, or anything like that, I probably won't like it. If it has an anime art style, I probably won't like it. If the plot resembles something written by James Cameron, I probably won't like it.

The only games I actually still play are Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Farcry, GTA, and Mass Effect.

[JeffKaos]

"Developers need our support, they're busting their asses for our amusement and entertainment and they deserve more respect than they've been getting lately". You make it sound like they're making games for us to play out of the kindness of their hearts. Every time I shell out my hard earned $$$ on a game that's all the support they can expect from me. If people want to rage on something as inconsequential as video games so what? And the whole "if you weren't online you wouldn't act this way" argument is pointless. How do you know that?

[kchameo]

nice blog, its obvious that this is a matter that concerns you (or you just know how to wright a good blog). The only thing I really cant stand is how time consuming it is to sift through all the garbage and hate to find the occasionally interesting comment, or to find a honest not biased ( by either haters or company reps)review, oh well what's one to do. LOl kind of funny thou, on a blog that addresses all the trolling and hate...that all the responses have been pretty rational :)