Is there any positivity left in the gaming community?

Journey, Sleeping Dogs, XCOM, Dishonored. Just a few recent games people seem to be nothing but positive about. A company like Capcom has earned its reputation through it's actions. The world didn't collectively throw a dart at the wall and react accordingly when it landed on 'Jaded as fuck!'

The climb back up is never instant. You have to earn back trust once you lose it and that's hard to do.

there are bad games some times. do you think people should ignore that? or not give their opinons ?

Yup but it is only given to games that warrant that praise. Journey and Walking Dead have been praise, RE6 hasn't. You are looking in the wrong places.

I'll throw this into the mix: my thesis is that if games were cheaper across the board, people would be less negative. having a $60 dollar purchase turn out to be shit is fucked up. subsequently, you're trying to make sure that doesn't happen again, you start looking for flaws to decide early whether something turns out to be shit or not so you don't feel the need to buy it. negativity's a safety blanket.

boom, that's the cliffnotes version.

It takes time for gamers to come around to their silly ways, sometimes, just one game is required, before it all turns to shit again...

People dogpiling on RE6, most without even playing it is kind of just a thing with this forum's narrow mindset with regards to the staff. Wishing poor sales on a game that isn't Call of Duty is absurd; it's like saying "Hey, Fuck Japan." The industry as a whole is rapidly deteriorating and losing more resources isn't going to help it. The divided response to RE6 will have some mild impact on Capcom, the only thing poor sales does is make localizations of interesting Japanese games (like Tokyo Jungle) that much less unlikely.

Now if you want to hate on Call of Duty for selling too well and call everyone that buys it every single year a moronic sheep, I'm all for that, because that's kind of crippling creativity and bloating an already overly dominant company. And of course it will sell another 30 million copies across systems regardless, how nice.

It's the internet. Everyone is jaded and cynical. I find Giantbomb to be less so...or maybe just less stupid when compared to some other things you might find. Regardless it's one of the best parts of the internet for me.

@Itwastuesday said:

@Ares42 said:

I'm really tired of the term "gaming community". It's just starting to feel like one of those "all blacks are the same" kinda expressions.

good comparison

Actually no it's not.

Resident Evil 6's free DLC is not the best example, because DLC for a 30 hour bad game is not generally going to be well recived despite it being free.

@Apparatus_Unearth said:

Why do we feel entitled that game companies always have to please us specifically?

I was with you until this.

Maybe cos that's how free market capitalism works? We give them custom so they should provide us with good service/products otherwise we take our custom elsewhere and they lose money.

You want positivity, get into the Katawa Shoujo community. Even if it's a little creepy, those guys have been totally inspired by that game.

I FUCKING LOVE VIDEO GAMES!

@TaliciaDragonsong said:

@Video_Game_King: Uh no? All I remember from Dragon Age is a drunken Dwarf and a paladin raised by flying dogs. And yeah, that article says it all.

BUT THE DWARF WAS SCARED OF MONSTER PANTS.

People are dumb. They don't freakin pay attention to how things work, they don't read articles, they just spew crap. Just ignore it, ya know? If it's dumb, ignore it. If it's worth interacting with, interact with it.

There's tons of positivity left. Look at every story about a good game, reviews, users' lists of their favorite games, threads about people's favorite games, status updates, etc. Positivity is all over the place if you're willing to look for it.

I have a ton of positivity for things that are good. For example, I have little bad to say about the aforementioned Dragon Age. All the games I've bought this year have been preeettty good, and I'll even defend Mass Effect 3 a little bit. It wasn't a good way to wrap up the story, but as a game it's still a ton of fun, especially towards the more hectic parts at the end. It's just hard not to be cynical about some of the terrible stuff taking place in the world of video games.

@matti00 said:

You want positivity, get into the Katawa Shoujo community. Even if it's a little creepy, those guys have been totally inspired by that game.

Is that a compliment? I'm inspired by that game for what a small team of segregated individuals accomplished. They made a visual novel which is a hell of a lot more interesting, better written, and more technically impressive than a lot of retail products on the Japanese market. It has a fantastic soundtrack, an overall positive message, and some really great character writing. I've messed around with the open-source Ren-Py engine and seen a good amount of other projects using it, and I have no idea how they accomplished what they did with it.

I was being positive about videogames until you reminded me about all the spite and negativity in the world.

Sure, there is. If you hang out on the internet, though, chances are that you're not going to see much of it.

Yeah. I'm staying positive. 
At least until I need to make decisions in Walking Dead. 
Also, FUCK YOU LARRY. FUCK YOU.

@Neurotic said:

@Apparatus_Unearth said:

Why do we feel entitled that game companies always have to please us specifically?

I was with you until this.

Maybe cos that's how free market capitalism works? We give them custom so they should provide us with good service/products otherwise we take our custom elsewhere and they lose money.

I agree that sometimes it's ok to listen to fans. But at the same time i think we could blame RE6 on fans that think they know what they want.

Think about all of the changes they made from RE5 to RE6. People wanted a "better action game" so there is stuff exploding all the time. People complained about Sheva's AI even though she actually had pretty good AI.

What games need are people taking the helm with a vision. There is a reason why when Shinji Mikami directed a Resident Evil game it changed the way games were played. He helped invent and perfect genres of games because him and his team knew what they were doing.

Fan feedback can be important, but I'd say there needs to be some artistry to create something amazing.

Personally I think gaming is at a all time high. When my game pile consists of Borderlands 2, Mass Effect 3 and Dishonored. Life is pretty sweet right now. Game on happy people.

@matti00 said:

You want positivity, get into the Katawa Shoujo community. Even if it's a little creepy, those guys have been totally inspired by that game.

The whole KS phenomenon is still totally surreal for me. The fact that a Little-Engine-That-Could collection of individuals could somehow cobble together such a game that actually got one of the most negative corners of the internet (4chan) to have something positive to say for a change is nothing short of amazing.

I'm in the gaming community, and I'm pretty stoked about videogames.

An overly positive community is one that ignores any faults in something and ban all criticism. People complain when something is bad in the hope that those who need to learn do and improve their products. If people don't complain quality in products stops being an issue and companies will just make bad products as they have little reason to make good ones. While people probably have become a bit jaded it doesn't make negativity bad

Also games that should be praised get it all the time, look at XCOM and Dishonoured

I actually love RE6, I've been enjoying every single moment I've put into the game.

Although, I just don't feel like posting my opinion just to get responses of people saying stuff like, "I know people are allowed to have opinions, BUT WHAT?>..???"

I've experienced this the very moment I became a fan of the Kane and Lynch series. It's never really stopped. lol

So really, I don't see a reason for me to post my opinions/thoughts on a game anymore. I either get raged out on for liking the game, or no one cares.

@Nottle: The Politics student in me giggles like a schoolgirl when I consider someone with a Communist flag in their avatar is arguing against my capitalism point.

I agree. Sometimes (oftentimes) consumers are dumb. That doesn't mean that people don't have the right to complain about something they've bought and aren't satisfied with or about poor customer service, which many game companies are guilty of. I feel like the negative implications of the word 'entitled' are thrown around so much these days that people don't consider that we actually are entitled to be upset about a product we paid for and aren't satisfied with as per the 'social contract' (for lack of a better term) of our particular brand of capitalism. Now I'm not suggesting that that means that crazy people can react in the way they did to Mass Effect 3 (the death threats etc.) but the criticisms of the reasonable and even the less-than-reasonable-but-not-fucking-insane shouldn't be dismissed out of hand because these fans are 'entitled' or 'spoiled brats'. The negative 'entitled' should only be used against people who pirate products and then complain that it's not good enough or those who pirate because they think they should get everything for free.

Anyway, this isn't about the quality (or lack thereof) of RE6, it's about Capcom's on-disc DLC policy. That's part of their customer service and has nothing to do with artistic licence. Capcom's customers have a right to be pissed off that something they have technically already paid for is arbitrarily locked away until Capcom decides they can have it, for more money. Or they can be okay with it since it means DLC downloads are smaller and quicker and it's more efficient.

The video game industry struggles more than most with fan feedback since, for the popular series like RE at least, a large proportion of the audience will buy your product regardless of any bad company policies or the quality of the game. And once you've paid for it, that's it. You can't get a refund directly from Capcom if you hated RE6 like you could from a restaurant or most other businesses if you weren't satisfied with their product or their service. Money going back out of Capcom's bank account would make way more of a statement than internet griping but you can't do that. I'm guilty of doing the same thing. I will definitely be buying Persona 4 Arena despite the region lock and subsequent awful handling of the third party publisher in charge of it in my region. If I have problems with them (and I most certainly do) then I, as a consumer, regardless of it being 'a luxury item' or 'just a video game', should be allowed to air them since I am their customer (even if it seems that they don't want to take my money).

I wasn't saying that consumers should decide the direction of the game (that would suck balls), I was saying that those who don't like the direction of the game or the compnay should be allowed to air their grievances (even if they do go a bit overboard) without being accused of being 'entitled' and having their criticisms ignored as a result. Basically, my issue is with the term 'entitled'. Every time I type/read it, I lose sight of what it actually means.

Sorry for the rambling, I'm a bit woozy from hunger right now...

@believer258 said:

Sleeping Dogs had a pretty good ending and was a pretty good game; that's positive.

Honestly, talking about things that are good and positive isn't terribly interesting, or is terribly difficult to make interesting. Think about it - how long do you spend talking about something you like with a friend who has similar interests? Not always that long. You might say "Sleeping Dogs was good game" and then your friend goes "yeah, I loved it"; you then go on to mention how fun it was to put a dude's head in an air conditioner and then move on with the conversation.

And now for some crazy talk: you know how all those plays, philosophy books, poems, and other works you have to read through college are so boring and horrible? Maybe people talked about them so much and remembered them because they really fucking sucked! And most of them got a really bad reception at first anyway! (yes, that's bullshit, I know, it was just an interesting thought).

EDIT: Incidentally, that will mean that Daikatana and Superman 64 will be considered masterpieces five hundred years from now. *shivers*.

I disagree. What makes any conversation about anything interesting is if speaker has any excitement or passion. I always say that the worst thing a movie or game can be is boring.

I've talked plenty about good games with my friends. For about 3 hours yesterday me and my friend talked about Pokemon while playing Borderlands 2. Heavy Rain, a game that has some problems, I could talk about the positives for quite some time on.

The thing is people like to accentuate the negative. People are more likely to complain to the manager about a crappy employee than talk to the manager about a good employee. It's also probably a bit easier to act excited when something is crappy. When something is done flawlessly, seemingly without effort it is kind of hard to talk about. Mechanically Sleeping dogs is also kind of by the books. You've seen most of what it has to offer before. But other, sort of more interesting and innovative games I could probably talk about all day.

As for poems, I think its just a matter of cultural differences. So many of us want to make communication dirt simple, we invent new ways to express information using less effort like emoticons, slang, or stuff like FYI and LOL. Poetry has a lot of double entendres, puns, and metaphors; as a culture I don't really think we appreciate subtlety nor do we like to have to search for any hidden meaning in a persons words. We just want to hear things in the literal sense.

Also Daikatana and Superman 64 will never be good. Though games we do covet as the greatest of all time will become outdated. Especially the early playstation and N64 era stuff. Games like Link to the Past and Super Metroid will always top off lists, but will Mass Effect 2 and Grand Theft auto stay up there? I don't think thats likely.

It's pretty much the same as it has always been, it's just easier to find on the internet. Stop seeking out the negativity, ignore it - works for me. I'm fairly positive about the game industry as a whole.

the FGC hates absolutely everything that comes out (capcom or otherwise) and anything that isn't marvel on stream. its hilarious.

@Nottle said:

@believer258 said:

Sleeping Dogs had a pretty good ending and was a pretty good game; that's positive.

Honestly, talking about things that are good and positive isn't terribly interesting, or is terribly difficult to make interesting. Think about it - how long do you spend talking about something you like with a friend who has similar interests? Not always that long. You might say "Sleeping Dogs was good game" and then your friend goes "yeah, I loved it"; you then go on to mention how fun it was to put a dude's head in an air conditioner and then move on with the conversation.

And now for some crazy talk: you know how all those plays, philosophy books, poems, and other works you have to read through college are so boring and horrible? Maybe people talked about them so much and remembered them because they really fucking sucked! And most of them got a really bad reception at first anyway! (yes, that's bullshit, I know, it was just an interesting thought).

EDIT: Incidentally, that will mean that Daikatana and Superman 64 will be considered masterpieces five hundred years from now. *shivers*.

I disagree. What makes any conversation about anything interesting is if speaker has any excitement or passion. I always say that the worst thing a movie or game can be is boring.

I've talked plenty about good games with my friends. For about 3 hours yesterday me and my friend talked about Pokemon while playing Borderlands 2. Heavy Rain, a game that has some problems, I could talk about the positives for quite some time on.

The thing is people like to accentuate the negative. People are more likely to complain to the manager about a crappy employee than talk to the manager about a good employee. It's also probably a bit easier to act excited when something is crappy. When something is done flawlessly, seemingly without effort it is kind of hard to talk about. Mechanically Sleeping dogs is also kind of by the books. You've seen most of what it has to offer before. But other, sort of more interesting and innovative games I could probably talk about all day.

As for poems, I think its just a matter of cultural differences. So many of us want to make communication dirt simple, we invent new ways to express information using less effort like emoticons, slang, or stuff like FYI and LOL. Poetry has a lot of double entendres, puns, and metaphors; as a culture I don't really think we appreciate subtlety nor do we like to have to search for any hidden meaning in a persons words. We just want to hear things in the literal sense.

Also Daikatana and Superman 64 will never be good. Though games we do covet as the greatest of all time will become outdated. Especially the early playstation and N64 era stuff. Games like Link to the Past and Super Metroid will always top off lists, but will Mass Effect 2 and Grand Theft auto stay up there? I don't think thats likely.

I did not mean for the bit about poetry to be taken completely seriously, though it's worth mentioning that I fucking hate poetry that doesn't make a lick of sense.

@Neurotic: Ha. Don't read into the communist flag in my avatar. I made the avatar like 4 years ago because the words Kame, Commie, Kami, and cofee all sounded alike. I liked Deathnote and Light calls himself a god or "Kami." So I used MS paint to put his head on Stalin's body. If you notice he also has coffee and a turtle (kame) on his shoulders. It's dumb.

I don't really have a problem with people complaining about something if they have a legitimate reason for it and some points to back it up. There is nothing wrong with that. Though I do feel like sometimes the negativity is just people hopping on a bandwagon. If it is a customer service issue than yeah, those should get fixed. But if people are complaining for something a little more on the creative side than they should speak with there wallets.

@believer258: I know, you did say you were kind of BSing. I agree for the most part poetry it hard to care about. Just airing why that may be.

@algertman said:

@Itwastuesday said:

@Ares42 said:

I'm really tired of the term "gaming community". It's just starting to feel like one of those "all blacks are the same" kinda expressions.

good comparison

Actually no it's not.

I think he was being sarcastic.

Younger gamers frequently come off as feeling entitled, and older gamers often complain about getting left behind by current gaming trends. Those are the two most common types of complaints in any given thread. It gets tiresome, and because it's the internet those with an axe to grind are going to be loudest. It's just the nature of things. That said, there's plenty of positive discussion out there if you look for it.

Honestly, I think the real source of discontentment is that the gaming populace is so large now that it's beginning to split rather severely into different segments--and developers are trying to make games that appeal to them all. It can't go on forever. Eventually they're going to have to make games that take into account the maturing of the gaming community. Then I think we'll get less of the common complaints, as games will no longer be treading down a mediocre middle-road. I don't think anyone has really figured out how to do that yet. And everyone is pissed off about it, but for different reasons.

I think we won't see the kind of truly customized experiences until midway through the next console generation. In the meanwhile, while I often get tired of the same old arguments, I think it's good that the discontentment is being voiced. In the old days, there was no easy way for developers to get the kind of feedback they get now. Now maybe they have too much. Who knows. I kinda like the transparency.

@Apparatus_Unearth said:

Why do we feel entitled that game companies always have to please us specifically?

Because we pay for the games?

Any time you see comments on the internet you need to remind yourself that its a vocal minority, and people are more likely to speak up about things they don't like then lavish something with praise. You'll bitch to your waiter about a substandard meal, but would you go back to the kitchen and congratulate the chef if it was delicious? No one does that. Any time you gather together the most hardcore section of people, they are bound to be more cynical and jaded, and the gaming community is certainly no exception.

If something is bad, I'm going to voice my opinion about it. I guess I don't follow the whole "be happy with whatever devs give you" mentality.

The internet in general is a pretty negative cynical place. Gets to be a real bummer sometimes. That's why I appreciate super positive people like Brad Muir. Dude's always happy.

@Nottle said:

@Neurotic: Ha. Don't read into the communist flag in my avatar.

I know. It just tickled me is all cos that's the sort of sad person I am.

But as I said, there is a portion of the audience that will always buy an RE game, even now. I voted with my wallet, but a lot of people don't. I don't care about RE, I didn't buy the game. Won't stop them being made. I'm a bad example for this particular game but I still expect that many people bought it to make their own minds up and still didn't like it. What can they do? They can't take their $60/£40/however many Euros (there's no Euro sign on the keyboard, that's weird) back. All they can do is bitch on the internet and, as we all know, the anonymity of the internet makes people crazy. That's how video game companies get feedback from the average customers these days and it's too round about. A bad restaurant knows it has to improve cos it's giving out refunds left and right. A bad video game company can deflect criticism cos the people who criticise them are randomers on the internet and they will still buy whatever they make, if only to confirm that they don't like it. Voting with your wallet would make companies take notice but that argument is flawed because people won't, because people have to experience a game (and therefore buy it) before they can discern that they don't like it and be able to give reasoned criticism. It might eventually lead to the end of the company, but that's long term and after a bunch of crappy games. This problem is really only with big, previously successful companies but I still feel it's a problem for the industry as a whole.

I suppose I could address the thread topic a little. I'm generally pretty positive about games. I'm having a ton of fun mancing mechros in Borderlands 2 right now, for example. Also, I'm having a lot of fun with Tekken Tag 2 which I wasn't expecting. It's usually the complaining minority which are the loudest and like to make inflammatory threads on message boards or send Bioware death threats. Well-adjusted people stay out of that nonsense.

Everybody loves XCOM. Myth debunked.

Yup, me!

@Neurotic: Sounds like Capcom has won at capitalism than.

To quote you earlier:

Maybe cos that's how free market capitalism works? We give them custom so they should provide us with good service/products otherwise we take our custom elsewhere and they lose money.

You also just said :

. Voting with your wallet would make companies take notice but that argument is flawed because people won't

So if we can't do anything to make them loose money Capcom wins because people will buy a inferior product regardless.

Also I've been pretty positive about everything I've been playing. I don't know what other peoples problems are. THEY MUST ALL BE ENTITLED. :D

Kidding.

@Nottle said:

@Neurotic: Sounds like Capcom has won at capitalism than.

To quote you earlier:

Maybe cos that's how free market capitalism works? We give them custom so they should provide us with good service/products otherwise we take our custom elsewhere and they lose money.

You also just said :

. Voting with your wallet would make companies take notice but that argument is flawed because people won't

So if we can't do anything to make them loose money Capcom wins because people will buy a inferior product regardless.

More or less. That's my problem, video games are a bit of a weird market and we don't really have true free market capitalism (although our leaders like to say we do). I was just making the point that we are entitled to expect a certain level of quality for goods/services we pay for and that people aren't over-entitled if they complain. In the long term, people gradually not buying Capcom games will make them go out of business. But that is in the very long term cos only a handful of people will stop buying Capcom games altogether after a bad one cos they've had great games in the past, brand loyalty etc. The first point you quoted was in response to OP asking why gamers feel that game companies have to please them. What I said is the reason, in theory, but the video game industry, and the world, doesn't quite work like that (in my opinion). So the alternative to not buying a game (which opens yourself to claims that you can't criticise it as a result, or that you don't really know that not buying it was warranted) is to buy it and then criticise it on the internet, where you are then told not to complain cos game companies 'aren't supposed to be serving your needs/wants' when they are. Either that or you're told not to buy the game (vote with your wallet) if you don't like it as if you could go back in time. See the vicious cycle?

I bought NBA 2K13, Code of Princess and Retro City Rampage this week and am enjoying the shit out of all of them.

POSITIVE TALK!

I think the real problem is how SENSITIVE some people are to anyone who isn't shitting out roses and yelling praises.

It's always the vocal minority that's loudest.

Being cynical is the easiest way to be looked at as "funny" or "cool".

The entitlement argument can very easily fall into a catch 22 situation, however like I said negativity makes the most noise and therefore is most profitable, just watch the news they're very profitable and not because they focus on the positives of the world.

EDIT: Of course certain criticisms have to be taken in context as well, I myself whined and complained when Eidos decided to reboot the Tomb Raider franchise and Capcom with the DMC franchise. Most of my criticisms were most definitely not valid as I've never been a big fan of reboots in general lol.

@FluxWaveZ@ajamafalous

It's hard to word what I mean by that statement. What I mean is why does everyone get all up in arms when a game doesn't specifically appeal to everything that individual person wants?