Oh definitely. At times I wonder if I should even read and participate in online gaming communities at all anymore.
Your Diablo 3 example can be taken to reddit.com/r/games.
Once a subreddit with pretty good discussions it has now become large and the quality has taken a nose dive. Every time there's a Diablo 3 thread the game will be bashed to no end and everyone cycle-jerks one another. So pretty much every day you I see a highly upvoted anti-Diablo 3 thread. I liked the game. I think the game does have flaws but the reactions and the fucking negativity on the internet - man it just fucking sucks.
These cynicism cyclejerks are so darn annoying. Heck, recently after the Starcraft HotS and Elder Scrolls Online trailers people start creating more and more "CGI Trailers are misleading garbage!" threads. What the fuck man. Now apparently Blizzard's beautiful, pre-rendered Cinematics are some bad? Because if you're a moron and look at it from a retarded point of view these trailers try to mislead you into buying the game purely based on these the trailer... Like there aren't 200 billion gameplay video when you google the term Starcraft. Oh and "Blizzard's writers are literally retarded Hitler" has to be the most upvoted comment too, of course. Wouldn't wanna miss mention that, right?
All the cynicism feels fun as long as you agree with it. But when you realize it has reached a ridiculous point where everything the particular community isn't already loving gets shit on, well fuck.
Reddit is just one of the plenty examples. Giantbomb itself isn't much better. Reading through the comments has become a rather bad experience by now and I'm barely even bothering. Has partially to do with the size of the community again, the bigger it gets the more likely it's going to turn to complete shit.
The larger the mainstream audience you attract, the sharper the drop you see in interesting, productive discussion. Sad, but true.
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