How does a fandom ruin a good game?

No GOTY podcast spoilers so I'll talk around the games I'm actually thinking about as I create this topic, but there has been a lot of talk about really excited fans pushing people to play the games they love. By most accounts these are games that are REALLY good and received critical acclaim, but the GB crew frequently said that people's excitement made them less likely to play X game and/or like it.

I don't understand how that feeling happens or how someone can turn negative in the face of positivity. Why the negativity? What is gained with the mindset of, "Your enthusiasm for this thing you like is annoying me so now I'm going to actively dislike it to spite you" because I can't understand it.

I've been turned around on several TV shows/series because of the overwhelming positivity from fans. Whenever I see an abundance of media (artwork, music, videos, etc.) being created for a show I automatically think that it must be something that's at least worth checking out. Countless people wouldn't spend hours of their free time creating art for shows that were completely devoid of value.

Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe most people don't like having cool stuff suggested their way. Maybe I'd be angry if 1000 people told me I should check out X thing because they think its amazing. I don't know.

Hey, have you played Undertale? It's the best game ever, you know.

When it becomes nagging, it becomes annoying. From past experience, I just know that someone constantly telling me to do something leads to high expectations with a good chance of disappointment.

Can't count the amount of times I was told to play Life is Strange. So I went into the first episode, thought it was alright, and then I'm told "ah, you gotta keep going!" So expectations rise, I got disappointed again, and the cycle continues. If I had picked it up on a whim, it probably would've been a pleasant surprise rather than expecting a game of the year candidate.

I've had a friend tell me to read the Saga comics for months, and he even admitted the other day "You know, at this point it's probably not gonna live up to all my hype."

Suggestions are fine. Getting pissed at someone that they ignored your constant suggestion is not fine.

I can see how it can be off putting if everyone you know is constantly telling you to play X game.

However, with that said, I just bought Invisible Inc due to Austins arguments for the game.

When it is in your face all of the time it can be annoying, and for people in the vidya gamez business, it can be super annoying and unavoidable, I can avoid most media content as nothing I need to do in my life HAS to revolve around it. The GB folks do however, they have to come in to games ever single day, so if they see comments/messages all the time saying 'play the game! play the game! heard about this game? play the game?!" over and over, it can make you go 'uhg, noooo."
It's the different between your cat nudging your leg with its head because it wants to be pet and going its own way if you are busy, or using your leg as a scratching post because 'fucking pay attention to me'

That's how I look at things anyways. Too much of anything usually isn't great, especially if you don't want to engage with it right now.

This type of thing happens a TON in the anime community. And the things that bother me there also bother me in videogame community.

Fandom bring hyperbole.

I'm not saying I'm immune to doing this, by writing this post I'm a huge hypocrite because I'm head over heals for Metal Gear and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. When a person who is insanely into the fandom of a certain series/product they tend to use hyperbolic statements to describe why it is good. They're standards the you know as the listener there's a 90% chance you won't love it as much as this person explaining it to you, and instead of going through whatever it is and being disappointed to you enjoy "X" as much as that other guy/girl you just avoid it all together.

The other thing that I find happens is that the person explaining the thing uses terms, or reasons that only people who are already hugely into whatever it is would understand what they're talking about. Leaving the listener just confused and with no real reason to check out whatever it is they were trying to convince them of.

It's all about how you are positive about the product. If you can give a nice reasonable and thought out explanation then you're more likely to turn someone onto whatever is you're talking about. If you just use this hypothetical opportunity to fangasm in someone's face then you're not going to convince them of anything.
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Or they could just be hipsters, I dunno.

Sometimes your fandom in a series raises expectations in such a way that the latest installment can't possibly meet them. Something which Super Bunnyhop addresses in his Metal Gear Solid V videos.

I think part of it is not wanting to be disappointed in things, and in some ways a vocal fanbase can mess with one's expectations in a negative way. Subtlety is difficult to express on the internet, and chances are even when you see me posting about Fire Emblem like a foaming lunatic my opinions are more complex than they might appear. If it's incessant enough, it's difficult to ignore. Alternatively, contrarianism is a thing that easily expressed on the internet, so when I say I didn't much care for Invisible Inc. on Austin's top 10 list, it makes me stand out more.

All of that said... I just bought Undertale so clearly my suspicions about that game mayyyyybe not being everything its vocal fanbase and critical admirers have cracked it up to be weren't as effective as I thought.

Seriously though, Breaking Bad really is a good television program. I'd like to sometime see The Wire as well. I've heard good things.

But yeah, people who refuse to try something because it's "too popular" are silly. Also, as much as I wanted to see The Witcher 3 on Giant Bomb top ten lists, giving a game a ranking on any list when no one on your entire staff has finished it also seems silly. I don't feel that "I played enough of it" should exist in the realm of game reviews or year-end lists, at least when referring to games that have a story and a proper ending.

That's my opinion, at least.

I have no idea what you're talking about. I constantly heard them saying things like everyone said this was good so I gave it a shot.

What game were they avoiding because other people enjoyed it?

It's gotta be hard having such a vocal user base and having people shout at you from every possible direction about the things you should like or dislike or varying degrees in between. If that adds to someone's distaste in something, that's a valid opinion to have, especially when a significant number have tried said thing and discovered it's not to their liking. If everyone made a top ten list based purely on some mechanical objective guidelines, we'd have the most boring universal GOTY lists and everyone on every site would feel like a damn robot.

It doesn't outside of multiplayer games where you're being abused in chat or chatrooms.

I'm not going to pretend like I know what its like to have thousands of people telling me that I should do something, but if it were me it would definitely have an affect on how I might approach that thing. For one, it changes my expectations. This happens all the time even with just small groups of people for me. If all my friends say some movie or some game is the best thing ever then I go in expecting it to be good. If its not then that affects my reaction to the thing. Similarly, if I don't enjoy it, suddenly there's a group of people who are either disappointed that I don't enjoy it too or who are going to tell me why I'm wrong about not liking it. Now imagine that on the scale of a fanbase. That doesn't sound fun to me. So yeah, if I were in those shoes I might be tempted to not play it either just to avoid it.

Not saying that's what anyone on the bombcast does or has done. In fact I think they're usually very good at separating these things and giving stuff an honest shot.

@golguin said:

When 100s of people are constantly and aggressively pestering you play/watch/enjoy something they enjoy and when you show the slightest bit of uninterest in it they start to be more aggressive and very bitter about it, it's very easy to be like "well fuck this then!"

This year in games has had a lot of games that inspired that sort of fandom. Bloodborne, Undertale, MGSV, and the Witcher 3 just to name a few.

Most times I've heard from a rabid fandom that a game is really good, I play it, and it turns out that it's pretty good, and I think "Yeah, they were right to recommend it so strongly." Even if the hype is overblown and not quite proportional to how good I found the game, as long as the game was a fairly positive experience overall, I'm like "Yeah, OK, glad you brought this to my attention."

There have been maybe 2 or 3 times where I played a game with fan hype around it, and thought it was complete garbage, but then my anger is more at the game for wasting my time and being bad than it is at the fan hype that brought it to my attention.

usually it's one or two people saying something cool/intriguing about a game that will truly pique my interest, like Austin repping hard for Invisible Inc, or the cool stuff that I sort of got spoiled for in SOMA. excessive love does push me away a bit, but it's more my problem than anything. i mostly just get tired of hearing about the same damn thing over and over, when rabid fans start getting offended when someone suggests their hallowed game is less than perfect, or get uppity when someone "plays it wrong," that's when it starts really getting to me. i feel i'm usually able to see beyond that stuff and make up my own mind about things. not sure if relevant, but i basically have always loved Bioshock Infinite even when it crested a huge wave of popularity and hyperbolic praise and found itself seemingly knee deep in a backlash. that game just did it for me, top to bottom.

The games that come to mind that resonate with me are...

Witcher 3. They were told time and time again that Witcher 3 was fantastic and they really needed to finish it. Most did not get past the intro quest line (Bloody Baron).

Undertale. Everyone on the internet was talking about how it was an amazing game that subverted your expectations. The idea that the game needed to be played and beaten with multiple routes to truly understand what the game had to offer was pushed hard. The GBEast dudes beat the game and experienced the multiple endings. The crew on the West Coast did not (Dan did get the Neutral ending. Don't know if he youtubed the other endings or played through them.

There were a couple other games this year (Life is Strange and MGSV) that also got a hard push by their fans.

I think it has a lot to do with the way most hardcore fandom always seek and crave the approval of others regarding their said game, though it can include any type of media, and how it can clash with our individual sensibility telling us to "let me make up my own mind."

This would be a great question to the bombcast but a fear it would just get a silly rant answear. "Oh we dont love the games you think we should buhu, move on." But it depends on who is on the bombcast and their mood.

Also there are many different cases of this which really should be treated induvidually.

Have you played the game and found it bad but people tell you its really good, "Play it again, play it like this, play more of it"

Is the game of a genre you consider to be generally bad and people tell you either "No this game totally is not like other games in that genre" or "You really should give this genre a try and this game is why"

A game you havnt played and from the PR it doesnt looks good to you but people love it for diffrent reasons. "Undertale is the best game ever!"

etc.

@rethla: I feel like they have gotten that question before. I forget what the exact response was, but I vaguely remember it was a bit sniffy.

Strikes me as something the Beast team would be better suited to talking about.

@subwayd: Well yeh but i also feel like that is becouse Beast generally dont got that attitude so they wouldnt be talking about themself as much which kinda misses the point slightly. Matters like this or close to this has been discussed once in a while you are right about that but its always a hot topic to communicate directly to your fans with.

For me it isn't always a case of the fan base being hyperbolic. Sometimes the kind of fans a particular sort of media attracts are just not people I want to associate with or be associated with. If Reddit, for instance, gets super attached to something I'm less likely to check it because fuck Reddit and fuck redditors. If it's anime, I'm not down because most of the people I know that are into anime are kinda shitty and creepy. Regardless of the quality of the giant robots and explosions I'll avoid it because of the people connected to it.

My friends and I often talk about this and the one example that comes to mind is the Walking Dead. Since it was an episodic game released over the course of a year I couldn't go any significant period of time before people were just doing a ridiculous amount of gushing about that game. The more I kept hearing about it the less I wanted to have anything to do with it.

Another one is Nier. I played through that game and didn't think it was very good or that bad either. But god forbid anyone mentions JRPGs because Nier fans will come tell you that it has the best plot of all time (as long as you play through it three times).

I honestly don't understand it either. I try to take things on their own merits.

@frodobaggins: Then you have to play every game ever made, good luck. For others that doesnt have the time for that we can take advantage of that collectivly we play everything thats ever been made and we can share experiences and recommendations.

It's a bit of a trope itself at this point, but the crazy fandom of attacking people "who didn't get it" and so on concerning Undertale really pushed me away from it. When I finally bought it I thought it clearly was fine as I played it all the way, but it being hyped as the second coming did affect me. There's no doubt I would have had different experience if I had randomly picked it on Steam.

For me this happens extremely rarely. Can't actually think of a last time honestly. Though I can see even with our rather civilized community here, but still having this large of a audience pestering you in forums, social media could easily turn one from the GB crew off from a game.

@rethla: What? I think you misunderstood me. If somebody recommends something to me, I'm inclined to check it out and see for myself, form my own opinion on the game.

If a bunch of people tell me something is great it doesn't push me away from said thing, it makes me think "there's probably something to enjoy here."

@dookierope: I think that attitude is deplorable. If a thing has some merit, then give it a shot, regardless of who else associates with it. A bunch of assholes probably quote Karl Marx or Gandhi or Winston Churchill every day, but it doesn't mean there is any less validity to their writings and ideas. The Internet drove "the cake is a lie" and "Still Alive" thoroughly into the ground, but it doesn't mean Portal isn't one of the best games of its generation. It turns out Reddit and 4chan and anime fans probably like lots of things that are legitimately good, and avoiding those things just on the principle of "I don't like those social groups" seems like a poor course of action.

Yes. it. does.

Anwyho, not much say that hasn't been said much better already, but hyperbolic fandom can often influence expectations in such a way that it causes some people to dive in expecting too much, ultimately leaving them more disappointed than they would have been otherwise; or it just causes people to unwillingly associate everything negative about said fandom to the particular game, anime, etc.

The latter is a problem I have with one anime in particular. Though I never thought the anime was good in the first place, I definitely wouldn't say I hated it either. However, when I voiced my issues with said anime, fans were very eager and angry to tell me how wrong I was. Long story short, it was probably the worst experience I've ever had in regards to talking about anime and now it's virtually impossible for me to separate that memory from the show itself. Every time I think about that show, I just think of all the unpleasantness and it makes me dislike it even more.

Rabid fanbases tend to alter my opinions on games, or any other form of media, for that matter, for a number of different reasons.

My primary beef with them is that people should just be allowed to like what they like, and shouldn't feel pressured in any way because they don't. Quality is subject to opinion, what you see as a great game might be seen as a "meh" or "yeah it's okay but I don't like it that much" to ne...and some people don't seen to get that that's okay. I'm glad you enjoyed Undertale and I hope that dev makes another game for you, now shut the fuck up while I go play something else i feel similarly about. A lot of people really like Splatoon and I couldn't give a fuck less about it, but it's there for those that do, so who am I to bitch and who are you to tell me I'm wrong?

It can go the other way, too - all the people who collectively attack people who enjoy games like Destiny are just as toxic and as bad.

I think in some cases, like with the games you're referring to, I've not just seen people that say "This is a good game and you should play it", but also "This is a good game and you should play it, and if you don't you're a *various insults/slurs*". Like, there was someone in every GOTY comment thread that didn't have Witcher 3 winning an award, posting something to the effect of "This is all invalidated because Witcher 3 is the best game ever".

On top of that, if you come back saying "yeah that was okay" or "I didn't like it", those same people will be waiting to tell you how you're wrong and how you still need to see "X" part of the game or get "Y" ending. If someone wanted to see that stuff, or wanted to like a game as much as you did, then playing the game would obviously be the thing that convinces them. Not countless people on the internet wagging their fingers.

Eh, it goes both ways. I've seen things get popular to a point that people will create an anti- backlash and jump on any opportunity to attack whatever has become popular.

Really, though, my attitude is to try out anything that gets enough hype so I can form my own opinion. If someone gives something an honest shot and still doesn't like it, then at least they tried.

~

As for Dan and the whole Witcher 3 thing - Dan was not the guy that was going to champion this game. Neither was Brad really, and they were the two that put the most effort into trying that game. Well, except for Jason who loved the game, but Jason & Drew, being the tech guys, don't really have as much of a voice as the guys whose job it is to play the games.

Anyway, pushing for Dan to play the game was chasing the wrong hare. Though why he let Twitter, the internet complaint machine, get to him is beyond me. The best use of that site is to put out what you need to say and basically ignore all comments. Otherwise you'll end up like Whedon.

Fandoms are very much not my thing. Part of it is hyperbolic hype, the other is that fandom has a way of distorting what a thing actually is. There's a habit of attributing characteristics to things, or even personalities to characters, that don't exist in the original work (see: shipping) almost to make the thing seem better than it was. This came to a head for me a couple of years back with some friends and some anime so severely that I didn't watch anime for years it got so annoying. I couldn't actually have a conversation about a thing without people bringing made up bullshit into it. It can be hard/impossible to separate a bad experience surrounding a game with the game itself. Since I started watching shows again I've basically avoided all internet discussion of them, and feel pretty good about.

Recommendations from friends has been the way to go, so likely until one of friends plays it and thinks I might like it, I probably won't play Undertale. That's how it worked with Steven Universe (which I love, but sounds like it might have a pretty horrendous fandom).

I also very much know my own tastes, as I'd imagine the GB guys do as well. For instance with the Witcher, I hate medieval fantasy, "dark" medieval fantasy even more and no amount of "good writing" will change that. If I had people constantly telling me to play it all the time, I would pretty quickly go from indifference to dislike.

Also also, fandoms that have names and seemingly identify themselves exclusively by the (singular) thing they like are real rough.

I don't see how a fandom can ruin a single player experience. At best I'll try the game out of pure curiosity, at worst I'll skip the game since I wasn't interested from the beginning anyway. It's not like the fandom will suddenly raise/lower my expectations for a game, they might however pique my curiosity.

For the most part, hype aversion. Hearing about a thing you haven't played yet from all corners of the internet you frequent, some people get turned off of something from being overexposed to its hype, be it official marketing or simply too much word of mouth.

Sometimes its not just hype aversion but fandoms acting certain ways. The Undertale fandom gained a bad reputation for smearing Rocket League's steam page with fake bad reviews (Steam purged them all) when RL beat out Undertale on the game awards. It kinda labels Undertale fans as petty and vindictive, and people don't want to be part of that group. (You can be a fan without being in a fandom, but that connotation is attached to the game).

The fans of TV show Steven Universe face a similar black mark when some of them bullied an artist on tumblr into attempting suicide because they 'didn't draw a character right'. This one went right to the top, with the show's staff calling out these fans for the behaviour.

Essentially, actions by fans or a group of fans can label everyone who likes that thing with something, beyond simply being insufferable about pushing games on people. Recommend stuff to friends but know their limits, some people like it, some people don't. Best to ignore fandoms and play what you want - don't let them ruin a game for you.

Off topic kinda but fandom has ruined this site quite a bit for me can't stand how some people start to talk like the giantbomb staff and say duder ect.. and they talk about them like there friends fandom in general makes me want to puke. Most people here are cool though but not the ones that act like tweens everytime a bombcast goes up.

It really is a petty reason to dislike something, but humans can be pretty petty creatures. It's kind of like when you find out that jerk in school likes the same band you do or something, it just taints how you experience the whole thing.

It's why I would probably never be able to enjoy Fez, despite how good it may be, because Phil Fish's face and everything stupid he has ever said would just pop into my mind.

Well its like people who quote big lebowski or napolean dynamite, it can get to a point where fans can ruin a good thing. Honestly never bothered watching lebowski lol. Even borat got ran into the ground and i loved that movie and show.

Also toxic communities can ruin games espiecially multiplayer, they ruined halo for me back in the day.

I'm not going to argue that it's a rational way of thinking, but it happens all the same. I had always said that I would buy Witcher 3 when I got a new video card. Well, I've done that but still not bought Witcher 3. I find the game's fans so annoying. It's like if someone doesn't happen to like the game, they can't just let that stand. They want a 10,000 word dissertation accurately describing why said person didn't like the game and they'll submit that to their internal committee for review before that opinion can be validated. "Oh, I'm sorry, our committee has ruled that your opinion that Witcher 3 isn't the greatest thing ever has been deemed 'invalid'". Blech. And I know in the end I'm only robbing myself of playing a good game, but I can't help it. I guess when you get right down to it, the real reason fandom turns people off is they say to themselves "I don't want to be that guy".

@golguin: None of your examples support your original question. They all gave valid reasons why they dropped off of The Witcher and none of them said it was because the fans liked the game too much.

They all seemed to give Undertale a fair shot. They didn't all love it. Oh well.

Their views on Life is Strange were pretty much universally positive, even among those who hadn't played it.

MGSV was all over their lists.

Did I miss a podcast where they complained about people liking games too much? Do you just think every game that fans like in a given year needs to be 100% completed by 100% of the staff?

Like others have said, it's really about how aggressive people are about it and how easy it is to ignore. If a ton of people on the internet want to hype a game like crazy and then I don't end up liking it, it is easy to ignore all the people talking about how awful of a person you are for disliking it. For example, I bought Gone Home because of all the internet hype. I finished it, didn't like it, immediately uninstalled it and forgot about it. Then I see all of the people furiously arguing about it on forums and comments but I just ignore all of that. If I have a bunch of friends/co-workers in person hyping up a game, I play it and dislike it, I still have to hear them argue about it all of the time. I was told by people that Witcher 3 was the greatest game they've played in the last 10 years. It was really annoying to finally play that game, tell them I didn't like it and then constantly hear about how crazy I am for disliking it.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HypeAversion

Undertale has gone from never hearing about it to this in about a day.

Dan was pretty open about the push he was getting online with the Witcher 3 and how he wouldn't pick up the game again because of that push. He was very vocal about it weeks before the GOTY deliberations started so you somehow did miss that discussions.

Several people on the bombcast gave up on Undertale during the intro sequence because they got annoyed with the puzzles and pacing in the starting area. This came up during the GOTY discussions as it was said time and time again that the game is not like the intro. People weren't gushing over the game because of a slow intro, but due to the buildup throughout the game that pays off during the endings.

I didn't really pay attention to the push Life is Strange or MGSV was getting, but I saw "They need to finish/play Life is Strange" often enough that it stuck in my mind. In the end no one finished Life is Strange.

My original question has nothing to due with fans liking a game too much. It's about fans urging others to experience the thing they love and why people turn negative when facing this. Lots of people have already given good explanations on why they turn negative when facing this kind of thing.

At no point did I say that a game needs to be completed 100% by everyone on staff. Dan is the specific example I'm citing for the Witcher 3 because of the experience he had with fans online.

I can understand how a game could become overhyped and if you don't play it at launch, you could go in with crazy high expectations and be disappointed. A good example of that for me was the Force Awakens. I didn't see it until it had been out for over a week, and I'd spent days hearing all about how it was the great thing ever and it had a perfect metacritic, etc. Then I saw the film and thought ... oh, okay, that was decent, much better than the terrible prequels but basically a modern reboot of A New Hope... so I'm not sure why it's getting such hyperbolic praise, but whatever.

I get the sense that the overhyped thing isn't really what you referring to here though. I think there's a pretty clear line between that and getting so frustrated by a game's fanbase telling you to play or watch something that you take it out on the game. I feel like the latter is happening more these days than it ever used to and I also do not understand it either, but then again, I don't have thousands of people tweeting me constantly to play/watch things.

As others have said people can take this too far, there's a balance to be struck. I think we have this idea of experiencing games in a vacuum in this super objective way where outside influences don't affect us and I don't think that's remotely close to reality. I can't think of many recent examples of this happening to me with games, but it definitely happened to me with Star Wars. I'm not really a Star Wars fan but I might have seen the new film, I can see how there was probably a decent time to be had there. But people were talking about Star Wars so much, in so many places, and at such incredible length for months before the film was released that I felt exhausted with the franchise before I had even even tried to watch TFA. Now I just can't wait to stop hearing about it.

Have you ever heard of a band named Tool

What you are saying is true, but it's also just a very childish reaction. I've gotten annoyed by people trying to push stuff on me too (and I will again), especially if they went overboard with it, but I still try to form my own opinion of it without just going "fuck this".

Honestly the GB guys (and everyone else, who is above the age of 13) should be able to do that. Witcher 3 is the prime example that they weren't.

I've had friends that do what was described on the podcast. It could be a game, a movie, or anything really. They love it so much that they keep pushing you to try it, but them pushing makes me want to do anything BUT try what they are talking about. The reason it happens is because the positive feelings for the thing the person is pushing becomes just nagging and borderline fanatic. If you really like something, make the case and express how you feel about it, then leave it alone.

@golguin:

The honest truth is that we do not live in a vacuum and what other people do affects what we do and think. As communication technology has progessed the effects of this have become more wide-ranging.

Some people are less affected by it than others but I doubt there are many people (if any) who are completely immune to it.

It doesn't ruin the game. People let it though and it's just kinda stupid.

Personally when a million people are talking about how good a thing is, I want to experience that thing myself.