I've been thinking recently about this topic. It kind of grinds my gears when certain gaming communities(this one included) tend to build up a game to impossible heights, then attack and scrutinize the game for not living up. I can understand if your upset, but most of the time its your own fault for building the game up so high.

This can be any sort of fanbases, gaming or not. I just chose gaming as an example since this is the forum of a gaming giant. Do you agree? Do you think fanbases build things up to impossible standards? Or do you think that the companies are at fault? Please explain.
(I couldn't find any specific topic created about this, sorry if there is.)

High expectations = Disappointment
People just bring it on themselves.
Of course there are cases where the developer is to blame though.

Sometimes the fanbase is right. But most of the time they do demand the impossible then not get it and whine on a forum. Hell sometimes its not even a sequal. They called mass effect and bioshock when they came out? A dumbed down Kotor and system shock for the cod crowd. Some fanbases are just atrocious though, in games tv shows movies [censored] even toys.

Some games deserve all the criticism they get.Take Diablo 3 for example,it turned out to be nothing more than a cheap money grab.

People complain about Oblivion and Skyrim..but its not nearly as bad as Star Wars fans or people who complain about the Mass Effect series. Professionals have actually quit their jobs and stopped producing what they enjoy to do because of the fans.

Seems to be Blizzard's deal since WoW, as just about all of their IPs have been ruined.

Part of being a rabid fan is being overly critical and letting the world know how much you absolutely despise the way developers ruin everything.

I know one game that's been dissed a lot {Raises Shields} Duke Nukem Forever. I love this game it's everything that a Duke Nukem game can be. It does have it's flaws like you can only carry 2 weapons and the regain health is kinda lame (I miss the first aid kit from DN 3D) and there's no jet pack (I think it's only in mutiplayer mode) in the main story but other then that it's a really good first person shooter and not so much a CoD clone nowadays. The graphics are slightly better on the PS3 though the 360 seems to have quicker load times.

The "true fans" of Final Fantasy for instance. You can count the time between a new game being announced, and the appearance of "worst game ever" threads, in minutes.

The problem with Skyrim, for example, is that many fans were expecting for it to surpass all previous TES game. It did in some areas, and fell very short in others. Skyrim is the best looking game in the series, but it is the shallowest in the series as well.

I've had it with the 'entitled fans' crap. Some games deserve criticism.

This feels like another case of complaining about the complainers. (sigh) The sword cuts both ways.

A rhetorical question...
Who tries to generate the hype? Publishers and developers. Should gamers try to regulate their hype? Yes. Should publishers promise non existent features or misrepresent them prior to release? No. Take Skyrim for example. They told us there would be these dynamic economies and that we could sabotage lumber mills in a village and they blew it up to be some big thing. In reality, what was there, was pretty much nothing of interest.

The PR and developers/publishers exaggerate minor details into these big things and then upon revelation they are boring and insignificant. No wonder there is a backlash eh? Then they said that Skyrim had everything that made Morrowind and Oblivion great. Which was a blatant lie. Then they used the ole Jeff Baker dunmer voice trick to get old fans hyped because many loved that voice. Then they scrapped it. They did the same thing with Oblivion.

The reason people [censored] about sequels is because inevitably the sequel is going to be different from the original/previous entries and everyone is going to have liked the original/previous entries for a variety of reasons. So when feature A that they loved from a previous game is turned into feature B in the new game or is non-existent they get upset.

Then there are people who enjoyed the game but didn't like some design decisions. So they give constructive criticism and then get scathingly attacked by the so called 'loyal fandom'. When the reality is that these people, who spend the time to write up a bonifide criticism of what they consider poorly implemented features, are the truly dedicated fans.

Then there are people who run into legitimate software issues. Like the PC version being very unoptimized and the PS3 nightmare in Skyrim. Then the countless bugs as well.

I can say this much. Nearly every fan who comes into a forum or other area and criticizes a game has a valid reason somewhere in their thought process. It is simply a case of you can never make everyone happy. I don't see it as people generally overhyping themselves. It is the change in features that does this.

It's the gaming industry; there can be no happiness.

My brother had complained quite a bit about Diablo 3 when he was playing it, and I don't know if he still does or not but after all the time they spent working on Diablo 3.. it had made me pretty much go and with how flawed it was especially considering that even I had been looking forward to that game once (this being before Bethesda announced Skyrim). I don't keep up with many companies tbh, so I don't know what others have been attacked by their fans for games they released.

Actually now that I remember, Diablo 3 hadn't yet been released at that time but still..

I see it fairly often, infact, it happened on this forum earlier this month. There was this forum person who was extremely hyped about Dishonored and behaved like it would be the best game of the century, and then the game didn't live up to his hype and suddenly the game was very meh. While I, which avoided all the previews and stuff on purpose, probably will consider it to be the best game of 2012, even if Thief 1&2 stil have noticeably better stealth mechanics (seems like they gonna continue to be the best stealth games for centuries to come )

It also reminds me of another person who used to be here back during the development of Oblivion and used to talk about how awesome the game gonna be, and then when the game was released and there were news about DLCs that you had to pay for, he did a 180 turn and suddenly the game svcked a lot. And he went great lenghts to tell everyone on the forum that. A bit interesting, either the game is super awesome or it svcks a lot, no grey from his point of view, just black and white. A a funny thing is that even though he "hated" the game so much, his 360 gamer profile show that he taken all the game achievements. If you dislike a game, wouldn't you stop playing it?

I know of what you speak.
Nope, achievement hunting is a thing now and for whatever reason it is a big thing. You do not evenget rewarded for it with anything worth mentioning.

I read an interview with Hideo Kojima where he mentioned receiving death threats if he ever stopped working on the Metal Gear series. Now that's taking it entirely too far right there...

Holy [censored]. I understand people being upset over a bad game, or a game series being finished, but that's just insane. Although its doubtful these threats would ever actually come through, its still sickening that people would even go that far. Video games are fun, but they aren't worth getting that worked up over.

I'll admit that I was a little disappointed to hear that Dishonored had a short length personally.. although most of my games are short in length they are a challenge, but it'd be nice to have a game with a longer length than what I have (even though they're all fun). I still might get it one day though, just to have something new to play.


There are actually a lot of people who say that about a game when they're still playing it.. I've seen it several times browsing around one such forum. IMO with TES.. I'd never quit playing just because of a few things I dislike and there are a few examples of that in Skyrim.

Gotta go with Albino on this: it cuts both ways.

Hideo is a grand master troll though. That guy has more ego than god.

HAPPINESS?! IN THIS INDUSTRY?!?!

Most video game complaints are just that - Complaints. There's a severe lack of constructive criticism outside of modding communities or indie games. I don't blame the people who complain or the developers of the games, but rather the internet itself. It's difficult to read a complaint on forums as constructive criticism, most of the time. Most people aren't incredibly kind and well thought out with their words.

That said, I still believe some 90% of opinions that are voiced about specific games are useless, be it bad ideas or simply raging fanatics. Your best bet, like always, is to enjoy what you enjoy and not let people stop you from enjoying it.