Cynicism in Gaming Communities

[A Wanderer]

I've been noticing more and more of this recently and I'm really beginning to hate it. And what I'm noticing is the blind cynicism that I'm seeing sometimes in gaming news and in some online gaming communities I frequent. Notice how I said blind, meaning, they're overly negative of one subject or a lot and won't just let it go. Now, there's a difference between being critical and being cynical, and these people are thinking that being cynical is being critical. No, it's not.

You see, when you're critical, you're weighing in all aspects in equal measures. When you're cynical however, you're distrustful of too much. To distrust in excess is a bad idea. You may think you're protecting yourself from disappointment by doing so and that you're choosing the smart route but in reality, it will suck the enjoyment out of your hobby and sometimes make you look stupid when you're inevitably proven wrong.

You know, a long time ago, people didn't create so much drama if they didn't like something, they didn't watch a corporations every move, and they didn't judge every single decision that were made by the devs. They just played games. Simple as that. No tantrums, just games. Sure, some games were bad, but we didn't make nearly as big a deal out of it as we do now. We just laughed maybe and shrugged it off in favor of another game...

What happened to those times? *sigh*

[anoni]

Oh, cynicism through consumerism is a very old practice, whether it be sports, companies or even the early games, there wasn't ever really a time where people weren't cynical, mainly just a time when you probably didn't notice it (because people of your age group weren't cynical). Obviously not all people are cynical, but yeah there is a lot of cynicism in the games world and other fields. For example, EA, the big evil corporation that a lot of people hate. Well, I dislike EA and some of it's practices, but some people boycott their games. For example, Battlefield 3, seemed like a game I wanted to get and so I bought it, hoping my friends would buy it and play with me too. But they thought EA was too evil, and boycotted it, even know the game wasn't made by EA but DICE studios, the creators of Mirrors Edge, which is a game they all loved. EA is simply a publisher. So this affected ME cause it meant a lot of the people I would of liked to play with weren't gonna get the game simply because of that aforementioned cynicism.

  some of it derives from consumerism I think, the need to have more and more. The more products one consumes means the more competitive one becomes and eventually any product that doesn't match up to the insanely high standards of these individuals is extremely bad, bad enough to become cynical about the product.

[A Wanderer]

Oh, cynicism through consumerism is a very old practice, whether it be sports, companies or even the early games, there wasn't ever really a time where people weren't cynical, mainly just a time when you probably didn't notice it (because people of your age group weren't cynical). Obviously not all people are cynical, but yeah there is a lot of cynicism in the games world and other fields. For example, EA, the big evil corporation that a lot of people hate. Well, I dislike EA and some of it's practices, but some people boycott their games. For example, Battlefield 3, seemed like a game I wanted to get and so I bought it, hoping my friends would buy it and play with me too. But they thought EA was too evil, and boycotted it, even know the game wasn't made by EA but DICE studios, the creators of Mirrors Edge, which is a game they all loved. EA is simply a publisher. So this affected ME cause it meant a lot of the people I would of liked to play with weren't gonna get the game simply because of that aforementioned cynicism.

  some of it derives from consumerism I think, the need to have more and more. The more products one consumes means the more competitive one becomes and eventually any product that doesn't match up to the insanely high standards of these individuals is extremely bad, bad enough to become cynical about the product.

I agree and disagree at the same time. While cynicism through consumerism has been around for a long time, I think in the gaming industry, not so much. At least, not when it was first starting out. In terms of entertainment, console/computer gaming is a rather young form of diversion as compared to, say, reading, music, art, or or theater. As such, when it was first getting started, it was rather untouched by expectations. Because of this, it didn't have the drama in it then that it does now.

Nevertheless, as it became more popular, and this is where I think you're right, that cynicism through consumerism began to seep into it more and more. Which, thus, brings us to today.

[anoni]

Well what I mean by early is that games have been around for more than 25 years! So even in the N64 and PS1 era there were debates going on about how a game is bad and so forth, maybe not so much in the early 1990's but what I mean by "early games' is the games I grew up with, which were late 1990's and 2000's

[A Wanderer]

Well what I mean by early is that games have been around for more than 25 years! So even in the N64 and PS1 era there were debates going on about how a game is bad and so forth, maybe not so much in the early 1990's but what I mean by "early games' is the games I grew up with, which were late 1990's and 2000's

I know. I guess what I mean is, there wasn't talk of dumb boycotts or sexism or even whether we should even be enjoying a certain game or not. It was just, "Hey, this game's fun!" or, "Hey, this game's bad!"

Simple.

[MrRazot]

Well that comes after the game's been played no?
Games are getting hella expensive and would you go out and buy Aliens: Colonial Marines on a whim?
Rather be cautious and rely on the experience of others not to go blow your cash.


On another note: Saying how bad a game is gets you more views on youtube.

[anoni]

A lot of problem can occur before a game is even bought. Like for example, a lot of people who hate call of duty, or the new call of duty game, haven't actually played it at all As well, people boycott games without actually playing them simply because of the publisher or developer.

[MrRazot]

Led down from people saying how bad it is.
Granted it does become a vicious circle, lol

[A Wanderer]

Well that comes after the game's been played no?
Games are getting hella expensive and would you go out and buy Aliens: Colonial Marines on a whim?
Rather be cautious and rely on the experience of others not to go blow your cash.

Being cautious isn't being cynical. That's being critical. But anyway, according to this chart posted by a user for Giant Bomb (from a 2010 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly), you can see that games were just as, if not more expensive back in the day.

[MrRazot]

But in more recent times because carts are more expensive than disks, (I'm going to use my local currency as it's what I know) new Games have gone from being ZAR400 to anything between ZAR600-800 in the past few years, I find that overboard...
Also I was trying to get to that being critical leads to being cynical

[A Wanderer]

Also I was trying to get to that being critical leads to being cynical

It can, but only if you don't really know how to be properly critical. As I said, a critical person will look at and judge all aspects in equal and fair measure.

Or you could forget all that, ignore all the cynical nonsense and just play what you want, when you want. Both approaches work fine really.