Why are we creating a "Doom and Gloom" gaming culture for ourselves?

I've been a member here at N4G for more than 2 years now and been a visitor before that too. But never in my time here have i seen such pessimism, knee jerk criticism of games and of the industry in general as i have in the past few years.

Gaming is an escape from our often boring normal lives, they are windows into other worlds that put us into the shoes of adventurers and sports stars and give the experience of being someone else, doing huge exciting things that simply aren't possible in real life.

In my opinion as someone who had played games for as long as i care to remember in my 23 years here on earth, it is a crucial escapism element that helps us de-stress and have a little fun in those spare hours between work and sleep where otherwise as a retail worker in this time of year, i would probably be driven mad.

So why all of a sudden from almost the very start of this gen has everyone been so critical, argumentative and often aggressive towards each other?

From the 2006 "PS3 has no games" days, the RROD fiasco, the infamous PSN hack, the XBL > PSN debates when PS+ was announced, the endless hate on the Wii U, "the Vita is doomed"... The list could go on forever and ever.

Half of the nonsense that appears on the front pages either have nothing to with us or are just plain flame-bait to bait hits. Can't we all just get along and have fun like we did in the N64, PS1, PS2, and OG Xbox days? I know this sounds like i'm breaking off onto a "back in my day!" old man rant, but it's true, merely 6 or 7 years ago we were all the best of buddies and just had fun.

I'd like to see a return to positive things being talked about that make us excited, atract more people to join us as gamers and just make it a plain old better community.

If you enjoy Halo, that's fantastic, buy a 360 and play till your heart is content. More of an MGS guy? fire up your PS3, play some MGS4 and have a blast. Same with the Wii guys and PC guys, i hope your having a great time playing your Mario and Team Fortress's respectively.

There is no need for these silly allegiances to corporations that don't give a damn personally about individuals as we do them. Nor is there any need to constantly put down exclusive titles to certain platforms or entirely new platforms for gaming.

Everyone has different tastes, take different things from different games and in general just play for different reasons.

Ditch this "Doom and Gloom" culture we are creating for ourselves and let's just have some fun, you know, the whole reason we put hundreds and thousands of £/$ into our beloved hobby!

[SilentNegotiator]

Frankly, this "why can't we just be friends" stuff in gaming isn't any less shallow than "Why can't we just not have war?" stuff; there ARE reasons why people debate and clash. Some people will be extreme or dumb. And gaming discussion isn't the end of civilization.

The worst "hate" from non-troll accounts seems to be from people being displeased with the Wii U's small leap or with Vita having a very slow start. Or at least the "hate" that people whine about the most as of late. Grow thicker skin and move on.

You want to find someone to blame for the "doom" stuff? Look at irresponsible "journalists".

[Welshy]

I appreciate your feedback, but i'm not quite with you on your points.

Why is it deemed "shallow" to want to get along with a 360 guy who enjoys Halo if i was a PS3 guy who enjoys God Of War? At the end of the day we are both just gamers, who enjoy games and want to have fun with our personal favourite title. It's far from shallow in my opinion to simply want to share experiences and just enjoy ourselves instead of needless rivalries over which piece of hardware we happen to pick up.

And yes, alot of the blame on the doom articles are from irresponsible wannabe journos, that's the purpose of the blog, i just think the negativity and intense rivalry of this gen doesn't benefit anyone and isn't needed.

[SilentNegotiator]

Because you're simplifying the issue too much. And exaggerating.

The truly offensive idiots who 'refuse to get along with people that like Halo (or whatever)' are VERY few in number.

The problem is more over-sensitivity than anything else. Some people feel that this or that is good/bad and have reasons that they stick by. And there's nothing wrong with that. But people get offended and angry anyway.

The issue YOU describe ("ZOMG you like ___ so I hate you!") really only happens among the consistent trolls.

[rainslacker]

While you can blame the "journalist" to a degree, aren't we also partly to blame for this current attitude? Obviously if these kinds of articles that offer nothing didn't receive more heat than ones that actually discuss games then they wouldn't be so prevalent.

Go to any actual article about a game, say one that's not big like COD, Halo, Last of US, etc. You'll be lucky to have 5 comments on it. It's a shame because those are the articles I'd most like to discuss, but the discourse ends quickly, and moves to the back burner, all while the doom article of the hour makes it's way to the top for people to regurgitate the same arguments over and over again. It's gotten to the point where I will just read the game article...which is usually well written, and not bother with the comments because no one will read or comment on it.

[TM333]

I've noticed the same thing from the start of this generation coming to an end. Honestly, I blame it on the fierce competition that arose with the PS3 and the Xbox 360 to claim the throne of the #1 selling and most powerful console. Xbox became so popular that all of those people trying to skip out on PS3 (for $reasons) had to hate it so they wouldn't feel they were missing out. Plus, this is all a sign that gaming has become more popular. I just want good games. Screw all the system bashing. At least it created competition which has given us some exclusives.

[zerocrossing]

So much hate and negativity in the industry these days...

It's like ever since gaming went mainstream everyones began acting like sports fanatics that can't go on without blind allegiance to there side and spewing venomous hate toward the other.

[rainslacker]

"Half of the nonsense that appears on the front pages either have nothing to with us or are just plain flame-bait to bait hits."

This is why the gaming culture of today is the way it is. New exciting gaming news is rather rare, and eventually they just run out of things to say. It was a lot easier before the internet with monthly publications, because those places could focus on what was most important as they had collected news that built up over an entire months time. That just isn't the case anymore.

This isn't a mentality that is exclusive to gaming either. It's prevalent in all forms of media and society nowadays. What it comes down to is that the only way for all these numerous media outlets to survive is to simply prey on our more basic instinctual mentality of fear and hate.

While I agree with your sentiments, it is unreasonable to expect a sweeping change in human behavior that could actually provide a reasonable discourse among our community. There are just too many that are cynical and jaded, and then just as many(if not more) that will respond to it, thus generating revenue for the media outlets that help drive the industry and community as a whole.

[wishingW3L]

gaming is crap now. I buy like 2 new games per year and then back to my retro games. Capcom ruined DMC, they killed Megaman. Jrpg's are dead and the few that are still getting released are just crappy anime garbage like Neptunia and so on... Then we get great games like Mass Effect and Dead Space only to get ruined by devs chasing dat Call of Duty money, even Uncharted is guilty of this.

This gen haven't been that good if you ask me. But what you're complaining about is about the fanboys. And yeah, this site is filled with them and they love to bite on those pesky flame-bait articles and then you know, it gets the author tons of hits for their site. It's like the $100 Suikoden II discs in bad condition that are being sold at ebay. The game's not even that rare but since people are willing to pay then the prices only get higher.

[Nicaragua]

I dont have the time nor the inclination to write agnostic, politically correct, fence-sitting statements every time i want to comment on something. If i dont like Halo then it sucks, if i dont like the 3DS then its a piece of shit, and anyone who thinks Final Fantasy 13 is a good game is a complete bell end.

I want no part of the authors utopian harmonious nirvana where gamers keep their opinions to themselves for fear of offending some drip whose ego is so fragile that they cant withstand seeing anything negative being written about a video game.

[Picnic]

Putting 'Halo sucks' is fine if it's part of an elegantly written post like you've done. But on its own it would give little evidence that the person who holds such an opinion had any reason to back it up. It's why I'd like the Agreee / Disagree system to be changed or discontinued. the longer a post, the less chance there is that someone can entirely agree with or entirely disgaree with a post. Yet the longer a post is , it's like the bigger the red rag that the person is holding up to those looking to criticise, looking to criticise ANYthing whilst those who might have broadly agreed with the vast majority of the post might not vote just because they disagreed with one thing. Probably partly because some regard long posts as pretentious. And I imagine that the person who disagrees with just one small point tends to vote more often, just like businesses tend to get far more letters of complaint than ones of praise. So all it does is encourage small posts on N4G. At least that's what I'm telling myself.

[rainslacker]

Saying something sucks doesn't really mean anything though. It's a personal opinion, and we all have one. If you have an opinion that's fine, you should express it when it's the topic at hand. But at the same time it's much more constructive to say why you think it sucks. It leads to discussion, which hopefully would be meaningful. Discussion boards shouldn't be a poll to see who likes something and who doesn't. Leave that to hack websites looking for hits.

Nothing will be utopian or harmonious, it goes against human nature. But there is something to be said for those that can rise above it and show that they can form their opinion based on their own intellect and not based on some unknown variable.