Wii U strikes back! Wii U behind the next-gen curve! Sony waiting for Microsoft to make the first move! 3DS dominating Japan! Will the Vita make a comeback?
How does that read to you? To me it sounds like sports commentary. The winner goes to the next round and the loser is knocked out as everyone fights for center stage. Is this how we treat artists? Unless you’re THQ, this isn’t how the gaming industry operates. It isn’t how ANY entertainment industry operates. People make cool things, other people buy and share the cool things and more cool things are made. Movies are shown in different cinemas, musicians play at different venues. Why are we being so passive-aggressive about videogames, have our lives gotten so easy that we need to simulate chaos where it doesn’t belong? Gaming journalists apathy for videogames has gotten to the point where Nintendo has actively moved away from the whole scene with Nintendo Direct becoming the sole outlet for their game announcements.
FUCK YES WE SHOULD BE! Gamers on the internet right now are developing a habit of sitting on the sidelines and it’s really bugging me. We’re not umpires, we’re the players. People are cautiously waiting for perfect reviews of $5 eShop games, while at the same time “containing” excitement for Wii U until it gets a steady stream of $60 games that are supposed to be important or AAAA. A 30 cent game is a ripoff because it runs in 50hz, despite the fact you had no idea you’d be playing it a day ago. The concept of value has gone out the window with so many people trying to define it.
Sure it’s not a perfect world, but it’s still a damn entertaining one. There are enough directions to look in that staring into the abyss of missed opportunities is a choice. The general vibe I’m getting from gaming websites and Twitter is that nobody should play anything without permission. Game sales are on the decline because everyone’s too busy defending their opinions to play anything. The quest to have an opinion has become your most played game. What bugs me the most is when gamers who are enjoying something play a defensive role to a quote nobody even made.
“In B4 Haters”
Thanks for the invite. I’ve got news for you, you’re in at the same time as the hater. This flirting between trolls and fanboys is the only reason websites get hits from these articles, it has to stop before we spawn the ugliest babies the world has ever seen. The videogame industry is the last place on earth I’d expect to be drenched in a wave of apathy, but here we are. Undecidedly inactive, overwhelmed by content that must be categorized and dismissed to make you feel better about doing nothing.
This rant is a little self-induced because I could just as easily take my own advice and not read these things, but the bigger picture is getting harder to look at. What do we gain from all this? Complaining about games means at the end of the day you’re sitting on your chair doing nothing but favouriting tweets and refreshing threads. If your brain was engaged in something then you could tweet about that instead.
Why is everyone being so conservative all of a sudden? Wii and DS brought a huge boom of excitement to the gaming industry and now people are about as excited as Tingle when you don’t bring him a map. Games are “competing” for the dollars you don’t even want to spend. The timing could not be worse with the eShop taking off in a huge way, amazing games are cheaper than they’ve ever been and in bigger supply. I’m really dumbfounded at all the people watching amazing content fly by their eyes while waiting for a future that will just further entertain the same bad habits. It’s like watching a nerd run away from a beach full of beautiful naked women. You want a perfect Nintendo console, a dream Xbox, you want Sony to get their shit together? None of that is ever going to happen again, because it never happened in the first place.
Pietriots 
Agreed with you sooo much. I wish you could spread your message more… like to ign etc. Great article. 🙂
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Thanks… to be honest this article gave me a bad feeling but your comment made it worth it.
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This article is the goddamned truth. It seems people spend more time complaining about games than playing them. I remember when 4 trolls got together to make youtube vid bashing the Wii U about a month back. They said “Never have I seen a console launch and youtube just go quiet.”
The reason the Nintendo youtube community went quiet is because they were busy playing their new consoles not making videos trying to justify their purchases to trolls.
As soon as I’m able, I’ll but my Wii U and I’m going to be busy playing all the games I missed on Wii and the Wii U games that interest me. I like the point you made about the media being so untrustworthy that Nintendo had to resort to broadcasting their news themselves. The gaming media is disgusting. One major blemish is gone now (X-Play) and a whole lot of others need to go too.
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Most people don’t realize the truth and they wonder WHY Nintendo has survived all these years. Since most of these journalists like to make ‘facts’ that are ‘TROLL BAIT’, let’s go over some facts that show common sense:
– MS and Sony’s user-base hold a tiny fraction of the market and have proven to be the death-knell for many developers during the economic downturn.
– Sony has last two generations worth of profit on many failed or money sinking projects (PSPgo, Vita, PS3, EyeToy, Move…). They have closed down tons of studios except their once cartoonish awesome studio NaughtyDog.
– MS going after gaming snobs who continues to give them money during the RRoD fiasco (which lasted for FIVE YEARS), but this is seriously lacking profit, hence why they created Kinect which game them some profit, but has slowly died out after that.
– Nintendo doesn’t compete with Sony and MS anymore after the Gamecube. They went to other pastures, and WON billions of dollars.
– Third parties have suffered dozens of layoffs and lost profit.
– Said third parties didn’t give two shits about Platinum after SEGA screwed them over, with Nintendo helping out.
See what “BETTER GRAPHIXS” have gotten us? This is why I don’t ever go to EB Games (after today I quit that store) and go to big chain retailers to buy my games.
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Whelp, looks like someone made another “Is WiiU the next Dreamcast?”
http://www.nintendojo.com/features/editorials/is-wii-u-the-next-dreamcast
Fucking christ people.
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Something bad is happening to video games, it’s like ‘the Nothing’ is taking over everything.
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Third parties giving Nintendo ‘nothing’ is common if recent WiiU news is everything to go by.
I wonder how long it is until another publisher goes belly up. EA’s time on this earth has lasted too long, and their bankruptcy scare is way too over-due. Shows refusal of Nintendo support coming full circle.
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I pretty much agree with everything in this, it’s a big reason why i don’t even bother to read about game news anymore, I’d much rather remain in blissful ignorance.
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I completely agree, it`s why i don`t even bother following game news anymore. I`d much rather read more in-depth game design articles or whatever on Gamasutra or RPS
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Bravo! That was intelligent and well written, not to mention chock full of truth.
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