Why entitled gamers are killing the medium

There are few things worse in the world of gaming than an entitled gamer. “On-disc DLC” you say? Nope. “Madden”? No, and quit shaming sports gamers. “Casual gaming”? Bzzt. The entitled gamer beats all of these. Know why? Because, thanks to the internet boosting everyone’s confidence to Shirtless Gerard Butler levels, developers have no choice but to make sure that anyone with a blog and an internet connection is able to not only play their game but also complete it with nothing more than the exact skills they walked into the game with. The consequence of not doing so? Negative reviews across the blogosphere saying things like “too difficult”, “unplayable”, “unrealistic expectations” and, my personal rage-inducing favorite, “bad design”.

Bad design? Really? The very definition of a game is a contest involving skill or, at the very least, chance and endurance. In that case, creating a game where the only prerequisite is to show up is, using the definition of the word “game”, bad design. Worse, it’s a failure at doing what you set out to do in the first place. If I ask you to teach me how to draw a picture of a dog and you decide that I’d much rather just have a picture of a dog that you drew, it doesn’t matter how great that picture is. It doesn’t matter if I even enjoy the picture. At all. You failed at doing the one thing expected of you. Yet, in this day and age, many people care nothing for the voyage as long as they see a little pop-up that says “Achievement Unlocked: Reached Destination”. Worse yet, they feel entitled to it. Which, to me, makes no sense. A gamer should never feel entitled to success. Heck, a human being in any sort of endeavor should never feel entitled to success. Success needs to be earned or else what’s the point of even having any skill or the capacity to learn a skill to begin with? Where would any profession be if everyone could just, well, do it without learning or trying?

So that was a somewhat obvious, if not unnecessary and long-winded, explanation of why a game that’s too easy is much more deserving of the “bad design” description than a game that’s too difficult. But that’s just going by the straight definition of what a game is, and in truth that’s not the whole story. No, a game that doesn’t properly challenge is bad design because it has nowhere to go. Let’s say that you have a competitive game of some sort that plays a bit like soccer, only instead of needing to get the ball beyond a keeper and into a netted goal your objective is instead to get the ball just anywhere beyond the end boundary, regardless of height. Suddenly, about half a dozen skills necessary for any competent soccer team are thrown out the window, final scores reach numbers rivaling college basketball results, and games devolve into who gets the ball first as mounting any sort of defense is all but impossible for even the most skilled, if not completely impossible. The removal of all of these barriers, while making the game of soccer accessible for anyone that can kick a ball really high and really far, turns the game into something not even worth playing. And yet somehow this is the end of the spectrum developers feel they have to move toward in order to keep the entitled gamer’s favor, even if it means that the longevity of the game has to suffer, because the entitled gamer will tell the rest of the world not to buy the game otherwise. Now, in truth, it’d be pretty sad if a developer just made a game so difficult that no one could play it in the same way it’d be unfair if basketball hoops were only one centimeter wider than the basketball itself, but even then the gamer has something to work toward instead of when a game is so simple there isn’t a challenge.

So why, you ask, is the entitled gamer so against the idea of a difficult game? Because it goes against the idea that they are “good” at what they do. It makes them feel that the hundreds of games they’ve played haven’t prepared them for the one that’s in front of them. And that just doesn’t make sense to them. “Why shouldn’t I be able to just drive clean through this game,” they think. “I’ve played so many before this, I should have no problem.” The answer their mind goes to is “Well, this game must be too difficult for every other gamer as well, especially since I’m really good at what I do, so that means it’s designed poorly.” And, of course, this is completely ridiculous. Should I feel like any other language is “too difficult” because I can speak English? Or any other sport “too difficult” because I’m alright at tennis and can run fast? Of course not, that makes no sense. Yet any game that ends up insulting a gamer’s (or, heaven forbid, an established reviewer’s) long-established dominance over their favorite past-time by, oh, requiring them to learn a new technique or even replay an area because they couldn’t beat it the first time ends up described as “unfair” or “awkward”. A genre that confuses or frustrates them gets touted as “outdated” or “draconian”. And this makes developers have to cater because the entitled gamers have keyboards and blogs.

Even worse is the entitled reviewer, as not only does the difficult or unfamiliar game destroy their entire self worth but it also keeps them from flying through to other games and quickly reviewing those. “This game is so broken and unfair it’s keeping me from good games,” they think, and the rage is apparent in their reviews, their blog posts, their tweets. The sheer notion that they should have to spend more time on a game than they want to just flies in the face of their professional pride. After all, they are experts in the field of video gaming, shouldn’t they know best? Let me give you a quick piece of advice if you’re reading this, online reviewer: one game is not another. Until you only review one genre exclusively, you will find something that fairly challenges you in ways you may not be familiar with. And even if you do review only one genre, chances are you’ll find a challenge that requires effort. So, when you do, please do the right thing and step outside your lifelong comfort zone, because developers are tired of hearing you tell them that they can’t do their job when the reality of it is the other way around.

"A Week At The Indies" First Episode!

So, I decided to scrap the Michael vs Jeremy XBLIG podcast idea.  Reasoning is that Jeremy and I have two very different schedules and I have enough trouble getting him to join up for a quick 30 minute session for the friendly MvJ competitions.  Because of this, I decided I'd do something else entirely.  A YouTube series with quick blurbs on each game released over the course of the week and whether I thought it was worth the time to try and maybe the money to own.  And so I present you with my new XBLIG review series, "A Week At The Indies."

My goal is to have one of these out each weekend. I'd prefer having everything done on a Friday night, but considering this first episode took me 8-9 hours total between video capture, script, narration recording and editing, piecing together different relevant sections of said video captures according to my narration, and uploading, well...I don't know if that's going to be possible without me getting a lot better at this.

So it looks like I'll just have to get better at this, huh?  Here's hoping I can do just that.  Hope you enjoyed the show!

Squandered Effort

I'll be settling back in to typing things more often here (or somewhere else) soon, but the mere idea of doing that causes me to remember all the time and effort I put into Digital Quarters and how much I wasted it. All of it. There are days I look back at my time blogging about downloadable games and it hurts. Just straight up drives a railroad spike right through my nerdy heart. Today more than most, if not more than any other time I can remember.

Part of the reason for this is because I needed to decide if I'd make a new blog for the Michael vs Jeremy stuff I wanna do or if I'd just keep it under the Capacity To Geek blog (leaning toward the latter, but I still need to talk it over with Jeremy). The other part is that, upon signing in to blogger, I noticed the pageviews that Digital Quarters accumulated at various points in time over the last few years. A little over 21,000 views. Now, I know that many bloggers get that many pageviews before the week is finished and proceed to double that over the weekend. For someone who started it as part hobby, part effort to keep writing and never made a cent off of it, however, I was in a bit of shock about it. Especially since I started with literally zero experience and zero fame and had nothing other than a desire to write about a group of games (XBox Live Indie Games) that were near the bottom of the food chain as it was for public and professional support and, sadly, have since fallen further. In short, I was a random nobody writing about something comparatively few cared about.

During that time, I wrote reviews and random posts/articles/interviews for my blog (139 posts over a couple years, to be exact) and at least fifty reviews for XBLAratings.com, got invited to write for a few different blogs (one of which was indienerds.com, which I did write a few reviews for), and was part of the editor team at gone-but-not-forgotten ForceDisconnect.com, the latter of which entailed not only writing and interviewing but also joining them on their podcast and being a part of the community in their forums and gaming nights. The latter also introduced me to a few friends, one of whom I get to see once or twice a year and still occasionally game with a couple years after FDC ceased to exist. Somehow, this random nobody made his tiny mark on the internet, and it was one that was not only visible (if just barely) to others but also recognizable and interesting enough for them to stop and look. Because of this, when I think that the main reason I stopped was because I literally thought nobody was reading, I kick myself. Now more than before, especially since I'm trying to get back into writing (and now pod/videocasting) about XBLIG, but little things like seeing that people followed my DQ twitter account or that people still comment on my articles on occasion, well, it's always made me feel incredibly foolish.

The worst thing of all is that writing is definitely not like riding a bike. I sit down to type a review (I owe someone a review right now, speaking of which) and I don't even know where to begin. I used to be able to churn out a review within half an hour and actually feel somewhat confident about it. Confidence, if you don't know me, isn't one of my stronger points, and it's difficult to build up. Confidence in this particular area isn't an exception, and even when I do end up stringing some words together I sit there and look at them until I hate them and convince myself that they need to be changed. And then erased. It's a seriously vicious cycle.

So, if anyone's read this far, learn something from my example/mistake:

If you start something (aside from maybe cocaine or illegal cock fighting), don't let up. Don't stop. Don't tell yourself that no one's watching and that you're wasting your time. Because the moment you do, it's the beginning of the end, and every last bit of your effort will end up squandered. And I can't think of many things worse than to pour yourself into what you feel passionately about only to let it all be for nothing.

Analysis: The Tekken Series

Those who know me know I love fighting games. And, if you don't know me, you need only look at any other blog post here to figure that out. Also, if you don't know me, congrats. Doctors found I'm the 12th highest cause of stress among adult men and highest among women married to me. Getting back to fighters, most incorrectly assume I like every fighting game. Which is, sad to say, kinda daft. Do movie critics like every romantic comedy? Art buffs like every awkward piece of modern art? Porn stars like every three-way?

...alright, that last one was a bit of a stretch, because they probably do. But the point still stands. People don't automatically eat, digest and flush everything from their favorite activities or forms of entertainment. Usually the opposite; people get picky when they get deeper into their hobbies and can recognize when something isn't up to snuff with the rest of the field. Or, at the very least, doesn't fit their acquired and defined tastes. Which brings me to the point of this article (about time, huh?) - why I no longer enjoy the Tekken series in its current form and progression.

Tourney Log: DBQ Versus Cup #1 (MVC3, TECH ROMANCER?!)

Who runs random obscure Dreamcast fighting game tournaments? I do. Last night was the first night of our (and by "our" I mean "Dubuque's") weekly ranking battles with two tournaments per night; one is for Marvel vs Capcom 3 and the other is a different fighting game EVERY WEEK. At the end of 12 weeks, I hand out sweet sweet prizes such as a copy of Ultimate MVC3 for the leader of the MVC3 standings, a Capcom art book for the leader of the random games standings, and some comics and gift cards and such to other top placers. Why do I do this? Because it's too fun not to.

Tourney Log: Iowa Monthly (7/16, Cedar Rapids)

Once a month, Iowa gamers that specialize in the art of complicated combos and frame traps find themselves driving to a small tabletop gaming store named Battlezone Games. Cedar Rapids gamer Scott Jackson, handle "Xiang", runs a once-a-month series of tournaments at the Hiawatha shop, and eager gamers across the state meet up for the chance to see how they fare against their state-wide brothers and sisters. Dubuque's fighting game fanatics are no different, and so a trio of us made our usual monthly trek to the appropriately-named Battlezone in Cedar Rapids' suburb to play some games, see some old friends and, of course, throw down for a small amount of cash and a larger amount of bragging rights and pride in our one-on-one games of choice. This threesome, consisting of myself ("Hogosha"), long-time fellow gamer and rival Alex (handle "Keela"), and local old-school gamer James ("DTJB"), pulled up to the venue within 10 minutes of the tournament's beginning; after an incredibly small amount of practice matches, setup and socializing with fellow Iowans the opening rounds began.