It’s hard for me to look at the news of the preceding 10 or so days and not feel like there’s been some enormous, possibly irreparable rupture between gamers and those who serve them. I certainly contributed to this with a post about the ending of Mass Effect 3 and the movement to have it changed or appended.
I still disagree with the goal of the movement, and I still despise its fig leaf fund drive for Child’s Play, making that charity a human shield and a passive endorser of the cause’s righteousness. These things may rate scorn and condescension but there is one thing that should not and should never: The highly personal and emotional investment video gamers make in what they play.
Confusing their passion for base complaining is my moral error and I apologise for that. The truth of the matter is, I do just as much complaining as any video gamer. I just have a much larger megaphone through which to yell it. I’ve often felt that this is a community with a chip on its shoulder, committed to proving its disenfranchisement in every relationship. Yet if I view that resentment as illegitimate, I shouldn’t be fueling it.
Nor should a guy like Phil Fish, the creator of Fez who recently said “gamers are the worst f**king people”. Nor should the former Mass Effect producer big-timed the whole community when she told them to quit fantasising about being producers. I’m aware the latter comment was made at Game Developers Conference, essentially a gathering of professionals. She still addressed her statement to gamers at an event covered by the press.
A video gamer’s idealism may be overreaching. It should never be impugned. It is as much a manifestation of this great interactive medium as it is the catalyst for it. That sounds like a lot of marble-mouthed malarkey, when what I really mean is, we can’t shit on the indispensable resource that sets this art form apart from all others, even if its tone sometimes screeches into the eardrums.
Yet if we should consider our complaints carefully, I think the constituency should, too. I don’t want to say everything becomes a cry-wolf situation — Capcom’s recent behaviour with its downloadable content is plainly shit-headed. Ubisoft’s longstanding, patronising DRM policy is, likewise, offensive to legitimate customers.
Please, however, examine and question what is actual disrespect of your time, interest, support and patronage, and what simply disappoints your expectations. I’m not telling you to find something positive in your thoughts. But it doesn’t have to be something negative, either.
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