Good article but I do feel that dissatisfaction with the gaming press as a whole had started to appear prior to the events in the article. One thing, in particular, that felt like a bit of a powder keg moment was the press reaction to the Mass Effect 3 backlash by gamers. The game got overwhelmingly positive reviews across the board (only Giantbomb seemed less than impressed IIRC) none of which seemed to hint at the controversial nature of the ending, so people went in expecting a masterpiece and came out looking askance at the gaming press as to how they managed to wholesale not say a goddamn thing about it (personally I thought ME3 had a lot more wrong with that, but that's beside the point). Instead of engaging in a bit of navel-gazing as to how and why they were so out of sync with the audience the press went on the offensive and the 'entitled gamer' narrative came out. Suddenly it seemed perfectly acceptable to attack the audience, which seemed like a bizarre idea, that never went away.
Yeah, that Mass Effect 3 drama was a big big deal.
At the time I thought "meh". I enjoyed ME3 and it's ending just fine. I hadn't been hyped about the game though and, as was common for me back then, I didn't know very much about the "promises" made by the developers. Cool looking game. I played it. I enjoyed it.
So actually I was of the view that the "Gamers" WERE being entitled assholes. Shut the hell up and just enjoy the game. Jeez.
Then you realize that the people who are most mad are the ones who bought into the promises of different endings and meaningful in-game choices leading to the greatest ending you've ever seen in a game. As you say, those people so the amazing review scores and thought "here we go". Then when they felt betrayed and lied to the very people involved in engineering that disappointment just turned round and smeared them as "entitled".
Once you've noticed that it can be difficult to "undo" the realizations that follow.
They just keep doing it though. In fact, it seems to be escalating all the time. Don't like Star Wars now? Alt-right Russian Bot.
Haha, the new Wonder Woman will piss off sexists so if you don't like it then what are you?
"Rey is a Mary Sue" BANNED!
It's like it became an entertainment industry staple.
Gone are the days of trailers and hype that says "hey you guys check out the amazing thing we made, oh shit you are going to love it, it's all the kinds of stuff you like, coming soon, all over your face!"
Now it's a complete shift to things like "the new movie is coming up and we've done some stuff you probably won't like but that's OK cos if you don't like it you will shut the fuck up or we will just make sure everyone thinks you are a bigot". New movies seem to be defined by who they are pissing off and who is outraged by the newest reveal. If you don't like the new movie that's just trying to be a force for good in the world then you must be some kind of evil cunt.
Next stage seems to be that if something comes out that people seem to like, such as the Chappelle special on Netflix, and they haven't managed to ban it or cancel it then that's OK because now they just imply that not only are you an asshole for not liking their things you are an irredeemable shitheel for liking other things.
Even when something blindsided them, like Alita Battle Angel, they will just have some retrospective "the alt-right loves Alita Battle Angel" articles and that's that.
The Joker movie isn't in cinemas until October and they've already started to poison the well against anyone who would dare look forward to seeing it.
What a bunch of cunts.
arcdigital.media
