And Now For Something Vaguely Different....Almost a year and five months ago I said I was going to have an update. Stuff happened, I ended up moving across country and forgetting about this blog. It happens, I've likely lost legions of readers, and I have nobody to blame for this except myself. Well, I decided yesterday that I am for the most part done with internet message boards, so I will actually have time to update this now.
I wanted to actually speak on the topic of internet message board, and in part, blogger culture. I was (and technically still am) a member of the popular gaming message boards at IGN. For those who do not know, IGN is an entertainment network that was built mostly on its video game review sites for the various consoles. I have been part of their boards for almost seven years now and to say that things there, not withholding the quality of posts or even the customer service and immaturity of even the moderators of the forums has been on a steady decline for the past few years. For the most part, I have decided that the boards exponentially decrease my IQ. A graph, of which you may have seen a similar one before, is a fantastic visual indicator of my day when I go to the boards:

Yes, I made that one myself. Yes, my MS Paint skills are awesome. One of those two comments is a lie and I leave it to you to figure out which one it is. So yes, going to the boards make me dumber. I am sure someone will make the comment that reading my blog does the same to them, which is probably a fair assessment. Regardless, you have read this far so obviously I did something interesting.
Back to the issue, message boards. I have figured out the problems I have with them and have put them into a nice numbered list:
- Everyone feels their opinion is fact.
- People are sheep.
- People are hypocritical.
- People spoil games.
- People are sheep.
- See 2 and 5
Now I will break down each point on the list, giving you my opinion of why I feel each of these things make boards like those at IGN very poor places to visit.
- Everyone feels their opinion is fact. I can handle peoples opinions, I really can. I'm an extremely opinionated person and love to argue both sides of a point without even revealing where I actually stand. The reason I am able to live with myself is because I do not, repeat DO NOT, argue a point without providing A) any feedback or B) anything to back themselves up. Some people might say that people do not need to back their opinions up, but I feel they do. Why? It strengthens their point and in general makes them look a little bit smarter. Instead of posting, "I don't like this games! It sucks11!!1!" make a post that says, "You know I really do not like this game. I feel the gameplay mechanics are poorly implemented and the controls do not feel as tight as they possibly could." That still isn't perfect, but at least you've made a point that can start an intelligent conversation. People seemingly are unable to do this. Nor are people willing to even listen to other opinions or agree to disagree nicely. Most posts devolve into nothing more than what would be considered, "Oh yeah! Well, your mom!"
- (Also 5 and 6) People on these boards seem to want to follow reviewers to the end of the earth all based on a set of arbitrary points that they give a game. First, reviews are opinions too. Second, some people who are predisposed to not like a game (for whatever stupid fanboyish reason) will wait for a review that is in line with their opinion and claim it as the only one that is correct. Forget other places that have reviewed the game extremely well, they were all wrong. These people also cling to impressions from those who either get a game early from a broken street date or piracy and end up making decisions based on impressions from those people. Forget all the excitement that person may have had before; one person posting a few negative comments and the game is now regulated to the rental column.
- People on message boards flip-flop more than politicians, which oddly enough there are boards at IGN where people complain about politicians. Not only does this play into the sheep mentality, it also brings up one of the strangest behaviors ever. I speak, of course, of the classic "I hate that review site they are wrong/See that site is the only one that got that review right!" Yes this is a point I made for points 2,5 and 6 but it is valid here. What is meant by this? Here is the cycle, again illustrated for your enjoyment:

Lastly, 4. (It's late and I can't get this to format right, deal with it) People spoil games. This one is kind of obvious. You always end up with one or two jackasses who find it funny to post spoilers to a game in a subject line. You get the forgetful person, whose IQ has obviously been lowered by just being on the boards, who forgets to highlight spoilers in their post. But it runs deeper than this honestly, as simply reading about a gameplay mechanic or seeing the way a character plays or anything like that takes a tiny bit away from your personal gameplay experience. Plus I do not need anyone else's impressions to spoil my gameplay by making me look for flaws that I might not notice or simply forgive otherwise. If they took my advice from point number 1 and actually provided some constructive criticism about why they don't like something, I would be more apt to read what they say. But again, over 70% of these people do not know how to engage in an intellectual conversation. Either because they do not have time or because they are able to hide behind their monitors and spout off with total anonymity.
But that's it. That is why I am out of there for awhile at least. If you are part of the 30% and you actually read this blog, then it's totally the whole, "Fuck you, Fuck you, You're Cool, Fuck You, I'm Out" bit from Half Baked. now on this blog I am going to start posting my impressions of games, but I am actually going to provide that level of constructive criticism and state why I think maybe some things were done the way there were and how many some aspects could have been improved. I do have a certain amount of insight into this industry that may or may not be revealed at some point (was likely revealed in an early blog post) but rest assured there is method to my madness. For now, out. ftw.