Anonymous asked: I was wondering what you're opinion is on dualistic fanboyism.
In other words, that gamer culture will often divide themselves between the mainstream and the underdog, with no room left between for someone who adores Halo and TimeSplitters equally, yet for different merits. One gamer will fanboy Assassin’s Creed, while the other will fanboy Ico, and in doing so, both will corner themselves into stereotypes that cast shadows over the titles themselves, like how Halo has become a “frat boy” game as Half-Life 2 has morphed into a “smug prick” game.
I see this a lot more on gaming forums, however, those venues often reflect upon media shit factories like Kotaku, where actual fucking writers and editors are no better than the unwashed masses. This endemic spurs a tolerance for intolerance and childish elitism amongst all walks of gamer life, meaning people like me have to wade through never-ending trolling just to survive in a community so focused on one-upping each other’s e-penis, that in time, the whole complex with probably collapse and we’ll be social deviants all over again.
I really want to answer this, but I’m not convinced I’ll be able to do it justice. Nevertheless, I’ll try.
Dualistic Fanboyism happens on a number of levels. The most common one is console fanboyism, and it’s very easy to sling that kind of mud. Hey, I said something negative about the PS3 recently, right? Then I must be an Xbot! But no, I said I didn’t like Halo the other day, so that means I’m obviously a PlayStation fanboy. Gamers choose their sites and stick vehemently to them, defending their choice at the slightest provocation, largely because consoles and the games we play on them are so bloody expensive. Not everyone can afford a 360 and a PS3. Indeed, I probably wouldn’t own both if I hadn’t bought them both three years ago, at a time when I was earning substantially more an hour than I am now.
This sort of thing doesn’t happen quite so much with films. Not on the same scale, at least. A friend of mine once lambasted me for not having seen The Godfather (which, incidentally, I still haven’t seen) and I regularly scold people for having never seen Shaun of the Dead or Galaxy Quest. Oddly enough if someone tells me they’ve never seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - my all-time favourite movie - I don’t tell them off, but I do encourage them to watch it. It seems the films I have more of a geeky love for are the ones I tsk at people for having never seen them.
It’d be nice if gamers could grow out of this sort of behaviour, and it’s nice to think that there is a parallel universe somewhere where Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 fans weren’t fighting about which game would be better when it finally comes out but were discussing the merits of the genre, where they think their respective games could improve, that sort of thing. Will such a thing ever happen? I’ve no idea. I think this is the sort of thing that’s linked to the way games are portrayed in the media currently - when every outlet is posting stories that say “Developer A says Game X will be the best game ever” followed by “Developer B says Game Y will reinvent the genre” it’s only natural that some readers will get caught up in that and decide that, yes, Game X will be the best game ever, or Game Y will reinvent the genre.
This sort of behaviour probably won’t go away, but at the moment the gaming media nurtures and encourages it. If we can fix the media, we can (partially) fix the behaviour.
