Has the gaming community become more entitled?

A) Crying about DLC practices (you don't have to buy horse armor)

I don't like dlcs due to the fact that most of them are just ripped out of the game and then sold separately at a premium, hence why I rarely buy dlcs (with the only exception for my racing games, where the licensing costs are huge for tracks, cars, liveries, etc) but it becomes a problem when your game is locked behind a paywall or used as an advantage in both singleplayer and online.

B) Crying about F2P games being P2W (how do you think a F2P game is going to support itself? Also for those who have actually paid P2W games, you'll know the P2W mechanics people are whining about today simply bridge the gap between those who have a lot of time, and those who have money but no time)

It's a problem when you can buy yourself to the top and outmatch other players, not because of your skills, but having gained the upper hand by having unlocked the best and most expensive weapons. Also I'm not buying the "limited time" argument that EA more than anyone tries so hard to corrupt us with, you either play or don't, balance the game right and there's that.

C) Pirates thinking they are entitled to patch fixes

The majority of pirates couldn't give a flying duck about privacy or freedom of speech, they use those arguments to help protect their selfish needs (wanting everything for free) and cry wolf when one of their favorite torrent sites goes down and the reason why we have copyright protection (drm) in the first place. They also seem to think that when a product is bought they are entitled to have it supplied to them in every media format.

D) Gamers who honestly think the cost to develop video games hasn't gone up (aka. their complexity to develop hasn't gone up)

I do think there's a correlation between the complexity and price of making a game (amount of developers involved, technologies, licensing fees, etc) but it has also never been easier than before to make a game (contradictory in terms perhaps) but you've free tools and guides online and it doesn't need to be AAA to be called a "game". However annual carbon copy releases hardly counts.

 

Remember how you used to unlock secret cars in racing games? Secret levels in FPS games? Secret weapons? Now you need to buy them.

Remember how you needed to enter cheat codes in single player games? Now you need to enter your credit card number.

Of course this increases the amount of people who feel "entitled" and start "crying." If publishers stop trying to ruin games, the problem goes away. There. Solved.

 

Gamers are not entitled.

Modern games makes gamers entitled.

How gamers suppose to feel if they pay money to win, look better with cosmetics and feel better about themselves?

 

Short answer... yes.
A lot of (not all) today's gaming community are entitled, crybabies.
Believing they know what/how a game should be, and if it isn't like that... that the dev/pub owes them something because of it.

And, they feel justified in pirating games because it uses a DRM they don't like, it has loot boxes or a season pass.
Saying that if a game has microtransactions they have the right to just download it.

The childish feeling of entitlement is no more apparent then on the Steam forums, specifically... the Steam reviews. A game does one thing they disagree with, and then a game gets blasted with negative reviews.
And, that defeats the purpose of a review. When you have a game with 300+ negative reviews, but the majority of them show that each person played the game for less then 0.1 playtime.


And, it's only gotten worse in the past few years.
With people throwing fits, claiming games/developers are trying to push political agendas in games. Or the stupid ass "SJW" theme that has popped up anytime a game has a female protagonist.
Ignorant, childish dumb terms like "SJW" or saying the "developer got woke"...
I've seen people saying that the developer owes them, that they demand a male protagonist in Darksiders III because it's "bull" to have to play as a female. Saw similar comments around Hellblade when it released.

 

^You actually summed it up incredibly well; much better than my initial post did. The stuff that REALLY pisses me off is when consumers moan and bitch about "oh my god, that puddle is gone" or "why is this character not gay" or "why is this character black." Video game development is, at its very basic form, the ultimate form of art. It combines music, visual arts, and abstractions. Art is subjective. And in my opinion, art is best left to do its own crap. If it flops, it flops. And if it doesn't, then great! So thank you for your post.

I'm not sure if I've emphasized this enough...but I simply do not buy games that I don't agree with instead of whining about it like a procreating looney (you can all cry as much as you want, but if others are buying it then the publisher won't care.) There are more than enough good games anyway that don't pull the crap EA and Activision do with their yearly releases (CoD and sport games lol)

Also, for those that don't know, cheat codes were in the game as a way for developers to debug things. This is why debug menus exist as well. Development changed over time and those are no longer necessary....at least not necessary to ship lol

 

Hi Lynart,

so think you are half correct or half wrong depending on how we want to see issue.

Are gamers becoming more entitled? Yes they are but this is not a gamers exclusive trait, this is more of a cultural "thing" because modern societies have become more and more entitled. Most people want all and want it know and for free because they are special, so special that the universe only exists because of them... And to make things "worse" the internet, specially social media, gave a voice to all this special beings that now take every opportunity they to tell the world why they deserve all they want... I could go on but you get the point.
But there´s the other side of the coin, that is consumers are more demanding than ever. In the case of gamers they know that right now studios are huge companies with tons of resources so they expect from them quality products befitting of the stature of such companies. Instead what we have a re companies trying to milk their customers with all the tricks they remember: useless DLCs, main content cut from the make and transformed into DLCs, loot boxes, unfinished games with bugs galore and so on...

In the end things aren´t simply black or withe as they seem.

About the rising costs of creating games, lets not forget that a big part of those are unnecessary because we don´t Hollywood actors or writers for games among other stuff... Not to mention the marketing budgets...

 

^
Interesting POV and I agree entirely with regards to society's shift; I mean for frack's sake there's a group of people who think they're entitled to sex and people because they didn't get any.

With regards to rising costs of game development....I'm not referring to marketing or anything outside of the development team itself. The fact is that 2 decades ago you'd have the guy wrote the gun mechanics, and textures work on UI. Now the guy making the gun mechanics is only doing that, someone else is modelling the gun, and another person is working on the UI.

Marketing and all the other bureaucratic crap can go to hell; I absolutely agree that tends to ruin things.

 

One just has to grin at the irony of people complaining about complainers

 

If you don't mind the points you're complaining about people complaining about, I wouldn't really say you're a part of the the gaming enthusiast crowd.

The industry has taken a nose dive in the past 10 years, except for a handful of games mostly from small or indie developers, and except for Nintendo.

 

^
Danganronpa (1,2,3)
Final Fantasy XV
Trails of Sky FC/SC/Third
Trails of Cold Steel (1, 2, 3)
Black Desert Online
Bloodborne
Dark Souls 1,2,3
Demons Souls
Monster Hunter World
Witcher 3
Breath of the Wild
Gran Turismo Sport (FINALLY A MULTIPLAYER RACE SIMULATOR ON CONSOLE WITH A SYSTEM THAT DEMOTES CRASH FESTS)
XCOM 2

Bolded is what I'm currently focused on.

Those are off the top of my head; if I dig deeper or go through my Steam list I'll find more. ToS 1/2 alone took me over 100 hours. Dangaronpa 1 took 40, 2 is at 25. MHW was over 200 hrs.

10 year nose dive? Handful? You're proving my point lol

 

I agree with everything you said in your entire post including piracy - for the most part - I would just amend one thing in my response. I personally believe DRM & tighter copyright legislation / restriction / laws etc were always going to be an issue at some point and time irregardless of piracy existing or not. Piracy was one reason that those entities behind the aforementioned used to bring about those things sooner.

 

Those gamers have a point. I'm a fan of fighting games, and when Street Fighter 5 was released I eagerly bought it. The reviews of the game were all great and I didn't expect any issues - but boy was I wrong. I was dismayed to discover that there was virtually no single-player content and even the multiplayer aspect was botched to a large degree (lag was all on one side, matches took forever, there was no penalty for rage-quitting, etc.). I wasn't the only one - there was a huge uproar from fans about the lack of content and the botched execution. By comparison, Street Fighter 4 had a lot of content upon release, and other fighting games like MKX had a very expansive and detailed story mode for each character. Other fighting games also handled multiplayer a lot better, including much better lag handling and rage-quitting. The game gradually improved over time, but fans crying over the initial game was largely justified.

The Sims 4 also had a lot of missing content upon release - things like pools and the toddler life stage, which had been in the base release of the previous games. The expansive open-world map of Sims 3 was also relegated to small separate lots and the gameplay was generally very limited and dull. Fans were upset and complained loudly, and Maxis/EA eventually introduced some of these missing features for free (and released some of the others via DLCs, although the open world is still gone). The game's still not completely satisfactory but it's better than it was at release, largely because of fan outcry.

IMO, gamers feeling "entitled" is a good thing. We gamers have a duty to hold developers to account, and when they create games which are lacking or sub-standard compared to previous/other games of the same genre, then they should indeed be criticized. To meekly accept the choices of game developers would mean that games will not advance or get any better. Games like Street Fighter 5 and Sims 4 are better games today because of all the "crybabies" who complained about the game.

 

There's a difference between a game having actual faults, issues and problems. And a fully functional game being downvoted and flooded with negative reviews just because some people are upset because a main character is female. Or the game uses a political storybeat.

Nobody is going to say the people upset with Arkham Knight's initial release were just upset because they were "entitled". The game was, in a lot of ways, broken upon release.
But, when people flooded the Steam forums were wave upon wave of negative threads and reviews just because Hellblade makes you play as a female... yeah. They can sit and spin.

 

Man I totally missed that with Hellblade - I loved that game, didn't even realize the steam forums got flooded; sometimes I wonder how much of it is from actual "gamers". Just like how lately you see reviews getting skewed in movie boards or on IMDB with those groups that target the ratings claiming they'll crash the RT ratings or the IMDB ratings. That didn't happen when I was a kid... I wonder if the same happens on steam too if there are organized groups that just want to skew the ratings like with film

Edit: Granted some honestly suck so - now I don't go by reviews much anymore

"manufactured angst"

hehe - hmm *ponders* yeah... I suppose... I hope I don't come across as complaining... if I do I've failed.

 

True you do have the choice and when it comes to fantastic content such as the DLCs for Borderlands 2 or The Witcher 3 I seriously doubt you will find anyone complaining about them. Both games had fantastic well developed DLC that was worth every single penny. The issues arrive when companies start to gate previously free in game content behind pay walls. In the case you gave that would be Oblivions horse armour which was both no where near worth the asking price and came at a time when content like that was accepted to be free and part of the game unlocked as a reward. Or worse yet when companies start to break their games down and lock content behind pay walls. Fighting games like Soul Calibur can just about justify locking surprise or unusual characters like Geralt behind a DLC pay wall (although in the past they would have been a free unlock from within the game) but locking canon characters that have appeared as standard in almost every Soul Calibur game is just not on, as they have done with Soul Calibur 6 and the character Tira or the utter fiasco that was the last Street Fighter game.

I dunno not the general consensus with F2P P2W mechanics is but the main issue seems more when F2P P2W mechanics leech in to full price games and specifically when those mechanics drive and change the game for the worse. GTA Online is a fantastic example of a game that is measurably worse because Rcokstar focused on pumping out poorly Q and A'd, awfully balanced, overpriced DLC addons rather than actually focusing on fixing balancing and working on making the game just functionally better. GTAO is a hot mess of missions modes, types, games modes, jobs and activities and finding and running a simple straight forward job is a mission in itself, but the most obvious and worse example of late was SWBF2 and the utter lootbox fiasco. (which if anyone was paying attention got introduced in to GTAO and two months before SWBF2 and no one seemed to notice or care) You want F2P money making mechanics then your game should be F2P

Okay that is good point and yes any pirate that thinks they deserve patches is not so much entitled is a provable measurable moron.

Yes they have but is that a factor caused by the developers and publishers or one made by the gamers. Did Destiny HAVE to spend the money they did publishing and making the game? It was nothing but a worse version of Borderlands 2. Some folk might say that a good game will sell without you needing to spend steaming dump trucks full of cash on it where as a crap game will do poorly no matter how much you spend on it.

It's a factor on both ends gamers are worse and more demanding now but part of that is because developers are trying to push more crap on them than ever before. It's no surprise that developer / publishers that treat their customers with respect such as CD Project Red tend to get less crap thrown at them by their customers where as developer / publishers who treat their customers as nothing but walking wallets get voted worse company on the planet... hi EA.

 

There are always a few neanderthals out there. At any rate, it looks like Hellblade has a Very Positive rating on Steam for both recent and overall reviews so doesn't look like they damaged the game's reputation that much. Also, I've had clashes myself with some users on the Steam forums (there are some fanatics on there).

 

Two way street.
Gamer's want everything. They want it cheap or free and working optimally.

Developers are mainly careless and greedy. Above sentiments get ignored or mocked.

Piracy remains the standard for substandard work.

 

pirates do not care about free speech or privacy? you done extensive polls or studies on that?

many studies have been done on piracy, particularly in europe.

almost all those studies found that pirates buy more stuff because they sample a wider range of stuff. they buy good stuff and skip the crap. sure they probably wait until a sale or buy a shady key but they buy more games, music and movies than the average consumer.

it is the big corporate interest that slam piracy every chance they get. oh they hurting our sales, they stealing our music, they stealing our games, the lest hurt sales part is utter BS for the most part.

 

My negativity towards games at least some games which should be better than it is, especially fifa and PES franchise, these football games are catered towards teenagers and not grown ups and people who want simulation football. So i guess i am entitled to critisize games that are not up to par

 

Nah I just wanted to highlight that complaining, the sense of other people's entitlement (self proclaimed even at times) is a point of view, an opinion. Just like the opinions stated in Steam reviews etc. It doesn't make an opinion "wrong" just because it's given by somebody that's disappointed in a game...

While I do agree with @Damien_Azreal that some reviews are not to be taken seriously (like his Hellblade female character "reviews"), the opinion on what a AAA game for 60€ should give you in terms of content and technical stability and playability is indeed at times justified. Criticism has it's place, and if people don't like changes to games, and have opinions that are based on facts about the game and how it plays, they're valid. Like ripped out DLC, bug ridden games, poor choices of game design too, as well as a fundamental lack of innovation for the more common monetarisation as a topic.