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Now, after seeing recent incidents with other fanbases, I kind of realized lot more issues going on with the video gaming fanbase. Some things I noticed
*Console wars…for some odd reason, these have gotten worse
*Frequent oversaturation…specifically the military-styled FPS genre which could eventually well…
*Accusations of review bias/bribe when a game a person dislikes gets a high score (there’s only been one incident of this with a gamespot reviewer, but it’s being tossed around)
*Making titles more “mainstream” (specifically games being adjusted to attract the Call of Duty fanbase)
*Unruly fanboyism. Word of advice, never check video game user ratings on metacritic. Trust me. One minor issue or one’s total hatred to a franchise can lead to a ton of low scores.

I’ve been around the video game fanbase for a long time. But with all the recent events (specifically Mass Effect 3’s ending, the Capcom/DMC/RE quarrels, COD vs. Battlefield, and Nintendo vs. Microsoft vs. Sony wars hitting new lows), I’m starting to wonder, will the fandom as a whole eventually just burn up in flames, or will something else happen that MAY or MAY NOT be good for us?

InB4 that EA giving IGN money gif.

1st off I doubt you have seen gaming at its hight in the 80’s and since I have this isn’t the first time I’ve seen or heard someone say pretty much the same thing you’re saying now. Vidya games will always be relevant to the new crop of 9 year olds talking shit to one another on Xbox. The new crop of games will make the “fandom” cream their panties whether the game are good or shit. You are just taking it to a level of snobishly thinking that vidya games and / or gamers will kill itself cuz mass efect is ending. You_Must_Be_New_Here.jpg

• Console wars have existed since there were multiple consoles to choose from. Difference is, nowadays people can make their voices heard around the world and argue online, rather than IRL where more factors pretty much ensure you put more thoughts into what you say.
• The ‘core’ gamer doesn’t really care about those games, so as long as they don’t affect the huge amount of great games nobody has the time to get through all of them, it couldn’t really have an effect aside from FPS’s burning out as a genre, eventually similar to how 2D platformers took a breather for a while, post 90s.
• Anybody who legitimately thinks ‘paid-for’ reviews are a thing should take a look at reality and realize real life isn’t that exciting. There’s shady business practices, sure. Arkham Asylum’s developer allowed reviews above a certain score to break embargo and the Jeff Gurstmann thing as you’ve mentioned are bad, but remain isolated incidents for the most part.
• That’s been more prominent nowadays, but the act of ‘dumbing a game down’ has existed for nearly as long as videogames. Elitists will claim their game is ruined but for the great majority of those games, the game is still good and people should learn to adapt rather than abiding by the old saying ‘familiarity breeds compete’.
• Idiots exist, that’s a shock. As stated earlier, people can have their opinions be heard more easily, which has the disadvantage of the ill-informed being able to voice more loudly and the positive or negative circlejerks that can occur as a result. The solution; find a site whose community you like, there really is no need to scroll through hundreds of comments when you aren’t enjoying yourself. Find what you agree with and be happy.

I wouldn’t really call videogames a ‘fandom’ but as for them taking a crash like it did in the 80s, we’re not near that at all IMO. Great games are still being made, consumers have more choices and a bigger voice than ever, for the better or worse. The industry could improve, what with the bloated budgets of games putting developers/publishers out of business and the horrible business models of some *cough*EA*cough* but it’s not in reach of dying completely anytime soon.

Nope. First off, there is no such thing as a “general video gaming fanbase”, it’s divided into a ton of smaller fanbases (Zelda, Halo, etc.). Second of all, if anything, most of that shows that the “general video game fanbase” is growing, as most of that (fanboyism, anger at review scores) are simply byproducts of what a fandom is.

As for the oversaturation of certain genres (i.e. the military FPS genre), that’s existed for years, and not just in the video game industry. Cowboys, zombies, and cop films are all examples of this. And as of now, I think we’re starting to see a decline in the modern-military genre, given the generally poor reception of Medal of Honor: Warfighter.

And with the video game industry growing as rapidly as it is, we’re not going to see any of this disappear anytime soon.

Oh come on, now, there is so totally a general video gaming fanbase. It’s called the audience. That’s like saying there’s not an animation fanbase, there’s only bronies, fallers, Adventure Time fans, etc.

Derpy: It’s not ME3 that’s the problem. It’s the behavior of the fandom that troubles me. Back in the early 2000s, there were console wars, but those were actually fun times and all. Nintendo had Mario, Sega had Sonic. In the early 2000s, FPS communities were fun places and fun times there. Gamers rarely made silly complaints then instead of today.

My issue is more about the behavior of video gamers in general. And yeah, the existence of gaming communities have made more of these voices more vocal and all. Gaming itself is not going to die (it’s probably entering a major evolution stage right now with a lot of attempts to add new enhancements to gaming…you know, Kinect, mobile gaming, different controllers/interfaces, etc…), although I do have to admit, most of my issues I have kind of became noticeable to me at the start of this generation.