Culture, Multi-Platform

Why Being A Fanboy is Bad

Posted on Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011 at 6:23 PM by dustin

If you go on the web as a gamer, or simply want to find news or information about any game, you have more than likely come across fanboys. Of course some fanboys are much louder than others and this causes internet wars between which side is right, when in reality it’s all just an opinion. While I fully support people’s opinions, I don’t think being a fanboy is the right route to take. There are many negative aspects to fanboys, and overall this has ruined several aspects of the gaming industry and is further hurting it in other areas. What exactly is it affecting?

You Don’t Help Improve A Product

This is my major concern with fanboys, they do absolutely nothing to help improve anything they like. A new game releases that is a part of their absolutely favorite franchise, and it’s perfect in every way possible. If anyone says otherwise (including reviewers which are hired to be positive and negative), well they are a fanboy of some other game! I have seen this with beta releases; you know the early version of games with known bugs that a developer is trying to find themselves? How is a beta perfect? Why is someone that complains about a beta a threat? It doesn’t make sense.

Fact is if you don’t like something in a game, there are probably plenty of other people that don’t like it either. If the controls feel clunky in an FPS that doesn’t mean you are a Call of Duty fanboy, it just means the controls are clunky and need some tweaking. Fanboys don’t see it in this light though. Instead you complaining about the controls means you’re not “skilled enough” to be playing their game. Meanwhile a fix will come along to fix the controls and not a single fanboy will admit they were wrong, and if anything, they will say “I liked it when it was a pain in the ass better.” I’ve been a part of many titles that have developed right through the launch and I’m so glad the developers can see through the fanboys to improve a product.

You Buy Anything They Throw At You

This is the second most annoying thing as you keep supporting the sub-par product and say it’s great no matter what it is. They could re-release a game about a toilet flushing and slap a well know name on the cover and people would gobble it right up. Anyone that points out it’s just a toilet flushing or (like above) pinpoints the issues is once again a “fanboy” of another game or “not skilled enough” to be playing this toilet madness!

This is a major problem that affects everyone that has ever purchased anything regarding video games. Why? Well do you see that overpriced DLC on the digital store of your choice? Do you see how some games hardly change year by year? Do you see these added fee’s we keep getting on games? Do you see how some key features to games now have subscriptions? The list is endless and it’s all caused because you fell on the bandwagon train and gave them millions of dollars to rip you off with the simple excuses any PR will learn in college. But hey you love the game right?

You Don’t Give Things A Chance

You walk into the store to buy the newest sequel to your favorite game. Everything around that game is pure crap. Anyone that talks about those games are pure idiots. Anyone that attempts to compare game 1 to game 2 are clowns and are comparing apples to oranges. Sound familiar? Companies create this motive all the time, and its apparent right down to the console you play on, let alone the games you buy.

There is a huge bandwagon carrying your game and you are riding your high horse, nothing else matters. Yet why are you passing up all these great games? Why are you not giving that console a chance? Why is it crap if you have never even tried it beyond watching a friend of a friend play it at a demo kiosk? You are a gamer aren’t you? Or are you just a corporate robot that follows all the other corporate robots that are not allowed to try new things?

You Ruin The Integrity of Everyone

I could write a book about all the stupid things I see on the internet on a daily basis, but that’s another story for another day. What I’m talking about here is integrity, and it boils down to websites with posers in “journalist” roles and “reviews” that are simply stupidity copied and pasted everywhere you go. You hate a game, so you make a false review on every popular online outlet there is. You might be a part of a website that “reviews” games and decide “hey I’m going to make it negative” simply because you enjoy game A over game B  and want this hype train to stop.

In return we get people that think game journalism is complete crap because posers like this couldn’t even finish high school English. The even bigger problem here is everyone has to weed out these sites because the bigger named websites seem to fall under the “corporate robot” phase time and time again. You are turning average people away from a decent to good game all because you don’t like it for personal reasons. Then you go and take it a step further and tarnish the name of game journalism. How is that fair? We are already seeing many consequences within our industry by seeing PR’s themselves scavenging through websites to pick quality reviews, but the fanboys even jump on the bandwagon to spin that in a negative way.

These are a few of the reason why fanboys, well, suck. You need to open your mind and enjoy everything, stop playing follow the leader and playing the same thing over and over. When you do this you will see just how great the game industry is and what it can offer. Trust me, I was a huge fanboy myself, I will openly admit it. I loved Console A, anything not Console A sucked and I wanted no part in it. Yet here I am enjoying games from the opposing side and super interested in the next iteration of Console B, while writing for a website that covers all systems. I’m not going to lie, I still prefer Console A in many respect, but by no means “hate” the other and that’s how it should be. I have never had a better time as a game journalist than when I made that jump, and as a gamer it has made life way better. I was closed minded with games as well; I only wanted to play certain genre’s, certain games, and certain things. I open the door just a tiny bit, and now I suddenly have a huge backlog of games I want to buy or at the very least try.

About the author: dustin

I have been a writer in the video game industry for over 5 years! I have also been a part of The Movie Pool, our sister site, and have done several PR tasks for many people! I hope to grow on these opportunities and create the best content you guys have ever read!