After years of being blamed for fundamental human urges, we’ve become immune to antigaming outrage. The entire industry could be sequels to “Pretty Pink Fluffcuddlers Part Princess,” and we’d still be sued by outraged colorblinds, feminists, the Pro-Pretty-Color-Green Association, and lawyers who found pink fluff in a teenager’s room (along with a legally purchased semiautomatic weapon).
Today we’ll look at actual gamer outrage — when the group defined by “having enough money and free time to play games” decides they’re upset.
Spore’s DRM
Spore’s Digital Rights Management offended millions of players into stealing it. A quick guide to these players:
- So offended you don’t play: a boycott
- So “offended” you don’t pay: an excuse
Hundreds of thousands celebrated not having to pay for the game they’d wanted for years. It doesn’t matter that EA’s DRM really was the worst protection measure since the candyfloss condom, or that the game dissappointed people so much that they started checking if Will Wright was really Peter Molyneux in a rubber mask.
Pirates did not strike a blow for digital freedom by stealing Spore.
All they did was rip off a lot of very skilled programmers and prove to every EA corporate drone that original titles are hassle, and they should stick to harvesting cash sequels from uncomplaining audiences forevermore. So when they’re selling Madden: Heat Death Of The Universe and the Four Horsemen, start playing “The Sims: Rapturin’ It Up!” instead of harvesting the unquiet dead, and remember who to blame.
Bitmobbery: Great Expectations
RapeLay Ban
“RapeLay” is a game where you flat out rape an entire family: mother, daughter, underage little sister. And that you’re not already on a crusade for vengeance proves Bruce Willis doesn’t read Bitmob. Amazon’s ban on the title raises a number of important arguments about free speech and personal choice.
And if you agreed with a single word of that please surrender to your nearest official as soon as possible. It doesn’t even need to be a policeman. It can be a postman, tax inspector — hell, find a utility worker and tell them “I’m not opposed games where you rape children beside their teddy bears” and they’ll know what to do.
The hilarious part isn’t the outrage that got the game banned (which was a 50/50 mix of people who were disgusted and people still comically spluttering through “Somebody made a WH-WH-WHAT?” before being disgusted).
That outrage was understandable, effective, and so powerful it got the game retroactively banned in its own country. No, the hilarious outrage is that of casual compurape enthusiasts.
(Warning: Only follow the next link if you’re extremely OK with drawings of children getting naked and cocked.) Some sites launched into hysterical (both meanings) tirades about free speech and those goddamn womens’ groups spoiling the simulated sexual assault party.
I’m not sure how far along the slide to lonely oblivion you are when you write something like that in public, but imagine it’s where even people even bothering to sneer at you in disgust is a treasured social memory.
Bitmobbery: Sexual Maturing of the Videogame Industry
Left4Dead 2
The announcement of a sequel to the best zombie game ever made was met with insane criticism, and I do mean “insane,” as in “their is something wrong with their malformed heads.”
A small but impressively loud group complained that a mere extra campaign, entire extra game mode, the ability to play as the Infected, constant tuning and rebalancing despite the absolute absence of any kind of monthly fee, and building a sequel from the ground up based on the feedback and lessons learned was “abandoning the audience.”
They went on to state that Paris Hilton was frigid, Waluigi’s a great character, and that no matter how much Diet Dr. Pepper they drank, they were still able to roll.
If you can criticize a game where you kill clowns, get off my page.
Luckily, these nutballs have already been outvoted 2-to-1 by paying, preordering customers. The only (ironic) risk was that Valve might actually be affected by the complaints, being one of the few companies who actively involve to their forums.
Which is how they know that anyone who’s not only registered on the Steam forums, but actively posting thousands of messages in Left4Dead-icated groups as they follow every announcement, might as well claim they’ll boycott oxygen.
Bitmobbery: Left 4 Dead 2 weeks after announcement, Left 4 Dead New Orleans
Shadow Complex
Shadow Complex! The outrage I don’t need to explain as every single blogger on Earth has already weighed in with “Well, *I* think…” and a godawful pun about it being a complex issue (which has caused the English language to sue for all future games journalism to be in machine code).
For those who managed to miss it: Chair Entertainment made a great game barely set in a universe created by a total homophobe asshole.
But it’s a manufactured outrage designed to show how much the outragee cares — Orson Scott Card is so tangentially related it’s like getting upset over the dog food in Back To The Future not being kosher. The setting is slightly less relevant than whether the Mushroom Kingdom has affirmative action.
If the sequence of events motivating Shadow Complex (“girlfriend contrivedly captured by evil organisation”) was even allowed to be called a plot, we’d have to quarantine the English language and start using sign language instead.
SPOILER
The twist only makes things stupider.
END SPOILER
Besides, it’s actually written by Peter David — who couldn’t be more opposite to Orson without renaming himself Drac Ttocs Norso.
Playing up the “Empire” franchise connection was a decision taken after the fact by the marketing team — and if you’re going to hold boycott anything involving asshole marketers you’ll have to cease to exist.
You couldn’t even go live in a cave because of those Geico pricks.
Bitmobbery: An analysis of the evolution from Metroid, Old School Influences
(Don’t forget you can hit the tag for any subject just under the title of the post!)