Abyssal Pixels: Games Aren’t Fun Anymore

Pretty bold statement wouldn’t you agree? I’ve been noticing things these past few years about the fellow gamers that I surround myself with. Most of these things are severely negative and just a small minority are positive. It’s gotten to a point where I can’t even go on the internet anymore and look at discussions because it only turns into a bloodbath and I end up frustrated and resenting life. What I’m talking about here is the hate, the negativity, the tormenting, the insulting, the belittling and the moaning that gamers have adopted in this day and age.

This column comes to you from the very fun, very amazing hack-and-slash reboot DmC: Devil May Cry that has recently released. The amount of human filth and pure unjustified hate I’ve seen regarding this game has frankly shocked me into a state of disbelief. I seriously thought that this whole story was just one massive trolling session, but it was not. It was genuine. And that frightens me. Is it possible for people to be so miserable and hateful over a dude’s haircut inside a virtual world? I don’t even…

I’ve talked to a writer that wrote an article about the user scores on Metacritic and calling those people unreasonable because that’s what they were. Those people haven’t even played the game because it wasn’t released yet and they gave the game 0′s and 2′s because of how Dante looked or some totally factitious reasons. When the article made publication, the writer was verbally attacked from all sides. One commenter even called the writer, and I quote: “a stupid autistic cunt”. How is that fair? How on Odin’s giant universe is that even remotely civilized?

I’m all for debate because it’s a good building tool to make things better, but resorting to hateful, unjustified insults just because you saw fit to jump on a bandwagon? That’s just pathetic beyond words. “Oh, but I have an opinion!” you might scream at me, but just take a look at yourself for a second here. Look at what you’re doing. You’re insulting a fellow gamer because he said something that was true and supported by evidence. He wasn’t provoking you or making fun of you, he was just stating facts.

Back to the topic of this column. It seems to me that games aren’t fun anymore. It has turned into a religion where any naysayers need to be burned at a stake and thrown with rocks. It has become so severely detached that people attack people that have the same interests as them. Games aren’t for fun anymore, they’re just platforms for deranged human beings to have screaming matches on. Nobody wants to enjoy gaming for what it is anymore, they just want to insult people that don’t agree with them over something no matter how trivial.

Gamers have turned into feral creatures that just want to attack people because it’s fun or something. The sad thing is that most gamers aren’t like this. The miserable and horrible people are actually in the minority. The people that enjoy gaming for what it is don’t really say anything when discussion starts happening and for good reason because they would just get mauled to death for saying something even remotely positive about anything.

Gaming has reached a low as far as community is involved. We have people calling each other horrible and demeaning things because they don’t play games on the same electronic box as they are. People so stubborn that if a game doesn’t appease their unrealistically high expectations that they actively shun and dismiss it at any moment they can. People that treat a single game like some sort of religious institution and if you so much as touch it, they burn you. It’s sickening. It makes me physically sick in my stomach.

What are games? They are a means of entertainment. What is entertainment? Something that satisfies you. Games are meant for fun. Something enjoyable that you can do when you’re not slaving around in the real world. Is it necessary to destroy its foundations and purpose? This all stinks of schoolyard bullshit where a bunch of kids start beating each other up just to see who is the most “badass” of them all. In the end, you’re just torturing yourself.

Have fun.

If not, then at least try.