With game dev companies resuscitating iconic video game titles into a whole new being (Tomb Raider, DmC), everyone and their grandma has a thing or two to say about it. While the comments and thoughts on these reboots are polarized, the most vocal in the bunch are those of the negative kind. Because of these ‘vocal fans’ Crystal Dynamics (Tomb Raider) and Ninja Theory (DmC) have been receiving flak left and right. You have the “rape scene” issue of the young Lara Croft for Crystal Dynamics and the total revamp of Dante (and the whole shebang really) for Ninja Theory.
While personally I am for free speech and all that, but people have been brutal to the developers for changing characters, they’ve all grown to love. There came to a point that people have sent death threats to Ninja Theory just because they did not like the new DmC game.
And I did not even mention how fast negative comments fly whenever game devs change a game dynamic or a story of established titles are announced.
There has been a resounding call for developers to bring something new to their games, so why is it that whenever someone tries something new, people instantaneously say that it’s bad, or it sucks or saying something in the same lines with a more “colorful” choice of words. People immediately assume that the game sucks because certain game elements have been changed. You also have those “long time fans” who have raged over key character elements that used to be part of said character/protagonist.
Personally speaking, all I see with these flurry of negative reactions are just the self-entitlement mentality that gamers seem to have lately. Thankfully, there have been cooler heads that presented their disappointment quite nicely:
Now the question is this, is it safe to think that majority of us are so hung-up with the past that whenever something new comes in we tend to fight against it? This has been presented in a lot of mediums actually. Are we proving to the statistic that people generally hate change? Or are we just venting out our frustration over the net just because we can?
Voice out your comments below!
2 Comments
I don’t like to call it a sense of entitlement, but rather a sense of attachment. Playing games (especially single player-games) is a very intimate experience and we us gamers will always get attached to games we play, especially games we play for a long time or games that we really like.Â
Some changes will be welcome but I think drastic changes will always get some backlash, especially if the change involves something that has existed for over a decade. Devil May Cry was released in 2001 I believe, and they’ve mostly kept Dante’s look the same until the DMC reboot. People have been used to the way Dante looks so of course, seeing the character completely redesigned was a big shock to most fans.
So, to answer the main question posed by this article, I don’t think gamers are afraid of change. In many cases, gamers welcome it actually. Gamers want innovation. Drastic changes however, especially when it comes to redesigns of long-existing characters, aren’t accepted well.
Imagine if Nintendo decided to completely redesign Mario, I don’t think anyone can even imagine the backlash it would cause.
 I actually agree with your points but then if we want change sometimes drastic ones should be done. Though I have a generally different take on the game community