Posted by Dennis on: 11.18.06
(If available) - game info | review
It isn't often I'll write an editorial coming out in defense of another website, but for this I will make an exception.
Once upon a time, there was an extremely hyped video game called "The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess." It was looked forward to by every Nintendo fanboy in existance. One day, two days before the game released, it was reviewed by a man named Jeff Gerstmann on Gamespot, who gave the game a score of 8.8 out of 10. Not content with the game getting a good score, fanboys across the internet erupted in anger at how 'low' of a score the game had gotten, despite never having played it.
Something dawned on me today: Opinions don't matter anymore.
People read game review sites, not because they want to hear somebody's opinion on a game to make up their own mind, but because they want to hear somebody agree with them on a game. These people describe themselves as masters of everything gaming, and preach their gospel across the internet, not because they have something interesting to say (because most of the time they don't) but because they want to hear agreement with their opinions without arguement. So, when a dissenter posts something that contradicts the popular opinion, all hell breaks loose on the wide world of the Internet. And this was the case with Jeff's review for Twilight Princess.
You see, hearing dissent to their finely crafted opinions being posted on a major website is not only insulting to their opinions, but to their egos. According to them, this dissent is equal to somebody having the nerve (the nerve!) to call them wrong. This phenomenon, which I like to refer to as "Fanboy Complex" is hardly exclusive to the gaming community, as it pops up in just about every type of topic which can result in an internet discussion, ranging from favorite music to politics and much more. Any case where an opinion forms, this event is 100% sure to pop up. However, what I have seen across the internet today has disgusted me to such a point where I was genuinely suprised at how much people were flipping out over this.
On GameSpot's Twilight Princess board, there were over 70 pages (at the time of this writing) consisting almost soley of threads complaining about the 'low' review score. Gamers who have yet to even play the game, by this point formed their own opinion, and attacked poor Jeff because his opinion was (how dare he!) different. Lacking the experience of actually playing the game to form a cohesive argument, fanboys had to resort to making personal attacks against Jeff to give their posts some sort of artificial meaning. I think my favorite insult had to be when somebody said "Jeff gives ****** games perfect 10's and good games get bad scores," and as it turns out, Jeff had written a review for Ocarina of Time giving it a perfect 10. The lack of logic in internet arguments never fails to amuse me, I swear.
The damage was not limited to GameSpot's own forums, however. The popular social bookmarking site, Digg.com had an entry on GameSpot's review, with angry gamers attempting to prove that Jeff's score is invalid, simply because it deviates from other review scores. Again, it is all ego preservation: This guy disagrees, which means he is saying I'm wrong. But I'm never wrong, so that makes HIM wrong! Abuse of the comments moderation system ensued, with comments defending Jeff's review getting dugg down into oblivion, so as to "silence the liars."
And that's all I really feel like linking to. Chances are, if you frequent any major gaming forum, you'll be seeing (or have already seen) giant rants about the validity of Jeff's review. The ****ing validity. Apparently, one's opinion is not valid if it is in contrast to a group's opinion. Are comparison's to other reviews valid? Yes. Is saying a review is invalid because it doesn't agree with everybody else's opinion a valid reason? People like to play the "He's an Xbox fanboy" card, blissfully unaware that they are equally biased themselves, if not more so.
Bias is everywhere; it is unavoidable. This isn't about the review itself, but rather the mindset some of these people operate in. What is becoming of the gaming community when stating an opinion is legitimate cause for personal attacks? Since when does not agreeing with the crowd invalidate whatever it is you have to say? Does somebody disagreeing with you justify petty vandalism? Something is clearly wrong here, if this is the kind of behavior that is deemed acceptable for what happens when somebody disagrees.
Of course, nobody is going to listen, and come up with a million excuses as to why I am wrong. But for those who will listen, take these words to heart. If one person, just one person sees the light from reading this, my job is accomplished.
