The formula and exploitation of fanboyism

**OmarFW** · 12-27-2011 08:40 PM

Fanboyism is nothing new to media and it certainly did not originate from gaming but it does seem to circulate the most heavily around the gaming community these days. Fanboyism is not necessarily a bad thing all of the time like it is portrayed to be. It is the sole reason many PC gamers choose to purchase their games legally when pirating them would be much more convenient since the legal copies may not even work due to DRM. They want to support their favorite developers by giving them what they consider to be a donation of gratitude.

However, when you look at the other side of the coin, fanboyism is what breeds unoriginality in gaming. Alongside the influence of peer pressure, it is the reason why so many Call of Duty players continuously purchase and devote their time to each new regurgitation of the game despite the flaws. There is no scrutiny applied to the gameplay or the mechanics or how copy-pasted the game is from the last one. It’s about the fact that they, along with their friends, have pledged their devotion to a series that was once good and they will continue buying it simply because it’s a common interest with their friends. The same can be said for countless other IPs like Halo or Zelda. It’s more comradery than anything else; not unlike backing your hometown’s football team. It brings you together with other people under a unified opinion or allegiance. Although there’s nothing inherently wrong with this, it can be easily exploited by corporations in ways we are seeing currently.

The problem with gamers is that they don’t learn to be critical of the IPs they enjoy. In fact, we are brought up in a society that basically tells you that in order to be a true fan of something you cannot even consider being critical of it. Ignorance reigns supreme in mainstream gaming and it deters people from trying out new franchises and IPs which they may very well enjoy. Gamers need to learn to be more like film junkies or audiophiles. Most frequent film-goers often develop a healthy sense of criticism towards even their favorite films along with a knack for deciphering what makes a great movie. This is because being an avid filmgoer involves seeing many different kinds of films. The same applies to music even within one particular genre. With gaming this is not as present because gaming IPs and franchises consist of far more content and longevity than other forms of media. The most popular gaming franchises have the longest form of media longevity so far. Things like Mario, Zelda or Grand Theft Auto have lasted much longer as a franchise relevant to modern culture than any movie series or band has.

Of course, fanboyism has also kept IPs like Sonic the Hedgehog alive when it should have been dead and buried years ago; what with it’s recent history of absolutely god awful releases. This is not something that needs to keep being rehashed once or twice a year. Sonic Generations was nice but the Sonic series in general needs to be put down and that can only happen if the fanboys of the series finally move on to some new IP (of which there are many out there).

There is a difference between being a fan of something and being a fanboy however. Being a fan simply means you enjoy something and would not object to seeing more of it while being a fanboy is a matter of unconditional attachment. This is ridiculous behavior since unconditionally supporting a game series no matter how awful it becomes only makes you look like an idiot who is controlled by his inability to make his own decisions.

Gamers have gotten in the habit of thinking in terms of allegiances. There may be different levels of criticism involved from the fans with different genres of gaming but at the end of the day many gamers will still end up purchasing a game simply because it belongs to a certain IP. Even if Skyrim had ended up a complete pile of garbage that disappointed in every way the fans still would have purchased plenty of copies. They wouldn’t necessarily be content with what they got, but they would still buy it. The allegiances that gamers form for these IPs allow them to fabricate excuses for disappointing content or bad reviews by critics. They don’t acknowledge an objective standard for what makes a quality game. This is hard to do for a medium that can vary so greatly and provide entertainment for so many different kinds of preferences, but it is possible and developers are already aware of it but not the gamers themselves. Without acknowledging an objective standard for a gaming genre you create ignorance and ignorance can be easily exploited by publishers to dole out the same rehashed garbage knowing you will blindly purchase it no matter what. That is unacceptable and gamers deserve more than this.

The biggest issue here is that the gaming industry is designed to propagate fanboyism; particularly within certain genres like FPS. There will always be fanboyism present in every form of media but it is not inherent on this kind of level. Publishers like Activision try their very best to get gamers to hand over their money once a year without asking questions or being critical of the CoD series before purchasing the next one. This is taking allegiances too far and it allows for publishers to cease putting out original games until all we have in the mainstream genre is the same crap remade every year with minor tweaks. You may think to yourself “I’m not a fanboy since I don’t spend my time taking part in pointless debates online and cosplaying as my favorite characters” and yet you may be one of the people who has purchased every single Call of Duty since the original. By my standards that counts as fanboyism. The same goes for people who buy every Madden game of Final Fantasy every year as there is literally no difference at this point. I see no justified reason why someone would actually consider every single game in those series’ good enough to purchase.

A game franchise is not a sports team to root for and gaming does not need all of this unwarranted fanboyism being spread around to generate unoriginal content. You don’t need to pledge your undying devotion to a series just to enjoy it. There is no such thing as a ‘true fan’. Each individual game varies in quality and they must all be judged individually as there is no such thing as a franchise that is 100% bad or good. There have been bad Zelda games, bad Mario games, bad Call of Duty games, bad Assassins Creed games, bad Halo games and many many many bad Sonic games. If you can’t see the bad aspects of your favorite series then you may want to rethink just how genuine and unbiased your opinion of it really is.

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