Biggest Gamer Overreactions This Generation

Over the last five to six years, gamers have gone through a lot of emotional ups and downs unlike ever before. Frankly, it’s something I’ve never even witnessed prior to this generation. Obviously the internet wasn’t as widespread in 2001 as it is now, but gamers were still flocking to forums during the PlayStation 2 era.

Back in 2003 did you ever expect one day people would be crying and creating petitions online to show a developer they’re upset? Of course not, because it’s pointless and achieves next to nothing. Oddly enough, the gaming industry can expect a new petition every other month now whether it’s against Activision for its lame Black Ops decisions or its because you feel you received an inferior port of a game. It feels as though the time of gaming just to game is now over and the time to complain about something you generally enjoy is taking over in full force.

However, over the course of the last 6 years, there have been some pretty crazy exaggerations and overreactions to simple decisions or incidents that have taken place within the industry. These overreactions have generally taken place by PlayStation 3 owners, but the general gaming public is guilty as well. We’ve compiled our favorite things gamers overreacted on while the world continued to spin and the industry continued to thrive.

Are you guilty of being on any of these boats of shame? Let us know in the comment section below.

Final Fantasy XIII Goes Multiplatform

I’m sure everyone reading this remembers this gem. It flooded forum fan sites and multiconsole sites like the plague and took over like nobody’s business. It was literally — insane. When Microsoft announced at E3 that Square Enix would be bringing Final Fantasy XIII to the Xbox 360, it was as though the President of the United States was letting the world know the end was near.

Gamers started petitions, condemning Sony for letting it happen, boycotting Square Enix for backstabbing Sony loyalists, and throwing money hats towards Microsoft from all directions. Personally, I didn’t get into this crossfire as it was never really a big deal for me, but some of the things going on were crazy and absurd.

Here are two of my favorite comments made about this epic decision from Square:

“i’m about to have a ****ing fit this is such ******** i am very very pissed off WHAT DID SONY DO TO **** THEM OFF why did they back stab Sony now this is really becoming a ……………………..****”

And the second:

Sony just killed ps3 with not signing a exclusive deal with SE, if sony doesnt announce something really good i will sell my ps3 and buy a 360 when i’m finnished with metal gear.. Guess what i dont care about resistance 2 or killzone.

Seriously? This is the type of rage that was going on through a multiplatform announcement. A full year later and most of us don’t even care that it happened anymore. In fact, most gamers swept it under the rug and enjoyed other high-octane roleplaying games that brought it to the next level.

Be honest, were you one of those guys overreacting? On to our next topic!

PlayStation 3 Owners Receive First YLOD

This epidemic was surprisingly big. I never expected this to take off the way it did and spin in to such a sore fest with gamers. It’s easy to sit here and explain that it was such a small scale incident that there wasn’t much to worry about, but hardcore Microsoft fan boys and easily swayable PlayStation 3 owners weren’t going to let this one slide at all — oh no.

Once news hit that some PlayStation 3’s were being given the Yellow Light Of Death, 360 owners and PS3 owners started dubbing it the RROD for the PS3. In fact, a lot of gamers started complaining that the failure rate of the PlayStation 3 was massive and that it was going to trump that of the 360s. Give me a break.

And of course, just like with Final Fantasy XIII going multiplatform — there were more “the sky is falling” PlayStation 3 owners taking up arms over this incident as well. The Official PlayStation Blog was constantly flooded with comments regarding this incident with gamers who seemed too pissed off to act rationally about the situation.

Do I think it was pretty lame that Sony didn’t extend the warranty to cover this? Of course, but then again, Sony also requires a receipt to fulfill your warranty in the first place unlike the other guy. Personally, I’ve had two PlayStation 3s take the swan dive on me within 60 days of one another and I definitely had a long talk with Sony’s customer support division over the issue.

Thankfully this plague didn’t last as long as it could have and people started to calm down early. Otherwise, it could have ruined forum trolling forever. Time to move on!

EA Sports Adds $10 Online Fee to Used Games

Out of all of the overreactions this was probably the most entertaining because of how much of a Catch-22 it was for gamers to get upset about it. Most gamers felt that EA Sports obviously didn’t care about them and thus they’d stop supporting them as a developer — unfortunately, if this was an issue for you, you were buying your games second hand and not supporting the company anyways. If you were buying your games new, then this shouldn’t have been an issue anyway!

Regardless, since this was being conducted by Electronic Arts, the petitions started flying and forums started lighting up about how this was ridiculous and unacceptable. Furthermore, gamers were concerned that this would push other developers to attempt the same business strategy and…it did. Funny enough, it was the other developers who really screwed up with this initiative as THQ released the online code for a broken UFC 2010 which resulted in features online being boring to take part in because of lame gamers.

Surprisingly, the gamers who had the biggest issue with EA trying to make some of its lost revenue back were the resellers. Obviously if you’re an eBay reseller or a guy on CraigsList, it’s going to be hard to charge the regular price for the game you’re selling if the online code is no good and the buyer will have to spent another $10 just to play the game as planned. To be honest, this was a legitimate reason to be upset about the change, after all, you should have the right to resell your own property if you so choose — but it’s kind of hard to resell something you don’t own…the online bandwidth.

Are you one of the gamers who took up mad arms over this change or have you just rolled with the punches because you buy your games new anyways?

Readers Comments (8)

  1. I think the first Yellow Light of Death and EA adding the Online Pass are both pretty lame.

  2. WHAT ABOUT INFAMOUS 2 CHARACTER? I THINK THAT WAS THE WORST ONE EVER I REMEMBER BECAUSE 99.9% WAS MAD ABOUT’IT INCLUDING MYSELF

  3. Though none of these even phased me, I still think FF13 being bought from MS was kinda stupid. I don’t know how well it did on their console but it isn’t the kind of game I see many 360 gamers completely yearning for.

    And I thought EA’s decision for the used games was pretty smart. I always go new anyway 🙂

    I also agree with the guy^ about Infamous 2. That was just ridiculous.

  4. I love how all but one are about the PS3.

    In general that console has been the biggest shitstorm brewer I’ve ever seen in gaming. So much controversy, so much conflict… wow.

  5. The entire reason Microsoft dropped a truckload of cash off at Square Enix’s door was simply to hurt Sony from selling more consoles from FF13. Microsoft didn’t make anywhere near the return on investment required to break even given what it sold on the 360. It was a crap game for FF fanboys anyways.
    Gamers all act like spoiled brats anyways so really, who cares what they think? They never ever act with their wallets as much as they claim, they’re like drug addicts who will accept whatever crap gets thrown at them. Sure they whine about it like babies but do they every not buy something as a result? Of course not, as evidenced by record high sales from EA online-pass-requiring-if-bought-used Fifa 11, Madden 11, as well as crap sequels like Call of Duty Black Ops, and the extremely archaic game design of Gran Turismo 5.

  6. What about when Devil May Cry 4 went multiplatform? People were talking about boycotting Capcom altogether.

  7. Super Smash Bros. Fan January 9, 2011 @ 06:54

    Agree that the Final Fantasy XIII, $10 to pay online with used games, and ApocalyPS3 were most certainly overreactions, but YLOD’s is a hardware failure, which isn’t a good thing and hacking is going to take a toll on PS3 sales.

    @Dave: Disagree with that. I generally find the Nintendo gaming community to be more intense generally then Sony or Microsoft gaming community.

  8. You should of put Mass Effect 2 coming for PS3 up there.

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