5 Signs You’re an Entitled Gamer – Stop Whining


3) But I Want It Now!!!!!

Instant gratification is as much a part of our society as obesity, but when you demand it, you smell an awful lot like an Entitled Gamer. These three NOWS!! are the most used by entitled gamers: FIX BUGS NAO! NEW DLC NAO! NERF NAO! and all of these are equally whiny. When it comes to bugs, some gamers don’t understand that in coding nothing is simple. There isn’t a magic button you can push to stop armor clipping, quests failing, or to end the extreme game crashes. Instead, hours must be spent analyzing code and painstakingly fixing it so that it doesn’t interfere with anything else in the game. This takes time, and you really aren’t a master coder that can fix it faster than the programming team, no matter how many times you scream it on the forums. New DLC or Content Now is among the most paradoxical. Not must content be perfect according to you, it also has to be immediate.

Wanting new content in itself isn’t the problem, it is wanting it days after release, hours after you have beat the game and the dlc that was already released with it. Not everyone plays games at the same pace, not everyone needs a 4 hour expansion every time they beat the last one; entitled gamers do, though. Calls for nerfs used to be solely for MMOs, but now the entitled gamer has taken these requests to apply to single player games. If a play style is better than another well then *gasp* everyone must hear it and it must be rectified immediately. Well…no actually, while gaming balance comes into play for some things, it has very little importance in single player games. With such a large variety of mechanics/classes comes a variety of difficulty, as long as each one can beat the AI why should you care if your friend’s Vanguard is better than your Engineer?


4) $5 for Extra Content = Evil Capitalist Pigs

Of all the complaints from the Entitled Gamer this is the one I find the most irksome. Nostalgia glasses make us think back to beating a game to unlock skins or maybe a bonus weapon for free, some people however take this to a delusional extreme and believe that any priced content released for a game is greed at work. First let’s tackle a biggie, “OMGEERD the content is on the disk!” gamers become rabid at these words. The problem is that the money you spend for a game is just buying access to the game, not everything on the disk. This seems to go against common sense but bear with me for a moment. The disk contains the game and the bonus content; you are buying access to the game, not everything on the disk. Does it sound like I am repeating myself here, well I am, the point being it is an easy concept to grasp. The “I am buying everything you have made ever when I buy the game” mentality extends to when DLC is released on the same day as the game.

Complaining about this just shows that the entitled gamer is out of the loop when it comes to developing the game. See in order to appease the people who are content hungry all the time, developers start working on new content immediately. Some of this content is completed as the game goes through process of rating and production, meaning that while it arrives to you the same time the game does it was made afterwards. To expect this for free when it was clearly a separate effort, puts the greed ball back in your court.  This brings us back to the most absurd notion: all DLC should be free. This is the definition of entitled, demanding you deserve everything made for a game at the low price of the original. The idea is so insane it makes countering it easy: More work for Developer = More money paid to Developer. Got it? Good.


5) This Game Sucks!

While I am sure companies would love otherwise, not liking a game is fine, hating it is fine; but if you think you deserve a better game, then you’re definitely an Entitled Gamer. Running to the forums after 5 minutes of playing it does not bode well, but alas many gamers start the dark road of entitlement with this puzzling act. See, disliking a game is natural; having everyone who will hear you know that you HATE it, however, not only makes you entitled but neurotic. All a gamer deserves is for a game developer to try their hardest to produce a quality product. If it fails to meet your exalted standards, that’s fine but that doesn’t mean it sucks to everyone. The entitled gamer believes that everyone agrees with them, and is subsequently shocked when people don’t.

They feel that the developer has to listen to them, that they are so important that they personally get to determine the way the game progresses in the future. The hilarious part is that they can never agree. Some people think game X is way too much of a departure from its predecessor, others may think the same game hasn’t changed enough, that it is copying other games too much, that it is being too innovative for its own good, the list goes on. This chorus of entitled gamers leads to a massive ADD community that makes it impossible for developers to win. If they listen then they are criticized for the features that where demanded, if not then they are out of touch with their fanbase. This is a vicious cycle that only causes more of the same problems that Entitled Gamers want fixed.

If any of the above sounds familiar to you, I would suggest going to the nearest mirror, screaming at yourself and maybe giving yourself a slap or two. You are what is wrong with this gaming generation. You need to grow up, mature a bit, learn that you can buy a game and not own it’s IP, report bugs without being consumed by them, be patient, pay people fairly for their hard work and offer feedback without demands or show disapproval without grandstanding. If these don’t describe you then thanks, you are one of the good ones.

– With much love,
John Riccitiello
EA CEO

Check out this other piece from another writer to see the other side of the argument. Let us know what you think!

Readers Comments (10)

  1. I have a huge problem with #4. I’ll have to go into great detail when I’m off work.

  2. Great stuff right here, I agree with all of these points. #4 is probably the one that I liked best, simply because people don’t realize that because of the other points on this list, point #4 is happening. If gamers didn’t expect stuff right away and without any effort, not only would the quality of games increase, but a lot of these “issues” would just dissolve away. See EA, I am totally worth hiring.

  3. No I refuse!!!! #4 is loaded. Case and point: Capcom. They’ll place FINISHED content on the disc but hide it behind DLC. In my eyes thats a preconceived plan to nickle and dime consumers. What happened to putting as much content as you can into a product to warrant these $59 price tags? This on disc content frenzy is all a way for them to combat used game sales and you guys know it!

  4. Sorry but I can’t give you the 4th one… And let me tell you that you sound like a fascist capitalist tool. You really need to open that mind and think beyond because this world is not only made out of black and white.

    Marijuana nor piracy are as bad as some people make it out to be. Specially piracy when it has helped industries like the anime industry to reach and expand on new markets. This is just another example that rationalism has never been the way to go but for some reason gamers still believe in it.

  5. I have to say “Screw you” big time on number one.
    Yes, even though the game is not mine, the money still is and I do expect to get a game of my liking. Saying “Well do it better your self.” is just most dumbest argument I’ve ever heard, as a game as well as a game creator. That’s like buying a broken vacuumcleaner for 100bucks and when you are complaining about it the only answer you get is “Do it better yourself.” That’s bull and you know it.

    As a gamer I can only buy like one or two games a year so ofcourse I want to enjoy the game especially if it is a “SEQUEL” to previous game I enjoyed a lot. If it’s a prequel, well, then I can’t complain as much since I don’t know what to expect.

    As for number four.
    Well I’m sorry for expecting to buy a finished game?
    That’s like ordering a steak with potatoes from a restaurant for 15bucks and the chef would bring you warm steak with raw potatoes and say “You’ll have to pay 5 bucks extra if you want those potatoes cooked.”
    Seriously, if they don’t want us to have the access to the content then why to put it in there in the first place? That’s just simply cashing. I’m not saying DLC should be completely free but jeesh, 5bucks for a something that’s already in there? Or better yet, for what should BE in there already.
    I remember when we got these expansion backs that gave us DISC FULL OF CONTENT like new maps, weapons ‘n stuff for 10 up to 40 bucks.

    • I agree that developers should at least try to make complete games and that ON DISC DLC is absolutely unacceptable (e.g. ultimate Mavel vs cashcom 3) in my opinion. Colton, the argument is not that you are buying everything that they have ever made, but that if content is already complete at the time of release it is wrong to exclude it for the sake of making an extra buck especially if it makes the game incomplete. I love to use the UMvC3 example because they released a “complete” version of the game that was still incomplete without paying more for DLC that was on disc. that means that as a competitive player i cant just buy the complete edition (like what MK did) and play, i have to get the complete edition (which is already more expensive than the core game) and then get more DLC. That isnt being entitled, it’s asking the company to be reasonable.

  6. Regarding Mass Effect 3’s extra content, thing is everything besides Javik (eg. Leviathan, Citadel, Omega, as well as the Extended Cut) were not advertised with the original game. There was no mention of those 4 DLCs during the pre-release statements, and the Extended Cut wasn’t planned initially. Only made after the fans overreacted to the ending, even though the answers to explain the ending are in the game.

    People can claim it’s an unfinished game all they want, but if the DLC wasn’t advertised, you’re not “entitled” to it. It’s like buying a plain colored car, but if you want a red color or one with extra features like automatic transmission, where the car normally comes with standard transmission, you have to pay extra for that. Or back in the day, you had manual windows, but if you wanted a “power window” which rolled down with a push of a button, you had to pay for it.

    As with Javik, I was going to mention, there was a extra character from Dragon Age Origins that was a pre-order bonus that people got for free (Stone Prisoner, as well as Blood Dragon Armor), but if you bought the game after the release date, you had to pay $15 for the Stone Prisoner. As with Javik, this character also added quite a bit to the lore and such. I wasn’t around back then, but I’m sure there were people complaining about that.

    Thing is though, and I hate to say this, capitalism is a system where you exchange money for goods and services. Special DLC is considered a good that you pay for. I mean is it really going to kill someone to pay $10 for DLC? Especially when it wasn’t advertised with the game?

    Maybe it’s only a nuisance for people who don’t have jobs, a lot of money, or mooch off their parents. For those that have lots of money, $10 is nothing. Maybe some of these people complaining about having to pay $5 for extra content should get off their couch and get a job. Work hard and you can buy anything you want.

    Just like anything in life, if you want something you have to work for it. Not everything comes for free. There is no “rule” that games should cost no more than $60. In fact, compared to games from 1990, you are actually paying less, and you’re getting more content. A game from 1990 could be finished in a couple hours at the most, and you paid $50-70 for it. That is roughly $110-120 of today’s money. So $60 for 2 hours worth of content, but today, you pay $60 and you get 30 hours worth of content, plus hundreds of hours in replay value. That’s a pretty good deal.

    If you want to talk about ancient gaming, people used to rack up $40 on arcade games, and that was only 5 minutes of play for anywhere between 25 cents all to way up to $1 or so. That’s a different story though.

    Gamers want as much content, for as little money as they can get away with. Talk about being greedy.

    Damn people are spoiled brats.

  7. It’s amazing how much gamers are expected to just accept, when with consumers of any other media it would be completely understandable.

    Take #2 for example. We’re supposed to be ok with glitches and bugs and mess with gameplay? I’m not talking the harmless ones that make you laugh, I mean the ones that mess up the controls, make the level unpassable, or make you have to hard reset your console.

    If a movie you purchased had a scene where the sound cut out, you’d complain. If a book had words smeared across several pages, making it unreadable, you’d complain. I don’t see why gamers get called entitled for complaining about a broken product.

  8. I think gamers tend to overreact when it comes to bugs. Some bugs may be caused by the game, but some are actual bugs in the game. I played a few games at release and there was maybe 3-4 actual bugs that I noticed. Maybe one big one, but that’s it.

    Games aren’t like cars, where if the axle breaks and the car crashes someone could get killed. That I understand. Obviously you want a car that works safely. Games don’t have such safety issues. Not going to get killed by bugs or issues.

    The other thing to note, aside from number of beta testers, is that games are made by human beings. Human beings aren’t perfect and neither is the stuff that they make. Game may not even be that buggy, it’s just some people actually tend to go out of their way looking for bugs.

    There are actually some gamers out there who think that 5 years in development is not enough time to make and test a game, where the average game gets maybe 2-3 years. Gotta deal with those too.

    Like the article notes, games are getting more complex. While it might take 3-5 years to make a game this generation, might take 5-7 the next. And 7-9 the next generation. I don’t know.

    I don’t know if consumers can actually force game developers to push back games. If people do have an issue with the game’s quality, I’d personally talk to the developers directly, instead of on a random internet site or forum.

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