You go to the games shop. You see a game that you know just arrived today. The box art looks good. You pick it up, and read the blurb. The previews you have read about the game seemed promising. It seems like your type of game. You slap down some cash, and take that baby home.

You put the disc in your machine, grab the manual, and flick through it while the game loads. Once it gets to the start screen, you drop the manual, pick up the controller, and decide to just play through the tutorial. It eases you nicely into the controls; in fact you are surprised at how fluidly the game controls. The graphics are crisp, with a great artistic style. The accompanying music fits the tone of the game perfectly.

After playing for a few hours, you are suitably impressed with the pacing, enemy and level designs, and enemy AI. The gameplay mechanics are streamlined, and offers something that other games you've played in the genre don't seem to have.

You head over to a message board to post about your experience; perhaps other people have overlooked it, and you might convince them to give it a go. You lay down a few paragraphs about how much you have enjoyed the game so far. You head back to keep playing your new favourite game.

You check the message boards the next day, and you are a little shocked by a few responses to your message, such as;

"How can you possibly like this game? Your taste in games is horrible"
"Were we even playing the same game? Are you retarded?"
"Maybe you need glasses. I nearly clawed out of my eyes just looking at those graphics"

There are no games that will satisfy 100% of gamers. That's a given. What irks me about the above situation is not that someone else doesn't like the game you mentioned. What does irk me about the situation is that other people attack the player for liking the game.

My question to those people is; What do you gain from trying to turn someone away from a game that they are currently enjoying? Why can't you let them go on enjoying the game, even if it is something you don't personally like? If they are genuinely having fun, let them. By all means, respond to their fervour for the game with aspects you may not have liked, but there is no reason to imply they are not allowed to have fun, or that there is something wrong with them for doing so.

You can choose almost any game on Gamespot. If you check out the user reviews, there will be a range of scores. Unfortunately I can't find a link or identify the author of the line (I'm sure I read it on this site somewhere), but a quote I find rather relevant to the topic is "Every game is a system seller to someone". If they give the game a 9 out of 10 while Gamspot (or any review site, or any reviewer at all) gave it 6, let them have 9 out of 10 enjoyment.

Of course, the same applies to the reverse situation. There is no reason to insult someone because they don't like a game. Super Mario Galaxy was the best rated game of last year, and it was my personal favourite game of the year. Yet in some forums I've read, some people tried it and simply weren't interested or didn't like it. I don't think there is anything wrong with those people. They had their own personal game of the year, and garnered as much enjoyment from that title as I did Mario.

So my message in the end is; keep playing games you enjoy, and let others play the games they enjoy. That's the prime reason games exist; to be enjoyed.

Keep enjoying!