I'm not new to the internet. I remember upgrading my 9600 modem to a 14.4 and thinking I was the coolest kid in school (oh, sweet sweet hindsight). But I'm trying to think when exactly the internet became a common ground for people to whine.
Just because you have a voice, a voice loud enough for the world to hear, that doesn't mean everything you say is worth hearing.
Myself included.
Trolls are killing the whole internet experience. People want to be paid attention to and it's so much easier to get attention with inflammatory nonsense than a well versed argument -- ask any 2-year-old.
The biggest trolls right now are easily the Battlefield 3 vs Modern Warfare 3 people. One is better than the other and it's a quantifiable fact!!! You know, eventhough the trolls making these statements more than likely haven't played either -- of course who am I to say all these people don't secretly work for both EA and Activision.
I try to imagine someone standing in the produce section of the supermarket telling everyone who isn't buying apples that they are foolish sheep who need to get over the banana hype! Laughing particularly hard at the guy buying the bunch of bananas that still need to ripen -- "why pay for something that clearly isn't ready!?!!?"
Who wouldn't go out of their way to avoid that guy? But on the internet, he is somebody who must be corrected!
Is anyone else tired of 90% of the forums being based off one emotion: rage.
Everything must be ridiculed. GOW3 is going to offer a DLC season pass...$30 for $40 worth of content. What an outrage! That content should already be included!!!
Well, if that content was already going to be included, the game would cost $100. These prices come from two major questions the developers ask themselves: how much will it cost to produce and how much will people pay for it. Seems pretty reasonable to me.
Maybe that's where the rage came from in the first place. Everyone wants something for nothing and that amazes me. The level of entitlement in today's youth is astonishing.
Maybe I'm asking too much for kids to understand how the global market works.
Wait, the average gamer is 37 (source).
6 years ago, we had Halo and we were happy paying $60 for it. Now, I can buy Black Ops for $60 and when it gets stale, I can get more maps for just $15, and when those maps get stale...more maps! It's like someone saw the need and want for such a thing in the market and decided to produce, market, and then profit off people who like entertainment.
I know people who spend $2000 a year on coffee (Tim Hortons too, not even Starbucks). But an extra $15 for a map pack no one is making you buy in the first place?!?! You may as well be spitting in George Washington, Gandhi, and Santa Clause's collective faces.
I spent $80 on the Black Ops Hardened edition (cause I'm a sweet sucker for stuff like that), then I bought the three map packs as they came out. Total investment: $125. And how many hours did I spend playing? 140hrs since Raptr started keeping track for me, but I have no idea how many hours before that. Am I the only one who is ok paying $125 for over 200-hours of entertainment?
Now Modern Warfare 3 will have bundled in its Hardened edition a membership to Elite which will also include all the DLC intended for MW3 in the 9-months following its release. The price of this package? $100 I'm sure you know. So, I'm getting the extra items that would normally ship with a Hardened edition and for essentially $20 more, I get $60 worth of extra content. In Black Ops terms, I would have saved $25...and that right there is somehow proof to some that Activision is nothing but money grubbing whores.
Even at full price, if someone said "Give me $50 today for $60 spread over the next 9-months," I'd be pretty happy with a 20% return on my money. Sure you're taking a gamble on the quality of the content, but this is obviously geared at those who are so passionate about the game they are going to buy it for sure.
Both MW3 and BF3 are going to win big. I'm sure both will be rated very well and will be enjoyed by millions around the globe. And if we're lucky the flame war will die down and we can all enjoy it for a little while...until a teaser trailer rolls around for the next installment of either franchise.
But like I said, just cause I wrote something that doesn't mean it means anything. Trolls only exist because we pay them attention. Don't you have something bigger to worry about?