And this is only my second blog post.
I can't believe I've been on this site for almost 7 years.... and I find myself asking "why?"
"Why not?" you ask? Well;
The reviews on gamespot are generally a joke
Now, let me get this out of the way, because I know anyone reading this will think or say it. Yes, a review is only an opinion. But, unfortunately, yes they are a big deal. Anyone who follows gaming knows that metacritic scores do directly impact game sales, and also impact the careers and livelihoods of developers. Jobs and bonuses can be made or lost based on reviews. Reviews do matter. This isn't my opinion... it's fact. And it's a sad fact. Reviews shouldn't matter. Every person will experience any form of media differently. Of course, a broken or glitched game is just plain bad... but a game you didn't enjoy for whatever reason will likely be enjoyed by another person... just like some people are touched by a soft melody and others are touched by hardcore "gangsta" rap. It's subjective. Everyone has their own tastes. Not only do I find Gamespot reviews to be way off the mark of my own tastes (and frequnetly other game reviewing sites and magazines too), but after being here through "Gerstmanngate", I'm fully convinced the reviews are based more upon advertising dollars and less on the quality of a game. I never liked Gerstmann (quite the contrary), but to (allegedly) fire him for giving a game a bad review after gamespot was having its palm greased by the developers is... sickening. It undermines the entire community of game reviewers and compromises everything that writers that cover gaming have built over the last few decades. Disgusting.
Gamespot's mods are power-mad nerds trying to get back at a society that picked on them in grade school.
For realz. My most recent (of many) encounter went as follows; Someone posted on the PS3 forum that they had gone through a few consoles, some of which had drive problems and others with "YLOD". I made a post, and it was deleted and I was informed that I had lost points (ohno!) for "trolling". What did I say? Did I call the guy a liar? Nope. Did I laugh at his loss? Nope. Did I tell him it was his fault for not taking care of his stuff? Nope. In fact, these are all typical responses to this kind of topic on gamespot that nobody bats an eyelash at. In response to members posting that they had never heard of the PS3 having problems, I simply said;
"People seem to forget the PS3 isn't fail-proof. YLOD (and some other errors) are somewhat common. Not nearly as common as the RRoD, don't get me wrong... but they do happen.
It's just that the 360 has been so horrible about failing that the problems Sony has are overlooked. I'd still trust my PS3 over my 360 for long gaming hours in the middle of summer."
Oh the horror! I was obviously trying to anger people on the PS3 forum by saying it's more reliable than the xbox! What a horrible troll I am!! I was also modded with point loss (ohno!) once for using the word "rape". Did I threaten someone? Did I tell a girl she should be attacked? Nope. I said I was sick of getting spawn-raped in Modern Warfare. This context has nothing to do with the other context of the word. It's a quite common term in gaming, and most importantly is not a censored word on Gamespot. If this word is not acceptable in any context, then why is it not censored? And why, though I had seen the word used in that context many times before, and many times since, did I get modded for using it?
Why? I imagine because some nerd mod was thinking back to the time in fifth grade that some alpha-male sixth-grader (that had actually kissed a girl... something that I assume most Gamespot mods still haven't accomplished) knocked Mr Goderator's lunch tray out of his little greasy hands, and figured he'd get revenge by abusing his power on a video game message board. Sad.
In all seriousness, though... the mods here are ridiculous. There's no rhyme or reason to it... no real rules. If some 12 year old doesn't like something you said, they'll report you... and whether you actually broke the rules or not, the mods WILL delete/lock your post.
And don't get me started on the whole "sticky" thing. If someone is having trouble with their Xbox 360 and starts a thread asking for help or information, the mods will lock the thread and tell them to "use the sticky." Yeah, the one with (seriously) 46 pages to sort through that nobody ever reads and you're unlikely to get help within a day or so. And there's stickies like this in every forum that cover a very broad topic, and if you start a thread that even kind of falls under the spectrum of that topic... LOCKED. You MUST post it in the sticky that nobody reads. I started a thread in System Wars about an article that was posted on cracked.com about the decline of the gaming industry. This article used E3 as the launching point for the discussion, but was not completely about E3. Just when a good discussion got going... LOCKED. The article mentioned E3, so "IT BELONGS IN THE E3 THREAD." Yet fifteen threads like "Who wud win b tween master chef an solud snaek?!?" are perfectly acceptable. Stupid.
So, after all this crybabying why don't I just leave? Why would I keep coming to a site I just want to post blogs crying about? Come on... say it; "u mad" Not really... because of the community. Yeah, there's some annoying brats here, there's some trolls, there's even a few psychos whose posts seem to have no logic or reasoning to them whatsoever... but we're all a big, messed up, dysfunctional family. I can go to any game's profile and find some well-written, informative reviews from real people that aren't letting swag or cash influence their opinion. I can jump on the main page and find some great, informative blogs and read opinions and information from other gamers. I can go into a game's forum and ask a question about a game or a part of a game I'm stuck on and get quick and helpful responses (that is, if my thread doesn't get locked and I'm not told "There's a sticky that says 'POST ALL VIDEO GAME RELATED DISCUSSION HERE'. Please use it.")
It's not Gamespot's E3 coverage (which was sometimes broken this year), or their writers, or their mods that make the place worth coming back to. It's the community. It's YOU (no, not you. Put some pants on. The rest of you.) that makes this place great.
Will I still be on this site 7 years from now? Who knows. But despite all of the things that suck about this site... I've enjoyed being here for the last 7. And maybe if I do stick around, I'll do a bit more blogging... next time with 88% less complaining! We'll see where it goes from here....
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