When asked if he could change anything about the game industry, Treyarch’s community manager said he would stop all the bitching from fans.
The gaming industry, similar to many other pursuits, has a very vocal community of fans that post endlessly on forums about why this or that game sucks. There is nothing wrong with speaking your mind in a clear and concise way, but as the Community Manager for a major developer, Josh Olin thinks that such complaining isn’t helpful. Part of his job is monitoring the Call of Duty: Black Ops community, and he finds reading the constant negativity and vitriol to be the worst part of his job.
“Personally, as a community manager who lives in the media or social media world every day, I think the social culture of video games is moving in a more negative direction as technology and social media continues to grow,” Olin said. “Rather than growing with it, the trend seems to be devolving. More and more gamers seem to forget what this industry is all about.” Which is ostensibly bringing fun and entertainment to millions of people, something that many so-called fans forget.
More than that, Olin believes the reactions are actually holding the industry back from taking risks. “It’s a creative industry – the most creative form of entertainment in existence,” he said. “Too many developers who try new things are getting burned by ‘pundits’ and angry entitled fans who look to be contrarian, sometimes simply for the sake of being contrarian. The only thing this attitude aims to achieve is stunt that creativity and innovation even further, which is something that no rational gamer looking to be entertained would want to do.”
I may not be a huge Treyarch fan, but I think that Olin just perfectly expressed something that I’ve been considering for a while. Why are so many gamers quick to bitch about a game that exists solely to provide pleasure? It seems that the more popular a game is, the more people “hate” it, while they still play it every day.
Can’t we all just get along?
Source: Now Gamer
