This situation is terrible, and I honestly feel for Jennifer Hepler. Nobody should have to wade through a cesspool of verbal abuse and, in some cases pure hatred, simply for having an opinion/idea which differs from the one that others have.
However, even though I truly believe that Jennifer was treated horribly (and wish that things like this would never happen), the article at Gamespot (and Kotaku?) is disingenuous and sensationalistic at best. The article (unfortunately) presents a very narrow, one-sided view of the bigger issue at hand by choosing to focus solely on the obnoxious, self-entitled gamers who choose to go overboard in their criticism of products, creative personnel and companies whilst leaving the other major parties/factors out of the equation.
Something that each one of us needs to recognize and remember is that this situation doesn’t exist solely with the ‘extremist baddies who criticize’, not by a long shot. This situation also encompasses the fans that support games and game companies (or any other product and its associated creators) with the extremist attitude of religious zealots. These people are just as bad, just as abusive and just as wrong as those who engaged in insulting Jennifer Hepler. Just look around the BSN for all the evidence you could possibly need. Both the DA:2 forum and the ME3 forum are rife with instances of abusive dog-piling on individuals who dared to offer criticism of any kind on those respective games. This occurs/has occurred not only against individuals that have gone too far in their criticism and ended up personally insulting people involved with the project(s) but also against individuals who have offered well-thought, well-presented critique. It doesn’t happen all of the time (just as Jennifer Hepler doesn’t get lambasted for every single thing that she puts out for public consumption) but it does happen. The number of times that individuals benignly offering their opinion have been victims of this mob mentality and have subsequently been called stupid (whether it was overtly or simply alluded to in one of a thousand different ways), useless, “basement dwellers”, and a host of other insults and judgmental terms is simply staggering. Just as there is a sense of entitlement with some fans to criticize games/game developers in the harshest ways possible, there is an equal sense of entitlement in the fans that overzealously protect the games/games developers with a fair amount of abuse of their own aimed toward any and all who don’t share their exact opinion of the respective product(s).
For a full picture of the situation we also have to look at the companies and the individuals that speak for them. In this particular situation we have to fairly asses the responding comments made by Hepler and Flynn. Now, while I understand that they were both angry and frustrated over what had occurred, and that Jennifer was definitely the victim in this scenario, it doesn’t make their respective comments any better or any more palatable. They are in the (unenviable) role of leadership in this developer to customer relationship, and thus have to set the standard for behavior by leading through example. This can be extremely difficult to do but it is the right way to proceed/respond. For them to take it upon themselves to make abusive/judgmental statements back to the initial offenders is as much a sense of entitlement as that which fuels those individuals who feel that they can say anything because they felt ripped off/disappointed by a game purchase. In other words, because Jennifer was wronged she and Flynn felt entitled to similarly wrong others.
Now, I can already anticipate a ton of posts attempting to justify the responses by Hepler and Flynn. That being the case let me present a comparable scenario that often plays out on the BSN. Going back to the zealous fans and those instances where they protect the games and the game developers at all costs we can see the dog-piling and the associated abusive comments, and it’s simply business as usual. However, when one of those individuals who has been bullied/abused inevitably strikes back, with equal or escalated comments of their own, suddenly all of those involved in the bullying point the finger and play the role of helpless victims to this ‘horrible’ individual who they then want called to task for their abhorrent behavior. Of course, this does happen in the reverse as well, but the attitude of the forum, the developers who participate in the forum, the moderators and gaming journalism in general is that the blame always lies at the feet of the individuals who don’t like and dare to critique/criticize the products and the companies – again, even in instances where the individual didn’t go too far with the initial critique and was bullied into striking back. If an action is wrong on one side of the coin it has to still be wrong on the other side as well.
As far as the gaming companies in general are concerned, there is also a fair amount of entitlement going on. Look at some of the policies put forth by gaming companies over the years and some of the DRM schemes and the large sense of entitlement that we (the paying customers) should simply and gladly swallow these things without a word of concern or protest, regardless of the situation. For BioWare in particular there is a sense of entitlement and hubris put forth in regards to public perception and reception of their games. The whole mess of generalization/homogenization with DA:2 that “people can’t accept change” which morphed into “they only wanted DA:O2” (which intrinsically implied that no matter how good of a game BioWare would have made those people who didn’t like it were so stubbornly dysfunctional that they wouldn’t have accepted anything else – even if it was the best game ever) was nothing less than an attempt to erroneously lay the blame at the feet of those who didn’t like the game rather than taking responsibility for making a game that a lot of people simply didn’t like. In addition, we have the conspiracy theories put forth for both DA:2 and SW:ToR surrounding the Metacritic user scores. Of course, the large number of “9’s” and “10’s” for both games are completely legitimate because nobody who likes a game would spam a gaming site with high scores, just as nobody would spam a gaming site with votes for a certain game to be named “Most Anticipated”. To me, and (judging from comments I’ve seen in various places) to many others, these things speak volumes of BioWare’s particular sense of entitlement.
So what does all this mean? Is this an indication that pretty much everyone is showing some sense of entitlement? In a word, yes. But it’s more than that. There’s this overarching theme that an injustice was done and that it needs to be addressed. This is true. But, my concern is why now? Why should this persistent, all-encompassing problem be addressed only when an individual who works for a developer is the victim? Why wasn’t this addressed after DA:2 launched and many that didn’t like the game were verbally abused because of it? Why wasn’t this addressed after Stargate Universe premiered and individuals that didn’t like the way the sex scenes were portrayed were bullied and harassed as they were deemed sexually dysfunctional in a variety of ways on a number of public forums where the mob mentality became particularly ugly?
What this all really comes down to is the concept that if we want to see justice done, then it truly has to be just and apply to everyone equally. We can’t pick and choose where justice will apply so that it is enforced only in favor our particular flavor of bias, because that isn’t justice at all. I really hope that Gamespot, and any other site that is featuring this article, will at least do a follow up piece where all of the aspects of this very dysfunctional, circular situation, which has each piece of the equation playing off of and perpetuating the others, are laid out for some honest scrutiny and discussion. Because as it is currently presented, this is just another piece which reinforces by omission the erroneous belief that those who dislike something and have the gall to voice it are always the ones to blame, while those who like and praise products are left completely out of the cross-hairs, regardless of their behavior. I’ve been on both sides of the coin with different media and this situation is always the same.
Modifié par HanabPacal, 22 février 2012 - 07:00 .
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