Angry Fan Culture Rant #1 (of probably many)

April 15th, 2009

Juvenile violence; see the Wii is full of mature games

I don’t do it often, but this is an angry rant at disobedient fans who deserve nothing more than my angry rant hatred. Sorry, I try to keep angriness to a minimum here, oh well. I’m just as bad. By the way, being angry means that I don’t need to provide referential proof on any claims I make, so just trust me.

Fan cultures are marvelous things aren’t they? As much as we might deny it, we all belong to certain membership groups of fan culture. I think part of the denial for some people (myself included) is a fear of the connotation surrounding these beastly cultures.

I’m a born and bred Nintendo fan, no denying it. They reeled me in at a tender age and nurtured me into the obedient customer I am today. Yet, I’ll rarely ever claim that I’m with those guys, because honestly I don’t like to be cobbled together with the average Nintendo fan. I can’t stand the folk actually. They’re a cultural identity that feels pushed to breaking point by their masters, the reality and their fandom are at parallels.

I use to think that Nintendo gamers were purist gamers, the kind evangelized by this stupendously biased editorial. Innovation, challenge and righteousness in their gaming mindset were all qualities that any Nintendo fan would testify to at the cusp of the Revolution (reveal of the Nintendo Wii); a time when losses were made and changes were promised by the company. Nintendo gamers were preachers of these lessons, lessons handed down to them during the Gamecube era where Nintendo used such tactics as a form of persuasion to keep fans within the fold (ie. the Nintendo difference). The fans bought the idea of innovation and ultimately threw it back up when they discovered that innovation pushed them outside of their fan culture comfort zone, and as a result we have undeserved backlash at the company. Go on and chase the “casual” crowd I say, at least they’re not hypocrites.

What frustrates me more than anything else is the whining. Constantly complaining that Nintendo isn’t delivering enough to satisfy their bottomless appetites. Yet, if you start asking questions you slowly discovering obvious holes in their argument and in fact in their fandom. Truth is these people (as true of any fan) stay well within their comfort zone. They never go out of their way to purchase anything but a select few qualifiable titles by first party Nintendo and a select number of trusted third parties (the jury’s still out on EA). These people rarely buy Virtual console titles, despite the majority having missed a generation or two of games. They’re not interested in Harvest Moon, Kirby’s Adventure, Adventure Island/Wonder Boy, Ogre Battle, Ristar or any of the niche TurboGrafx shmps. The Virtual Console is a literal goldmine of games that could keep any player invested for months, particularly if they’re willing to open themselves to it to.

The same applies with the general software line up. They’re not interested in games such as Rune Factory Frontier, Bangai-O Spirits, the Art Style games or anything that dabbles in the unconventional. Instead they pin their hopes on titles that mimic the thick headed shooters that overpopulate the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. Some flag bearers of innovation eh? With that sort of mindset I sure do hope Madworld and The Conduit are enough to keep them busy for a while, before they evangelize another wannabe drop off.

I just don’t get these people, they’re supposive fans yet they’re not interested in going back and fine tuning their (probably) weak collection of retro games, nor will they try something new let alone give Nintendo credit for making millions of average Joes happy. You can see how Reggie has become increasingly more resentful towards this unhappy demograph. I’m sick of talking about it, angry rant over.