Do Gamers Act More Entitled Than Other Media Consumers?

[Moonface]

We had a thread on the old board that covered this and it didn't get a lot of traction at the time, and after reading about the various actions people have been taking in response to Genshin Impact's anniversary the subject of entitlement came to my mind again. In particular, I got the thought about whether gamers act more entitled than those who are into movies, music, TV shows, or some other form of media that gets produced. I don't ever really see people getting annoyed by delays to movies or hear about directors or artists getting death threats, but it could just be I don't spend time in proximity to those circles to know how much it happens. I know there's sometimes backlash like with the design of Sonic for the movie, but that feels less like entitlement and more just feedback being given. I don't recall many if any people acting like they were entitled to a better design.

This isn't to say that there's no entitlement in other areas of media. I just get the feeling that gaming has it significantly more but I wanted to see if anyone else has the same feeling or has seen examples of it being just as bad or worse in some other media field.

[Dragon Lord]

As someone who is only really active in the gaming scene, I can't really say whether or not gamers are more entitled as whole. I know I've seen plenty of instances where movie fanatics trashed on a movie because it wasn't 100% what they wanted the movie to be, so I'd say that gamers probably aren't any more entitled than other bases, but it's just that since most of us here are mainly in the gaming scene, we just don't experience it as we do with gamers.

In the case of the Genshin drama you mentioned, I think it has less to do with entitlement overall and more to do with the fact that a lot of big Genshin content creators told their viewerbases that we'd be getting unrealistic things for the anniversary (90 free pulls, able to select a free 5* character/weapon), and of course their viewers are going to believe it. So then when it didn't happen, people threw a fit. The bigger problem lies with those content creators putting those unrealistic ideals into people's heads and then turning around and profiting off of the "OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE MIHOYO IS SCREWING US ON THE ANNIVESARY!!!111!1!111!1111!" videos. Basically they set MiHoYo up to get roasted and for themselves to make a huge profit off of it.

So yeah, take away those toxic content creators and I think the anniversary stuff in Genshin would have gone a lot more smoothly. But they know they can put ideas into their viewer's heads and know their viewers will run with them, and then they can make a huge profit off of the reaction videos later.

[Nightingale]

Boy, do they ever! I have seen such unfair trashings and commentaries that I don't even look up reviews anymore and have actually gone full circle, judging games by their cover art and screenshots, like I would do on my video store rental days.

[Moonface]

In the case of the Genshin drama you mentioned, I think it has less to do with entitlement overall and more to do with the fact that a lot of big Genshin content creators told their viewerbases that we'd be getting unrealistic things for the anniversary (90 free pulls, able to select a free 5* character/weapon), and of course their viewers are going to believe it. So then when it didn't happen, people threw a fit. The bigger problem lies with those content creators putting those unrealistic ideals into people's heads and then turning around and profiting off of the "OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE MIHOYO IS SCREWING US ON THE ANNIVESARY!!!111!1!111!1111!" videos. Basically they set MiHoYo up to get roasted and for themselves to make a huge profit off of it.

So yeah, take away those toxic content creators and I think the anniversary stuff in Genshin would have gone a lot more smoothly. But they know they can put ideas into their viewer's heads and know their viewers will run with them, and then they can make a huge profit off of the reaction videos later.

I can't decide if this leans more towards entitlement or toxicity. For the creators of those videos it is absolutely the latter, but for the viewers of those videos it's a mixture of both. They're acting entitled to things they aren't owed, even if they were misled by a third party. They shouldn't so blindly believe rumours and unsubstantiated claims to the extent of getting angry when it doesn't come true because nothing indicated it would be true in the first place. By all means be disappointed but attacking a developer for not getting what you want or led yourself to believe when the developer made no official claim of doing what you think they'll do is peak entitlement by acting like you're owed something that was never even promised.

Imagine acting that way in real life scenarios such as a court of law. I would hope those people would never consider berating the judge or the jury if the trial didn't go their way to the exact letter because they just led themselves to believe they would get something that can never be guaranteed.

Boy, do they ever! I have seen such unfair trashings and commentaries that I don't even look up reviews anymore and have actually gone full circle, judging games by their cover art and screenshots, like I would do on my video store rental days.

TLoU 2 is the first thing that comes to mind for a game being utterly ripped a new arsehole unfairly. The game hadn't even come out yet and the amount of hatred that game was getting based on leaks or stupid claims such as "x character is trans" was ridiculous, and there are still numerous people who respond to Naughty Dog on Twitter with responses that the game should be remade because they didn't like how the story went, or that Druckmann should be fired, or demanding the company releases Factions 2 or a PS5 update or whatever else. I'm not saying they can't dislike the game and criticize it, but don't go making demands of a company because the game they produced wasn't exactly what you wanted and act like the company betrayed you for doing it. Putting out a game that is actually badly made like FIFA 22 on Switch and demanding better (without being a complete dick) is not the same as demanding a game change itself to suit your needs.

[Mr EliteL]

Not sure about if it's more than other media, but with patches, updates and DLC along with people who are apart of a video game's production, direction and what have you having an account on social media then I think gamers nowadays seem more entitled than before. Trying to get what they expect to be in, into a game.

Tekken 7 is a good example with the character Lei Wulong, who was not a part of the launch roster but a "legacy" character who had been in every game since Tekken 2. Players were complaining so much about him not being in the game to Harada on Twitter, Lei was eventually added as DLC in Season 2. Then people complained about his new design, so in later promos like with the announcement of the character Leroy Smith who fought off Law and Lei, Lei's outfit was of his classic costume instead of his new one. Also someone found usage data for characters in Tekken 7 and low and behold, Lei is one of the lowest used characters, or definitely incredibly low when with amount of people trying to get him in you'd think he'd be in the middle somewhere, no he was 43rd/50. I believe Harada himself may have commented on that too, something like he wasn't going to listen to whiners anymore or something to that effect, can't find it now. There was other stuff that was complained about, but that was the most memorable one and I pay less attention to the Tekken community now any way.

[Nightingale]

In the case of the Genshin drama you mentioned, I think it has less to do with entitlement overall and more to do with the fact that a lot of big Genshin content creators told their viewerbases that we'd be getting unrealistic things for the anniversary (90 free pulls, able to select a free 5* character/weapon), and of course their viewers are going to believe it. So then when it didn't happen, people threw a fit. The bigger problem lies with those content creators putting those unrealistic ideals into people's heads and then turning around and profiting off of the "OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE MIHOYO IS SCREWING US ON THE ANNIVESARY!!!111!1!111!1111!" videos. Basically they set MiHoYo up to get roasted and for themselves to make a huge profit off of it.

So yeah, take away those toxic content creators and I think the anniversary stuff in Genshin would have gone a lot more smoothly. But they know they can put ideas into their viewer's heads and know their viewers will run with them, and then they can make a huge profit off of the reaction videos later.

I can't decide if this leans more towards entitlement or toxicity. For the creators of those videos it is absolutely the latter, but for the viewers of those videos it's a mixture of both. They're acting entitled to things they aren't owed, even if they were misled by a third party. They shouldn't so blindly believe rumours and unsubstantiated claims to the extent of getting angry when it doesn't come true because nothing indicated it would be true in the first place. By all means be disappointed but attacking a developer for not getting what you want or led yourself to believe when the developer made no official claim of doing what you think they'll do is peak entitlement by acting like you're owed something that was never even promised.

Imagine acting that way in real life scenarios such as a court of law. I would hope those people would never consider berating the judge or the jury if the trial didn't go their way to the exact letter because they just led themselves to believe they would get something that can never be guaranteed.

Boy, do they ever! I have seen such unfair trashings and commentaries that I don't even look up reviews anymore and have actually gone full circle, judging games by their cover art and screenshots, like I would do on my video store rental days.

TLoU 2 is the first thing that comes to mind for a game being utterly ripped a new arsehole unfairly. The game hadn't even come out yet and the amount of hatred that game was getting based on leaks or stupid claims such as "x character is trans" was ridiculous, and there are still numerous people who respond to Naughty Dog on Twitter with responses that the game should be remade because they didn't like how the story went, or that Druckmann should be fired, or demanding the company releases Factions 2 or a PS5 update or whatever else. I'm not saying they can't dislike the game and criticize it, but don't go making demands of a company because the game they produced wasn't exactly what you wanted and act like the company betrayed you for doing it. Putting out a game that is actually badly made like FIFA 22 on Switch and demanding better (without being a complete dick) is not the same as demanding a game change itself to suit your needs.

Yeah, totally. That's why my entire "review scope" consists of three dudes whose opinions I actually trust.

Kinda offtopic, but... I have seen FIFA 22 being called the "Pandemic Edition" because sometimes models would not load and it looks like there's "social distance" between the players XD

I have also seen it called: "Resident Evil: World Cup Edition 22" XD

[ShiraNoMai]

As someone who is only really active in the gaming scene, I can't really say whether or not gamers are more entitled as whole. I know I've seen plenty of instances where movie fanatics trashed on a movie because it wasn't 100% what they wanted the movie to be, so I'd say that gamers probably aren't any more entitled than other bases, but it's just that since most of us here are mainly in the gaming scene, we just don't experience it as we do with gamers.

Essentially my take on this. I think as social media has become more prevalent, entitlement in media has skyrocketed, especially so because sometimes, mob rule leads to actual change implementation (i.e. the Sonic The Hedgehog movie, Smash Bros Ultimate roster picks, and more). I think it's more vocal in gaming audiences because they tend to be the most loud and obnoxious voices on comment sections (and because we are actively in the scene, as DL said, we're more prone to encountering it), but I don't think the entitlement is necessarily any higher than other forms of media consumers like comics, movies, manga, cartoons, etc.

[Moonface]

I think it's more vocal in gaming audiences because they tend to be the most loud and obnoxious voices on comment sections (and because we are actively in the scene, as DL said, we're more prone to encountering it), but I don't think the entitlement is necessarily any higher than other forms of media consumers like comics, movies, manga, cartoons, etc.

Reading this and your mention of the Sonic movie, I think that the entitlement is higher for games than other media because we see games so far ahead of their release. Most movies put out trailers with very little time ahead of the release and unless something looks visually rough like Sonic did, what else can be demanded? The story could be bad but it won't get changed, same with the actors. The amount of content we get is set and patches aren't going to generally happen like they can with games. Same that movies aren't going to charge us for extra content while we're still consuming it like how games do for DLC and multiplayer content or micro transactions which make us feel like we're getting an incomplete experience.

Although thinking about anything other than movies because I realized my post is very focused on that, music could be a good contender for high entitlement that rivals gaming because if a band changes their sound it will rile up the fans who liked the style before the change. I know bands like Linkin Park got a ton of heat for the changes to their style that has quotes from Chester addressing the criticisms on their Wikipedia page.