Avid gamers know that one of the more interesting things video games has going for it is it's passionate community. Gamers are both loyal and critical, vocal and reserved, optimistic and cynical; as hobbyists we can bring entire companies down with our collective buying power, yet at the same time celebrate and promote companies to Fortune 500 status.
Such is the power of the modern gamer. With the advent of the internet, today's "hardcore" gamer is anything but quiet, and this modern gamer can take many different forms and shapes. Oftentimes they are commenting on articles or posting in forums, but don't think that they can't take the form of some of the internets more harmful conspirators.
This brings us to a recent flooding of the EA message boards, wrought by PlayStation 3 gamers who were upset to hear that EA could have been responsible for the exclusion of cross-game chat and custom soundtracks in the PS3's firmware. While the chaos of messages included some distasteful images that assuredly caused the moderators at the EA forums some headaches, through the storm came a much saner solution to the multitude whose feelings were hurt by the suggested EA actions. An online petition was started.
It's unknown when the first online video game petition was started or what cause it was in support of, but we know that it probably failed, as most online video game petitions do. It was also probably written by a very angry 13 year old, as most things on the internet are written. In the case of the BOYCOTT EA petition, it has (at the time of this writing) 952 signatures and has yet to earn a response from the companies in question.
The text of the petition has the author launching directly into their tirade without explaining the situation first saying that gamers have been pushed into declaring a "Cold War" on EA. The inclusion of multiple exclamation marks and question marks, alongside all capital lettering, have sealed the petition as a dead end. Petitions are meant to be a means to an ends, a clear conveyance of the number of people who care about an issue and the resolution the people would like to see. None of that is present in the petition.
As a member of the video game community, I have to admit that I hang my head in no uncertain amount of disgust at this kind of behavior. Instead of civil discussion, gamers allow themselves to devolve into some kind of whirling mass of internet rage.
That's not to say that some petitions by the video game community are not properly organized and well thought out.
Do you think Bobby Kotick (pictured) cares about LAN? Do you?!
When it was revealed that Starcraft 2 did not have a confirmed LAN mode, a petition was started. This petition was organized, well thought out, and calmly written by someone with proper control over English grammar and rhetoric. The author states that they understand Blizzards actions but then asks politely for the company to reconsider. It also provides reasons for the company to reconsider their lack of LAN support. Another key aspect of this more successful petition is that they do not threaten or maim Blizzard, instead putting more energy into getting their petition actually read by the company.
At the time of this writing, the "LAN in Starcraft 2 Please" petition had 130,464 signatures. Last Saturday, August 22nd, Shacknews reported that Blizzard was working on a solution to the LAN problem.
Does everyone see what I'm getting at here? I love the video game community, and I love conversing with people about video games. But we all have to learn etiquette, and manners, especially when we want something, and if you don't get what you want, then you don't spend money on it. Frankly, I'll even take all of the teenagers and atrocious typists out there, because as a community of hardcore gamers, we need the numbers, but our conversations shouldn't start or finish in animosity, and certainly not when we're dealing with companies who's games are not made or lost on sales well into the millions. We just aren't going to get what we want. If we can speak clearly and calmly with those that provide us with the fodder for our beloved hobby, we might just get what we want.
samcola
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This is such a great article. People should be reading this....and you know, accumulating grammatical proficiency, Cheers. |
Darke
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Simple, Clear and Honest. You just used the best methods to convey a point! And your point is just that, being mature and reasonable can go a long way in a petition. I actually didn't sign the first petition because it was just a rant. While I signed the Starcraft II Lan petition because it was intelligent and reasonable. Great article! |
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