Stop the Console Wars
by VGChartz Staff, posted on 20 March 2011 / 8,630 Views
"The best men have their fetishes, and sometimes they feel almost crushed at the little respect that logic shows them."
- Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
One thing that has always bothered me about gaming is the vocally divisive nature of gamers. While it’s unfair to generalize and include all gamers in that distinction, I think it’s safe to say we can agree that it’s at the very least a stereotype that has foundation in reality.
It doesn’t take a long stretch to go from gamers’ divisive comments to the topic of the “console war,” one of the largest and utterly pointless internet debates in existence. Even before the internet became a mainstay of communication people were complaining over whether the Genesis or Super Nintendo was the superior console. Ever since its inception, it has done nothing except propel business interests while perpetuating commercial tribalism at the cost of communication and solidarity.
To put it frankly, this topic needs to die.
The console war argument only helps one group of people – the people that make money from selling video game hardware or software. The principal combatants are the Big Three: Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, though of course other companies stand to gain ground from this kind of activity as well. Companies love the console war. It creates an army of ideologically entrenched sycophants to virally market their products far beyond the means of any singular PR agency. Even better, this kind of advertising is profitable. Rather than pay money to have a product advertised, a company can actually make money from its sale and then have the advertising on top of it, all courtesy of a blind corporate shill. And to all you PC gamers who think you sit on thrones of gold because you don’t use an Xbox to play games, this applies to you as well.
This kind of allegiance to a company is incredibly troubling. While I think that gamers that participate in this war are searching for some kind of belonging, they’re certainly not seeing the forest for the trees. Being an exclusive fan to a company like Sony doesn’t get you anything except for some sick sense of entitlement based on othering different groups of people. It’s basic tribalism, pure and simple.
That tribalism hurts people, and it does so in a number of ways. Most importantly, it separates people rather than joining them together. Rather than emphasize similarities, the console war seeks to emphasize differences. Some say the Xbox has better multiplayer, the PS3 has better exclusives, and the Wii has a better community. Whatever the argument, the implication that hides in these statements is that “I am different from you.” That isolating sentiment turns all too easily into a sense of entitlement and elitism. We’re all gamers, we have fun in different ways and on different hardware, but we’re all still having fun.
Remember this little gem?
Consider how spiteful and punitive some of these comments can become. I’ve seen and heard of countless comments that push for the failure of a company or a product just because it’s not a product someone likes. A lot of jobs ride on success in this industry, and not just any success – resounding success. Stop and think exactly how mean-spirited it is to wish failure and potential unemployment on people just trying to their jobs the best they can and produce something that people can have some fun with.
Even if some gamers view companies as evil, monolithic enterprises and hate them for what they view as unethical or immoral business practices, the fact remains that even if they fail the only ones that are going to be hurt are the people with the least power and wealth. If you wish for Activision to fail and it does, is millionaire Bobby Kotick going to be hurt? Of course not, it’s going to be the dev teams that just love making games and are trying to do the best they can under the constraints of their job. All this ill will is bred from being part of specific console “club.”
Whatever club they claim to be a member of, it isn’t exclusive – anyone willing to pay for a PS3, an Xbox 360, or a Wii and a good number of games can be in it. It’s a corporation-based group that grows on some mutated nationalist framework. All for the sake of being in a group, belonging to a set of like-minded individuals. That’s what makes this whole thing so wrong.
They already belong somewhere. They’re gamers, in some internet forum about gaming, talking with strangers and potential friends about their common interest of video games. We don’t need division to generate discussion, at least the kind of stark division this console war nonsense brings up. I’m not saying that people have to agree on everything, but the console war is essentially fundamentalism, which never leads anywhere. The seeds of discussion need to fall on the fertile soil of an open mind.
Some people make the argument that it is solely about lack of resources; that people rant about a specific system because they don’t have the money for all of them. I don’t necessarily agree. I don’t think that people involved in the console war are governed by jealousy; I think it all comes back to the need for belonging and a sense of pride in what one owns. If someone only has the means to select one of multiple consoles, they don’t want to tell other people they made the wrong choice. They are proud to become more involved in gaming and don’t want to be looked down by others because of their decision, so they choose to defend it. That defense can turn into trolling and aggression if left unchecked however.
Maybe it’s the appeal of taking a strong stance on something and being able to defend it no matter what. Winning an argument feels good. Being staunch in a certain set of ideals gives you a set of talking points you can always pull from, giving you a sense of security when you’re having a debate. That security factors in heavily when you consider that many of these internet communications are not real-time and are safe from the rigors of a two-way conversation. There’s clearly no shortage of opportunities to argue either. With all the coverage the console war receives, people get roped into this argument that’s becoming as structural as the industry itself.
Thanks Fortune ಠ_ಠ
Because there’s this presence about the console war, it gets presented in gaming news as well. Writers, if not paid in hits then dependent on hits for continued employment, can stir up these base arguments to drum up hits. All you need is a headline like "Random Dev Says Sony Worst Gaming Company in Existence" to drive all kinds of hits to your site. Even if you have quality reporting, a headline like that almost creates comments about writer bias rather than story content. Good reporting can be ignored and dismissed on the assumption of differing personal preferences. In the end, all that ends up being created is a few extra ad dollars and a mess of pointless comments. Another opportunity to get together and discuss the current events in a common interest is lost.
Even worse, since console war veterans can be so sensitive to the issue of favoritism that any disagreeable news about their Holy Sanctimonious Company of Choice is instantly met with the same kinds of remarks. It’s either “this site is clearly biased against Xbox” or “look at the amount of Sony coverage this person writes” rather than an honest appraisal of the article itself. When I see comments about VGChartz sales numbers being biased against whatever company it is this month, I am absolutely shocked at how quickly people want to synthesize numbers into not only a bias, but into some kind of conspiratorial agenda.
My hope is that the writers that try to promote stories based on console war controversy stop immediately. My hope is that writers who actually believe in a particular facet of the console war stop writing entirely. Most of all, my hope is that gamers can just get along and have amicable disagreements about their own individual interests without ascribing a kind of holy creed to them.
I know it feels cool to be part of what feels like an exclusive club, but it’s not exclusive at all. It’s a group based entirely on commercial interest, fueled by fundamental ideas. Anyone can be a member as long as they remember to keep the battle lines drawn. Companies don’t care what you say about their products or how you treat one another, they just want your sales dollars. That’s it. It’s how they live.
You people out there on the front lines of the gaming forums and news aggregators need to realize you’re the only one that is going to hold you responsible for treating people with any semblance of decency. When it comes down to it, who is more likely to get your back when you need it – a suit making $800k a year, or a fellow gamer? Take a look at any gaming community that engages in gifting and see who’s helping who.
Let’s show some solidarity with fellow gamers, no matter what controller they want to hold in their hands.
Disclaimer: This article is the work of one writer, and does not necessarily reflect the views of gamrFeed or VGChartz.
Header Image Credit: Warhammer 40,000 Wiki
