Why So Picky?

When did gamers become so picky?

I am not about to go on a baseless rant against gamer culture and attitudes and nothing in this blog will have anything to do with GamerGate. I am simply reaching out to my fellow gamers in an attempt to understand why we've become so damned picky about the games we play. To be clear, I'm not referring to personal preference. Hey, everyone has their own style. What I am referring to is the apparent and incessant need to color that entire opinion based on a few things in a game that you don't care for or are broken.

These thoughts are directly coming out of a recent conversation I had with a fellow gamer. This guy was bashing Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag because of its perpetuation of the so-simple-it-is-boring combat and the outdated "tailing" mechanics. He said things like, "I hate this game" and "this is a travesty". When I asked him if there were any redeeming qualities his reply startled me. "Yes, but they don't matter. This game sucks."

They don't matter.   

I remember being a kid and this same buddy told me that the odd controls and the difficulty of simply moving around in Neversoft's Apocalypse didn't matter because the game was still fun. He said, "I find stuff to like."

Which is why I'm asking the question when did we become so picky? When did "fun" become less important than a game's perfection?

I disliked several things about Black Flag but I enjoyed several mechanics as well. Building up a navy from the ships I boarded and took for myself was a great deal of fun. I'll remember sailing around the Caribbean, diving for collectibles, and those wonderful sea shanties for a long time. I understand the objective need to let people know that I didn't like many things about that game but to go all out and call it a "shitty" game is ludicrous.

Right now, Destiny players are all over the map. I'm hearing more complaints than I can even remember to mention here in this post. "The game is too short" or "its just Halo" are two of the common ones right now. You know what I haven't heard or seen one person say? 'I'm having fun playing Destiny'.

If we were kids, we'd be out of our minds right now! I mean, we get to  online in this world with our friends and kill aliens! Even as an adult I can't wait to get in there and play in that sandbox. I know there isn't enough content to satisfy me right now but I also know that Bungie intends on pumping that game full of new stuff all the time. So it doesn't matter. I'm actually excited by that because it means I can play it for a bit then put it down and go on to the Elder Scrolls Online on my Xbox One and the other titles I'm itching to play.

This paragraph is normally where there would be a call to action. I have none. I am honestly just trying to figure out why it doesn't seem like we are having fun anymore. I do have gamer friends who get all excited like I do about games and have a lot of fun. But that number of friends I have who have more complaints than praise for their games is increasing.

Why? Are games really worse than ever or are we just getting picky? I don't know.