For the duration of my time here, I’ve seen the same tactics used by both new and old members alike. I thought it would be interesting to see what the VGChartz community felt about these. So I’ve made the following list of what I think are the most fundamental tactics that everyone from noobs to veterans constantly use in the console war. The following is based on my observation of VGChartz users over the past 2.5 years.
Before I begin, you all should know the purpose of the console war. The primary purpose of the console war is to attack members of an opposing fanbase and keep them down. The secondary purpose is to keep your fanbase happy. With that said, here are five basic tactics that'll help anyone be more successful at the console war.
1. Do not allow the opposing fanbase to express joy with their favorite brand. Whenever you see a thread by some other fanbase praising their favorite product, do not sit back and allow the thread to exist peacefully. Instead, enter the thread and inject an extreme amount of negativity. Oftentimes, it doesn’t even have to be relavent to the topic. If you must, you can even accuse the entire fanbase for being "wrong" for expressing enjoyment. After a few posts of this, a few members may confront you and accuse you of having an agenda. All you must do is deny and insist that you’re giving your honest opinion (see point 3). Do this as often as possible whenever you see members of another fanbase expressing enjoyment.
2. Keep criticism of your favorite brand to a minimum. This seems obvious. In the console war, your job is to keep the enemy fanbase down, while making your favorite fanbase happy. Whenever you ineffectively criticize your brand, you fail both of those jobs. In order to criticize your favorite brand effectively, you must (1) criticize very rarely, (2) only criticize over insignificant and forgettable topics, and (3) only criticize your favorite company when you simultaneously criticize another fanbase to a more extreme degree. Occasional criticism is actually helpful because it makes you appear unbiased, thus making future trolling more powerful. You may have to experiment to find out what’s too much or too little criticism.
3. Never admit when you are wrong. If you admit to being wrong, then you admit that the enemy has won, thus making him happy, which goes against the primary purpose of the console war. So, if you ever believe you have lost a debate, do not admit it. Instead, you have two options you can take. (1) You can exit the thread altogether and move on to a different thread; (2) You can attack your opponent; or (3) Shift the argument to an irrelevant topic. Using these tactics will allow you to constantly troll the enemy without letting them stop you. Remember, do not admit defeat. Soldiers do not admit defeat.
4. Gloat whenever your disliked brand does poorly. Whenever possible, you should create threads and posts talking about how your disliked brand has been relatively unsuccessful, either due to low sales or poor reviews. (Note: you don’t have to only talk about either sales or reviews. You are free to interchange between the two as it fits your agenda). These gloating threads are not meant to have sincere, meaningful discussion. They are essentially “haha, your product sucks” vaguely presented under the illusion of sincerity (this prevents moderation action). Also, generalize when possible to justify your gloating (see below). Constant gloating accomplishes the primary purpose of the console war, which is to put the enemy down.
5. Generalize, generalize, GENERALIZE! I said it three times because it’s three times as important as the other guidelines. This is perhaps the safest way to attack the opposing fanbase. What you must do is find two, three or even one member(s) of an opposing fanbase, and use their views to represent that of the entire fanbase. This allows you to make sweeping claims about an entire fanbase. For example, you can say “XYZ fans are always saying ABC”. When you are confronted, just find 2-3 people who support your claim and your confronters will be forced concede. Now, you can go around insulting the opposing fanbase and your enemies will have no defense. It's genius! (Note: Always ignore -- see point 3 -- members of the opposing fanbase that do not support your agenda, even when there are more of them).
If you follow the above steps, you should do an excellent job at keeping your enemies down. Follow my steps and you will never lose another battle on this website. Again, this is based my observations of the very best soldiers that VGChartz has to offer. I’ve seen all of these tactics used in practice and I’m confident that many of them are effective, especially generalizing. If you have more effective tactics not mentioned here, please list them.
