I've been sitting on this for some time, revising it here and there, but considering recent news has killed my interest in the future of gaming and thus my interest in discussing gaming in general (except maybe retro stuff), I thought I'd drop this before I take an extended break from the site.

Both as a user and in my capacity as a moderator here at VGC, I've dealt with more than my fair share of bad behavior. For the longest time, I've been meaning to address the behavior I've seen all throughout the internet, including on this forum. So, I'm going to give my thoughts on fandom writ large, then on video game platform wars more specifically (including how it pertains to this site), and end on a request for this site's users.

Tribalism and Fandom

Thinking in terms of "Us vs. Them"/"In-group vs. Out-group" seems to come naturally to us. I understand the likely evolutionary reasons why it exists, but "is" doesn't necessarily imply "ought." Tribalism has resulted in horrible things like bigotry, nationalism, and the violence and oppression that has come from those evils. It's a sad part of the human condition that stubbornly refuses to go away.

Even though I know humans have a capacity for tribalistic thinking and can understand the "why" of it, I still find it puzzling how it trickles down to even the most pointless things. Politics I can understand to an extent, as we're talking about how societies should be governed, and most opinions regarding that endeavor are mutually exclusive and often involve things essential and central to our lives and livelihoods, things that are often literally matters of life and death. But extending this tribal/political mindset to our entertainment is ridiculous, yet we do it all the time. We have all sorts of inter-fandom rivalries. Marvel vs. DC. Star Trek vs. Star Wars. PlayStation vs. Xbox vs. Nintendo. Anything sports-related. We even see these rivalries within individual fandoms (see anything involving Star Wars since 1980).

Fans often make their love of the object of their fandom a core part of their very being, and that can sometimes manifest in toxic ways. Some fans take it personally when others don't like what they like. They start to engage in "gatekeeper" behavior and get offended if another fan likes the object of fandom "the wrong way" (i.e., the "No True Scotsman" fallacy), and so they feel justified in acting like a petty jerk in response. Some fans develop a bloated and undeserved sense of entitlement. They feel they are the actual owners of the object of their fandom and therefore ought to have final say over the creative process, and God help any creator who violates those fans' headcanon.

Aggressively defensive fans are also more often than not anti-fans in regards to other fandoms. There is no shortage of fans of one particular console brand, game series, TV series, film series, comic series, etc., that just flat-out hate any perceived rivals and get very vocal about it. They feel personally insulted by someone liking something they don't. Hatedoms and toxic fandom go hand in hand.

While hatedoms typically manifest in inter- and intra-fandom rivalries, it's also been obvious for a very long time that hatedoms can also manifest in a vacuum. Regardless of the specifics, sometimes it becomes fashionable in certain circles to hate a certain creator, show, movie, etc., for no good reason. More often than not these sort of haters don't even watch what they say they hate, frequently because they weren't even the target audience. Why? Because the bandwagon effect is very real. It simply became popular to hate that specific thing, and for no other reason than that.

It just seems like many humans crave drama and conflict, and not just in a fictionalized context. Too many of us like seeing people get torn down, and will even actively participate in tearing others down. Too many of us actively want people to fail and suffer for no good reason. Also, some people think that the best way to demonstrate in-group loyalty is to be actively malicious towards an out-group, and to punish members of the in-group that they feel haven't adhered to what they feel are the proper "norms" (like liking or hating specific entries in a particular film or game series).

Toxic fandom isn't anything new. It predates the Internet. Hell, it predates video games, television, comic books, and even film. It goes back at least as far as Sherlock Holmes fandom of the 19th century, suggesting that it's been a thing pretty much ever since mass-market media has existed. But it seems like things have just gotten worse in the Internet Age. The anonymity of the Internet helps encourage a lot of antisocial behavior. Internet trolls and flame wars have existed for a long time, summarized by Penny Arcade's "Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory" back in 2004, and satirized in various media even earlier than that ("Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back" comes to mind).

This behavior as it exists on the Internet was originally limited to message boards where it was mostly a bunch of tech-savvy geeks. But this isn't the days of Usenet or UBB forums anymore as the main social places online. Toxic fandom has reached critical mass now that social media is mainstream and everybody carries a portable Internet machine in their pockets. It often doesn't take long for discussions to become arguments (if they don't start off as arguments), and for those arguments to become nasty and vitriolic. And it spreads to all corners of the Web.

The Internet allows people to form their own little echo chambers. Articles and video essays that are nothing more than pure ragebait have become a cottage industry in places like YouTube. There's no shortage of content that might as well be titled "This Thing I Don't Like is Trash, the People Who Made it Suck, the People Who Like it Suck, and I'm Going to Spend the Next Hour Shitting on Them!" It's hard to tell how many of these people are genuine haters, and how many are grifters looking to make bank off making controversial and provocative commentary, but it's clear that hate sells. We wouldn't be inundated with such content if it didn't generate lots of views.

For some people, it's not enough to just simply not personally like a show, movie, musician/band, game, console, or whatever. They have to validate their dislike, usually in a way that often comes across as bitter, low-effort faux-snobbery at best. They have to turn "I didn't like it" into "This is literally the worst thing ever!" They confuse "This wasn't to my tastes" or "This isn't what I personally wanted" with "This is objectively awful!" Some movies, shows, and games are judged harshly even based on early previews, and toxic fans or anti-fans will actively discourage people from so much as giving those works a chance. Actual constructive criticism is drowned out in a sea of histrionics and hyperbole, because that's what garners attention and generates views in an Internet driven by algorithms and where people desire clout. Civility and media literacy have become casualties of this angry lashing out.

And it doesn't stop there at mere anger and bickering. It can turn into abuse. Fans are harassed out of communities by other fans. Entire fan communities are subjected to harassment by anti-fans. Review bombing even for the most inconsequential of things has been normalized, all in an attempt to sabotage the commercial viability of the work in question. People will lie, exaggerate, or take things out of context to try to bring down certain creators of shows/movies/etc. Worst of all, some particularly toxic fans have at various points taken it upon themselves to not just harass but even dox or outright threaten actors, directors, producers, and other personnel on a project that provoked their ire. While relatively few fans take things that far, the fact that any of this happens at all should have been a wake-up call many years ago that fandom spaces need a reality check.

And none of this is going into the times when partisan politics enters the equation, which is honestly something that would need its own thread and will be treated as beyond the scope of this one (so start a separate thread if you want to address anything related to this part). Needless to say, though, it introduces its own dimension of online malice and stupidity, as the dime-a-dozen grifters of the Internet demonstrate on a daily basis. Seriously, back in 2023 there was a YouTuber, who is a 50-year-old man, literally screaming and having a tantrum over an option for personal pronouns in a character creation screen, because apparently that has to be a point of controversy and fodder for ragebait in the 2020s. It's petty, juvenile behavior, and I'll leave it at that.

The Fandom Menace: A Console Wars Story

Personally, I've never had a dog in the fight when it came to consoles. I've bought nearly every major home console released since 1995, having only missed out on the Saturn (discontinued before I got my first job) and PS3 (because I had limited funds at the time and my best friend/then-roommate had one). In just the past 16 months I've bought both a PS5 Pro and a Switch 2. Before I started buying my own video games, I owned both a Genesis and a SNES, which I received as Christmas gifts (in '92 and '94, respectively).

But I can understand to an extent why people might form loyalty to a single platform. Video games have always been an expensive hobby (and are about to get even worse in that regard). Many gamers either don't have the money or the inclination to buy multiple platforms in a single generation, and so they may stick with one platform, often forming an attachment to it. Brand loyalty is understandable to an extent. I mean, I totally get it. I can be pretty picky when it comes to certain food items, for example, and therefore I think certain restaurants make better food of a particular type than their competition. Or maybe you're someone who only drives vehicles from a certain company because you've found them more reliable, comfortable, and otherwise possessing features you find desirable.

But brand loyalty can result in that toxic form of fandom I talked about earlier. People can get extremely personal over their preferred platform, to the point of being willing to engage in antisocial behavior. The sunk-cost fallacy probably comes into play here as people who've invested hundreds if not thousands of dollars into a single platform over many years and may feel the need to justify their purchases. And to that end, they become defensive of their preferred platform and actively attack other platforms and their owners, even outright wishing for rival platforms to fail. To that, I will always insist people remember one simple fact: None of these corporations are your friends! Toxic fandom is in a way a parasocial relationship with a brand, and like any parasocial relationship, it can become unhealthy really quick.

At the end of the day, a video game is just a toy. An expensive electronic toy, but a toy nonetheless. We're supposed to play them to have fun, or enjoy a story, or whatever other satisfaction video games bring you. But too many people can't leave it at that. Going back at least as far as the 16-bit era when the SNES & Genesis faced off, there were always people who had to act like their system is the greatest thing ever and the competition sucks. It probably didn't help things in the 90s that there was a lot of deliberately adversarial advertising, mostly from Sega, but also some from Sony early on in Gen 5 and even a couple of times from Nintendo (there was a Super Mario Land 2 magazine ad that made a bit of a jab at Sonic, and a Donkey Kong Country TV ad that touted how it wasn't available on the Genesis). While the companies act far more conciliatory towards each other in their PR these days than they did in the 90s, more than a few fans are themselves often anything but friendly towards their perceived rivals.

To be fair, this toxic, tribalistic attitude is far from universal and arguably isn't even the norm. There's a significant amount of overlap between PlayStation and Xbox owners, for example. Both this generation and last, at least a third of PlayStation owners owned an Xbox while nearly half of Xbox owners owned a PlayStation, at least in the U.S. Surveys also suggest that the share of owners of each platform have a negative opinion of the other are a small portion of the total user base of each, amounting to single digits. Suffice it to say, all the negativity and hostility and tribalistic fandom is coming from an extremely vocal minority.

Unfortunately, this vocal minority is over-represented in online forums and other social platforms. Their platform-warring behavior manifests in many forms, from arguments over exclusives and port-begging, to squabbles over technical specifications, to any of a number of other things. Finally, to address and focus on something specific to this site, there's the issue of sales data. VG Chartz is a site with a focus on game sales, which is also used as fodder for platform warring. The very existence of VGC and other sites or discussions focused on sales poses a question: Why does it matter to you, personally, how much a console or video game sells?

I've been on this forum for a long time (almost 13 years now). The entire reason I'm here in the first place is because sales data interested me. I like things like charts and statistics. I also like seeing video games as an industry thrive (which TBH I don't think it will for much longer), because video games are my primary hobby and have been for about 40 years. If what I like is doing well commercially more of it will be made. That's why sales data matters to me.

But it seems that for many people it's more than just a matter of academic interest or a desire to see video games thrive. Instead, sales data becomes fodder for online fandom wars where people have bitter, acrimonious arguments over it. So much of sales discussion here and elsewhere seems to be fans just hoping to get one up over each other, just so they can tell their supposed rivals "Yeah! We won! In your f***ing face!"

For example, some people like to put little asterisks next to certain consoles, not as simple explanatory notes but rather in an attempt to downplay the success of a system, as if to argue that at least a certain portion of the system's sales "doesn't count." This of course invites retaliatory comments from that system's fans, which frequently descend almost immediately into personal attacks as well. It's to the point where one cannot even address these caveats in an impartial manner without being tarred with the same brush as people who invoke those caveats maliciously as a "gotcha" in the latest attempt to stir the pot (as I personally discovered the hard way back in 2020-21). Almost every news article or discussion thread is at high risk of becoming a front in the console wars.

We can put asterisks next to the systems in the list of best-selling consoles ever all day, but it doesn't change the final numbers sold. So what if the PS2 got to 160M by having sales legs never seen before or since? So what if a lot of households bought multiple units of a handheld so everyone in the home that wanted one could have one of their own without having to share? So what if the Xbox 360 owed most of its success to over-performing in North America relative to other regions? So what if the Wii and DS were bought by a fair amount of non-gamers? So what if the PS3 was the most affordable Blu-ray player by far back in 2006? So what if the Switch got a boost from COVID? So what if most systems got bumps because some people decided to double-dip (or triple-dip or so on) because there was a hardware revision or some limited-run special edition? Lots of systems have caveats, but I don't feel that diminishes their success.

In a horse race between two systems, either one system sells more than another or it doesn't. What do you stand to gain from one system selling more than the other? And I mean something worthwhile, not something petty like bragging rights or a smug sense of satisfaction. I honestly can't think of anything. So long as your preferred platform is doing well, then it shouldn't matter to you where it ranks. Even the executives and shareholders probably don't care as much about that as some fans do. I'm pretty sure Microsoft didn't care that the PS3 narrowly beat the 360 worldwide. I'm pretty sure neither Nintendo nor Sony will care whether or not the Switch surpasses the PS2. Why? Because it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. So long as a system is popular enough to make good money, that's all that matters to the companies that made them. The people that bought those systems should be glad they did well at all.

Speaking of sales data and toxic fandom, we occasionally have instances of people claiming that certain sales figures are being outright falsified by the companies that made a particular device, toy, or work of entertainment. People may have various reasons for making such claims, but it's almost always emotionally-based arguments and never anything based on verifiable evidence. The people making these claims are asking, purely on their say-so, for others to believe what is a very serious accusation (lying to investors about sales is illegal). That doesn't mean that companies are always forthcoming about their sales data. It's not exactly the most transparent industry, and many companies are selective about what data they'll share publicly. But if they say "System A sold x amount of units," there's no reason to doubt it.

Most of the time it's just inter-fandom (or even intra-fandom) tribalism. Since some people feel that they're part of a team (I know people who talk about their favorite sports teams as if they're on the team, using lots of "We" talk), they may feel justified in thinking that when their team loses it must be because of some malfeasance. They'll say things like "The other team cheated!" or "The ref was bought out!" when their favorite team lost, even if there's no evidence, simply because they didn't like the outcome.

But sometimes it can come down to petty personal grudges. To use another medium as an example, take the preposterous claim that Disney bought most of the tickets for Captain Marvel and that the movie actually flopped. The people that made those claims had a grudge against the lead actress because she said something they didn't like and therefore they developed a deep-seated grudge against her and a subsequent emotional need for the movie to fail, and when the film instead made well north of a billion dollars, they had to find some way of rationalizing away the fact that who and what they hated succeeded.

In short, some people simply cannot accept reality for what it is, and so they lash out.

A Plea to the VGChartz Community: Be a Better Fan

Tribalistic tendencies may be baked into the human psyche, but, like the rest of our more atavistic urges, it's something we can fight against. All of us are perfectly capable of trying to be better people. And most people seem to manage that fairly well.

It's perfectly okay for people to like things, even if it's something you don't. It's okay to like multiple things. It doesn't always have to be a competition. I like Marvel and DC. I like Star Wars and Star Trek and various other sci-fi series. And as I've shown before, this is my living room gaming setup.

It's okay to not like things, either. Some things either click with you or they don't. There's a lot of things in entertainment media I don't like or even downright despise, and I have my reasons. But I don't make my dislike of those things my entire personality. I just don't watch/play/listen to them. Never use your personal dislike of a particular thing as an excuse to belittle or harass people who do like those things. It's petty, juvenile, and a waste of time. I'm 46 years old. I'm at a point in my life where I just want to enjoy what I like, not waste my limited time and energy mindlessly hating everything that's not to my tastes, much less giving other people shit for having different tastes than I do. Like, I detest reality TV and modern country music, but I don't go on some damn fool idealistic crusade against them or hound the people who do like those things.

Even if you have to limit yourself for reasons you can't help (e.g., not enough time or money) or you limit yourself because some shows/movies/comics don't resonate with you or because not every platform has games that interest you, that doesn't mean you have to act like a jerk about it. They're just entertainment. They aren't a critical necessity of life, even if they may make life more fulfilling.

I can only imagine what it must look like to an outside observer when they see someone get this bent out of shape over a movie, video game, TV show, or whatever. How did this antisocial behavior and utter lack of perspective get to become acceptable? This has long ago gone beyond all sense and reason, and is nothing short of a reflection of the worst aspects of fandom. It's the kind of nonsense that gives us the stereotype of the capital-g "Gamer." The conception of the geek being a socially maladjusted basement-dweller is not without at least some basis in reality. While "fanboy" is often used as an insult (which is why using it in such a way is against the rules on this forum), I can see why it exists as a pejorative in the first place.

So, before you decide to start or participate in a discussion, ask yourself "Does what I'm about to say constitute acceptable adult behavior? Will it reflect poorly on myself and my fandom?" Most functioning adults don't find it necessary to deliberately do things that get a rise out of others. They don't remind people at every opportunity just how much they hate a particular movie, game, etc. They don't find it necessary to insult and harass other fans who do like those things. They don't find it necessary to harass the casts, crews, writers, developers, etc., on social media or demand that those people get fired. They don't find it necessary to storm review sites en masse to bombard the thing they don't like with 1/10 scores. They don't find it necessary to go online and actively discourage others from even giving a particular title a chance. When most people don't like something, they get over it and move on with their lives.

If someone likes something you don't like, dislikes something you do like, or otherwise has different opinions on a particular piece of entertainment media, don't start an argument over it. If you feel you must engage, keep it civil. Don't insult, berate, belittle, or otherwise deliberately antagonize other users. Engage in constructive criticism, not rage bait. If things start to get heated or if someone engages in abusive behavior, don't escalate. Just disengage, report if necessary (remember, you can read site rules here), and move on.

There are constant problems on this forum regarding people who troll, flame, or otherwise engage in deliberately provocative behavior. This is a relatively small community, and it's to its detriment whenever we have to ban people for engaging in antisocial behavior, or other users leave the site because they're tired of dealing with said antisocial behavior. So please, try to be better people towards each other. There's enough misery in the world as is, and we don't need to make things worse by having verbal fistfights over things that exist to make life fun.

With this, I'm out for the time being. I might pop in on occasion to talk about a game I like and is available physically, and I might drop in as a mod semi-regularly to make sure people behave (seriously, please behave yourselves), but as far as being an active participant in discussions, I might be scarce around here for a while. But until next time:

While there are still a few toxic console warriors on here (I have them on ignore, which makes the forum much nicer) it is much better now than at many points in the past as most of the trolls have been banned by now and we don't currently have an active zeldaring/quickrick alt.

I agree though, it is best not to give in to tribalism and to focus on what you enjoy rather than what you don't.

I agree. Debating is one thing. In the end we are all gamers and enjoy playing a wide range of games. Yes the non-stop layoffs and studio closures across the industry have been depressing. But there are still so many great games coming out this year for all platforms we can be excited for. Whether we are talking Grand Theft Auto VI, Marvel's Wolverine, Gears of War E-Day, Halo Campaign Evolved, The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time remake, Splatoon Raiders, Star Wars: Galactic Racer, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, Control Resonant, and so much more. 

I believe that a vast majority of users on this site would not fit the charges you lay here (not to name names… but I am looking at almost every active user in the “NS1 160M” thread and in many of the VGChartz article comment sections), but to those who do fit the label, I wholeheartedly agree with everything you say here, Shadow. I know I’m no saint on this—in fact, I’ve literally been temporarily banned for “Console Warring” just over a year ago—but I do believe this community can be better in many ways. Funnily enough, I opened a thread about this very topic not too long ago, and everyone seemed to be in agreement that “well its not that bad anymore so just learn to live with it”.

Changes......... this site used to approve of the tribalism as long as it was kept within a decent range. Now, the admins are not liking it at all. I guess this might have something to do with them not wanting to scare off any users, because every user of this website is precious.

............... hopefully this means i can post some more articles of Microsoft's business/moral failings. Other than that, i wish everyone a pleasant day. See you in the sony or MSFT forum

I agree. I have participated in console warring. I've become less active on here as of this year due to the tribalism, not just of the console warring (which I had previously been fine with due to the nature of this being a video game forum), but other topics in the forum. I've tried to stop my participation in the tribalism as a result cause my experience in the non video game related forums made me realize it was kinda dumb. The tribalism has seemed to be such a magnet for engagement that most discussion happens within the most controversial threads, that I find myself posting infrequently in spite of visiting the site to check for news almost daily (hell, its been a reflex of mine for years now, as I'll absent mindedly type in the url when bored).

I do enjoy scrolling through the Good News thread, but I find I have little to offer (actually I do have some good news that I'll try to share a video for after this post). As much as I would like about some of my other interests, I'm afraid that the biggest time suck of my life, Star Wars, is toxic to say the very least. Maybe I'll start a general sci-fi thread about books, TV shows, and games to try and hopefully (though I'm almost certain will fail due to the nature of people enjoying media) to combat tribalism to some degree.

ahhhhh it's like rooting for your favorite football team, or verbally trashing the other one.  It's part of being a fan and human.  

Funny how this thread is made now OPs favourite console manufacture is getting bullied online hmmmmm!!?

… I’m just messing 😁

But for real, maybe I don’t use enough threads to notice it but I definitely notice it in the article comments with the same 4-5 users constantly trashing anything Xbox.

Yeah it's way worse in the article comments than the forum, with the same few usual suspects constantly shitting on the "enemy" brands while shilling for their own.