There is nothing wrong with criticism as long as you have valid arguments and you know what you are talking about, however this is the internet so it is inevitable to find people that just hate for the sake of trolling.

The problem with what you're saying both here and in your previous post is that you make it sound like you can either be x company's biggest fan or someone who disagrees with its decisions for the sake of disagreeing. You completely leave out all other cases.

Take The Last Guardian for example. Sure, most people who played it have mostly positive things to say, but if you pay attention a lot of them do criticize it for various reasons. I don't see the echochamber that you keep mentioning.

There are people who:

1. Love it to death (best game ever)

2. love it but think it's not as good as x.

3.  love it but think x and x need to be fixed.

4.  like it and point out some of its shortcomings.

5.  think it's mediocre.

6.  thought it was barely worth their time.

7.  thought it was terrible.

8.  thought it was shit and returned after playing it for 10 minutes.

9.  have no idea what it is, don't plan to learn anything about it and just want to shit on it because it's a ps4 exclusive.

So, no. A fake negative opinion to break the circlejerk is not necessary because there are already a lot of negative opinions no matter how good the game is or how it is perceived by critics/fans.

There will be some negativity no matter what. Let people who have genuine problems with it express them. They are more than enough.

Well that's no fun.

Let's face it. You can look at the title of a thread and then at the avatar of a user and pretty much know there is no way they will say something positive about it (maybe I do it too, who knows).

There is nothing wrong with commenting on a game/company you don't like. There is a problem when you do it to troll or stealth troll. There are only so many times you can attack a certain company and praise/defend another before people can see right through you.

Actually, can't say I disagree...

Hate for consoles? I'd say disdain for certain platform holders, the companies behind the products. Why? Because it's the right thing to do.

Perhaps people do so because they see their console of preference as the best and do so by either posting mostly positive comments about their favorite brand and/or giving negative comments with little substance to the competition.

There's also a 3rd case of said posters making threads to put their opposing companies in a negative light, followed by others actively participating to bring down that company. Perhaps an example like 'NES Minis are impossible to find, shame on you Nintendo for being so terrible to your loyal fans' with following comments like 'This is why they're a bad company and should leave the business imo'. That's just no good.

However, it IIS possible to give criticism and have thoughtful open discussions on a subject, explaining why something is good or not good. For example, if someone were to say 'Nintendo is the best company in the industry' of course that is open for debate with several reasons against that comment, or some supportive ones. But, if there's a thread such as 'This list of games shows why Sony is doing excellent this gen' and you follow with 'Only a few of those games are good imo, Xbox/Wii U has a better list' than... that's not really a good comment.

So yeah, it is possible to go into a thread, or make a thread, on something you're not interested in, but still have something meaningful to add, but there are times when people just go in to take a jab at companies they don't usually care about.

Agree on that, but as well as what was said, I find it mind boggling how trying to point out the intent and the history of said eprson triggers other folk, who then proceed to gang up and form a bigger echo chamber. THat and when people scream at you to report an action, then that report isn't taken up on or looked past.

This. I can't say I'm overly fond of threads that set up unfair comparisons and try using it to steer things their way. Like I said before, you don't see me making vs threads, I don't because I know how pointless they are and how they are set up in general.

Edit: I wish that instead of having these little echo chambers, that we had a space to just be up front about someone, because I'm already an "apparent" example a few posts above, from someone who will not let it down after the last tassle, but since we cannot name names due to mdoeration, we instead have to talk like this and just "imply".

I do not hate the console, I despise parts of its fanbase.

I like discussion in general so as long as there isn't any disrespectful behavior and just useless bashing I see no problem with haters going in a thread to point the negative side. But on the point you are talking are more trolls that they don't want to discuss and point the negativity, they want to distort reality so they can troll harder