Fanboyism on N4G

You know what it's like. You read an article, and once you finish reading you decide to take a look at what other people have to think about the article. There they are, derailing what should be a discussion of the article, now a war between the beloved "fanboys". Rather than starting discussion about the article at hand, you see flocks of people responding to the "bait" given by the users to start arguments. This endless cycle annoys the hell out of me, and there are repeat offenders let loose.

Before I divulge into the topic, please take a moment to read the Official Guidelines of posting within the "Gamer Zone":

"The Gamer Zone is for members who want a more friendly and civilized discussion. This section is heavily moderated by the N4G staff, so leave your fanboyism at the door please. Members who are unable to behave in a mature and respectful manner will be temporarily or permanently restricted from posting in the Gamer Zone. Using words such as Xbots and Sony droids, or other words from the console war vocabulary, is strictly prohibited in this Zone."

I cant help but laugh when I read these "Guidelines". The fact of the matter is, the behavior listed is commonplace within the divides of the Gamer Zone. Call them whatever you want - XBOTS, Sony Droids, XBOYS, Sony Girls - in the end, they all wind up being posters who can't stand reading anything that goes against their eternal bond to their console. How do they react to such comments? Pure idiocy and utter ignorance it seems. He are a couple of examples I found while browsing through the articles found here in N4G, in the "Gamer Zone". Keep in mind today is the day when the reviews for Too Human came in, and they haven't been that great so far, so I have more XBOX 360 fanboy remarks and users at my disposal.
Remember, the "Gamer Zone" guide lines: "This section is heavily moderated by the N4G staff, so leave your fanboyism at the door please.".

Note: I might come off as biased against the XBOX 360 here but I'm just trying to state the facts that these users seem to ignore. I believe both consoles have their ups and downs to the point where they both stand on equal ground.

Megatron08 (Link to post)
" @yanikins111 LBP a piece of trash game that will be filled with 1000's putting no effort in to making levels and trying to sell them online for insane prices.

Resistance 2 another boring FPS (and ps3 fanboys say the 360 only has FPS)

mgs4 this could be the most boring game in the history of video it ranks right up there with ET. I Had this game and after like 5 hours there was maybe 1 hour of gameplay to it. I tried to like it I tried to go back in play it more but everytime I thought about turning it back on I remember those 5 looooooong hours of painful torture. After abotu 3 days i realize I was never goin to play it again and sold it a few days later to get what money back I could.

motorstorm after playing the 1st one that was godful and boring I'll pass on this one too.

On and btw if I had of wasted any money on buying blu ray movies I'd soon be forced to buy them all over again to get all the features that should of been there in the 1st place. All the same movies that I own already on dvd that have all the featues that are now missing from blu ray. Buying the same movie that I over over and over and again while sony tries to fix their blu ray players I think I'll pass on that too."

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Now this one definitely takes the cake as the most moronic post I've ever read. How can anyone read over such ignorance without getting a headache? Lets break down what he had to say.
I don't even want to go over what he said about LittleBigPlanet. It's obvious he has no idea what the point of the game is, and the level of innovation it brings to the video game industry, which is something needed desperately. It seems to me like he is aware of the success Sony will have with this IP, so he refutes any good that can come from it.

The "another boring FPS" comment. I assume he believes the Halo series did wonders in the FPS genre? Halo was a great game, but it undeniably was pretty stale in the innovation department. There was little difference between the 3 titles, but I guess thats good enough for Megatron08. At the very least Resistance 2 offers 60 Player online matches along with 8 player online co-op, which is something it brings to the table, that hasn't been done before. It's not something that Megatron is aware of, apparently. Ignorance is bliss in the realms of Fanboyism it seems.

The Metal Gear Solid 4 comment proves that he has NOT played the game, as is stating falsehoods in an attempt to attack Sony. It also proves he cant form a proper sentence, but I don't think that's a point that needs explanation.

Theres nothing wrong with the Motorstorm comment. It's an opinion, I'm fine with that. I'm not sure if he's played it, but I'll take his word.

The Blu Ray comment is ignorance at it's finest. The main feature that Blu Ray offers to the average consumer which DVD doesn't, is the services of BD Live. BD Live allows users to download updated content and features for their Blu Ray movie, including things like Trailers, Sequel Information, and access to even more content. Blu Ray also natively supports 1080p resolutions, which offers vastly superior image quality, which is a very useful tool to have when the most people own a high definition T.V.

"Buying the same movie that I over over and over and again while sony tries to fix their blu ray players I think I'll pass on that too. "

I really have no idea what he was trying to say in the first portion of that "sentence". Sony happens to build the most reliable and high quality Blu Ray players out of all the manufacturers, mainly due to the fact they made the technology. I really have no idea where he gets the whole "Sony needing to fix Blu Ray players" argument from. Since at this point its pretty clear he is an "XBOX fanboy", its fitting to say that he's ignoring the fact that Microsoft has the largest console failure rate, and has maintaned that record for the past 3 years. Ignorance is bliss my friends.

Why do I care about this you ask? Well, this is usually a perfect basis for someone to be sent down to the Open Zone. This is what should be done in a heavily moderated zone, but he still is allowed to post his moronic arguments throughout N4G, deterring people away from the article and into flame wars. Now, I know, like Alexander Roy said, it's not possible for the mods to catch every fanboy. I just don't understand why the repeat offenders are going without penalty.

power of Green (Link to post)
" What a ignorant thing to say, what is wrong with GameSpy. PS3 is attempting to match what the 360 could do and what XBL offers.

Sony's PS3 isn't even matching the 360's launch offerings.

How long did it take somebody to find this rubbish.

I hate this "me Too" PS3 needs attention-here's an excuse to fight and boast news. "

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power of Green has always had a pro-Microsoft, anti-Sony agenda, yet he's been allowed to post his biased views in the Gamer Zone for ages. Just read his user comment.

"I'm a realist with preference for Xbox and wouldn't be a gamer if it wasn't for the top notch social gaming and feature's Microsoft provides. MS has the best Adult Social gaming for casual gamers in the world."

So many of his comments state irrelevant facts and use them in order to bait posters into starting an argument in the Gamer Zone. Just look at his posts and the number of disagrees and flamer replies, you'll see my point.




Now to an obvious example of Hypocrisy, a useful tool in the fanboy's inventory. I often see people say something for/against a game and then later say something against/for that game depending on the circumstances. It's not limited to games either. Lets cut to the chase:

This next one is just too good. Analyze these 2 quotes for a second:

pp (Link to post)
"[Too Human is] Another great game to look forward to on my xbox360"

After the negative reviews roll in:
pp (Link to post) Which gets deleted as I make this
" Only people who were ranting and hyping about this game were sony droids"

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This guy was just let back into the Gamer Zone again and look what he brings with him. He's without a doubt one of the biggest fanboys on N4G, but he's let back into the Gamer Zone where his degenerate self can post informative and knowledgeable comments such as:

"Catch up to what it can't be poo station 3 because there allready in third place".

Why isn't a permanent ban from the Gamer Zone put into effect for such cases?





NewSchoolGamer (Link to post)
"Too Human = Average

It failed to deliver. Sales don't mean a game is good, it just means there was some good advertising involved atleast most of the time.

Stop saying Too human may not be everyone's cup of tea, you are just trying to save a game that does not have a bright future. "

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Let me touch on the sales comment first. This statement baffles me. So many games are not well known to the media mainstream. To say that Metal Gear Solid is a well known game is a stretch. I only saw commercials (which included other games) for MGS4 after its release. The numbers were pretty staggering. But I guess all of those sales are from people who saw advertisements? That's a nonsensical argument. It's an example of someone who starts saying things that are absurd in order to get a point across - something that a lot of these fanboys do that are allowed in the GZ. This particular user isn't really a fanboy persay, but I thought I'd include that as it's something that happens often with some of the people I'm about to list below.


Anyways, you guys get it. I'm just going to list a bunch of "fanboy" quotes from users who are allowed to post in the Gamer Zone, even though almost all of their posts follow the same tone:

 toughNAME (Link to post)
"Its forever obviously."

This was posted in response to a question posed - how long would the XBOX 360 lead in Japan after it had a recent surge. This is just plain ignorance. He has always posted baseless flamebait posts, trying to start arguments time and time again, yet he hasn't been restricted to the Open Zone. Why is this? His comments often get deleted, but theres no penalty to him at all.

The Mart at XBOX Kings (Link to post)
"You are a fanboy

You didn't play Too Human the demo, I'm pretty sure

You're just one nasty monkey, but I guess thats the target group for Sony for selling their BluRay player while saying its a gamedevice. Wasn't MGS4 also 50% of the time cutscenes? "

Again, there's no reason why he shouldn't be limited to the Open Zone. Mirrors the same qualities as power of Green in regards to starting arguments intentionally.

TheAveragePS3User (Link to post)
"1.1 - teh ps3 has best version cuz i gets to waigt an extrsa month four it to coming out! and it doesnt need to be cool by winning graphics compairisons ciuz its so powerfull it don't need to.

LBP FTW!11!!!!11!! "

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What drives someone to make an account to just randomly blabber and act like a moron? It baffles me how some of these people can be so attached to a piece of hardware.

This point goes hand in hand with the TooHumanFlopped character who's devoted his entire day to poking at others misfortune. Its really sad that someone can get so full of joy when their bias is satisfied. Its actually REALLY sad. Spending an entire day spamming articles, comments, alternate sources. Must be the ladies man in Second Life. Thankfully, TooHumanFlopped had all of his crap removed right away. Good work mods ;)

That ends the examples for now. I know I couldn't get that many PS3 biased examples, as it seems most of them have been limited to the Open Zone (good). It seems as though there are quite a lot more X360 biased users allowed in the Gamer Zone (not good).

Now to the point.

Why are these people still allowed to freely post in the Gamer Zone?
I see the mods restricting some users to the Open Zone, but they seem to miss these? Its very annoying seeing what should be intelligent discussions turn into flamebait when someone posts a biased comment. The problem is that these people go on to create the same problems in other articles - effectively "trolling" through N4G. If they we're restricted to the Open Zone it would make it easier on those of us who don't want to deal with this stuff. Many users say things to bait others into arguments. These are the worst offenders and nothing seems to be done, in the "strictly moderated" zone.

Heres a perfect example of what I'm talking about
As you can see, the original post that The Mart (repeat offender) added was deleted, but nothing else was done. He ended up starting an argument in the first post in the article resulting in comments like:

"Hey Mart What are your Thought's on the too human reviews"





The solution to making N4G a better place for everyone is actually pretty simple. Which really makes me question why nothings been done in terms of these fanboys. Restricting them to Open Zone is not a hard thing to do, yet its rarely done. Is there a valid reason anyone can present as to why these supposed "strictly moderated" areas are riddled with exactly the opposite users it's intended for, even though it's been very clear they've been going against the guidelines for almost all of their posts? It can't take much time to eventually see some of these users, but they've been let free for the longest time.

To sum up my rant:  It's annoying for us to have to deal with fanboys trying to bait others into argument with their biased and nonsensical posts. Why isn't more being done to prevent this? The restriction of users to Open Zone is something that isn't used aggressively enough, and its slowly making N4G less enjoyable for the average user who just wants to be involved in a knowledgeable discussion among his peers.