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MMOs and tribal thinking
Tobold of Tobold's MMORPG blog wrote an interesting post this morning on a phenomenon that pretty much everyone in the gaming community is familiar with: MMOs and tribal thinking. You know the deal: "x" game sucks, therefore anyone who plays it clearly sucks as well and must be informed at great length of the error of their ways. (As Tobold pointed out as well, if you write about that game in the bargain, you are obviously receiving kickbacks from the developers. No amount of boring old facts can stand in the face of those accusations.) Your favorite MMO is a bit more of a commitment than choosing to eat an apple or banana. An MMO is a heavy time and cash investment, and as a result people get more attached to their favorite and more worked up when they feel someone is slighting it. The reverse is true as well: if you choose not to invest your time and money in a game, you can just...not invest your time and money in it and move on. The end. We all know, however, that a huge percentage of gamers are unwilling or unable to do so. A comment from We Fly Spitfires put it very simply: "People love to belong to one camp or another and irrationally abuse anyone who doesn't agree with them." It's that sort of tribal thinking -- you're either with us or against us! -- that Tobold explores in his blog entry. It's an interesting read, and worth the time to take a look at.
