DmC: Devil May Cry “fans” are a crying shame

Pffffffffff no one cares about the article anymore we are discussing comment numbers now.

There we go 400, right I’m out!

@397 I’m glad that you made this post OG. I’m just gonna say this and leave it at that, I’m really glad that you at least are not dismissive like the rest and actually acknowledge that there are valid concerns regarding both DmC and this article. Something that a lot of people ignored only to be able to attack people on personal level (talking about comments made by both side of the argument). All in all I hope we can put this behind us and move forward in with showing mutual respect for one another in future, rather than resorting to name calling.

*bows in respect for everyone and leaves*

This is fucking nuts eh?

*goes to bed (tipsy)*

Enjoy your holiday Dave

Anyway guys, amazing writing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cbMIKiGjy8

FUCK YOU and every “Mall Santa” that looks like you! (c)

^ oh and don’t forget this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrsLC-1QkuM

Even the spam-bots are doing their bit. Are YOU!?

To cheer up anyone who might have seen Giant Bomb’s end of year vids, I’ll just put this here:

http://i.minus.com/ibiY2wIhOuaJGs.gif

Troll bait of the highest order. The site’s 2013 mission is to become Kotaku I guess.

I think that their individual end of year top 10 lists were pretty decent and sensibly chosen. It’s just that within the crew they have pretty wildly different opinions, so the average is a little bit, silly…

And I’m ashamed that so many people would not only accept but praise the open insult toward both the fans specifically and consumers as a whole that DmC is.

I’m not talking about whether or not the gameplay is good; it probably sucks, but as I haven’t played even a demo and never will, I don’t have a right to make an actual judgment. I’m not even talking about the story when taken on its own terms; when taken on its own terms, as not a part of the Devil May Cry franchise, it might be the best thing ever. I’m talking about all the unnecessary changes made to the franchise, past comments made by Ninja Theory and Capcom, and what they really mean.

DmC stars a “Dante” that is entirely different from the actual Dante depicted in the Devil May Cry series. This “Dante” is built out of an obsession with being “cool,” and from that obsession, he’s entirely a product of whatever Ninja Theory and Capcom think the general consumer audience wants most in a product. Translation: they think consumers as a whole are complete morons that will only play a Devil May Cry video game if the main character is smoking cigs, swearing and puts out a stereotypical anti-establishment “rebel rebel tough guy” image. This is NOT, as some would like to make it sound, the companies taking a chance with something that isn’t considered to be a safe direction. This is the companies thinking that the real Devil May Cry and Dante suck at attracting consumers because they’re “uncool,” and that only by completely stripping the series and the character of what they’re really like and forcing in an entirely different set of qualities will they reach a wider audience.

And I’m not just talking from nothing there. Tameem’s remarks following the criticism brought with first impressions only further backed the appropriately bad expectations fans were getting. He insulted the fans the very series he’s supposedly making a video game of, and mocked the real Dante on grounds of not looking “cool.” More directly, he said that the real Dante would be “laughed out of a bar” for his appearance. The game was not created with the focus being on whether or not it’s appropriate to the series’ atmosphere and themes, or what we know about the character. The game was made entirely based on what Capcom thinks will sell more copies of the game, and what Ninja Theory thinks of as their “genius” when it comes to story and characterization.

Because of this, purchasing DmC is essentially telling Capcom that tearing out everything that makes a series or character what it is and shoving in qualities that they think will sell more copies of the game is the correct way to treat a video game series and its characters. And it tells Ninja Theory that it doesn’t matter what they do to an IP that already exists, their “genius” means infinitely more. If we send that message with ANY game that comes out, then we send the message to every single video game company out there. Once that happens, then like a tidal wave, we’re going to see the heart and soul of every single video game IP out there torn apart as part of a quest for the almighty dollar. And even if DmC MIGHT be good on its own merits in spite of that, you can sure as hell bet that nearly every game that follows its lead would be nowhere near that level of quality.

If you purchase DmC, you are sending a very clear vote with your dollar. And your vote is this: you do not want an IP and its characters to be given the respect they deserve. You want your video games to be created based entirely on what the talking heads involved think will sell more copies of the game, and taken into radical directions that go against everything the IP and characters ever were just for the sake of looking superficially new and different.

You guys may be fine with telling these companies that you want to see every single great IP out there utterly ruined in the quest for more money, but I’m not. If DmC is as good as some people are claiming, then it’s a shame that Ninja Theory decided they didn’t want my money by associating it with the Devil May Cry series when it has no business being called a Devil May Cry game, but that’s their problem. If they wanted me to buy a game that’s so completely unlike Devil May Cry and Dante that it’s practically a brand new IP, then they should have made it a brand new IP.

Just in case you missed this hypocritical journalist whining about how they changed Tomb Raider:

Brenna Hillier:
“Ever since the Tomb Raider reboot was announced, apparently a re-skinning of a survival horror Crystal Dynamics had been pitching for ages, I’ve tried to keep quiet about it. Because it looked ruddy awful to me – lacking everything I’d loved and appreciated in the series to date, and a total betrayal of a character I’d held close to my heart for a substantial portion of my formative years. There. I’ve said it. Tomb Raider, from reveal to reveal, has looked like nothing but utter rubbish, and I have been quietly anticipating giving it a critical savaging of such righteous fury that brand manager Karl Stewart will have to put his laptop in the freezer and cry himself to sleep. I’m not a very nice person, I’m afraid, especially where “my” games are concerned.”

http://www.vg247.com/2012/12/05/the-crying-game-its-time-to-talk-tomb-raider/

Yet here she is belittling people for voicing their opinions on changes to gameplay mechanics, frame rate, juvenile “edgy” dialogue, and changes to aesthetics. Pathetic…

@411 (Rayge):

To be fair to her, if you read the rest of that article you see her more or less say “I hated the prospect, but then I played the game and was blown away so now I love it to pieces.” So she can’t really be attacked for that. In fact the progression she had in that article may back her opinion here because it follows her suggestion that the fans need to play the game and they can expect to be barfing rainbows of joy once they do. Still, it’s rather sad. She had the right understanding beforehand: when a company blatantly doesn’t show respect for the defining elements of an IP or character, it shouldn’t be rewarded for it. But somewhere along the way, they convinced her that all of that is free to be thrown away and forgotten if the gameplay is fun, or if thinking about it as a brand new IP would suddenly make it enjoyable on its own terms.

Which is a real shame. Because where “Tomb Raider” is concerned, she’s set herself up for saying that while a male protagonist can start out as strong, smart and tough, it’s fine for companies to suggest that it’s impossible for a woman to start out that way. “Tomb Raider” sets Lara Croft up as having started not as a tough action star type of character that can be deeply admired, but as a weak and terrified survivor girl straight out of horror film tropes. That Lara, as a character, is a pathetic emotional creature when you really get down to it, and that the main reason she’s that was is because she’s a woman.

Which is something only adding on to the savaging of strong female protagonists we used to have: Aya Brea, Samus Aran, Jill Valentine, now Lara Croft, all of them and I’m sure more I’m not thinking of have been “reimagined” as weak, pathetic emotional creatures or sexual objects at the core of who they are without a man or a really bad inescapable situation to make them whole and give them purpose.

look
there is a lot of legit complains how DmC is a bad DMC game
it’s not about the character anymore
it’s not about the hair anymore

lets just say, if you pull out kill streak and death streak from cod [core of the game], and create a game named cod with only shooting..

will people not angry at it?
will cod fans just accept the change?
seriously?

A helpful link, for those who may not have encountered it before: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satire

ooh i like you brenna. well said. also not to be mean, but most super hardcore gamers are a little “special” shall we say. to be that obsessed to send threats or freak out over something like hair is just unstable. like mental disability. i love to game, but its not my life. its a fun hobby like movies or music. while i love some games greatly, im open to change. most are not.
plus online gives people an outlet to be crazy because they cant act like that in real life or they would be locked up. 51/50 mmhmm.
yes its sad, but alot of us are stable hardworking educated people and appreciate developers as a team, not a solo effort like some think 1 person made a whole game. i say keep playing and support the good developers with talent and be respectful. takes years to make a game, takes seconds for someone to bash your work. that is NOT cool.
i feel sorry for the people in these psycho looney gamers lives who have to know them. imagine how they are in real life? SCARY

The hardcore fans evaporated around mid DMC4, and the rest of us moved on with the release of the HD trilogy. The gameplay is fine (good enough), if you want yet another DMC3 re-tread with a couple of improvements. There really isn’t enough here that innovates to justify the 100+ hours that some have sunk into previous DMCs to become truly great because there isn’t that much here. Police academy 5 can never be as good as police academy 1, but when the innovation has dried up…and who cares if it’s easy? DMC3 was just unapproachable for a newbie, why?

@413

I’d shrug my shoulders and move on.
However, most people would not. They’d be very angry, shout and yell. Which is the point really – gamers are pricks.

@413: You mean like Call of Duty 1, 2, 3 and 4? Yeah, those games were never great without those elements.

Is this a 1st for the numbers of posts?

@419
No. There is at least one 500+ thread, thanks to me
http://www.vg247.com/2009/04/22/sony-levels-of-psp-piracy-are-sickening/comment-page-10/#comments
See post #469

On the topic, the overreaction (aka death threats) always happen and are not indicative of an entire community. And I would say they are perfectly right in bashing the game, no matter how good it is. They could have easily made a new game with new name, but then obviously the publicity just wouldn’t have been there.
Just think if your most favorite franchise *insert name here* goes a total reboot, it will piss you off. New DMC is not everyone’s cup of tea. It will lose many games and maybe gain many too. It always happens in reboots.

@420

Dragon, its now clear to me that your sole reason for posting on these stories is to engineer these great big sprawling comments threads.

Its like your twisted version of getting a high-score or something

I didn’t think Dante was THIS popular… I can’t believe this is still going on.

Kudos for your argumentative stamina I guess…

I think it’s just homophobes and closet gays. Dante looks too hot now and they just can’t handle it.

@Dark, I can’t believe that Dante said that. That’s madness.

Now that’s art, NT. LOL

@421
Aww man can you at least give me a benefit of doubt. I really was curious what would happen that time. I just stumbled onto that because of these ‘more from vg247′ ads. I just posted that and slept and voila the thread exploded again. Never guessed that.
Lets say that was a social experiment shall we?

As others have said before, this goes FAR beyond this game. The problem is the article in itself. To me, DMC could be good or bad, I couldn’t care less (tried the demo, didn’t appeal at all to me).

What shocks me (a lot) is the way this article is written as an insulting flame bait. Basically, it says that “if you don’t like this game, then you’re just part of the WORST that gamers have to offer: you are a no-life, homophobic, sexist, with poor hygiene and prone to send death threats and you should just grow up”.

Great. Probably the worst piece of “arguments” I’ve seen for a very long time. Now, when Brenna wrote her article on Tomb Raider, I read it and REALLY appreciated it. Do I love Tomb Raider? No, but her article was well written and, above all, it was about passion, about respect… Not insulting people.
We have the exact opposite here. Could you imagine people replying to Brenna’s Tomb Raider article by saying “oh come one, grow up, it’s just a game! And if you don’t like it then you’re just a pathetic no-life whiner”. Because that’s what this article just did. Even as non Devil May Cry hardcore fan, I felt insulted as a gamer. How come Brenna can say “it’s okay if I want to complain about changes in a game” but then right after insult people who do the same. Is that fair?

There has been articles defending the new DmC, and even if I’m not interested in the game (by playing the demo and watching many videos depicting what I would describe as poor and cheesy writing), I still thought those articles were good. And I read them.

There has been as many persons talking about THIS on those 400+ comments… yet, when Michael, for instance, took defense for Brenna, he never replied on those points, about the tone of the article, the intolerance depicted or the lack of respect toward gamers as a whole, as soon as they don’t agree with the writer’s opinion.
If THIS is the way the VG247′s editorial line has gone, I think I’ll soon start to go somewhere else…

Boy. This sure escalated quickly.

Yeah, i stabbed a man in the heart.

Wow, looks like this blatant troll article paid off! Great editorial decision all round!

But seriously, that’s got to be a record amount of comments.

@426 Damn right.

You’d think that now, with the game out there would be less ignorant comments. Weirdly enough, the complete opposite seems to be the case.

@412:

Uhh… she judged the game before playing it. Just because she has the privilege to get her hands on it early doesn’t negate the fact that she judged the game beforehand. Just like the shit she’s harping about in this article. She sounded like a fan venting over a series rebooting just like the DMC fans are. There’s no defense for her.

What’s so mind boggling are the amount rabid white knights jumping to her aid after seeing how much of a hypocrite she is. This isn’t even about the game now. It’s the fact that this website would stoop so low for hits as to attack it’s own readership and generalizing an entire fan-base and gamers alike with degrading, extremely feminist, comments.

What kind of maturity level is this journalist at? “Hey I can complain about my game, but ‘FUCK YOU’ if you’re going to complain about yours.”

From the beginning, my disappointment has stemmed from Capcom giving the franchise to Ninja Theory and their “cooler than thou, you unwashed masses” attitude. A lot of past decisions appear to be edgy/cool for the sake of being edge/cool and their creative director comes off thinking he is the most auteur person on the planet. As if it would be a crime to not let everyone know how great and unique his ideas are. DmC appears to be a good game…it’s just hard to swallow that Tameem Antoniades made a good playing game. I don’t want to support him…so I’ll buy it used at some point.

Again, my early disappointment came from Capcom giving an action/gameplay focused franchise to a studio that had never gotten the gameplay parts of their games right at that point. Their combat systems were usually VERY loose and tended to always prioritize animation over control. There were good reasons to be wary of DmC from the get go and while most people latched onto the creative differences, mine was always the apprehension that a game series I loved for it’s tight combat and challenge was going to be a sluggish, loose, unrewarding mess.

At some point Capcom had stepped in with designers to help Ninja Theory with the combat systems and I guess these scores bear that out.

What I would like to know is if VG247 endorses and encourages this kind of behaviour in its articles now, if it is VG247’s editorial line, if they (as a group/company/younameit) think it’s “okay”. Especially after the whole “we have to respect our readers” that occurred during the whole UK game journalism issue at the end of last year.
I applauded Dave for his article on journalism, for being honest with us (did the same with others, including Brenna on Tomb Raider)… but after that, having something like this “article”? Was Dave’s article just PR or did Brenna just had a bad day? Opinion and passion, yes, of course… but insults? If this is considered to be “okay” by VG247, I’d prefer to know. If that’s the case then I think I’ll leave now. Seriously.

@ Michael Ireland : if this article has been written honestly, it’s pedant and insulting at best, and IF it has been written on purpose as a click generator, then it’s even worse (respect is totally absent in both cases). I don’t think it was made to be a click generator, but DON’T tell me that VG247 doesn’t earn income with the number of views/refresh they have and that they didn’t benefit a bit from this: those arguments could work on some people but not on someone who’s actually handled a website and advertising on it…

@432 We’ve heard you repeat the same point over and over again.

Most of us have been here years. We’ve known Brenna for years. We know her journalistic integrity.

You think you have some big valid point because of one specific article you’ve cherry picked out because you think it proves your point, conveniently ignoring any details that contradicts your argument. Yes, she was judging Tomb Raider based on wha she had seen up to that part, based on the nature of how it was presented to us by the publisher.

Those earlier judgements were based not on gameplay, but on its cultural context – how it’s represents woman. Those are two completely different things. At no point did she ever attack the quality of the gameplay before sitting down to play it.

@434 VG247 doesn’t earn its income from hits. I know this for a fact. If you’ve managed websites (I have) then you’d already know that monetisation isnt always through hits. The staff on here are many things (friendly, engaging, funny, communicative), but they aren’t liars.

This was written because it was a relevant subject. Hilariously, the giant swarm of comments in this thread only goes to prove her point, and the fans don’t even realise it.

Gaming culture is an often deplorable one, full of nothing but whining, priviledge, and insidious hate. It’s one of the most juvenile, pedantic and obnoxious media cultures it’s ever been my misfortune to be a part of, and all but completely killed any desire for me to personally become a mainstream journalist.

Everything she wrote in this article is true. Sorry if you’re insulted by the truth.

From personal experience I have to agree with 435

“Everything she wrote in this article is true”

You mean, as in “the “gamer” kind is sexist; racist; homophobic; reactionary; unable to spell; almost exclusively male; hasn’t read a book since See Spot Run; probably dramatically under-equipped in the genital department; incapable of basic self-care like hygiene, cooking and housework; and covered in Cheeto dust” ?

SERIOUSLY ? You don’t address ANY of the points I raised on
and you blindly stick to this “WE are right and YOU are wrong, and if you don’t agree with this then you belong to the category mentioned above”.

Re-read my posts here: I have insulted anyone? No. Have I raised points that were backed-up with data? Yes, and I am far from being the only one here. You can’t JUST answer to the haters (there are haters here, of course, I am not denying it) and put everyone of us in the same bag. You can’t just blame everyone that just don’t agree with you by saying they are sh*t, just like what Brenna did on her article.

I’m sorry, I honestly thought I could discuss with you. Seems like I was the only one wanting to do so.

@ “You mean, as in “the “gamer” kind is sexist; racist; homophobic; reactionary; unable to spell; almost exclusively male; hasn’t read a book since See Spot Run; probably dramatically under-equipped in the genital department; incapable of basic self-care like hygiene, cooking and housework; and covered in Cheeto dust” ?”

The vast majority, yes.

I wasn’t talking about you exclusively. I was talking about the vast majority of fans, the kind us who actually do enjoy the gsme and get insulted for have had to tolerate for months,

There are fans who have been able to politely discuss why they dislike the game in a mature, respectful manner. Sadly, they are not the majority.

Of course they knew this would be a reactionary piece. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s true.

ITS OBJECTIVELY TRUE

DEAL.

aha ha ha ha

@Michael : Again, I’m not saying there are no dumb*ss in the gaming community. As a matter of fact, I’ve always encountered those sort of people in any kind of community I’ve evolved into.

But NO, they are not the vast majority… unfortunately, YES, they are the ones we hear the most (even Brenna recognizes it at first in her article by calling them a vocal minority… but then goes into generalization and stereotypes). Generalizing like that takes off all credibility to previous brilliant articles on honesty in game journalism and feminism (my wife is actively part of a feminist organization in France and we shared VG247’s article on feminism through her network with very positive feedback) that were going in the direction of stopping bad stereotypes and degrading categorization, whatever they could be.

I am a gamer since I was a kid, at a time where being a gamer was pejorative. Since then it has become a mainstream thing, touching a much broader public. To me this article does the same kind of damage as a Fox News documentary on “gamers” and how “dangerous gaming is” with comments such as “this mass murderer was playing video games so all players are violent and potentially dangerous”. Something built-up to prove people wrong, to put a label on them. Yes some gamers are c**t. All of them? No. A vast majority? No. And putting an emphasis (on the article) on the few worst of us to back up the statement of “if you don’t agree then you’re one of them” is what I’m not ok with. This is cheap and low, because at the difference of Fox News, the writer knows what she’s talking about and does it deliberately.
Dave did an article on DmC where he talks, amongst other things, about the extreme reactions of the haters that sent insults, etc. But he did it without insulting everyone, without poor stereotypes, without saying “if you don’t agree with me then you’re just one of those pieces of sh*t”.

If it had been the case with this article, we wouldn’t have had that much comments and negative reactions. I’ve read ALL 400+ comments here, and if you put aside the extreme haters’ comments, you’ll see that a lot of people don’t agree with the article and the way it’s been written (NOT the whole debate about the game).

This is getting even more funny. Now I think, that Michael is Brenna’s second account, that would make sense. I mean, you can’t tell me, that this is a coincidence right?

/e: I’m sorry if this is kind of immature, or stupid or overweight or something, I don’t want to prove anything here. I’ll just replay some real DMC games, eat some crisps and hate on women or something, see you

Oh and, stop telling me that I have to read books, I haven’t read a book for like… ehhh… 15 years, since I left school!

/e2: Damn, the music is far too loud at the neighbours place, I guess I’ll have to threat him, because I’d like to, cause that’s how I roll

@441 I can’t tell if you’re actually being serious or just joking around.

Sorry, I’m just having some fun. This has gone so far, you just have to look at it with some humour

erf -____-

And seriously, how can I be serious? I haven’t ever played DMC. (Well I played DMC4 and DmC Demo) So I can’t be that stupid.

But I’m really excited to read about people like me. Just for notice, I like football, RPG and FPS, George Martin books, drinking beer and work out some times.

/e: Oh and I haven’t played any other game than Black Ops 2 for like two weeks

@445 I meant about the alt account thing.

Considering I was called a VG24/7 shill just last night, apparently intentionally posting inflammatory comments to boost page hits, to earn VG24/7 more money, that kind of crazy remark wouldn’t surprise me right now. =P

@446

Yer, I’d be interested to see how many accounts share the same IP.

@447, They don’t. These are legitimately new people who probably found the story through N4G or other sources.