So....nintendo fanboys. Yikes. I've seen a huge uptick of them since the switch 2 was announced, and a lot of them are very weird sycophants for their brand. They'll just mindlessly defend Nintendo's anti consumer behavior and I notice a lot of them will pick fights with anyone who is even mildly critical of Nintendo.
Now, fanboys are nothing new, nor are console wars. And nor is trying to defend recent purchases you made. I did some of this stuff in the past and even to some extent will argue for my own purchasing decisions as I believe my logic is correct. BUT...there's a difference between doing it for yourself, and just mindlessly defending anti consumer behavior. Like, in my case, I normally defend stuff because I felt like a got a GOOD deal, not when I feel screwed. And while I cant say I'll ALWAYS hold my ground with my principles in gaming due to the nature of copyright and the fact that they got an exclusive license over a brand whether you like it or not, I still grumble and complain about it. Like battlefield season passes back in the day.
But....someone put forward a theory about these nintendo fanboys I find interesting, and I do think there is at least something to this. It's basically the idea that these guys have a parasocial relationship with nintendo. Nintendo has been there for them since their childhood back in the 90s (assuming they're around my age, a lot of people my age who defend the switch are fiercely defensive of the company), and as a result, they're kind of addicted. And when you attack nintendo, they see it as you attacking something foundational to their worldview.
And...I guess I can kinda agree with this. I mean, I've never been particularly tied to nintendo as a company. Quite frankly, I dont have loyalty to any gaming company, although I would say if I defend any of them, it's valve for how pro consumer they are. Even then, I'm not afraid to criticize them if I feel like it's warranted. But I digress.
The fact is...this is unhealthy behavior. And this is also why nintendo gets away with their abusive behavior. You guys who think like this, you're in an unhealthy relationship with the company. i get it, their games are great, you have tons of memories over the years, but your love for them and positive emotions toward them are being weaponized. They know you're psychologically dependent on them and their games and you want your newest fix. So...you'll pay whatever they want, and you'll defend their behavior. if anything, anyone who actually calls out their behavior becomes the bad guy for you. And quite frankly, this is dumb, counterproductive behavior.
When I criticize companies like nintendo, I do so because I understand that when it comes to markets, consumers are the ones who have to put the brakes on abusive BS. And sometimes, that means not buying.
I'm not gonna lie. I'm not super into nintendo. However, neither am I anti them. Every console generation growing up, I was into a different company. Originally I was a sega fanboy in the 16 bit era, then I was a nintendo one in the late 90s with the N64. I switched to the PS2 after the dreamcast bombed, and never really cared for them. if anything, in retrospect, i WISH I bought a gamecube instead, it was a better console with a better library. Or at least an xbox for halo.
I originally had a game gear, but after that got discontinued, I moved to the game boy. I bought a game boy advance near launch. I got a DS near launch. But then...I cooled on them. The fact is, part of it was my gaming tastes matured. By this point I was in my late teenage years and the kiddie type games nintendo had no longer appealed to me like they used to. But on the other hand, to some extent, nintendo just changed. The DS was hyped up as this portable N64. Instead, we got a bunch of 2D and shovelware type games that relied on the touch screen gimmicks and felt like mobile games with less bad monetization models. Then we had the wii where everything was motion controls. And the consoles were far weaker, many games on the PS3/Xbox 360 were absent on nintendo, or nintendo got the worst ports. While nintendo in the 90s had a lot of T and M rated shooters like goldeneye, perfect dark, and turok, by the time we got to the wii era, they DID go in a "kiddie" direction. And I kinda parted ways with them around this point.
Eventually I found my way to PC gaming, recognizing that the entire console industry was kind of abusive. I mean, microsoft was charging for xbox live and i didnt like that. I've ALWAYS been pro consumer and kinda realized I already paid for internet, why do I have to pay again to play games online on THEIR service? PC gaming had free multiplayer, and the mroe I learned, I realized that consoles were just PCs with their own OSes and eco systems locked down to only play games. Like, they're walled gardens that force you into dependency on their business model. However, PC is an open platform. You can do whatever you want on PC, and companies dont generally lock down the software. And I became attracted to android for mobile devices for the same reason. Apple locked stuff down, android didn't. So I've been mostly PC/android for the past 10-15 years.
Still, I do keep in touch with the console market, without really buying one. And if anything, the monetization got worse. Now all 3 companies charge for online, which i STILL find ridiculous, although console gamers will mindlessly defend it. At the same time, in a more positive direction, microsoft and sony are less focused on console exclusivity than in the past, and PC gets microsoft and sony exclusives these days. Which really gives us the best of most worlds.
Heck we get everything these days...but nintendo games. So...back to nintendo. As I said, DS I was hyped on but I got disenchanted on over the lack of solid titles on it. Sure some first party games were great, but there was also a lot of junk like brain age and nintendogs that was just WTF for me. The wii made the motion controls their big thing, and that was always a turn off for me. I just wanna game like a normal person, not play games designed around cheap gimmicks. Still, admittedly, the wii had some decent titles. Nintendo does put out some solid games here and there. And despite the criticism I still wanted to buy a Wii at the time but couldnt afford it. Ya know, limited budgets and opportunity costs. Nintendo made their bed with me by deciding to lock their games behind hardware and not releasing them on PC like everyone else does, and not being able to afford their consoles and their games while still playing on PC, I just...let them go.
3DS and Wii U, same thing. Avoided them because of high console costs and exclusivity. And again, ugh, more gimmicks. Still a friend did eventually give me an old 3DS and a bunch of games he had, and admittedly, it was still a decent console. I wouldnt give up PC gaming for nintendo, which is what nintendo expects of me with their business model to play their games, but when I can play nintendo games, i find them fun. Again, it's just, ya know, opportunity costs and all.
Which brings me to the switch. I gave my initial impressions of the OG switch back in 2017. And here's how I felt about it. A return to form, but I didnt like the paid online, and honestly, i found $300 to be kinda steep. And $60 for games that rarely if ever go on sale? Yikes. Again, for me, that's a GPU, or even a chunk of money to put toward a new CPU/mobo. Or an android device, which i use not just for gaming, but also as my device away from my PC. The point is, I'm kinda happy where I am with PC/android, and see little reason to move away from it. And nintendo's business model, once again, comes at an opportunity cost for me. It means compromising on my main systems more given my limited entertainment budget, and yeah, it's just easier to just not buy nintendo stuff.
If anything, I get mad at nintendo because honestly? I WANT to buy their games. I WANT to play their games, but they don't do so in a business model I find agreeable. If the switch became heavily discounted where we could buy like a new switch by now for like $100-$150, and the games from 8 years ago be discounted from like 2017 to like $5-20, I might've bit for it. But...they didn't do that. THeir launch games are still $60, their console is still $300, or $200 for the "lite" one, and they dont put their stuff on discount. I just had to explain to people defending nintendo that a lot of games from 2017 that I bought can now be found for like $3-10 on steam during a proper sale (which happens 4+ times a year, by the way, with their summer sale probably happening in another week or two...), and these nintendo fanboys are defending games still being $60, or even going up to $70-80, and maybe, just maybe being discounted from $60 to $40. After EIGHT YEARS.
I'm sorry, but no. I already discussed my gaming budgets and my decisions as of late. Wanting $200-300 for proprietary hardware to play their games specifically, and then charging full price, is just a no go for me. Again, that means no GPU upgrades. or fewer PC games. Maybe not buying COD this year, or battlefield, or core franchises I'll literally dump HUNDREDS of hours in over the course of a year or two. To what, play a game I might enjoy for 10 hours, or maybe in the case of pokemon, like 40? No, not worth it.
And then I talk to my friend who always does try to goad me into buying nintendo games and he talks about paying for cloud saves for pokemon and I'm just like, wtaf? No. Hell no. That's just predatory.
And now the switch 2. They want $80 games, $450 console, and their OG switch is still $300, and their games are still $60. So not only do they never lower their prices, but then they decide to push boundaries to see what they can get away with, and these weirdos with a parasocial relationship with nintendo are just defending it.
Honestly, I look at what nintendo is doing and from the outside looking in, I get the ick factor going on. Not even touching topics like game cards with no games on them and linked to digital downloads. Like, the point of cartridges back in the day was they were the medium we would put games on. Now we got downloads and nintendo is coming up with cartridges as a form of DRM for digital downloads? Then I'm hearing they're bricking consoles for violating TOS, which is kinda crappy. I can see banning people from online play, but bricking the entire system? Seems kinda scummy.
I mean, all of this behavior to me comes off as extremely anti consumer. You can argue it's necessary to stop piracy, but quite frankly, if they really care about that, they should do what valve did. Again, there's a huge reason I actually like and defend valve as a company. Because their entire business philosophy is to create such a good consumer experience that people don't want to seek software through alternative means. They actually reduce the problem by making their core business model so consumer friendly by offering cheap games and not screwing people. Nintendo seems to do the opposite and it just drives people away and makes the problem worse.
Which brings me back to the main point. No one should defend nintendo for their current business model. it's crap. It enables bad behavior, and this bad behavior will set a precedent to allow certain publishers to pursue similar behavior. I mean, for as good as PC gaming is, it doesnt mean that some publishers arent crap sometimes. Microsoft is charging $80 for games now, following suit with nintendo. Outer worlds 2 is gonna be $80. Kinda ironic a game that criticizes capitalism is gonna...do the greedy thing, but it is what it is. And honestly, hardware concerns are an issue too. I mean, Nvidia has an iron grip on the GPU market, and we need GPUs to play those games. Nintendo raising their prices also encourages microsoft to charge more for their stuff. We saw now microsoft wants to charge $700 for their xboxes, and now they're making their own custom rog ally which is likely gonna cost $500-800. So while PC gaming is often cheap, it's really not with different companies also screwing us too.
And that's what I'm trying to oppose, being screwed. Any consumer should rationally support their own interests and not engage in behavior that bolsters a company and their bad business decisions. because when customers do that, it ENABLES bad behavior. So, when nintendo fanboys start mindlessly defending nintendo, they're actually hurting themselves, and others. They're making gaming worse and more predatory for all of us. Which is why I'm so deeply critical of nintendo, AND them. Look, we should want cheap and affordable games. We should want gaming to be accessible to the masses. it's basic economics. But when consumers just enable bad behavior....it...enables bad behavior that means we pay more for worse products. If you're okay with that, well, it is what it is, but you're kinda part of the problem as I see it, which is why I'm so critical of such people myself. I understand nintendo is highly integral to some gamers' lives and there's tons of nostalgia there, but seriously, this parasocial relationship where people mindlessly defend them is hurting all of us. We should be pro consumer in our outlook and pursue our own interests, not defend the interests of others looking to screw us with anti consumer behavior.
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