One thing I've noticed on every game forum that I've ever been on(I need to stop spending so much time talking about games) is that there are people that log on just to bash a game.

I'm not talking about pointing out weak points or talking about things that they feel should have been done, after all, no game is perfect and devs need feedback. More than once I've complained about Oblivion's Main Quest and the level 20 limit that Fallout 3 used to have.

I'm talking about people that seem to have some kind of vendetta or grudge against a game, and get on the game forum to knock it at every chance they get. And they can get mean at times, especially against people that enjoy the game or disagree with them. When I was playing Star Trek Online in it's infancy I actually saw death threats in their forum.

Sometimes they write long walls of text to state a minor point that they have against the game. I've seen it in every game forum I've been in from Star Wars Galaxies to World of Warcraft to Oblivion to Skyrim. I can only imagine what the Call of Duty or League of Legends forums must look like.

What do you good people think?

I tend to suspect they are posers. That they spend so much time on the forums seems to imply they are fans of the game, else they wouldn't be here. But, a hipster's gotta hate anything the 'ignorant masses' likes and it wouldn't do to be mistaken for a 'really devoted fan' so one has to build their 'forum cred' by bashing.

I could be wrong, though.

I think it happens because people get very invested in a game or a series then a game isn't all they hoped for or differs from a previous game and they feel betrayed.

Basically people who expect too much overreact when they are disappointed.

Plus its the internet, home of hyperbole.

Amazon, I have to say it. I love that avatar!

I think that best describes the case when I rag on a game. I don't care about WoW or CoD. But games like Rome II let me down, and I really hated CA for a while after that debacle. So now I don't let myself get hyped nor will I ever pre-order again.

Thanks

To give an example of what I meant.

I love MW, best fantasy CRPG ever IMO.

So I got very hyped about Oblivion and was very disappointed with it.

With Skyrim I had low expectations so was pleasantly surprised by it.

I can now be objective about the good and bad points of them all but it took a couple of years.

My "favorite" example of game bashing would be when Alien: Isolation was released, on the Steam discussion forum there were several troll threads daily about how much the game svcked because you couldn't kill the alien and didn't have the pulse rifle (which wasn't in the source material i.e. Alien but I digress). This went on for several weeks after its release, mind you. Some people just like being contrarian. I mean, it's the internet, which has made it apropos and cool and edgy to hate everything.

This topic, and this whole Bethesda's forum svck, I created a profile here 7 years ago just for a chance to say this.

Sillyness aside, dissatisfied people seem to be the loudest. I know that I personally talk about (for example, since it's currently this forum's greatest thing) Skyrim's flaws more than I praise it, but I somehow assume that people know I love the game from me posting around so much and by the time spent in the game that's recorded on steam (which is probably only like half since I used to have steam constantly set to work offline). But then again, you did differentiate criticism from plain hatred, so I'm kinda writing pointlessly, and in all honesty, I have no idea why are there people who say that they hate a game that they seem to play all the time. Maybe they're masochists?

I think Amazon Queen and Rosveen sum it up nicely, though I lean more towards Rosveen's explanation.

As for myself, snarking is fun and a lot easier to do when you're familiar with the subject. I tend to pick on things I love a lot, especially since I tend to have higher expectations of Bethesda games than other companies (though now I know in which areas to expect high quality and what areas to just go "well, they've always svcked at that so no big deal.")

Yes, sometimes when I'm replaying an old game I'll visit their forums to ask something but many are almost dead, even successful games like DAO.

3 years after the release of Skyrim these forums are probably as quiet as they will ever be but theres still people posting every day on the various TES and Fallout forums.