Has a Fanbase Ever Ruined Something for You?

Like the title says, has a general fanbase ever ruined something for you, when it comes to anything video gaming related?

For example, perhaps you're already a fan of a certain video game franchise, and then, maybe you've had some unpleasant encounters with fans, like for me, I can't stand the *crazy* fanbase from the Tales games. Like all the time they're always saying "BRING TALES OF VESPERIA FOR PS3 TO NA AND FORGET EVERYTHING ELSE!" because they're that obsessed with it, haha.

I mean, don't get me wrong. I really love it if ToV for PS3 get's to be localized, but come on, that's no excuse for not appreciating or simply hating on the other new Tales motherboard titles that we're going to get? Tales of Graces got soooo much heat because of that and ugh, I'm starting to feel that because of the general craziness that these guys bring, it just sorts of.. turns me off completely from supporting a ToV localization anymore since it's like, I'm just done with that, let's move on.

That's just my own personal experience. How about yours? o:

Never ruined anything but good god video game fanbases in general can be the worst. The hyperbole and sensitivity is on the extreme side of things.

I'm definitely not sick of The Last of Us fans and their exaggerations. Nope.
Smash fans can be a bunch of man children.
Pokemon fans are honestly one of the best examples of awful fanbases too actually.

Would rather not generalize but there's a bunch of them. Obviously being a Smash fan doesn't make you a man child (I'd be calling myself that lol), but unfortunately those people that are can be everywhere.

To be honest, the Smash fanbase consists of one giant war that doesn't even need to exist...

The extremist casual fans hate all competitive players for "dictating how the game is played," which is hypocritical because they're dictating how they don't want it to be played. On the other end, a lot of extremist competitive players are literally elitists. I've seen plenty of threads on Smash Bros. forums saying stuff like "If you suck at wavedashing, you're legitimately a **** player." On top of that, the extremists from both sides label the entirety of the opposing side as "tourney***s" and "casual***s." Come on, now. Is that even necessary?

Now let me get this straight: the people I just described are a minority within the fanbase. However, they're just too darn vocal that they end up degenerating both sides of the spectrum as a whole.

Nah. Do some fanbases go too far sometimes? Sure. But, as long I can accept and see it's just the vocal minority being the problem than it doesn't really ruin anything for me. Some fanbases do rub me the wrong way though.

Monster Hunter. This is a problem that has gotten much better over the years, but it still persists. It's the whole MHFU veterans stigma against newer players. We want to introduce more people to the series, not push them away now.

The rabid Persona fans that herald it as the only good thing of the SMT series without trying out any of the other entries. I mean, I love Persona, but sometimes it's a nice change of pace to see what they originally stemmed from. SMT3 is also fantastic, everyone should play it. Strange Journey too. Raidou as well. SMT4 too. you can see where this is going.

Dragon said:

For example, perhaps you're already a fan of a certain video game franchise, and then, maybe you've had some unpleasant encounters with fans, like for me, I can't stand the *crazy* fanbase from the Tales games. Like all the time they're always saying "BRING TALES OF VESPERIA FOR PS3 TO NA AND FORGET EVERYTHING ELSE!" because they're that obsessed with it, haha.

I mean, don't get me wrong. I really love it if ToV for PS3 get's to be localized, but come on, that's no excuse for not appreciating or simply hating on the other new Tales motherboard titles that we're going to get? Tales of Graces got soooo much heat because of that and ugh, I'm starting to feel that because of the general craziness that these guys bring, it just sorts of.. turns me off completely from supporting a ToV localization anymore since it's like, I'm just done with that, let's move on.

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Honestly, this whole situation is cute in comparison to the storm that the Japanese Tales fanbase riled up with Zestiria.

Revise Librarian said:

To be honest, the Smash fanbase consists of one giant war that doesn't even need to exist...

The extremist casual fans hate all competitive players for "dictating how the game is played," which is hypocritical because they're dictating how they don't want it to be played. On the other end, a lot of extremist competitive players are literally elitists. I've seen plenty of threads on Smash Bros. forums saying stuff like "If you suck at wavedashing, you're legitimately a **** player." On top of that, the extremists from both sides label the entirety of the opposing side as "tourney***s" and "casual***s." Come on, now. Is that even necessary?

Now let me get this straight: the people I just described are a minority within the fanbase. However, they're just too darn vocal that they end up degenerating both sides of the spectrum as a whole.

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You've forgot the worst part of the Smash fanbase: the character roster.

You will always end up finding a debate on clones, cut veterans, DLC, third-party reps, and Ridley.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Sonic fanbase yet, for it makes Pokémon and Smash Bros. look normal in comparison. You've got old-school Sonic fans, modern Sonic fans, the Sonic cycle, Donut Steele OCs, disturbing fanarts, and much, much more.

This doesn't usually apply to video games, but rather other things for me. Comics, web series, tv shows, etc..

However the Sonic fanbase does really disappoint me. I love Sonic and for a while it was one of my favorite franchises, he's my favorite character to use on SSMB, but the fanbase just makes you feel disgusting for even admitting that you even remotely like it.

Also Halo. I can't play halo because of the fanbase. I just can't. Also the Final Fantasy fanbase really disappoints me sometimes. So many feuds over who the best villain was. Though most of them can agree that XIII was shit, and if you don't then you're shit. And that's why I don't go to /vg/ anymore.

Pinkie-Dawn said:

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Sonic fanbase yet, for it makes Pokémon and Smash Bros. look normal in comparison. You've got old-school Sonic fans, modern Sonic fans, the Sonic cycle, Donut Steele OCs, disturbing fanarts, and much, much more.

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I have no idea what you're talking about

Wanna play a fun game (and by fun, I mean masochistic)? Type your name the hedgehog into google images.

But seriously, the Sonic fanbase sucks SOOO much. Their worst members are the ones that try to hold every sonic game on a pedestal, no matter how bad. They will defend anything from Sonic 06 to Sonic Boom.


And as much as I love the series, the Smash community can be pretty damn bad. You've got elitists on both the casual and competitive side, neither one realising that they are both as bad as eachother. Then you have wars between the different games, the current one being Melee vs Smash 4. But that fanbase isn't all bad, they can occasionally get a long and do some great things, such as when both the Brawl and Melee fanbase raised $95,000 dollars for breast cancer in order to get Melee into Evo. Unfortunately, stuff like chanting "Melee" when Zero won the Smash 4 tournament at Apex is really off-putting.


The League of Legends fanbase almost made me quit, due to the overwhelming toxicity. But I think that its slowly getting better.

Sonata said:

So many feuds over who the best villain was.

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This and debates about 6 VS 7 is one of the things that most pisses me off about the Final Fantasy fanbase. Really they aren't debates, they're just "I'm right, fuck you."

I can't really say that I've had fanbases ruin anything for me. Well, I didn't enjoy FF6 as much because prior to playing the game there were so many people bitching about how good it was online and I had too high of expectations for it due to that. But that aside I tend to just shake my head at and often ignore fanbases. Since I don't want them ruining anything.

Revise Librarian said:

To be honest, the Smash fanbase consists of one giant war that doesn't even need to exist...

The extremist casual fans hate all competitive players for "dictating how the game is played," which is hypocritical because they're dictating how they don't want it to be played. On the other end, a lot of extremist competitive players are literally elitists. I've seen plenty of threads on Smash Bros. forums saying stuff like "If you suck at wavedashing, you're legitimately a **** player." On top of that, the extremists from both sides label the entirety of the opposing side as "tourney***s" and "casual***s." Come on, now. Is that even necessary?

Now let me get this straight: the people I just described are a minority within the fanbase. However, they're just too darn vocal that they end up degenerating both sides of the spectrum as a whole.

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Agreed. Especially with all the fanboys of Melee...it's like, I understand it's a game with high competitive presence, but I'd prefer it not being shoved down my throat everywhere I go.

Another fanbase I sometimes disagree with - the Touhou fanbase. It's too fandom-driven...it's driven me off most of the Touhou games, and has warped my knowledge on the various characters of the series.

Ruined, no, as my enjoyment of something isn't dependant on other people's opinions agreeing with my own...if it was I'd enjoy very little. Immensely annoyed me, though? Yes.

The Zelda fandom is pretty frightening...if you say a word against Ocarina of Time you're liable to get strung up and burned at the stake for heresy. Or treated with contempt because you apparently only dislike it because everyone else likes it, because legitimately disliking Ocarina of Time is impossible, apparently. Having an opinion in the Zelda fandom is dangerous unless you have life insurance...

The Final Fantasy fandom is pretty much the same. I don't really have much else to add to that; I was on an FF forum around the time XIII was released, and words fail me for how rabid the entire place was. Of course, XIII split the fandom right down the middle - you either loved it or you hated it - but even afterwards, anyone who dared say a word against VII or X would get a storm of messages about how wrong they were. Criticism is not allowed in that fandom.

The "We want dual audio!" segment of the niche JRPG fanbase makes me want to break something as well, it's toxic and utterly pathetic, especially considering that two generations ago the games they're whining about wouldn't have even been released outside of Japan. I loathe this more than anything else I've come across in a fanbase thus far. A part of me is glad when a game has only English voice acting now, because it means that they've been ignored, as they deserve to be.

The Pokemon fandom used to be pretty violent when I was a youngster, although I think that was due more to age than it was rabid fans. xD

The PewDiePie fanbase. Please don't kill me

I'll admit it, I genuinely enjoy watching PewDiePie's videos. I think he's a cool guy, does things for charity, entertains fans of various game genres, and some of his jokes are funny. He doesn't think of himself too highly - unlike a few celebrities - and can joke about himself, heck even ridicule himself in public.

But good god, the fanbase. A mass of inappropriately swearing, entitled, defensive pringles. They literally spoil PewDiePie's name when they needlessly and horribly defend him from constructive criticism.

There's no fanbase that ever ruined something for me, because there's always cool people, too.

The only fandom that ever managed to annoy me are the old school RPG Maker elitist, who think that RPG Maker 2000/2003 are the superier ones and every new RPG Maker just sucks. They also happen to talk too much whenever a noob wants to show a game he's making which always turns out into hugh topic unreleated discussions about some stupid gameplay mechanic and makes those noobs leave these communities immediately.

I usually keep my distance from fanbases in general because how terrible (parts of them) can get. It's not worth it to get mixed up in wars over opinions and favorites. The only fanbase I've ever really gotten involved with is Pokemon. Otherwise I wouldn't be on here as much as I am. Admittedly this fanbase has its shitty parts too, but again, all fandoms do.

But no fanbase has ruined things for me.....yet.

Dansparce said:

Wanna play a fun game (and by fun, I mean masochistic)? Type your name the hedgehog into google images.

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....I actually went and did that. Did not expect anything to come up, but stuff did. It's not like I have an uncommon name or something, but.....I just wasn't really expecting anything to happen.

Meloetta said:

The "We want dual audio!" segment of the niche JRPG fanbase makes me want to break something as well, it's toxic and utterly pathetic, especially considering that two generations ago the games they're whining about wouldn't have even been released outside of Japan. I loathe this more than anything else I've come across in a fanbase thus far.

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Mmm, gotta agree with this. Idk why people want Japanese audio so bad. I don't hate Japanese audio, I don't hate subs, but people need to stop acting like this is pre-2001 when English voice acting was almost universally bad. I'm sorry people but at the end of the day I still prefer to hear something in a language I understand than one I don't.

The Runescape fanbase completely sucks. if any of you was around when Jagax released EOC, you'll know exactly what i'm talking about. First they shout to bring back the combat system in 07 beacuse apparently it was so much better. When Jagax relases Old School RS just to shut them up, they complain that it's not free to play, Also, if you sift through the comments on ANY facebook post from the RS official page, you'll find something like this.

RS please lift my ban i was banned for no reason i was banned for botting even though i never botted in my life Jagax please help me!!!!!!!!

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i bet 99% of the time they are lying

Hero of Twilight said:

The Runescape fanbase completely sucks. if any of you was around when Jagax released EOC, you'll know exactly what i'm talking about. First they shout to bring back the combat system in 07 beacuse apparently it was so much better. When Jagax relases Old School RS just to shut them up, they complain that it's not free to play, Also, if you sift through the comments on ANY facebook post from the RS official page, you'll find something like this.

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I remember when I logged onto Runescape for the first time in years a few months ago. Almost immediately, someone ran up to me and started cussing me out because I had better armor than him. I walked away, but he kept following me swearing like no tomorrow and throwing all these names at me. I actually managed to talk him down and we had a decent conversation on what had changed, but holy crap, I don't think I'm logging back on ever again.

I would say that there have been 4 fanbases that ruined something for me.

The first being the Okami fanbase. I was seriously considering purchasing and playing Okami, but the fanbase killed it for me right before I decided. When I saw some people say that they didn't like Okami, I've seen fans of the game either call those people idiots and that "they don't know what true art is" or send them death threats.

Another fanbase would be the Resident Evil fanbase. They haven't ruined the series for me, but they did ruin the Resident Evil community for me to the point where I can't take almost every one of them serious. Always arguing over what is the scariest RE game, what is RE and what isn't, what makes RE scary, going philosophical about RE, complaining about getting exactly what they want, complaining how the series is dead because Resident Evil 4 "ruined everything", arguing that Wesker isn't dead or demanding they want him back, expressing how they want 2 characters to get married, and nowadays I'm seeing them demanding more remakes since the release of Resident Evil Remake HD.

Lastly is the Call of Duty and Halo fanbase because a good majority of them are immature and they pretty much ruined their games for me entirely.

not ruined but frightened to hell and back by the sonic fanbase you know why

Dragon said:

Like the title says, has a general fanbase ever ruined something for you, when it comes to anything video gaming related?

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Not in video games; no - otherwise yes. But I'd suppose it wouldn't be appropriate to talk about in the video games section anywho.

I can say the TimeSplitters fanbase has made me really proud and inspired me though :D

To be honest, no. I don't follow fandoms much anymore. If I like something, I'm just going to like it regardless of what others say or do. Not only that, but I've seen far worse fandoms out there. I doubt anything can be worse than the visual kei fandom as well. Prove me wrong if you will, but I doubt anything can top that... even in the gaming world. That's one reason why fandoms kind of turned me away from things too (By this, I mean from the fandom itself. I'd rather like something for the sake of liking it instead of following the fandoms). You're always going to get that one bad apple to spoil the whole batch, amirite?

Sorry, I didn't mean to steer away from the OP. I was just making a point is all.

I just realized that having a miniscule fanbase can also, in a sense, ruin a series (though not in the way that the OP describes). Many unpopular video game franchises, such as Ape Escape or Blue Dragon (and maybe even Croc, if that even counts) have trouble getting out new games due to a severe lack of demand, which is kind of a shame considering how unique their gameplay styles are. That's obviously not to say that the fans are bad, but not having many fans in the first place CAN really ruin a franchise.