Ron puts grumpygamer.com down for a while

[Rum Rogers]

I find this hilarious and couldn't agree more. The comment section was becoming a freaking den for delusional psychopaths.

It's incredible how entitled some "fans" can be. They just won't stop whining about the new style, like it's gonna change anything.
And I'm saying this as someone who is still a bit puzzled by the art style.

What a bunch of morons, I feel sorry for Ron.

 

Edited April 24, 2022 by Rum Rogers

[TimeGentleman]

Ah, that's sad. I know I've said here that I'm not fully onboard with the art we've seen so far, but even if I weren't withholding final judgement until I actually play the thing (or at least see some proper gameplay), I don't feel that as a fan I'm entitled to receive the exact thing I want. I certainly wouldn't go and harass the creators about it.

[Rum Rogers]

Absolutely! I mean I also turned up my nose to the art style, I'd definitely have preferred something else, but I'm simply happy this thing exists in the first place. It's pretty much a little miracle imho.
People there are behaving like Ron owes them anything, it's unbelievable. Love it or leave it, but why the whining???

[Lagomorph01]

This is something that happens more and more. It’s really depressing what fandom has become…

Toxic fandom is really destroying creative processes. This is why many wise development companies (like Nintendo) never really listen to fans. When they do it becomes a sliding slope.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Yikes. I didn't bother to read the comments, but they must have been really terrible if Ron has taken his blog down. I think he's pretty philosophical about things generally, so I can't imagine.

 

It's great that Ron decided to create this whole thing in a vacuum, otherwise it would have been two years of toxicity messing with the creative process. I wonder if Schafer can offer some sanguine words privately to the team, given that DF have been through this themselves.

 

There was a poll on a big LucasArts Facebook group (18K members) and the result was that 80% of people liked the new style. 15% were disappointed but hopeful. Only 2% didn't like it outright. So it seems like a vocal minority anyway.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 24, 2022 by ThunderPeel2001

[elTee]

What the hell is wrong with people?! I've waited 30 years for Ron to make another Monkey Island game, now he's actually doing it and people are anything other than HAPPY? Gah! I'm sure you won't see this Ron, but from my point of view I just want you to make the game YOU want to make.

[Udvarnoky]

I haven't visited Ron's blog in a while, but I remember the kind of comments he would get there and on Twitter whenever he would touch on his plans for another Monkey Island game. I can only imagine the merry nonsense he brought down upon himself now that there's something tangible to react to.

 

My new joke these days is "Now it's Ron's turn to be the guy who ruined Monkey Island." It's a rite of passage, really. There's always been a contingent of fans who have judged the third, fourth and fifth games not on objective criteria, but against what they knew in their hearts Ron would have done differently. Discussing the sequels became an evaluation of their legitimacy. The "real" Monkey Islands vs. the imitation ones, and all that codswallop.

 

And guess what, now that Ron is in fact making his follow up, those same people are going to turn against that one, too. Because Ron's not going to make the game they decided was the correct one -- either because he "sold out" or "lost it" or got soft or committed that unpardonable sin of growing more philosophical about (and thus accepting of) the other games or had to defer to all those modern ideas Lucasfilm forced upon him. There will be a reason, don't worry.

 

It was a foregone conclusion; it can't be helped. The best thing to do as always is just enjoy the ride.

[Zaxx]

To be fair the fanbase was always a bit like this thanks to all the different iterations to MI we've had. We're an opinionated bunch and that's fine, what I never understood is why  it is so hard for some people to view MI as a series that just likes to adapt different art styles. Yeah I have my favorites too and I wouldn't complain if those styles returned but overall I'm just excited for the new things Return will bring, art style included.

 

I'd even play an FMV based MI game, throw rocks at me.

[ThunderPeel2001]

17 minutes ago, elTee said:

What the hell is wrong with people?! I've waited 30 years for Ron to make another Monkey Island game, now he's actually doing it and people are anything other than HAPPY? Gah! I'm sure you won't see this Ron, but from my point of view I just want you to make the game YOU want to make.

 

It's strange. My generation was all about the "Director's Cut". We learned that studios often meddled with a director's vision, and getting that original unfiltered vision became the holy grail for fans. Now it seems it's getting a tailor-made edition that suits your tastes exactly. Creator vision be damned.

 

In a way that's fine if people are prepared to make changes themselves (fan edits, fan mods, etc), but it sounds like the comments must have drifted into flat out abuse for Ron to shut down his website.

 

Although hopefully it wasn't abuse towards the team and maybe just squabbling between fans.

[Rum Rogers]

1 hour ago, Udvarnoky said:

There's always been a contingent of fans who have judged the third

Guilty as charged here.

I've been harsh with CMI in the past, and ironically now that RMI is going for that art style, to my eyes it only reinforced the "legitimacy" of the hyper cartoony style chosen for CMI. Not that it needed my approval, but yeah I now realize what I thought about it was wrong, even Ron likes his cartoony Monkey Island.

So I kinda fully made peace with CMI now (which I always loved by the way).

[Udvarnoky]

1 hour ago, Rum Rogers said:

Guilty as charged here.

 

Oh, I'm sure we've all taken our turn indulging in that mindset a bit. Hopefully it's gratuitous for me to clarify that there's not the slightest bit of invalidity with preferring the Ron-led games or for feeling that the subsequent ones represented a departure in spirit, or whatever. That's probably a pretty common perspective -- maybe even a majority one for those who played the games in release order? -- but every "take" has its ugliest extreme. It's when people's preferences become tantamount to some sort of purity test that we enter The Dumb (technical term), and I take solace in the fact that it doesn't really show up in these parts anymore. Probably because the median age here is 153 now, but still.

[Zaxx]

Clearly the only way to solve this problem is with a text adventure demake:

 

 

Now the art style can be whatever you imagine.

[Udvarnoky]

A game by David P. Gray.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I'd put the LAUGH reaction on that video, but the reaction functionality isn't working for me again.

[Rum Rogers]

Haha brilliant!

[ThunderPeel2001]

So apparently some of the comments were directed at Ron. I don't get it... as a fanbase have we become less mature as we've gotten older? Or is it younger fans that think it's OK to react this way? Really sad  

[Niemandswasser]

3 minutes ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

So apparently some of the comments were directed at Ron. I don't get it... as a fanbase have we become less mature as we've gotten older? Or is it younger fans that think it's OK to react this way? Really sad  

I'd put money on almost 100% of it being entitled older fans stuck in the distant past, convinced that they and they alone know what's right for the series and that any departure from their long-held vision of a "proper" "MI3a" is not only wrong but a grave insult bordering on personal violence. It's an attitude that's been there in communities dedicated to classic adventure games for a long time, and anything Gilbert & co. did was never going to be good enough, short of literally reaching through a rift in space and time to a dimension where a Gilbert-led Monkey Island 3 released in 1994 and bringing a copy back. And half those people would still whine about how they didn't understand the one joke that referenced President Gary Hart's administration.

[OzzieMonkey]

Good on Ron for

shutting it down, but holy shit I wish it wasn't necessary. There's been a lot of unnecessary hate. We're getting a new Monkey Island game, we should be so grateful for that. May I also point out that it's not like he's gone and turned it into a kart racing game or a first person shooter, it's going to be an honest-to-goodness point and click with a story that has the characters we know and love, and really, that's what counts. 

[ThunderPeel2001]

Hmm. Speaking as an entitled older fan stuck in the distant past (1990 was 10 years ago, right?), I don't know anyone who would think it'd be OK to send aggressive messages to Ron. It just baffles me.

 

 

Edited April 25, 2022 by ThunderPeel2001

[Glokidd]

Im super sad to see this and totally get why Ron took it down if that's is indeed why. I've seen the same faces across many platforms Screaming the same terrible things and it really sucks the loudest voices turn out to be the detractors a lot of the time. It's not even that there isn't 10 comments of praise for every 1 negative but I know too well how that 1 can ring louder and last longer in your thoughts.

 

I've always wanted Ron's 3rd as well but I never could get the not-my-Monkey-Islanders . that's worst timeline stuff, 30 years since the last official release... this last stretch was long enough.

[Lagomorph01]

I don’t think this is an adventure gaming alone problem. It’s a pattern that can be seen in people all over the world. I think a lot of people are unhappy and get ‘lost’ in something (it can be media, but it can also be personal beliefs) so much that it starts to be a point of their identity. (This is a subconsious process.) Once they identify with something, they themselves are attacked when this something (or their vision of it) gets attacked, because to them this something ís them.

This is why there’s so little ‘agree to disagree’ anymore. People just won’t listen and keep going until a discussion is ‘won’. I think that’s where a lot of the name calling and death threats you hear about online come from. People feel offended by a different vision, which they bring back to themselves, and with the feeling of powerlessness comes a feeling of agression. In my opinion threatening someone with death is never okay, same as personal violence. There are now writers/creators who face this every day. Do you have any idea what that does to someone’s psyche?

It’s really sad to see something beautiful like the internet being abused for this kind of malicious practice. I think it’s a good thing that there is more moderation and there are more laws about internet use being made. The internet isn’t what it was in the 2000’s and it’s become a sort of Wild West populated by childish butthurt people shooting their death threat revolvers around.

At the same time I’m grateful for Mixnmojo, (the last social media I have btw,) where the commenters are civil and respectful to each other. Thank you all!

 

I’m sorry for my long rant, it’s a pattern that has me worrying for a long time, and it hurts me to see this happen to Ron.

Edited April 25, 2022 by Lagomorph01

[Zaxx]

9 hours ago, Lagomorph01 said:

People just won’t listen and keep going until a discussion is ‘won’.

I don't think that's the problem, take it someone who used to like having debates: debates are usually "won" fairly quickly if the issue is not that complex. The problem is that people on the internet nowadays just can't admit or sometimes can't even realize when it's time to admit that the other party has fair points, proceed to closing remarks and "shake hands". Debates don't end now, they just devolve into frustration, deliberate misunderstandings, ad hominem arguments and just flinging random pieces of fecal matter at each other. We no longer have a debate culture, we are just savages on the internet independently of intelligence, profession, social standing, religious or political beliefs etc.

 

Now we're at the point where debate is not even an option most of the time and it really hurts society as a whole because this leads to being divided and just on the edge all the time. That's great for consumerism though, you just buy all the things to forget about your problems, then you spend 2 years under full lockdown because our world leaders are just as clueless about mental health as everyone else and you described the rest perfectly accurately: people forget that it's just a videogame.

 

It sucks, it truly does and so far there doesn't even seem to be a way to make things better. Something needs to happen that just eases people's frustrations as a whole I guess.

[Jake]

I think one thing the early internet - a place filled mostly with academics and engineers - misidentified is that not every expression if thought or declaration of preference is an invitation for a rhetorical debate. There isn’t always a “winner” to just preferring something to be some way. Or if there is, the fact that one comes across someone else expressing that preference online isn’t reason enough to engage them. I will say I’m not disagreeing with much of what you’re saying, but I would argue your lamentation for the death of romantic early internet debate culture is at least slightly misplaced*, because not everyone enjoyed or invited that in their life to begin with, but it was once pervasive and unavoidable, the “cost of doing business” of existing online is that people were out and about trying to debate you at every turn. Not ideal. Sucks, actually. 
 

I agree that peoples seemingly uncontrollable and compulsive unwillingness to walk away, or their desire to engage in bad faith debates as trolls, concern trolls, or other deliberate poisonings are all also terrible. But I also wish people had the restraint and wherewithal to just not engage at all, either because it may be unsure if the person posting is intending to engage with them, or just to save themselves some time.

 

(this reply isn’t really a post about grumpygamer at all, apologies)
 

 

* or: you simply preferred it, it was better for you, and that may not be true for others.

[Jake]

If ron really did close his site because the comments became too gnarly, I’m glad he did because it’s his right, but it really bums me out that it came to that. That’s not an issue of arguing one’s case well or not, that’s people being purely impolite and dragging a fight about someone’s work right into their house. In real life you are told to “take it outside,” and I think that can and should apply here as well. 
 

On 4/24/2022 at 9:22 AM, Udvarnoky said:

And guess what, now that Ron is in fact making his follow up, those same people are going to turn against that one, too. Because Ron's not going to make the game they decided was the correct one -- either because he "sold out" or "lost it" or got soft or committed that unpardonable sin of growing more philosophical about (and thus accepting of) the other games or had to defer to all those modern ideas Lucasfilm forced upon him. There will be a reason, don't worry.

 

Unfortunately I think some version of this is a very likely outcome. For many of the loudest upset people right now, it’s not an issue of the marketplace of ideas or some great debate, or even curiosity about what the makers of the game are up to or what their intentions are. It’s disappointment and an inability to walk away or take a break, festering as rage. For an unfortunate some, that inability to walk away will probably continue well after the game ships and for some within that group, will start manifesting as rationalizations and borderline conspiratorial thinking.

[Zaxx]

33 minutes ago, Jake said:

I think one thing the early internet - a place filled mostly with academics and engineers - misidentified is that not every expression if thought or declaration of preference is an invitation for a rhetorical debate. There isn’t always a “winner” to just preferring something to be some way. Or if there is, the fact that one comes across someone else expressing that preference online isn’t reason enough to engage them. I will say I’m not disagreeing with much of what you’re saying, but I would argue your lamentation for the death of romantic early internet debate culture is at least slightly misplaced*, because not everyone enjoyed or invited that in their life to begin with, but it was once pervasive and unavoidable, the “cost of doing business” of existing online is that people were out and about trying to debate you at every turn. Not ideal. Sucks, actually. 
 

I agree that peoples seemingly uncontrollable and compulsive unwillingness to walk away, or their desire to engage in bad faith debates as trolls, concern trolls, or other deliberate poisonings are all also terrible. But I also wish people had the restraint and wherewithal to just not engage at all, either because it may be unsure if the person posting is intending to engage with them, or just to save themselves some time.

 

(this reply isn’t really a post about grumpygamer at all, apologies)
 

 

* or: you simply preferred it, it was better for you, and that may not be true for others.

Yep, there is definitely a problem with really bored or obsessed people just scanning the land of the internet looking for arguments even when there is no place for that. I value my early internet experience more mostly because it was just easier to find small, welcoming communities where small talk and respectable debates both just worked and even if the occasional "flame war" did end up occuring it was just more tongue in cheek and less "I'm going to destroy you and your livelihood for saying that thing I partially disagree with." It's that lack of "mass social media" I miss the most and in some respects I see those kind of communities resurfacing on Discord but that place got wildly commercialized way too fast too.