AuthenticM
Member
With the PS4's annoucement less than a week away, what we call the internet phenomenon "console war" is starting to boil. What I've seen on NeoGaf and Giant Bomb has been, so far, more than civil. People are cheering for their console of choice, but not by insane shit-talking and threats as was seen nearly a decade ago. Maybe that'll come, but I'm not so sure. Last time, the Xbox lemmings, who were former Sega drones, flocked to the 360 in some desperate attack on Sony, which it considered to have caused the downfall of the Dreamcast and its parent company. Eight years later, I think the bloodlust has disappeared. Video game enthusiasts still have their favorite console of choice, but they seem to have moved on from the Internet Violence of years past.
I don't know how old the average gaffer is, but I know that some of you in here were not around on forums back in the day. For you, and for those who might have missed some of the action, let me present to you just one example of what things were in some corners of the internets.
I present to you: TeamXbox. TeamXbox was, as its name suggests, a website focused on everything Xbox. They wrote news, reviews, posted trailers and had forums. I started visiting this site not too long after the original Xbox launched. My go-to website for everything video game was GameSpot and it remained as such until 2007's Gerstmann-gate, but I regularly went to TeamXbox because they would sometimes post stuff faster than GameSpot. I also liked the idea of having this one website dedicated to one console.
Anyways, things went well for a while. I didn't go on their forums so who knows if there were some nasty shit in there or not, but as for the editor-side of the website, everything was chill. It was like so until talk of next-gen consoles started brewing. The website then started to take a more... aggressive and snarky tone towards Sony. They would put out news articles and editorials that were clearly written as flamebait and had titles written purely to attract clicks. Most of these scathing articles, if not all of them, were written by a man named Cesar. Over the course of several years, until his (maybe-forced-who-knows) quitting, he would make it a habit to entice his readers into going mad at themselves. And by "mad" I mean going at each other's throats. I don't know if this was the worst stuff on the Internet, but if it wasn't, I dare not imagine what some other recesses of the Internet looked like.
He wrote a lot of articles, but there are three in particular that I would like to share with you.
- Sony and The Hype Machine (March 5th, 2005)
- PlayStation Network: An Xbox Live Killer? (February 13th, 2006)
- PlayStation 3 Worldwide Launch PostPWNED (September 6th, 2006)
These articles were nothing but click and flamebait. I encourage you to read them as they are quite entertaining in their own right. However, I want to direct your attention on the first editorial: Sony and The Hype Machine. More precisely, its comments section. Inside you shall find some of the most angry, raging, immature, sad and downright depressing people this side of gaming. Teenagers cussing, screaming and straight-up threatening other people with physical violence. There are 288 comments. If you have the time, I recommend that you read through all of them. I have done so a couple of months ago (as I had done all of those years ago) and was both entertained and fascinated at the same time. If this seems too long or tedious, let me give you a tip: search for the name "5hadowsB1e3d420" (yeah... this guy was 14 for sure) and at least read all of his legacy.
Once it is done, you will be thankful that NeoGaf is nothing like this cesspool. And I sincerely hope that this bullshit does not repeat itself.
Oh, and before I forget, one last story. I had commented the "Playstation Network" editorial. I had called out its author on his bullshit. I had told him that deliberately writing flamebait articles was reprehensible and that it painted the people who like video games in a less-than-flattering light. He had answered back, in the comments, with the following: "Please, shut the fuck up."
You will find neither of these comments there anymore.
I don't know how old the average gaffer is, but I know that some of you in here were not around on forums back in the day. For you, and for those who might have missed some of the action, let me present to you just one example of what things were in some corners of the internets.
I present to you: TeamXbox. TeamXbox was, as its name suggests, a website focused on everything Xbox. They wrote news, reviews, posted trailers and had forums. I started visiting this site not too long after the original Xbox launched. My go-to website for everything video game was GameSpot and it remained as such until 2007's Gerstmann-gate, but I regularly went to TeamXbox because they would sometimes post stuff faster than GameSpot. I also liked the idea of having this one website dedicated to one console.
Anyways, things went well for a while. I didn't go on their forums so who knows if there were some nasty shit in there or not, but as for the editor-side of the website, everything was chill. It was like so until talk of next-gen consoles started brewing. The website then started to take a more... aggressive and snarky tone towards Sony. They would put out news articles and editorials that were clearly written as flamebait and had titles written purely to attract clicks. Most of these scathing articles, if not all of them, were written by a man named Cesar. Over the course of several years, until his (maybe-forced-who-knows) quitting, he would make it a habit to entice his readers into going mad at themselves. And by "mad" I mean going at each other's throats. I don't know if this was the worst stuff on the Internet, but if it wasn't, I dare not imagine what some other recesses of the Internet looked like.
He wrote a lot of articles, but there are three in particular that I would like to share with you.
- Sony and The Hype Machine (March 5th, 2005)
- PlayStation Network: An Xbox Live Killer? (February 13th, 2006)
- PlayStation 3 Worldwide Launch PostPWNED (September 6th, 2006)
These articles were nothing but click and flamebait. I encourage you to read them as they are quite entertaining in their own right. However, I want to direct your attention on the first editorial: Sony and The Hype Machine. More precisely, its comments section. Inside you shall find some of the most angry, raging, immature, sad and downright depressing people this side of gaming. Teenagers cussing, screaming and straight-up threatening other people with physical violence. There are 288 comments. If you have the time, I recommend that you read through all of them. I have done so a couple of months ago (as I had done all of those years ago) and was both entertained and fascinated at the same time. If this seems too long or tedious, let me give you a tip: search for the name "5hadowsB1e3d420" (yeah... this guy was 14 for sure) and at least read all of his legacy.
Once it is done, you will be thankful that NeoGaf is nothing like this cesspool. And I sincerely hope that this bullshit does not repeat itself.
Oh, and before I forget, one last story. I had commented the "Playstation Network" editorial. I had called out its author on his bullshit. I had told him that deliberately writing flamebait articles was reprehensible and that it painted the people who like video games in a less-than-flattering light. He had answered back, in the comments, with the following: "Please, shut the fuck up."
You will find neither of these comments there anymore.
