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Why Fanboys Aren't Going Away

Gamers love to lament the existence of fanboys, and all the silly arguments they can start up. The sheer level of dedication to a specific game platform or series is both amazing and disturbing. In this article we'll take a semi-serious, slightly tongue-in-cheek look at reasons why different parts of the game industry may want to keep these fanatics around. So, without further ado, let's get this started.

A huge number of gaming message boards would cease to exist

There are plenty of message boards out there that are virtually guaranteed to kill the brain cells of the unsuspecting. Many a online community is dripping with fanboys who seem to enjoy spending every waking moment seeing the world through their favourite brand of rose-tinted glasses. Whether these people are desperately clinging onto the latest set of sales figures, or dog piling on a high-profile game released for a system that they don’t own (“Ha ha! Your game only sold 250,000 copies on your system! It’s a failure! It would have sold 500,000 copies on my console”), there’s seemingly no end to the depths of stupidity some of these discussions can reach.

The situation could be easily remedied, but it’s up to the forum administrators to do something about it. Some places keep the stupidity to a low roar, and others rule with an iron fist, banning and locking fanboy-ish threads at the drop of a hat. However, there is still a lot to be desired from some of the more free wheeling message boards out there that, with only the most out of control exceptions, really don’t go out of their way to reign in this infantile behavior. It’s hard to understand why in many cases as well. Sure, some of these boards may actually be run by an equally asinine fanboy, but in other cases this sort of behavior manifests itself on larger corporately owned game sites. How does this sort of behavior reflect on the readership on these sites? Are they a noisy minority, or indicative of the age demographic that these sites are so quick to mention in their media kits when pursuing ad dollars?

Perhaps it’s the only tool a lot of sites can think of for helping to build up a regular readership. With that, they simply allow anybody to post to the forum, and only crack down on the worst offenders. With any luck, those posters will spend at least a bit of time perusing the site-proper…then proceed to complain about this or that “biased” article on the site’s message boards.

It Sells Magazines

There are plenty of magazines out there that are dedicated to a specific game system, as well as web sites with system-specific channels, and matching editorial teams. Some of these publications actually do a pretty good job of giving a levelheaded opinion, but a lot of them seem more eager to stir the pot and get the fanboys in a tizzy with their articles. We won’t go into who does and does not practice this; that can be left to sanctimonious editorials in their respective rags, or discussion in…message boards (hey oh!), but one has to wonder how much some of these people actually believe what they say when writing their articles.

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Want to push a lot of copies out the door for a particular month, or get a surge of traffic to your site? Just do a feature on a high-profile, system specific game, pump it up, and while you’re at it, make sure to take a few quick jabs at the closest thing a competing console may have in its library. The sad part is that a lot of fanboys just eat this stuff up, and it’ll provide them with ample water cooler material for the rest of the month.

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As tempting as it may be to believe that a lot of the editorial teams at these sites and magazines have nothing but the best interests of their readers in mind, it’s difficult to ignore the power their corporate overlords have over them. At the end of the day, a lot of these magazines and web sites are businesses, and not a public service. Their mandate is to make as much money as possible, and doubly so if their company is publicly traded. As well intentioned as these editors may be, if the suits upstairs tell them to change the format of a given publication in a way that can prove more profitable, even if it means playing off of fanboys fragile sensibilities, these editors have little choice but to comply, otherwise it won’t be long before they’ll find themselves cruising the classifieds in search of a new job.

Free Viral Marketing

Of course, those who benefit most from the phenomenon of fanboys are the console and game makers themselves; it’s not just because these companies will enjoy brisk sales at the hands of the fanboys alone, but because these game fanatics will also tell everyone in earshot why a certain game or system is so wonderful, and how everyone should run out and buy it right away.

It shouldn’t come to a surprise to anyone that companies love fanboys for this reason. Every little bit helps when promoting a new product, and the best part is these folks don’t even need to be paid to do it.

Better still is when one of these fanboys gets a job as a clerk at a game retailer. Suddenly they’re at ground zero for selling games, and setting forth on their crusade to show everyone The Way. Day in and day out these people do everything in their power to get whoever is unfortunate enough to enter their store to buy fanboy endorsed product A, and leave whatever flotsam the competition is hocking on the shelves. Logic has little to no place in their sales pitch. It’s just a ceaseless deluge of “Buy A because B sucks” which can win over the uninformed, or wear down the more stalwart customers into submission. Better still, they blatantly lie in order to cast their favorite game or system in a good light. It’s unfortunate for those who don’t follow gaming closely and genuinely want what they believe to be an “expert opinion”, but it can certainly be comedy gold for those of us with a clue.

In any event, fanboys are like an extra, pro bono marketing wing for game companies. They’ll diligently spread the word on a new product like their life depended on it. It’s not often that companies have people with such zeal willing to help them out, and it’s certainly not something that they will say no to.

Death Defying Dedication

There have been games and systems that have managed to limp along far longer than many industry experts would ever have expected, thanks in large part to the unyielding dedication of the fanboys that have supported these products. Sometimes the line between being fanboy and just happening to be particularly smitten with, say, an online game, or PC title with a robust modding community can be pretty blurry. However, in other instances one can’t really be blamed for being at least a little suspicious as to just how some game consoles have stuck around on the market when conventional wisdom dictates they should have disappeared months or years ago.

This helps to illustrate just how little fanboys sometimes need in order to keep them hooked. Toss out a big name game once or twice a year, and make sure it’s actually good, and suddenly the fanboys have all the excuse that they need to keep on loving their system, and despising the competition.

The same can be said for some games, especially of the online variety. While most people have long since moved on from a specific community, the hangers-on can often times still be convinced to stick around so long as updates that suit their tastes continue to be released. A casual observer may chuckle at the seeming superfluous nature of the update, but to those that have stuck it out, the new additions to their favorite game are a godsend. Again, it’s a little more difficult to pluck out the fanboys in this particular crowd. There are some games that have been around for years, and it’s highly doubtful that only fanboys have been fueling these titles' longevity, but in the case of some titles it’s a wonder that they are still around, particularly some of the free MMOs out there that attract less savory gamers.

Mr. Nash

(August 19, 2006)


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