The Entitlement Generation article

[Kevyne-Shandris]

I generally tend to ignore any complaints that anyone ever has about "new generation". These things are as old as language, there's really nothing new to them. Paying any attention to them is just a waste of time. I always imagine a grumpy old man with a cane.

Your views will change when you get older.

Wisdom is something only you learn from experience. Get that experience and you'll see the world in a different light. Kids see the world fresh and feel invincible, that is until a 2000lb sledgehammer breaks bones, kills people and you having to pay for all of it (not mom and dad).

Enjoy your invincibility, like a paladin's DS, it doesn't last for long.

[Sydänyö]

I was born in 80s =) Nice assumption though, I like to appear younger.

Well, you said you've played games for 13 years now, meaning you started in 1999. That still means you sort of missed the revolution. That's all I meant.

[namelessone]

Your views will change when you get older.

Wisdom is something only you learn from experience. Get that experience and you'll see the world in a different light. Kids see the world fresh and feel invincible, that is until a 2000lb sledgehammer breaks bones, kills people and you having to pay for all of it (not mom and dad).

Enjoy your invincibility, like a paladin's DS, it doesn't last for long.

My views will change when I get older, but only because I will BECOME the old man with the cane, which kinda validates my views.
And how much older do I have to be to achieve your great wisdom by the way?

[Snowraven]

uhhh... I couldn't even read the entire article, read about halfway to page two. To be honest, if anything sounds like a whiny b***h, it's the author of that article.

I mean seriously "life was better when street gangs rolled on motorcycles in south dakota"? What?! WHAT?
"dodgeball shouldn't have been removed"? Oh come on, he's gasping at straws now.
whining that Rift lets you chose different things from your class? ... now he's gone kind of low
whining your army soldier in planetside can drive a tank and shoot stuff? why, yes, it's completely unfair an army soldier in an army knows how to both drive a tank and shoot, isn't it? *sarcasm*

If there's anyone being whiny and entitled, it's the author.

[Sydänyö]

My views will change when I get older, but only because I will BECOME the old man with the cane, which kinda validates my views.

This is a question of being born into a world where certain things, which should really be considered amazing perks, are considered mundane, and not appreciated at all, which leads to huge frustration on the part of the people who enable those perks, which still isn't a mundane task.

And how much older do I have to be to achieve your great wisdom by the way?

You will have to hope that there will be yet another computer/gaming/globalization revolution in your lifetime. It's unlikely, but not impossible. Simply getting older means nothing.

uhhh...

That's exactly how I felt when I read your post.

[Snowraven]

Entitlement doesn't mean open access, entitlement means afforded by rights and enforced by law. There's a difference between handouts and entitlement. Lazy people want handouts; it's not legitimate entitlement even though plenty of them seem to think they have a right to those handouts when they don't. People who put into a system as mandated to do so because said system is supposed to provide for them are entitled to what they put in. That's a night and day difference really. It's a problem bigger than a mere game though, it extends to schools, workplace, and society at large and is a condition of the ease of living the first world provides.

Indeed. The article takes the things that made access to different things easier and placed them as entitlement... that's just stupid.

[Juno86]

Simple fact with this topic in general, every generation has said it about the next generation. It's a cycle that will more then likely keep going forever.

[Sydänyö]

Simple fact with this topic in general, every generation has said it about the next generation. It's a cycle that will more then likely keep going forever.

Also a simple fact: there's never been such a situation with computers, the internet and gaming. This is a first of it's kind.

Whether there will be others, I'm sure. We are, however, the first people to go through this massive of a leap in technological advancement, entertainment and globalization.

[namelessone]

You will have to hope that there will be yet another computer/gaming/globalization revolution in your lifetime. It's unlikely, but not impossible. Simply getting older means nothing.

Mmmhm. I was born in Soviet Union before it collapsed, and I immigrated to Canada when I was 16. I worked and lived on my own since I was 17, which would be approaching 10 years now. Please, teach me more about revolutions and experiences.

[Sydänyö]

Mmmhm. I was born in Soviet Union before it collapsed, and I immigrated to Canada when I was 16. I worked and lived on my own since I was 17, which would be approaching 10 years now. Please, teach me more about revolutions and experiences.

None of that has any bearing on computers, gaming and globalization. Sorry for your experiences, but they're not relevant here.

[namelessone]

None of that has any bearing on computers, gaming and globalization. Sorry for your experiences, but they're not relevant here.

Yeah, as soon as you establish why computer revolution is so different from any other social or technological change that people have been moaning about for centuries, we'll talk.
What you are saying is "yeah, all those times you might have been right, but THIS TIME it's totally different", which is by the way what every generation totally says.

[Sydänyö]

Yeah, as soon as you establish why computer revolution is so different from any other social or technological change that people have been moaning about for centuries, we'll talk.

Either you understand it already, or you never will. We need not talk.

[laserguns]

Games are too easy, yep, but the tone of that article is decidedly fascist. Doctors walking the streets, whatever next!

[Leonard McCoy]

Hilarious. I got right to the end before I read

Games are also a critical part of learning about life as well, though

I mean was this article really worth making? Are we embracing some virtual "conservative" ethic now about our video games? Who was this for? And why did it need to be written? Does the author think he will lead some great moral crusade in video gaming to change the public mind? TenTonHammer could probably stand to let go of a few people. They clearly have to much time on their hands.

[namelessone]

Either you understand it already, or you never will. We need not talk.

Yes, yes, "this time is totally different, but you just don't understand it!" Been there, done that. Twist it as you like, the fact remains the fact: you are not the first generation in history that experienced a change to something they care about, and you are taking it just as poorly as all the people who came before you. For them it was religion, clothes, music. For you it's video games. All I can say is welcome to the grumpy old men club.

[Virtua]

The article brings up a lot of good points. I'm not one of those guys who thinks that children are out-of-control these days, however I do think that as a society we are becoming too soft. That goes for all age groups. It definitely shows in our video games and a lot of people just can't handle losing so almost every game tries to make you feel like a winner (when in all reality, if everyone's a winner, no one truly is).

I think another issue with people these days is self-pity. A pastor once told me, "Self-pity is an easy door for Satan to walk through and into your life." Whether you're a believer in the Judeo-Christian God and Devil or not, I think these words are pretty wise. I see too many people that just sit on their ass and wallow in their depression, when all they really need to do is get off their ass and work towards a brighter future. I think the "nerf <class>" mentality is rooted in this. Instead of finding a good strategy to counter the class that keeps beating them, they sit and cry in trade chat and on forums.

As society progresses, life gets easier and so many things are convenient. This is softening everyone up, and now very few people can handle a challenge. There's nothing you can do to change society, but as an individual you can learn to start handling failure correctly. Rather than getting down because your 200th job application was ignored, look up and say, "I am getting a job no matter what." Instead of getting pissed because a Death Knight 2 shot you and then tea-bagged your corpse, click that release spirit button and say, "I'm taking that guy down." And keep on trying, keep on being optimistic, and eventually good things happen. Nothing's going to happen if you sit on your ass and act emo.

[namelessone]

And keep on trying, keep on being optimistic, and eventually good things happen.

Good things don't just happen "eventually". You have to fight for them. And when you start fighting, there will be people who would call it "entitlement". This is why I have so much issue with this mentality.

Think about it: I can either suck it up and play a poorly balanced game, or I can give the devs a finger and say that if they don't fix their @#$, I'm taking my money somewhere else. For whatever reason, the second case is more likely to get accused of "entitlement".

[Virtua]

Good things don't just happen "eventually". You have to fight for them. And when you start fighting, there will be people who would call it "entitlement". This is why I have so much issue with this mentality.

Think about it: I can either suck it up and play a poorly balanced game, or I can give the devs a finger and say that if they don't fix their @#$, I'm taking my money somewhere else. For whatever reason, the second case is more likely to get accused of "entitlement".

It's partially a matter of perspective, and partially a matter of approach. You're more likely to get accused of being a part of the entitlement generation if you compose a forum post saying, "My class sucks dick, fuck you Blizzard," rather than a neatly composed essay explaining what could be done in order to improve game balance.

[jaakkeli]

This is a question of being born into a world where certain things, which should really be considered amazing perks, are considered mundane, and not appreciated at all, which leads to huge frustration on the part of the people who enable those perks, which still isn't a mundane task.

Really? The ability to switch the class you're playing in a video game without a huge grind to get back to where you were is somehow an amazing perk that we should be oh so grateful for? And all those similar silly "I've wasted so many hours playing pointless grindfest games that I get angry when people actually have fun gaming" complaints? We should work hard and not have fun in video games because that's what people who play super grindy MMOs do?

I do indeed feel entitled to have fun when I'm gaming since, duh, I'm paying money for it. I'm not getting this stuff for free. I am trading the money I earned with hard work for some relaxing fun. If I wanted another job, I'd pick one where *I* get paid for doing the work, not where I get to pay for doing something that I don't enjoy.

[Synstir]

I would have agreed with it if somebody was paying me a salary to participate in WOW.

But, that is not the case. Instead I pay to play it. I PLAY it... so it is something I do in my spare time, if I choose to. As it is a game, it should be entertaining (that being the main-purpose of a game in my opinion). Entertainment is subjective, so nobody but me can decide if something is entertaining for me or not. A company selling entertainment and wanting me as customer, will be interested in knowing what entertains me, so I will be providing some kind of feedback, in some way. If that game becomes something I don't find entertaining, I won't pay for it anymore; it is as simple as that.

WOW is build around rewards. So I need to do stuff in order to get rewards. No problem here.
WOW is making it's content (and with this the rewards) run out of time by releasing new content with new rewards, which in most cases makes the older rewards useless. This means I have to get the rewards when content is current; if I don't get them, time spend into achieving will be time wasted. So I need to get everything (which will be useless after new content-release) within a certain timeframe.

If these things are made impossible, given a certain play-style, time available to play etc., the game will loose it's appeal.
If the game will demand hours and hours, each and every day, a lot of people won't be able to get the most out of it and will loose interest in playing it.
[Sure, people who have that time will enjoy it]

The game is 8 years pld now. Players are playing it for years and have invested money (some less, some more and some a huge amount). They spend a lot of time leveling, building the character. They bought stuff out of the store, like pets, mounts etc. They invested in on-line friendships, guilds, achievements etc.

So when changes are made to the game, which causes them to not be able to achieve anything valueable in-game, they will loose interest but will also get angry. They already have invested quite a lot and now suddnely, without them having any say in it, things change in a (for them) unacceptable way. This makes all investment of the past, a waste. So they will vent their anger.
Also when the game-philosophy changes, this will happen.

our accounts are not ours, I know... but they certainly feel ours.
We lease it... but all progression made on it, is ours. Time, money, effort, every investment is that of a player. We grow attached to the chars we build and developed.

So when we feel things are turning for the worst, we will vent our anger. That is not entitlement, that is right. We have earned that right, as we bought the game as it was at the time we bought it and we invested in it.

As time changes, our mentality changes with the progression our society is making. This is normal and even preferred by our fellow men/women. We are not the same as we where 10.000 years ago, and that is okay. So the players of today are not the same as the players of 8 years ago. The gamers-world is different. Blizzard should not take it's players for granted.... 8 years ago they could (maybe) but now there is choice and more competition on the field.

---------- Post added 2012-12-06 at 10:26 AM ----------

Also a simple fact: there's never been such a situation with computers, the internet and gaming. This is a first of it's kind.

Whether there will be others, I'm sure. We are, however, the first people to go through this massive of a leap in technological advancement, entertainment and globalization.

As this is true for my generation, it is not for my kids for example. They where born when computers where available in every home and everyone had internet access and stuff. So their perception about computers and internet, is different then mine; for them it is the most normal thing. They "woke up" in a world full of gadgets and gaming devices and can't imagine a world without, while for me buying my first home computer was a miracle (no personal computer yet).