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alternative title(s): Schrodingers Shark
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Examples can go on the work's YMMV tab. | |
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Clearly gets used a lot.
God, No! A moment that you don't like has happened in your favorite fictional series! A new character appeared out of nowhere! Or your favorite character got the Idiot Ball that week! Or there is a Musical Episode not written by Joss Whedon!
The shark has been jumped over! Your show is now Ruined FOREVER!!!
What? Ruined forever?! Get A Hold Of Yourself Man!
Sure, it might have been a dumb moment, but how do you truly know until the series has run its course? What if the new character turns out to not be The Scrappy, as you feared? What if your favorite character is never handed the Idiot Ball again? What if the plot for that BLAM Episode was Just for Fun, and the rest of the series sticks to what it does best?
The show isn't made by gods ( despite what some may assume). People make mistakes. Shows can have low points but still have high quality throughout the run.
Just take a few deep breaths. You may think you have seen a clear Jumping the Shark, but those are rare moments. Take the actual Jumping The Shark from Happy Days. That moment was clear for at least three reasons:
- It was completely against the premise of the show, which was a loving homage to the last generation.
- Fonzie was no longer the Breakout Character who was a role model to some; now he had mutated into a full-fledged Canon Sue.
- It was identified upon retrospect 20 years later, meaning it had the benefit of hindsight and it wasn't a knee-jerk reaction.
How could the show fix that without ignoring the episode completely? There are plenty of other ways to jump the shark, but those are rare diamonds of crap... in the rough of crap. It's near impossible to tell when a show has jumped the shark until after the fact. The variety of the votes on Jump The Shark are a testament to that. Worse, if people are just rushing to declare jumping the shark for any moment they don't like, it comes across as Complaining About Shows You Don't Like.
Even worse than that, there are folks who feel the series is Tainted by the Preview - the show doesn't even have to be released for someone to declare it Ruined FOREVER. The same goes if the show has only been on for a couple of episodes before people start making dramatic statements of this nature; if the show's just started, that usually means that the producers are still seeing what works and what doesn't, so any reasonable viewer might have to allow for at least a few stumbles.
And there comes a point (especially with adaptations) that fans believe the current storyline or incarnation will somehow retroactively destroy the "purity" of the earlier work. Authors should not listen to these types of fans.
So if you don't like a moment, don't like it. But shows have survived worse.
This trope is named for the " Ruined FOREVER" page at the Transformers Wiki. Note the helpful included list of "things that have RUINED TRANSFORMERS FOREVER in the past." *
Frequently a side-effect of They Changed It, Now It Sucks. Also known as Schrödinger's Shark, as its status as a shark jump can be very subjective.
If the fans are screaming "Ruined Forever!!!" and then are blindsided by a development no one can complain about, then you have And the Fandom Rejoiced.
Keep in mind that this here is an Audience Reaction Trope, folks, and some of these series may have actually Jumped the Shark. The point of this trope is noting how suddenly and over-dramatically this call will be made and the lack of actual shark-jumping the object of the viewer's complaint actually has. And for that matter, DO NOT list examples where you think it has genuinely stopped being good.
Examples of people complaining a show is ruined:
open/close all folders
Actors
- After Patch Adams, the opinion of Robin Williams went from "He's funny, we love him!" to "HE'S SO ANNOYING, KILL HIM WITH FIRE!".
- Pretty much any comedy actor (e.g., Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, etc.) who decides to do a more serious film falls under this. It's pretty much guaranteed that at least one person will decry said comedian's choice and whine, "He's ruining his career!"
- Many people can't take Tom Cruise's acting seriously after the Oprah couch-jumping incident and the promotion of Scientology.*
Fans didn't jump the shark; they jumped the couch. (insert rim shot sound clip) - One Natalie Portman fan said that she "Lost any respect I ever had for her"... Because she did one light romantic comedy. A few months after doing Black Swan. Girl still needs to work! And this has started again with the debate over whether or not Portman should have thanked her ballet double in Black Swan at the Oscars and not just "My beautiful love, Benjamin, who has now given me my most important role of my life."* Now it even has a Wikipedia page). Reading the comments for various articles about that, you would think she kicked the poor girl in the shins while accepting the Oscar.
- Most people feel this way about Mel Gibson after his anti-Semitic DUI rants, as well as the allegations against him of domestic violence. Basically, the moment you're ready to forget one Mel Gibson drunken fuck-up, he's making another.
- Some people now think this about Christian Bale. It doesn't help that he starred in American Psycho and gave a convincing public apology before being arrested on suspicion of assault.
- There is a weblog dedicated solely to prove that Dakota Fanning is Ruined FOREVER after taking a lead role in Hounddog (where her character is raped.)
- Some people think this of Tracy Morgan, after he made some totally uncool comments when accepting an award. That is, he joked that if he discovered is son had gay tendencies or was gay, he'd kill him.
Anime
- Fans of the original Haruhi Suzumiya light novels cried foul when the Anachronic Order of the books was different from that of the show; never mind that it was still out of order, the climax was still at the end and it still worked from a storytelling point of view. Then again, they were also in shock that their beloved obscure light novel series was now a Cash Cow Franchise loved by millions.
- This trope caused the Broken Base of Neon Genesis Evangelion: when it moved into the second half, many of the more traditional shounen fans claimed it was Ruined FOREVER because of being.... Neon Genesis Evangelion. The base broke even further due to End Of Evangelion later, which some saw as an example of a Trolling Creator.
- Fundamentally, End Of Evangelion forms an alternate ending for the series, along with the updated "video & LD versions" of episodes 21 through 24. Fans do exist who would have preferred that NGE ended with its television broadcast of the original ending, some considering the updated ending to be unnecessary retcon that soils interpretation of the show.
- ...and further ruining things is the game Neon Genesis Evangelions (or NGE 2) for PlayStation 2 and PSP. This was released in two iterations during the Aughts and marketed as containing the answers to the show's most niggling secrets. Much of this material has been translated over the years, and there have been no shortage of appreciative fans — but with that comes a vocal minority crying foul that the game reveals too much and ruins the mystery. (Never mind that with every secret spoiled, many more mysteries have been created.)
- If the new Evangelion movies (the fan-branded "Rebuild") end up being connected in-universe to the original Evangelion series, many Eva fans will cry out "RUINED FOREVER" in a singular voice so terrible that it will knock the planet off-axis.
- At what point was Armored Trooper VOTOMS Ruined FOREVER for people looking for a hard sci-fi mecha series? Was it Roots of Ambition where Chirico survived a shot in his heart due to Perfect Survivor status? Was it The Shining Heresy where Chirico was Born Lucky enough to do a crazy ricochet fluke shot into the Order Buckler's cockpit and destroying Teitania's Auxillary Brain, Was it the newer OVAs such as Pailsen Files and Phantom Arc for Sunrise copping out on dodgy computer-generated ATs and it basically amounting to needless padding on Chirico's backstory, Some even claim that VOTOMS wasn't very realistic to begin with when the Quent arc rolled around and The Reveal happened. for bonus points, mention the phrase "Child of God." as that aspect of Chirico's character is a sore spot with many fans.
- Digimon Frontier: What the?! The Digidestined in this series transform into the Digimon?! And there's no real partner dynamic?!
- Naruto: Most commonly Sasuke being the focus of an entire arc (especially the part about Itachi being a good guy). Honestly, it has such an Unpleasable Fanbase you can find someone that thinks the series Jumped the Shark at any moment, usually in the form of "(Character X) hasn't done anything in months, it's ruined!" Additionally, there's also a segment of the fandom that has said the Time Skip was when they stopped liking it, even if most of what they're complaining about didn't happen until quite a while after or had been happening for a while before the time skip itself and they more or less seem to just be trying to focus their scorn on something important.
- Then there's - "Sai told Sakura Naruto loves her... WHAT ABOUT HINATA?!?"
- The instant revival of everyone who died during the Invasion of Pain Arc pissed off many fans. Of course, the fans were also pissed when everyone died so now they're thought of as unpleasable.
- The announcement that Naruto Shippuden would air on Disney XD has obviously not been taken well in certain parts of its fandom. Despite the fact that Viz Media will still be releasing uncut DVDs, so even if it does turn out to be a Macekre there won't be that much reason to complain. As can be seen with Marvel below, just being associated with Disney is prone to bring in the ruins.
- The Pokémon anime got this with Misty being Put on a Bus and fan backlash against May solely for filling the obligatory girl role Misty had. There are still some militant fans claiming this long after Dawn took over the girl spot, even though it's been years.
- The dubbing of the show also got this claim after it went in-house, mainly due to the resulting voice actor switch. Yes, that's right, 4Kids losing the rights to the show ruined it FOREVER. Wonders never cease.
- That had less to do with 4Kids itself than with the jarring changes made to the voices of characters that fans had become adjusted to. That said, it still fits this trope to a "T".
- Most of the fans really don't even give a damn anymore, since the new voice actors improved over time (for the most part).
- And now for something not related to the voice actors: OMG they changed the "TO BE CONTINUED" text! And the title of the episode was written in English instead of Japanese with English subtitles! So were the credits! The anime is ruined FOREVER!
- Some Team Rocket fans claimed the trio was ruined FOREVER!! when Jessie and James were given black uniforms and a serious promotion, along with a new serious-business attitude.
- To expand on that, parts of the online fandom of any given anime tends to say that any anime that gets dubbed into English (no matter how faithfully), is "ruined", despite the fact that no one's ever going to force them to actually listen to the English audio.
- Even though the Ghibli dubs are generally respected, there are some so-called "true fans" who insist on hating them simply because they're by Disney, and they object to any change to the dialogue, music, that may have been done to these films, stating that these movies have all been destroyed; an argument which is totally fatuous considering that Miyazaki and Ghibli were both involved with the creation of the dubs. If they don't think their works are ruined, who are such "fans" to say otherwise?
- Made even more ironic considering Miyazaki himself stated that for quite a few of his characters he was forced into a form of "Accent Adaptation" due to the lack of any dialect he felt fit the characters within the Japanese Language. A prime example he named is the Witch of the Waste in "Howl's Moving Castle".
- Speaking of that one: Disney let the younger siblings of Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers voice-act Ponyo and Sousuke (respectively) in the English dub of Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea? Cue building nerdrage via Periphery Hatedom by proxy.
- And on the flipside, with the anime industry scrambling to salvage itself and still turn a profit while still trying to license a diverse bunch of shows, several "niche" shows are being released sub-only. You know, the kinds of shows that put even a large studio like Geneon out of business because the dub cost so much the show didn't turn a profit. Anime is now ruined FOREVER because the industry is "discriminating" against dub fans. Strangely, nobody thinks the industry is ruined FOREVER because of the ongoing recession.
- The Pretty Cure fandom is apparently the Distaff Counterpart of the Transformers fandom or something, judging by the Internet Backdraft that occurs every time the premise of the next series is revealed without fail, complete with one subset that everything needs to go back to the way it was in 2004. When your fandom complains about Futari Wa Pretty Cure Splash*Star for being an Alternate Continuity, then complains about Yes! Pretty Cure 5GoGo! for not being an Alternate Continuity...
- It appears to be very common in mainstream mecha anime. Fans have found something to complain about in every single episode for Code Geass, Macross Frontier, and Gundam 00, with the amount of ruin escalating the higher the episode count is.
- Code Geass R2 in particular has the series FOREVER at least once per episode, according to some Fan Dumbs.
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Yes, even this! Kamina's death is proclaimed this by some. This sentiment usually disappears after they see the rest of the series, and some have since even considered it the point after which the show got better.
- Many Fruits Basket fans cried this when it was revealed that Akito is female, which sunk ships everywhere and created a generally hilarious explosion because we all know that Het Is Ew and they totally ruined the character for ever and ever.
- "What's this, the upcoming Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha sequel manga will have a male protagonist? OUR LESBIAN DREAMS!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!" Note that the new protagonist has his own love interests, so he can't interfere with the main characters from the previous series anyway...
- Fans have different opinions on where this happened in Bleach.
- 1.) When Hitsugaya (presumably) beat Halibel there was a sudden influx of "Bleach is ta lose!!11one!" When it was revealed that he hadn't even scratched her, very few of those who declared the series ruined came forward to retract their previous assessment.
- Particularly sad considering the lack of genre savviness of these viewers; when has trapping an opponent in ice ever worked? (except in Fairy Tail)
- 2.) Since the start of the Soul Society arc.
- 3.) Since the END of the Soul Society arc, and into the filler Bount Arc that seemed to go on forever.
- 4.) Almost any point after the start of Ichigo vs. Ulquiorra.
- Many readers following the chapter releases online actually embraced the whole thing and started to enjoy the many inventive ways the author can come up with to "ruin" his manga. The most ridiculous the development, the better! Kubo himself stated that he really loves designing characters and admits to creating new ones as a way to get himself out of writer's block.
- Special mention should probably also go to Yammy's Reveal as the 0 Espada, which tended to be viewed as a) wall-bangingly stupid, b) hilarious, c) awesome, or d) some combination of the above depending on who you ask.
- This has not been stressed enough. Every time something happens in Bleach, it's ruined forever. Starrk didn't kill a billion Captains? He was pointless. Ulquiorra is popular? He's being milked. People expected more of the Vasto Lordes? Kubo overhyped them. The Fake Karakura Town Arc? Too much fighting, not enough character development. The beginning of the Lost Agent Arc? This is so slow it's worse than filler! Kyoraku didn't reveal his Bankai & that's terrible, but the series should have ended anyway. The point here is that the fanbase is unpleasable.
- Some people say that L's death did this to Death Note.
- Some sections of the Umineko no Naku Koro ni fanbase tend to think every new and irritating bit in The Anime of the Game (which there is admittedly quite a lot of) has Ruined the series FOREVER. Particularly cutting out all the real-world parts of EP4 after George and Jessica kill each other to give more time to the Meta-World sequences and backstory for a somewhat Creator's Pet-ified Ange.
- A second season for the anime Kuroshitsuji was announced....featuring an original new protagonist and Butler not from the previous season or manga, and not Ciel and Sebastian. Cue the wailing of thousands of yaoi fangirls around the internet. Which, as it later turned out, was A-1 Pictures just trolling the fandom.
- One Piece started getting these accusations once Portgas D. Ace bit the dust, breaking the tradition of not killing named characters, except in flashbacks, that was maintained for 13 years of publication.
- Named characters have died, there had just been too many Disney Deaths.
- And then, after there was confirmation of a Time Skip happening, it started rising again.
- Oh cool, FINALLY there will be a LatAm dub for Dragon Ball Z Kai. Oh wait... there were economic issues? Half of the original VAs refused to dub? THEY WERE REPLACED BY COMPLETE STRANGERS?! INCLUDING THE SINGER?!!
- Parodied in Darker than Black with Kiko and her otaku friend. After months of giddy anticipation over the next release of their favorite anime, they storm out in anger over how it's Ruined FOREVER, and Kiko will not let the director get away with this!
- Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ was such a shift in demeanor from the much darker Zeta Gundam that much of the fandom would prefer not to think it happened.
- Wait, Steve Blum isn't reprising his role as the title character in the anime adaption of Wolverine. Booooooo Marvel and G4!! RUINED FOREVER!
- Although we got Peter Petrelli voicing Wolverine instead, Your Mileage May Vary if you think this is a good idea or not.
- Heck, the entire idea of Marvel Anime (having popular Marvel superheroes in anime style made by Madhouse) may be seen as RUINED FOREVER by many anime and Marvel fans alike, mainly because having popular American superheroes in Japanese anime style is seen not to fit well with each other. Of course, the reception of the Marvel anime idea received mixed reviews from fans and critics alike.
- Woohoo! Bandai Entertainment licensed Tales of the Abyss anime for U.S. release, wait...sub-only. WHAT! THE! MOTHER! FUCK! BANDAI! Why the fuck did you went for a sub-only release when the video game version had an English dub?!?!!
- After seeing just ONE episode of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kira (the newest OVA), many of the fans are saying this.
Card Games
- Very, very bad in Magic: the Gathering. It's gotten to the point where "Magic is dead!" has essentially become Memetic Mutation.
- This is the reaction of many fans to every release of a new Magic: The Gathering set. Even a single card, to many, can spell the doom of the game - witness the reactions to Tarmogoyf, Remand, and Umezawa's Jitte, to name a few prominent examples. Keep in mind that a new set is released every three months; that each year brings a new block (meaning cards from the previous block are no longer relevant in block-format tournaments or drafting); and that Wizards of the Coast has made a Banned/Restricted list for cards that break the game too hard. Even when Wizards brings back old cards, fans will decry some choices as being The End of MtG - even though they didn't break the game the first time around.
- Chaos and Heroes ruined Yu-Gi-Oh! forever!!!!
- No the pyramid of light ruined the game forever!!!!
- The kid's toy duel disc system ruined the game forever!!!
- Synchro-monsters ruined the game FOREVER!!!
- The newest ban list ruined the game FOREVER!!!
- Wanna know why the above is mentioned? LIGHTLORDS RUINED THE GAME FOREVER!!!
- UPPER DECK RUINED YU-GI-OH FOREVER!!!
- Exceed Monsters will ruin the game forever!!!
- The game was very nearly ruined by Xyz Monsters due to a ruling that allowed profound abuse of a certain card. The price of this particular card shot to nearly $200. The mistake was noted, repealed and, ironically ruined the game for all those who had bought the cards instead.
- All the donks have ruined poker FOREVER!!!!
- ESPN has ruined poker FOREVER!!!!
- Texas Hold'em has ruined poker forever.
- Champions of the Galaxy is a very small press game with a very...dedicated and invested...fanbase, many of whom have been playing for twenty years. A recent move from B&W cards to full colour has ruined it forever.
Comic Books
- Comics were always better when you were a kid. Every age since then has been a Dork Age.
- In DC Comics, Final Crisis saw the return of Barry Allen to the main DCU, as well as the Flash Rebirth miniseries in 2009. Cue cries about how the impact of said character's original death has now been rendered completely meaningless and that this is proof that DC hates change and panders to the Silver Age.
- There are a number of fans who called this trope when Young Justice folded into the Teen Titans, and then Identity Crisis occurred, exacerbating the situation. This has lead to said fans declaring that most, if not all, of the titles by DC have been stopped as of June 2003. While there have indeed been horrible plots and decisions by DC in recent years, declaring that they consider most of DC's Modern Age discontinuity because of that is just bewildering. The first bullet on this folder sums up what the situation really is.
- Marvel hasn't escaped this either, most notably a similar reaction to the aforementioned example concerning the return of Colossus to the X-Men lineup, and even earlier, Jean Grey and the whole Phoenix Isn't Her Retcon (as though not having her being a mass murderer was bad thing, and wasn't all a dream like Dallas).
- And the number of people who hate the Scott Summers/Emma Frost relationship to the point of vowing never to enjoy/read X-Men again until Jean returns and gets back with Scott is quite large (which is less ruined forever and more ruined until it gets set right).
- Two words: Civil War.
- M-Day and Utopia have perverted the entire premise of X-Men.
- Ever since the recent Marvel Anime project started, people have been throwing around death threats, cursing Japan for "raping Wolverine". Apparently, the Nazis are also involved.
- Though Spider-Man and Marvel have had to weather any number of these moments with varying levels of justification, One More Day seems to have been the mother of them all.
- There are some who thought the revelation that Gwen Stacey and Norman Osborn slept together and had two super-powered, illegitimate children completely ruined Gwen's character forever. People also thought the fact that Mary-Jane knew but didn't tell Peter made it all the worse.
- Blame it on Quesada. They were originally supposed to be Peter's kids, but about halfway through, Quesada thought that would have made him too old. Which also implies that would somehow not apply to Gwen, even though she's roughly the same age as Peter. It would have made more sense if that had been something like Ultimate Black Cat but Gwen? Nope. Not happening.
- Disney just bought Marvel and it's already RUINED FOREVER!!
- Disney has heard the cries of ruin, and promise they aren't gonna interfere with Marvel's business.
- Some fans actually WANT Disney to interfere, as at least then with some corporate eyes listening to the audience, Executive Meddling would, for once, be a much needed requirement for those Running the Asylum.
- I'm a Marvel... And I'm a DC summed it up nicely here.
- This complaint is likely due to Public Medium Ignorance. People claim Disney will make Marvel more kid-friendly, not realizing that Disney has owned plenty of non kid-friendly stuff without meddling with it (including the studio Miramax, which has released R-rated films like Pulp Fiction).
- Or thinking that kid-friendly means sunshine and lollipops. It is possible to find a level that's kid-friendly but still entertaining for adults, as Disney has shown with...pretty much all of their animated movies.
- On the upside part of the Fandom Rejoiced at the prospect of Marvel content in Kingdom Hearts games
- Fear escalated so high, Disney apparently felt the need to include the Paramount logo on trailers and posters for The Avengers. Disney will distribute the movie themselves, but the general public presumably associates Paramount's name with the acclaimed Iron Man and Captain America: The First Avenger, and Disney's name with the potential kidification of Marvel.
- The Watchmen fan community had some rumblings of this over the movie, for various reasons.
- The 2010-2011 Wonder Woman reboot provoked a reaction like this; partly due to the costume redesign which gave Wonder Woman pants rather than her traditional star-spangled panties (which also introduced a bit of Unpleasable Fanbase, since the previous looks had frequently been criticized for being Stripperiffic), and partly due to the nature of the storyline, which saw Wonder Woman's past continuity rebooted into an Alternate History, removing many of the traditional elements of her backstory and canon. Despite the fact that it was acknowledged upfront that this timeline was an aberration to what was supposed to happen and that the plot was to involve Wonder Woman Setting Right What Once Went Wrong, a lot of fans still complained about how they'd changed everything. It didn't help that the reboot was coming right off the heels of Gail Simone's extremely well-received run on the title.
- When news broke in 2011 that DC Comics were going to reboot their line of superhero comics back to #1 issues*
yes, even those series that have upwards of 800 issues by now , the prevailing fan reaction was essentially this trope.
- It's only gotten worse with revealed costumes, the confirmed return of Rob Liefeld as artist on Hawk and Dove, and the short character blurbs that indicate that a lot of history is gone forever (the Teen Titans costumes in particular have invoked horror and also parodies). Most *** With Barry, the issue is how much of the Flash legacy survives - he'd already returned to being the Flash before the relaunch. Bart Allen is still Kid Flash, but there is now news on the fate of Wally West.
- All that said, some legacies look to have made it through relatively unscathed, the Green Lanterns and Robins most notable among them.
- This reboot seems like another nail in the coffin containing the relationship between Green Arrow's first sidekick Roy Harper and his daughter Lian. After the latter was killed in Justice League: Cry for Justice the treatment of Roy descending into drug-fueled anti-heroism managed to get worse and worse. At first, fans were a little relieved when they learned that Roy would be getting his right arm back in the reboot, then it was announced that Lian would no longer exist.
- One change that's gotten major criticism from the fans is making Barbara Gordon Batgirl again, by taking her out of her wheelchair. The wheelchair she's been in for over twenty years now. The fans got even angrier when DC revealed that in this new universe, she was still shot and crippled, but came right out of it. After several years, but the point still stands. Many fans consider this blatant sexism and ableism*
discrimination of the handicapped , believing that Barbara was much better as Oracle, as both a superhero and an icon, than she ever was as Batgirl.
- But the thing that set the internet on fire was the new interpretation of Starfire in Red Hood And The Outlaws. Even though fans have been told it gets better in later issues, they don't care and have dropped the character after the first issue. It's easily gotten twice the backlash of Batgirl, though both controversies died down significantly after a month or two.
- This is the same with all of the books written by Scott Lobdell, especially Teen Titans.
- The beloved, retro Belgian comic Tintin has been made into an English movie by Steven Spielberg, with realistic motion-capture CGI animation, and in 3D.
- Serious Internet Backdraft over the guy who's supposed to replace Thor after Fear Itself (but it looks like some other characters might get new people in their roles too so he's not the only one), despite the Thor books being the best sellers of Marvel right now. Also, the guy he's replacing hasn't even died in-story yet, and won't until October/November (posted first day of September), so it feels like a slap in the face.
- Also because he and the other 2 replacements (going by the promo material for "Shattered Heroes" aka the November line) looked like they went to the Nintiesanti Hero school. Just when Marvel was easing off the Wangst after Siege!
Film
- The very concept of "nuking the fridge". This was coined barely a week after Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull came out. The thing was the coiners actually claimed they had found a "new" kind of jumping the shark, just for movies instead of TV (and even spammed YKTTW with it). Not only is "jumping the shark" not media-specific, but that term was coined years after the episode aired, not days.
- Daniel Craig as James Bond. He's blonde! He can't drive stick! He wore a freaking life-jacket on a boat to the press conference announcing he was Bond!. Oh, wait, Casino Royale was the best Bond movie in years. My bad. Can't wait for Quantum of Solace. Wait, Craig cut off part of his fingertips? Oh, dear god...
- Epitomized by the website Daniel Craig Is Not Bond, which garnered some media coverage when even the press jumped on that bandwagon. Even when the press and most of the fans declared him a fine Bond and Casino Royale was profitable and well-received, the site never once gave him an inch. To the point where Daniel himself commented on it and said he wished they'd all just hurry up and decide if they liked him or not and quit their bitching.
- Quantum of Solace is eerily similar to Licence to Kill in this respect. What these people do not realize, is that Craig's Bond is by far the one closest to the source material in Ian Fleming's literature. The same was true for the earlier films starring Timothy Dalton as Bond.
- For the record, a significant portion of the people who don't like Craig as Bond feel that while Casino Royale was a fantastic movie, Craig's still a terrible Bond. Great action star, sure, but a bad James Bond.
- Every single Star Wars film, novel, game, or any product ever. While this sounds like an extreme exaggeration, if one could kindly direct oneself to any large Star Wars message board at the time of the release of a new installment, one would witness hordes of supposed fans screaming that Star Wars is ruined and that nothing can ever save it, generally leading to someone threatening to kill George Lucas- regardless of how much he was involved in the project. These same fans usually shut up after a while, if they don't leave the fandom entirely.
- Four words: Star. Wars. Holiday. Special.
- Knights of the Old Republic managed to avoid this, except for the canonical gender of the Exile.
- The Old Republic, though, suffers from this with too many examples to keep track off. Graphics, animation, combat, dialog, lore, all are being listed as ruining the game FOREVER. The true irony in this? The game isn't even out yet. Imagine that.
- The Incredible Cross-Sections books are often accused of bringing in excessive Techno Babble and heavily lambasted by some fans for that reason.
- Wookieepedia copied Transformers Wiki's Ruined FOREVER page and applied it to Star Wars.
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars has probably gotten more than its fair share if only because it was a television production upgraded into a feature film, an entirely different medium. The series itself has gotten a lot more supporters because it is being looked at as a television show, not a film.
- It still gets a lot of hate for contradicting previous canon (and occasionally fanon) when it would be very easily avoidable.
- Three words: HAN! SHOT! FIRST! Which, incidentally, is inaccurate, as this implies that Greedo got a shot off afterward, which he didn't. It should be "Greedo didn't shoot".
- Pacifistic Mandalorians. LET THE CARNAGE BEGIN!!!
- And now we have these clips from the Blu-ray re-releases. Lucas might as well go into hiding right now.
- New Buffy movie reboot... WITHOUT JOSS WHEDON?! BLASPHEMY!!!! (Admittedly, in this case; it's not so much that it's not Joss Whedon, it's that it is Fran and Kaz Kuzui, who own and "ruined" the first movie and had no actual creative input on anything past that.)
- The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie reboot has Michael Bay as executive producer... OH NOES!! The franchise will never be taken seriously again!
- The film version of Sex and the City is probably the only film ever to be accused of this in a newspaper review. By a critic who knows what "Jumped the Shark" means, no less.
- The next Spider-Man film won't be directed by Sam Raimi and will feature a new cast, with a story taking place earlier than in 3, with an English actor as Peter Parker?! A reboot only years after the first film!? KILL! KILL! KILL!!!
- This seems to be starting to turn around somewhat thanks to the very strong fanbase built around Andrew Garfield because of The Social Network and a general love for Emma Stone...but we shall see.
- The fact that most hardcore fans despised Spider-Man 3 has definitely helped them come to terms with the reboot.
- To say that fans' reaction to the fact that Zack Synder's Superman project will not have John Williams' compositions is disappointment is an understatement.
- While the majortiy of reaction has been positive, to say the least there are at least a few fans of The Muppets who are crying this after Fozzie Bear introduced "fart shoes."
- Remakes, Any kind, will always have this response. Double points if the remake is a PG-13 movie based on an R Rated movie. TRIPLE POINTS if the R rated film in question was a horror film.
Literature
- Academics tend to whine that whatever books are selling more than the books they want to have people read will ruin literature FOREVER. Usually it's the fault of academia in the first place, when they write and print books only for the wealthy and privileged then complain about the unwashed masses not reading the "True Art" books. Some good examples, look at the reviews of True Art academic literary critics for Wilkie Collins' The Woman In White, often considered now to be a great example of nineteenth century literature, and The Lord of the Rings, whose reviews by the literati were not only absolutely disparaging but in many cases were by people who plainly hadn't read the book.
- Harry Potter got together with Ginny instead of Hermione? Instead of Luna? Instead of Draco? Instead of me? Ruined FOREVER!
- The Elder Scrolls Novels ruined The Elder Scrolls FOREVER! On one level the novels were announced the same day Bethesda said that the next game in the series was a long way away, so it could be Pavlovian, however people complain about things in the book, claiming they ruin the series FOREVER, even though those things were major parts of the games, especially Morrowind.
- Every time anything happens in the Warrior Cats series (which is all the time), at least a quarter of the fanbase is going to scream this.
- To be more specific, some "fans" insist the series was Ruined FOREVER at the beginning of the second arc, and some believe it was the middle of the second arc, and some... Ah, forget it. The series has apparently been Ruined FOREVER at the beginning, middle, and end of every arc except for the first one.
- Twilight. According to some people, the series's existing means vampires (and maybe literature) are ruined FOREVER AND EVER.
- Note that exactly the same complaints were lodged when Anne Rice's vampire literature became popular as well. Apparently stories based on mythology that's Older Than Print can crumble when a single person writes a book about them.
- Mightn't it be that Anne Rice Ruined vampires Forever, and Twilight is the proof?
- Or, Rice pioneered 'caring about vampires as sympathetic protagonists', and this is the only thing that Twilight Ruined FOREVER!
- An interesting point for non-haters and haters of Twilight alike, they seem to agree that Breaking Dawn ruined the series forever.
- Vampire mythology is newer than you think, actually.
- Well, current vampire mythology (burning in sunlight, drinking blood from the throat, etc) is anyways. Vampires predate written language though, so...
- There were people who were not happy about there being a sixth Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book by a new author and declared FanonDiscontinuity before it had even come out.
- The ink was barely dry on the first Kevin J. Anderson - Brian Herbert collaboration before it was declared Dune had forever been ruined.
- This wasn't entirely unfounded. KJA had been consistently proved to be a horrid writer in every universe he'd attempted before, to the extent that other Star Wars writers retconned his work. Since his Dune novels were published, all opinions were proved true when the books he wrote blatantly contradicted a plot point established in the first book, on the first page, the first paragraph, the first sentence. You can't ruin a franchise any worse than that.
- It's a specialty du jour in The Hunger Games fandom. Mockingjay sucked, soandso died, Gale got the boot, Jennifer Lawrence looks like a blonde cow. It never ends.
Live Action TV
- Dexter just incestuously hooked up Dexter with his sister/step-sister Deb. In addition to being squick, the actors just finalized their divorce IRL: thanks, writers.
- Saturday Night Live has been jumping the shark more or less every week since 1976, depending on who you talk to. Despite the fact that there are seasons widely regarded among fans and show alums alike to be some of the worst in its run (1980-81, 94-95, and to a lesser degree, 2004-05 among them), the nature of the show dictates that there are bound to be great episodes and terrible episodes every year. Nevertheless, there are still viewers who seem to tune in every week simply to claim that the show hasn't been the same since Gilda Radner/Phil Hartman/Dana Carvey/Tina Fey left...
- Someone (Lorne Michaels?) said that people probably began crying this starting with episode two.
- 24 fans swore up and down that if SecDef Heller survived his Season 5 plunge into the Pacific (a Heroic Sacrifice to keep the BBEG from using him as a hostage), that would be one suspension of disbelief too many; a sign that the 24 producers just stopped caring and neither should we. He survived.
- The calls that 24 had been "ruined forever" started as early as the first season, when Teri Bauer fell out of a moving vehicle that exploded and was affected by short-term amnesia (which made her do some incredibly stupid things, like go back to the house where an assassin was stationed). Of course, this all stopped when Teri died in the first-season finale. The fans have also leveled this term at many incidents over the years, including Kim Bauerbeing stalked by a cougar, Jack Bauer dying at the end of an episode (don't worry, he got better), anything Kim did in season 2 and 3, the Kyle Chambers subplot at the beginning of season 3, the rest of season 3, Tony Almeida's "death" and most of season 6. No one can agree on which was worse, even though the series has always had a chain of good-bad seasons.
- The build-up and early days of the new Doctor Who series saw plenty of this, to the extent that one couldn't help but wonder whether the producers were taking some kind of sadistic glee in prolonging the hardcore fanboys' constant whining about the subject. Paul McGann isn't starring? The show now sucks. The Doctor's wearing a leather jacket? The show now sucks. Billie Piper's the companion? The show now sucks. The new logo? Sucks, as does the rest of the show now. But perhaps the nadir of this was a thread on The Doctor Who Forum decrying the new series and the fact that the producers obviously Just Didn't Care... based on shots of the new TARDIS looking slightly different from the old one and having slightly bigger windows. This last one was referenced directly in the series itself. Of course, even after the show had started airing, constant threads about how this episode was the worst one ever and that the producers should be fired continued for a long, long time.
- "Continued"? Past tense? Seriously, in the year 100 Trillion, when all that's left is a planet called Malcassairo inhabited by the remnants of humanity, huddled together for warmth, one of them will still be complaining that David Tennant isn't as good as Colin Baker, and Russell T. Davies ruined the series by bringing it back and making it the most watched show on a Saturday afternoon.
- This is made even more ridiculous when you realize that there were at least three different "old" TARDIS props to compare it to (four if you count the one in the telemovie which, let's face it, people who complain about this kind of thing probably won't) that had all been used in the old series and the new one looked more like an actual police box than any of them.
- Never mind the fact that the console room interior and the console itself changed no less than seven times over the course of the original show, only one of which—the one in "The Time Monster"—was universally disliked by everyone, cast, crew, and fans alike.
- Also the fact that the TARDIS is supposed to be able to change shape anyway. So any alterations could just be the chameleon circuit acting glitchy before freezing up again.
- People were moaning that the RTD-era TARDIS didn't look like a real police box several years on. Then they got a look at the Steven Moffat-era TARDIS... and a whole /new/ round of moaning began. Now that Moffat has gone from being the cool alternative to the official head writer, expect him to inherit RTD's Scapegoat Creator - ness.
- And what made this latest bout of TARDIS-related angst particularly ironic was that the Moffat-era TARDIS is clearly designed as a clear homage to / recreation of the original TARDIS prop used when the show originally debuted. They can't win coming or going.
- Ever since the show's earliest days, fans have cried foul whenever a new Doctor is announced. The show is always ruined forever after your favorite Doctor's tenure ended. Interestingly, some of them repeat - current 11th Doctor Matt Smith is being criticized for being "too young", a complaint also lodged at David Tennant, Christopher Eccleston, Colin Baker, Peter Davison, and even Tom Baker. Similarly, the departure or introduction of a new companion will be met with outrage. Just to show how much of a Broken Base this show has, The Doctor Who Forum sometimes had long threads that mocked the more extreme reactions with good humor.
- Here is a partial list of the times Doctor Who has been Ruined FOREVER. You will note that some of them are the reversal of an event that ruined it in the first place.
- The debut of the new Daleks got a lot of this kind of reaction from fans. Granted, they do look quite different from previous versions, and not necessarily for the better, but the reaction was still quite extreme. Since this was arguably Moffat's first misstep as showrunner, at least some of this heat seemed to be a mixture of fans overreacting over the fact that he wasn't perfect after all, coupled with a bit of 'we told you so!' gloating from fans of Russell T. Davies who hadn't quite managed to accept that things had moved on a bit.
- There were howls of outrage when Catherine Tate was announced as the new companion. No way did she fit the show. She was a silly comedienne. She'd be dreadful. She turned out to be a huge favourite.
- Doctor Who didn't win at the National Television Awards. Clear proof that Steven Moffat and Matt Smith have RUINED DOCTOR WHO FOREVER.
- In a similar vein, the fact that Series/Season 5 of the new Doctor Who didn't get ratings that were particularly outstanding is proof to the RTD-lovers that the show sucks now. Despite the fact that there was a little thing known as The World Cup running at the same time.
- The funny thing? Even with the World Cup, S5 is pretty much in line with the ratings for S1-3. It's only when compared against S4 - the one with Catherine Tate as companion, Billie Piper returning, and pretty much every main character in the big finale - that it looks like a dip. And while S5's ratings weren't outstanding by Who's standards, pretty much any other UK TV drama would kill for ratings like that these days (avg. 7.7 million).
- It's mentioned above that fans hated the new logo introduced in 2005. What is often conveniently forgotten is the late 2004-early 2005 BBC News report that the production team, in an ultimate example of The Law of Fan Jackassery, actually reported receiving a death threat over it. A logo.
- And, of course, when another new logo appeared in 2010, yet another outpouring of grief ensued. No word on any death threats, though.
- Star Trek has had this following the first series. While the fans have been more willing to accept some changes then other (more rabid) fandoms, it is still prominent.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation had "Star Trek is about Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Not these recycled people." However, with time, a much bigger budget, better special effects and sets, and talented actors (most notably Patrick Stewart, Brent Spiner, and Gates McFadden, although all of the main cast was exceptional), The Next Generation eventually escaped the shadow of the original series in critical and popular acclaim, if not popularity.
- There is a small subset of fans who attempt to disregard anything after Roddenberry's death (about halfway through TNG).
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - "What's this about a space station? Star Trek is about strange new worlds!", in addition to accusations it was being used as a test run for BSG, and the entire Dominion War arc. Tends to have its own fandom compared to other Trek series.
- Star Trek: Voyager had many complaints of pushing the Reset Button too often, which was not entirely unfounded.
- Star Trek: Enterprise had fans yelling "asspull Ret Cons, it screwed up my fanon..." at it more than probably any production in the history of the world. The commercial and critical failure of the show didn't help either, particularly with it being Screwed by the Network just as fan opinions were improving.
- The eleventh movie is getting plenty of this right now. Production images and other things are to be expected, but probably the biggest complaint is the "Younger and Sexier" vibe, having some people call it Star Trek 90210. Long-time fans often complain about it having abandoned Star Trek's optimism and inspirational view of the future for explosions, angst and excessive lensflares.
- Criticism and praise seem largely dependent on how long you've been a fan. Fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager seem to dislike it the most while recently arrived fans are more forgiving and/or enthusiastic. Fans of Star Trek: The Original Series are often somewhere in-between, with the most long-term fans tending towards negative. The backlash doubled when the fandom realized that the only series not disregarded was Enterprise.
- The backlash would probably have been far worse if it hadn't been established at the very beginning of the movie that the movie takes place in an alternate timeline that later Star Treks love oh-so-much.
- WHAT?! Star Trek and Zombies?!! Clearly IDW Comics has RUINED Trek FOR-EVAH!
- The decision in the mid-2000s to (initially) replace the original version of the 1960s series in syndication and a home-video release with a remastered version that saw most of the "cheesy" (but at the time state of the art) special effects replaced with cheesy, already-dated-looking CGI, as well as numerous editorial changes to the episodes themselves, led many fans to shout "ruined forever!", though there was a bit of rejoicing when Paramount did what it said was impossible and included the original versions of the episodes on the Blu-ray releases. Speculation that TNG may get similar treatment in the future has already been met with preemptive "Ruined forever!" calls, sight unseen.
- Supernatural gets this a lot, and has done so from halfway through the first season ( with the introduction of Meg). This is mainly because a) the female fanbase tend to dislike female romantic leads and b)the writers have a tendency to introduce seemingly random and ill-considered plot arcs that require a leap of faith on the audiences part. The female fanbase tends to hate recurring female characters partly because they tend to be cliched and difficult to identify with, but mainly because it takes screen time away from with the relationships between male characters, which are much easier to identify with, seem more realistic and better developed, and (-this point is key-)involve a lot of involve a lot of very attractive men. Jo, Bela, and Ruby are probably the most hated female characters, and all got this treatment. .When Jo showed up in Season 2, the fans complained that she was annoying, so Eric Kripke left her in some random bar. The fans—most of whom are female—complained about Bela and Ruby in Season 3, so they Dropped A Bridge On Bela and NthDoctor-ed Ruby.
- These are the non-female character plot twists which have caused various fans to declare the show ruined FOREVER:
- Season two: Dean's survivor guilt was portrayed realistically, turning him into a broken little shell of a boy. Given how, in virtually every childhood flashback, John comes across as being abusive towards Dean, and the coping problems that both brothers were having (Dean in particular), the series was exceedingly bleak and angsty.
- Season three: If you declared season three ruined FOREVER, it was probably because the plot centered around the effects of Dean's personal Idiot Ball( his deal with the demons) while the second series centered around his father's. If the characters hadn't learned, by the end of season two, how terrible the demon deals were by this point, it felt like the characters were too self-destructive to ever resolve their problems.
- Season four: the angel arc is the show's true Base Breaker, dividing fans into those who prefer the episodic horror-movie structure of the previous series, and those who prefer the angel and demon's mythology arc. Many fans in the first group consider the show to be RUINED FOREVER at this point. Considering that seasons four to six are mythology-heavy, they might have a point. Also, a lot of fans find Sam a whole lot less sympathetic after his addiction to demon blood; Sam was alway pretty manipulated, but there comes a point where he will pretty much do or say anything for another hit. The new Ensemble Darkhorse character Cas probably lessened the cries of Ruined FOREVER somewhat, partly because he developed a relationship with Dean somewhat similar to the relationship Sam and Dean had in the early series and partly because the fan-girls were too busy squeeing over his introduction to care.
- Season five: The angel mythology arc continues and the show becomes far less episodic. Also, the time travel episodes are fairly stupid, particularly after the show establishes that you can't change the past through time travel. Cue the cries of Ruined FOREVER
- Season Six: Season six has a lot of the problems you associate with other show's post-script seasons as well as a new showrunner, an oddly plotted season arc in which some of the show's most sympathetic and/or likeable characters behave wildly out of character or are implied to be dead. YMMV whether the quality of the stand-alone episodes has dropped dramatically , but the size of the show's audience definitely has. And as of the Season 6 finale, one of the show's most likeable and sympathetic characters went darkside, a whole new wave of "RUINED FOREVER" has arisen.
- Lost fans have claimed the series is ruined forever due to the "introduction" of time travel in season 5, though this plot element had already been introduced two seasons earlier, although there were certainly people who complained about it then, too.
- Another inexplicable thing that some fans claimed ruined it FOREVER is...the introduction of new characters in seasons 4 and 5. Because, apparently, it's "too late" to spend time on...characters who generally have huge links to the plot and are introduced far more naturally than, say, Nikki & Paulo. Characters who have all received Character Development and made connections with already-introduced characters. On fan favorites like Daniel, Miles, Lapidus and Ilana.
- Not to mention how polarizing the finale was.
- MST3K was accused of this with every single cast change, but especially when Joel left. Both cancellations would pull old Joel fans out of the woodwork to blame the casting of Mike for the show's failure.
- The funny thing is, in interviews Joel pretty much said that he would have asked Mike to host the show in the first place had he been there from the beginning.
- It gets crazier- Mike has admitted in the past that he thought Joel was a better host.
- And crazier still - both hosts have been known to start anonymous fights on message boards saying that the other was better
- When Kevin Murphy took over as Tom Servo, one watcher didn't approve of the change and went to the trouble of making a large banner reading "I HATE TOM SERVO'S NEW VOICE" and mailing it to Best Brains. Kevin Murphy kept the banner as a keepsake.
- The DVD Extras from Red Dwarf include a tale from one of the production staff in which, after the reintroduction of the Time Drive into series seven episode Tikka To Ride, he arrived at a convention and was bluntly told that the new time drive had ruined the show forever.
- There is some logic to this, in that the drive in this episode seemed capable of taking the characters anywhere in time and space (despite a good joke in the previous season pointing out that it could only do time travel, which was pretty useless in deep space), when the series' whole premise was them being stuck together on a ship with the ostensible long-term goal of getting back to earth.
- Dimensional anomalies made the cargo bay 300% bigger - it stands to reason the time drive became a time and matter drive. Although Kryten's subsequent "jabbing at it too hard" may have dissuaded the crew from ever using it again.
- The Price Is Right... especially the start of the Drew Carey era, where some viewers would pick apart every change and everything Carey did that Bob Barker didn't do, and swore that this would surely be the end of the show. This gained intensity after Roger Dobkowitz's tenure as producer ended at the conclusion of Season 36, the first Carey-hosted one.
- Kamen Rider Hibiki was Ruined FOREVER in the eyes of execs due to the fact it had a female rider on TV, something that is considered "taboo" with Kamen Rider (most females who had to transform had to rely on an "anybody can use a Transformation Trinket" or is a rubber monster). Needless to say, the exec associated the failure of the later season of Hibiki with a female rider being one of them. Kamen Rider Kiva was when the producers felt ready to allow the women to wear a rider belt again.
- That's weird, considering Kamen Rider Femme was a prominent character in the earlier Kamen Rider Ryuki movie.
- It's more a fact that while Toshihiko Inoue likes to promote more women wearing a rider belt (Save Agito, Faiz, Hibiki starting at episode 30 and Kiva), Hibiki was the first true attempt to place a female rider on TV, something that hasn't been done since Tackle. Unfortunately, it was done during post 30 (when Executive Meddling sent everything to hell) which had the unfortunate association that Shuki was responsible. Hence none of the series not directed by Inoue had a woman using a rider belt. A bit of a fear by the executives.
- It should be noted that said female Hibiki Rider eventually got a much fairer treatment in Kamen Rider Decade until the Rider War begins. She's not alone in that part, though. Which leads us to our next bullet point...
- Every single thing that happens in Kamen Rider Decade doesn't just ruin itself, it destroys the entire 38-year Kamen Rider franchise. The Alternate Universe versions of the Riders being less than perfect, Yuusuke being the comic relief, the costume designs for Decade and Diend... yup, Kamen Rider is dead. Don't even try to debate it. It's dead.
- Ironically, Decade's mission is to stop the entire Multiverse from being Ruined FOREVER in the most literal fashion possible...
- The Office (the American version) inspired this reaction when it was revealed in the final episode of the fifth season that Pam got pregnant. Common lore holds that when a baby is added to the show, it always jumps the shark. So without any sort of proof or indication of actual decline, the fandom has already called this. Despite otherwise loving the fifth season.
- Also, now that Michael (Steve Carell) is leaving after the seventh season, many fans are declaring THEY WON'T WATCH AT ALL. And every story line including him in the seventh season is them trying to make us like him less/foreshadow his death (yeah, what?).
- Within hours of the notoriously destructive Torchwood episode "Children of Earth, Day Four", fans were already declaring the series Ruined FOREVER and refusing to watch unless Ianto was brought back to life.. Russell T. Davies may have hit the fanbase's Berserk Button, which is Beyond the Impossible since Torchwood fandom isn't exactly known for it's tranquility.
- There's a shrine for Ianto in Cardiff Bay.
- A lot of fans also complain about "Children of Earth" in general, as they expected cracky fun with a Cast Full of Gay but got "Humans Are Bastards: The Miniseries" with a serious Downer Ending.
- The season 2 finale got this too, then again season 2 in general even had faint murmurings from people that loved the Narm Charm of season 1 and didn't like that the show was Growing the Beard and becoming Darker and Edgier in the process.
- There was even more outcry when Torchwood aired on Starz.
- Heroes was declared Ruined FOREVER after the Season 3 finale, which saw Nathan killed and replaced by a Brainwashed Sylar. Notably, this development managed to piss off both fans and haters of Sylar, the former because Sylar's screentime will presumably be reduced now he's Nathan; the latter because they think Sylar's a Creator's Pet and this is just a cheap way to keep him on the show.
- Many fans place the "ruined forever" watershed (which in this case is synonymous with Jumping the Shark) in Season 2 when the storyline includes Hiro finding himself in the middle of Shogun 2.0 for multiple episodes.
- Some of this was due in part to the 2007 writers' strike—the show was forced to end its second season early, and when it came back, it just sort of went "nope, that never happened" with several plotlines (Peter's Irish pals; Micah's awesome cousin Monica, etc). It was a very, very weird case of Retcon and many felt the show was never the same.
- Super Sentai fans pretty much despised the appearance of the Battliser from Power Rangers S.P.D. in the non-canon crossover movie Mahou Sentai Magiranger vs. Dekaranger, some to the point of threatening to boycott the franchise.
- iCarly: When iStart a Fan War was announced to have major Creddie and Seddie, the Seddie shippers got whipped up and some of them said they would stop watching the show if they didn't get what they wanted. And the episode turned out to be nothing but an Author Tract saying that the show is about comedy and not romance. There was almost no Creddie or Seddie whatsoever. The fans in question felt insulted by the episode, and also got furious when they thought Dan was deleting their negative comments from his blog. Two days later, he posted an entry explaining the problems that came about.
- Two episodes later we get iOMG as a cliff-hanger, which is real, and definitely got this reaction. The promo's for the next episode have taken the it to another level. You can say therefore, the Seddie ship brought the show to ruined forever status.
- And it got worse. The last episode of the arc got only 3 million viewers, and it might get downhill from there.
- Similarly, sister show Victorious has been getting this just as stupidly, most notably from people on the Victorious Wiki who claim that the episodes suck because either Tori comes out on top in the end, and wanting Jade to get things her way even when she does unbelievable things without reprimandation, or Tori getting to sing a new song, you name it. While Dan Schneider takes pride in his fans, especially the ones who enjoy his works, this show proves how unpleasable some of them are. You will just about always find someone complaining on that Wiki whenever a new episode airs.
- An example was back in August 2010, when Perez Hilton was announced for Wi-Fi in the Sky, there were people (who might not even be fans of the show) that claimed Nickelodeon was crossing the Moral Event Horizon by allowing him on a children's show. *
This is because Perez was known to be a celebrity blogger who would do inappropriate things commonly.
- Victorious was also in a way responsible for more Ruined Forever on iCarly. Before it started iCarly was shooting dozens of episodes at a time and had just finished it' strongest season. Victorious came along, took away the energy and time of the writing staff and iCarly became less funny, and because of a lack of facilities, ended up taking over iCarly's studio for months at a time meaning not as many episodes were done.
- In Buffy, this trope was brought up by fans of the series every time a major change was made, despite most of them being either necessary or for the better. For example, when another slayer was added, when said slayer died, when another slayer became a recurring character, when Willow began to train as a witch, when the show stopped being about high school, when Angel and Cordelia left the series for their own spinoff (which was Ruined FOREVER from the beginning), when Buffy got a human love interest, when Buffy got a little sister, when Buffy's human love interest left, when there was a musical, and so on and so forth. Worth a special mention is when Oz left the series, to be replaced with a new love interest for Willow, Tara. Fans violently hated the change in Willow and and Tara herself, with innumerable fans declaring the show Ruined FOREVER because of her mere presence. The same fans then proceeded to declare the show Ruined FOREVER when Tara was killed off several seasons later.
- Battlestar Galactica suffered this in three waves. First of all, there were those who immediately declared Battlestar Ruined Forever as soon as it was announced the revival would, in fact, be a Continuity Reboot (the much-reviled female Starbuck ended up becoming a Fan Favorite for many of those who did watch). Later, Ruined Forever hit when the show began verging into more Contemplate Our Navels and Gray and Grey Morality territory in the late second and entire third seasons. Finally, the last wave hit with the second half of the fourth season.
- What makes this egregious, however, is that as a result some fans have sworn off ever touching Battlestar or anything written by the same writers ever again. This is part of Caprica's ratings problem - "fans" (the term is used loosely) actually refuse to watch the show, in spite of good reviews, out of a grudge against the previous show's writers (forgetting that the writing staff, while having some of the same writers, also has several new ones).
- You're overlooking the fact that it's still irrevocably connected with Battlestar. People who were disillusioned by the show's ending are naturally going to be put off by any spin-off, regardless of the quality.
- ironically, many fans are now decrying about the recently announced movie because classic series creator Glenn A Larson, is going to be in charge and says he wants it to be more true to the original than the recent Ron Moore reimagining.
- And, or course, the original Battlestar Galactica suffered from some of the same problems, particularly thanks to Galactica 1980.
- And not without reason. This has a better claim than the reboot series to Ruined Forever status, because it's (supposedly, though illogically) set in the same continuity.
- One reason why the reboot generates such hate in some quarters of fans of the original is that it's not just a reboot, not simply a change, it often comes across as a 'rebutal', for want of a better word, to the original. The writers manage to give a strong, distinct impression in their work that they intensely dislike the source material from the original BG.
- American Idol. Either the bit where Paula left, the bit where they replace her with a comedian, or the upcoming season 10, sans Simon.
- When Kara was added this popped up almost instantly. Usually mixed with cries of "She doesn't judge fairly! She only cares about teh bishies!" ignoring that she normally didn't comment on how a contestant looked with the exception of Casey in Season 9.
- When Top Gear did a four-way race across London with a car, a bicycle, a boat, and public transport, Jeremy Clarkson accused Hammond of ruining the show forever when he, on a bicycle, arrived first. Clarkson wasn't exactly guiltless, however, for he'd come in second place in the boat. When the Stig arrived third (having taken public transit), they all shifted the blame to James May, dead last in the car. They proceeded to un-ruin Top Gear by claiming the whole film had been faked.
- There has likely never been a finale episode of any long-running, popular series (particularly any with ongoing story arcs) that hasn't been at the reciving end of this trope.
- Deadliest Warrior announces on the Spike website that they're doing a special one-time 'fantasy' episode with Vampires vs. Zombies. Cue most of the comments on the response page being about how this'll ruin the show, how this'll be the last season of Deadliest Warrior, 'worst idea ever', etc.
- A weird variation occured recently with Misfits, with about 90% of the hardcore fans deeming the show officially ruined after the first two seasons (despite the third season not even having been filmed yet) following the news that the most popular character (Nathan) is being written out. Fan responses have been absolutely savage, with a good chunk of the fanbase vowing to boycott the show. Even those who remain loyal are in a state of uproar, and hate campaigns have been launched against almost everyone involved - the actor who's leaving, the writer, the producers, Nathan's replacement character 'Rudy' (who hasn't even been cast yet), and even other cast members for trying to defend the series and calm the fans down. While anyone who's taken so much as a glimpse at the show will be baffled as to how they're going to make it work without Nathan, the cries of Ruined FOREVER are still a little premature.
- NOTE: It has since been announced that Joseph Gilgun will play Rudy; whether this will affect the angry hordes remains to be seen.
- It has, a little, given that Gilgun's a pretty respected actor. But there is still plenty of Fan Dumb floating around. A sizeable number of fans have deemed Rudy a Replacement Scrappy already, a worrying proportion of them rejecting him on the basis that he isn't as good-looking as Robert Sheehan. However, more troubling still for the fandom at large is the news that Howard Overman (the Series' creator, and sole writer up until now) is having more limited involvement in the show from now on and is only going to be writing four of this season's eight episodes. All in all, it's pretty understandable that the fans are worried.
- A considerable majority of the fandom of Gilmore Girls seems to agree that the extremely literal Luke, You Are My Father plot in season six, in which Luke discovers he has a daughter named April by a former girlfriend, is the indisputable Jump the Shark moment for the show, particularly because she was more or less a younger version of Rory (precocious, chatty, etc) and most especially because she contributed to the slow, painful, out-of-character demise of the Luke/Lorelai relationship. Coupled with the departure of show creators Amy and Daniel Palladino at the end of the sixth season, the show was never really the same after that.
- The Tonight Show every time a new host takes over. Steve Allen fans said this when Jack Paar took over. Jack Paar fans said this when Johnny Carson took over. Johnny Carson and David Letterman (who was a guest host at one point) fans said this when Jay Leno took over. Jay Leno fans said this when Conan OBrien took over. Conan O'Brien fans said this when Jay Leno took over again.
- Boardwalk Empire had this screamed from the rooftops after the 2nd season finale in which Nucky kills Jimmy.
- CSI: Crime Scene Investigation got a TON of this after Grissom's departure. It's resurfacing now to a lesser extent with Catherine's impending departure
- This started on Bones within minutes of the end of the 6th season, after the Booth/Bones They Did,and when Brennnan's pregnancy was announced.
- Highlander, after Richie's death.
- While Gossip Girls Dan & Blair arc gained a group of passionate followers the majority of the fans had this reaction. Fandom has now turned ugly.
Music
- Any new pop star (Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, Jonas Brothers, Britney Spears, Selena Gomez, Justin Timberlake, etc.) ruins the genre of Pop forever. Don't believe me? Read the itunes reviews of the songs.
- This is actually a subversion in some cases. Many people use the similarities between popstars as proof that pop is terrible in the first place, despite the fact that since they play/sing the same genre, they're bound to be somewhat similar.
- Doesn't help the fact that Justin Timberlake was part of the Boybands ruined music scene before that. At least he's hanging with cool people now.
- What, they only ruined Pop forever? Bring up a YouTube video of any song more than a decade old and observe a comments section with nothing but claims that pop-star-du-jour represents the death of all good music, everywhere.
- Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews, Pearl Jam and other artists who have strong cult followings suffer from this with just about every major release. Springsteen, in particular, has hordes of fans at places like Backstreets and Stone Pony London who kvetch about each new record at or shortly before the time of its release, only to eventually decide that it's GOLD compared to the next album that comes out a few years later.
- This is the fan reaction to just about any indie band/Christian band that signs to a major label. That's why, to many fans, bands like Death Cab and Underoath flat out suck now. Because, apparently it's impossible to make good music once you're in the industry. Punk bands have been getting this for years, although their anti-establishment themes often make you wonder why they didn't see it coming.
- Entertainingly, this is also true at the opposite end of the spectrum from Christian music - Black Metal (those crazy church-burning ones)is notorious for claiming only the most amateurishly-produced and listener-unfriendly music as "true Black Metal". Even then, it's preferable that the band should be inactive because a) they've killed themselves or b) half of them are in prison for killing and eating another band/the other half of their own band, c) they've been too busy to tour due to a five-year drinking binge in some remote part of Norway.
- The situation isn't helped when then-indie bands issue lyrical take thats to big-label artists, only to later become the same presumed sell-outs they have previously bemoaned.
- Metallica released an album without Cliff Burton? Metallica is Ruined FOREVER! They released an album that was closer to old-school heavy metal instead of thrash metal? Ruined FOREVER! Death Magnetic isn't a bland copy of Master of Puppets? Ruined FOREVER! Seriously, no matter what, Metallica is never going to catch a break from its so-called "fans".
- Metallica, and Ruined FOREVER means we need to mention St Anger? Even Metallica has all but disowned this record.
- Pretty much any band that changes its sound is accused of "selling out."
- Hip-hop is ruined forever about once a week depending on who you ask.
- Not only that, but any song ever sampled by a hip-hop or rap artist becomes ruined forever. Such as Kanye West sampling Daft Punk's "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger," though plenty of examples of this trope can be found by searching through the Youtube comments of every song that's ever been sampled.
- Some fans say indie rock bands like Grizzly Bear and Florence + the Machine were Ruined FOREVER by contributing to the Twilight soundtrack.
- Fans of Against Me! claimed the band sold out when they moved from the tiny No Idea label to Fat Wreck Chords in 2003, to the point where fans slashed the tires of the bands tour van and vandalised it and reportedly poured bleached over their merch table. The bizarre thing is that Fat Wreck Chords was well known for being anti-establishment indie label. Ironically, there was alot less outcry when the band left FWC for an actual major label, Sire Records in 2007.
- When The Beatles were still only popular in their hometown, drummer Pete Best was given the boot for the more competent Ringo Starr. Many fans cried Ruined FOREVER at the time, but everything turned out ok.
- In 1965, Bob Dylan's switching from an acoustic guitar to an electric one provoked great outrage of this nature from his folk rock fans. This went beyond 'ruined' forever; some even considered him a traitor to folk rock, and there were cries of 'Judas!' when he played electric at the Newport Folk Festival.
- After years of being bashed for their artsy prog-rock pretentiousness, Yes released their 90125 album with a more conventional rock sound—and were immediately declared Ruined Forever.
- Fan Dumb on the part of fans of any genre of metal have a tendency to claim this. Constantly. In the 80's, it was Ruined FOREVER by glam metal, in the 90's, it was Ruined FOREVER by grunge or Nu Metal, and in the 2000's, it was Ruined FOREVER by either Emo, Rap, Pop, or any genre that wasn't metal. And metalcore. And deathcore. The reason it's Fan Dumb is because the 80's was metal's high point, the 90's, commonly looked to as the "decade metal nearly died," was actually the decade that saw the beginning of Black Metal, Death Metal, and Groove Metal. The 2000's has seen death metal and black metal become more streamlined, merging again with elements of Thrash Metal, and Progressive Metal, as well as the creation of Post Metal, and a return to form of many of the thrash bands from the 80's such as Megadeth and Metallica.
- The Loudness War has ruined most contemporary and remastered music FOREVER.
- Not forever, provided the original, unruined masters still exist. It's likely that once the companies come out with a new format claimed to be 'the best sound quality ever' they will use the original masters and people will think that it's an improvement.
- "American Pie", according to the most popular fan theory, is a requiem for popular music and pop culture in general after the 1950s.
- What?! ICP are releasing a "second deck" of the Joker's Cards in order to expand upon the obscure mythology of the Dark Carnival?! Ruined FOREVER.
- They used surf rock guitars in "The Bone"!? They've sold out and are now ruined FOREVER!
- DragonForce's replacement vocalist Marc Hudson has caused some fans to complain about how he sounds different to ZP and claim he won't be able to do the old songs as well.
- Though honestly, when has Dragonforce ever been about the vocals?
- Morbid Angel's newest album Illud Divinum Insanus has elicited many fan complaints thanks to a Nu Metal sound and what many fans will consider almost embarrassingly bad lyrics. Some have even gone so far as to describe it as Morbid Angel's St. Anger.
- Oh no! Geri Halliwell has left the Spice Girls and the rest of the group have to carry on their tour without her! The group is RUINED FOREVER!
Professional Wrestling
- For many wrestling fans, the question isn't if Vince McMahon ruined wrestling but how may times he's done it. He's been declared the Antichrist ever since he bought the World Wrestling Federation from his father, when Bruno Sammartino and most of the old guard accused him of making a mockery of their sport with his theatrics. Of course, before Vinnie came along, wrestling was full of nothing but liars and con men determined to make their paying customers believe everything they were putting on was real authentic competition.
- Everything Vince did with the ECW revival beyond the original One Night Stand PPV was accused of ruining the memories of ECW forever.
- The announcement that Hulk Hogan will be joining TNA has caused many smarks to proclaim the inevitable doom of the company. The fact that he, Vince Russo and Eric Bischoff are now working for the same company has only made the doomsayers even more frantic, and add to that the recent announcement of a 2 hour special on MONDAY NIGHT, not only do you have fans of the company crying doom you also have WWE fans saying this proves the end is near.
- This pretty much sums up the ways in which this assumption wasn't all that far off the mark.
- Within seconds of the dirtsheets reporting an indy wrestler has signed with WWE or TNA the smarks scream in unison that he or she is "Ruined FOREVER!"
- Ruined FOREVER was the reaction of many fans to the decision by Ring Of Honor to replace Gabe Sapolsky as the head Booker
Sports
- Professional and college sports has more than its fair share of RUINED FOREVER moments. Any major mishap or miscue, particularly regarding roster or management changes, can lead to fans screaming about how their team will never win again. For example, the 2009 signing of Allen Iverson by the Memphis Grizzlies NBA club had fans hoping for a rejuvenation of what was arguably the worst team in all of basketball. Then, when Iverson and the Grizz dissolved their contract mere weeks later, fans were almost literally screaming "Ruined Forever!!"
- Those fans who weren't muttering "I Knew It" anyway.
- Marcelo Bielsa was the coach of Chile's national football team and his run on the team was considered superb by a huge part of the Chilean population (football is the most popular sport there, to the point that him and the national team were received like heroes when they came back from South Africa 2010). Then in the 2010 election of the national football association president he said that if the current president lost the election he was leaving. That guy lost the election, Bielsa left, and now football is RUINED FOREVER in Chile, with people protesting on the street and writing letters to every newspaper. There is even a campaign to quit the football channel on the cable en masse, for God's sake. Football is Serious Business in Chile.
- Any major rule change in sports is almost guaranteed to get this reaction. The designated hitter is a prime example in baseball. Recent attempts to curb injuries on the field in the NFL have received this in spades.
- Brendan Shanahan as the new NHL head disciplinarian drew ire from some fans after a few suspensions, claiming "He suspended players for too long! The NHL will become a no-hitting league!"
Tabletop RPG
- Tabletop games in general tend to suffer from this over time, partly because of a very simple dynamic. If a game gets some success, fans tend to like its traits. The designers may not: they probably had numerous kludgy hacks and flaws that irritate. Regardless, a 2nd edition usually expands and smooths over game. Designers will then become somewhat less tolerant of the things they couldn't get rid of previously. A 3rd edition will become somewhat more complicated in ways which often mystify players but also overly-simplify many of the more fun aspects of the game (frequent and often over-used nerfing tends to occur). A 4th edition often sees the designers (possibly an entirely new crew) rip out the entire game and rebuild it. This can utterly change the game, and the dynamic is not always improved by the fact that the later designers often started as fans of the game. Major examples include Dungeons & Dragons, Shadowrun, and The World Of Darkness.
- This also happens to video games: Civilization slowly got more complex, with more techs, until the fourth game reduced the number of techs by redoing everything.
- Every time Dungeons And Dragons changes editions, a large amount of the fanbase decides to rise up and complain about how everything has been ruined. This is more true for the changes from 2nd Edition on up, but people complained about the switch between the first and second editions as well. 4th Edition has prompted more shrieks of "D&D IS DEAD" than ever before due to an extreme case of They Changed It, Now It Sucks fueled by pure Internet Backdraft. All that said, this isn't the place to discuss whether it has in fact been ruined, or not. Please Take It to the Forums.
- Gamers don't even need to wait for edition changes anymore. Wizards of the Coast, the company that currently owns D&D, publishes "rules updates" every few months, which include genuine errata (i.e., corrections to mistakes that have been noticed since the last update, changes made in the last update, or books published since the last update), as well as changes to things the game designers have noticed that players have been taking advantage of, changes to whatever the online fanbase has been complaining the most about recently, and - most controversially - changes to things the game designers have just kind of decided they'd like to work differently. Those last three elements often involve completely revamping popular character options and frequently invalidate popular character builds, making Dungeons & Dragons 4e Ruined Forever every few months. Now the Essentials release has fans up in arms all over again.
- BattleTech has had many of these. Depending on the specific fan, these include (working roughly backwards):
- The entire setting of Mech Warrior: Dark Age (but this is all complaining about a game they don't like)
- The Jihad (oddly, the same folks who previously decried the unrealistically small armies in the universe screamed the loudest when one Genre Savvy faction went ahead and built a large force)
- The Fed Com Civil War (specifically, its end, with both nations remaining separate)
- The Twilight of the Clans and the destruction of Clan Smoke Jaguar (at least for the Smoke Jaguar fans, even though the Clan had been set up as clear bad guys)
- The breakup of the Federated Commonwealth (some folks just wanted a winner, even though it'd mean that the storyline would've effectively ended)
- The loss of the rights to the "Unseen" images (despite a major legal battle that established several precedents in copyright law. Also, this complaint has effectively disappeared — one hopes — now that the Unseens have been licensed again and are available for use in Battletech artwork.)
- The Clan Invasion (despite it being planned by the original authors from the very beginning, and very clearly foreshadowed)
- The "timejump" of the Twenty-Year Update (mostly in retrospect, and despite new material being produced for that time period)
- The Fourth Succession War (though it was the lead-off storyline)
- The rebranding of the game from "Battledroids" to "BattleTech" (despite that it only existed as the former for about six months, and the threat of legal action from George Lucas)
- Most perplexing, some fans decry events that only occurred in the off-screen backstory, such as the destruction of Clan Mongoose or even the Amaris Civil War, even though the latter is the entire foundation of the universe.
- Every time a new army is released in Warhammer or Warhammer 40K, cue cries about how said armies rules are ridiculously unbalanced, how every other army is now worthless, how their upgrades are so incredibly unfair and, yes, how Everything Is Ruined Forever. Because gods forbid you might actually have to rethink your strategy for once.
- Or there's the second time they changed the rules of 40K. The first time, WH 40K was a niche title with a rulebook named Rogue Trader. The second time, 40K was a TV-advertised product which therefore had a sizable fanbase. The ensuing drama has probably caused a dimensional rift somewhere.
- Space Wolves have ruined 40k forever.
- The Tau empire doesn't shoot everything they see? AND they're reasonably diplomatic?! 40K IS RUINED FOREVER.
- This was later retconned to something more appropriate.
- They changed the Tau? More like they RUINED the Tau (forever)!
- Shadowrun 3rd Edition to Shadowrun 4th Edition. Several forums had to rewrite the rules to stop the rampant rant-threads.
- New World Of Darkness - especially Mage and Werewolf.
- Even before nWoD, this was happening - notably with the revised edition of Mage and Kindred of the East.
- However it seems like there's some agreement that Changeling and Wraith/Geist completely invert this trope, as they are often seen as better... though the older games still have their RUINED FOREVER people.
- Exalted - especially with Dreams of the First Age's Solar Charms (universal) and with about half the Ink Monkey articles (YMMV).
Theatre
- Cirque du Soleil has had a lot of this since 2007, but especially after Criss Angel Believe initially bombed with critics and audiences (though it's since had a Retool and continues to run) and ZAIA had trouble selling tickets in Macau. After two of their 2010 productions (Banana Shpeel and Viva Elvis) had bad press in previews — the former wound up closing in New York two months sooner than planned — the fandom and even media commentators began speculating the end for a once-wonderful company is nigh. It Got Worse with the announcement of Michael Jackson-themed shows, which not only would be more Jukebox Musical variants after LOVE and Viva Elvis, but ones coming closely on the heels of its subject's death (making it look more like a cash-grab than the other two shows). In response to that uproar, the online fan newsletter Fascination had an excellent column by its editor pointing out that Cirque fans have been making Ruined FOREVER claims as far back as 1990 and their fourth show, Nouvelle Experience, as it was a more theatrical show than the tours that had preceded it.
- Andrew Lloyd Webber's sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, Love Never Dies, has killed a lot of the fans' love for the original show. He's alienated them even further by blaming the financial and critical failure of it entirely on the people who've been buying tickets to Phantom for twenty years.
- Pretty much anytime a major musical is made into a movie, there is some set of fans who declares the show RUINED FOREVER.
- The (well-substantiated) rumour that Taylor Swift had been cast as Eponine in the upcoming film version of Les Misérables provoked an unanimous outcry from the fanbase. Then the incredibly sneaky Cameron Mackintosh announced that the role of Eponine would instead be played by West End and 25th Anniversary Concert veteran Samantha Barks, and this trope was summarily turned upside down and shaken with prejudice as said fanbase - including names like Lea Salonga and Frances Ruffele - dropped to their knees with an audible thump and thanked the deity/ies of their choice.
Toys
- When the license for Marvel Comics toys went from ToyBiz to Hasbro, fans declared that the toys were Ruined FOREVER. Some even sold off their entire collections in "protest." The fact that Hasbro's first series of Marvel Legends had been designed and created by the ToyBiz crew, and would in fact have been ToyBiz's next series if the licensed hadn't transferred, didn't seem to matter to these folks. The only change was the name printed on the card, and that was enough.
- LEGO has its fanatics, especially when it comes to its "Constraction" lines, like BIONICLE. Never mind the Fan Hater crew, even the line's followers expressed their hatred over several "drastic" changes. Some felt the story went downhill when the characters started speaking (as in, the very first page of the very first comic). Others left the story when the setting changed from a tropical island to a futuristic city. Then, when the marketing took a sharp turn and advertised the sets with horrible rap songs and (decidedly non-canon) websites, even more fans turned away. And then there was The Reveal of the Great Spirit, the introduction of a new planet, and the sudden overflow of sci-fi elements. Thankfully, in contrast to many other fandoms described here, BIONICLE's fans never declared outright war over the subject. However that still doesn't mean there aren't any seriously butthurt people out there, banned from popular forums.
- The Barbie line sees its fair share of this, but the Fashionista's have it happen every time anything
new AT ALL happens. Good examples include when Wild was replaced so the line wasn't four blondes and two minorities ("Wild is gone and has been replaced with a girl who makes the line look more balanced? Ruined FOREVER!"), when Girly was replaced by somebody whose name didn't imply it was setting in stone what it meant to be a girl ("Sweetie is too nice!") and when they made it possible to swap heads easily (Which was something the fans had been wanting for years) because it meant the line was selling out to the mainstream.
- Wrestling figures, every time the style of figure changes or a different company starts producing them. Even if said figure series provides far more articulation, more realistic face scans and less chance of breaking than a previous series, people won't be happy. The best example is from Bone Crunching Action to Titan Tron Live - Bone Crunching Action had barely any articulation, were made of rubber and looked ugly. Titan Tron Live had much articulation (more as the series went on) and soon the faces looked much better, but they were criticised by the Fan Dumb who didn't want to start their collections all over again.
Video Games - General
- Video games in general have been absolutely ruined by the newest generations actually trying to expand the market.
- Particularly "Dumbing down" the games by making them more something that people would play (read, can play without degrees in statistics and software engineering).
- They have also been "Dumbing down" every game ever by removing obstacles.
- Save points, or automatic ones at that! Gasp.
- Health regenerating really quickly.
- Practically no penalty for dying.
- More fair challenges and less Fake Difficulty.
- Less emphasis on offline Multiplayer.
- More emphasis on online Multiplayer.
- This happens with literally every main shift in demographic, or with every new demographic that entered the market.
- Gaming has been ruined for decades... it was dead on arrival at the Arcades, because all sorts of faux gamers who didn't have access to the restricted computers in universities got to play video games.
- Further, many PC elitists shout this whenever any multiplatform game doesn't actively and deliberately make the console version horrible. Any developer who doesn't try at every opportunity to screw the console market is clearly a console peon who can't make any games with depth, and gaming is therefore ruined FOREVER.
- The Atari, Intellivision, and Colecovision were going to ruin games forever because they weren't that different from each other and all their games were stagnant. It turns out that was one of the lesser things that caused The Great Videogame Crash Of 1983.
- The NES and the Sega Master System (as well as other competing systems like the MSX) ruined the market because they had all sorts of "Kiddie nonsense" and they censored everything.
- Nevermind that the lack of censorship is why games like Custer's Revenge and Beat Em And Eat Em were allowed to be on the market in places where kids could see them - oh wait, it's censored so it sucks.
- Then the Sega Genesis, SNES, and better computer technology were going to ruin gaming forever because they didn't even bother to care about gameplay at all. They only cared about "Blast processing" and "Faux 3D Graphics", and now it brought about all sorts of kids who never even knew what Pac-Man was until it received its 95th port to the SNES or Genesis. Therefore they were not "real gamers". It seems a lot of them don't acknowledge how simply having more buttons on the SNES and Genesis, as well as the keyboard and mouse made it way more complex than the "dumbed down" messes some of these people complained them to be.
- Then the next generation brought about even more faux gamers who were just graphics whores, and now being catered to their desires. Now everything had to be like Final Fantasy VII or Ultima, because that was the cool thing to do - those guys weren't real gamers. Then the RPG backlash started to wear off because now everyone started to view them as fandumbs full of fanboys, and gaming was further ruined because they brought about even more gamers who joined at this generation, and systems like the Playstation brought about all sorts of MTV-style Faux Gamers.
- The Playstation 2 was also going to ruin gaming forever because it had all sorts of stuff like a DVD player and people had bought it because it was cheaper than the current DVD players on the market. Dear god - NOW WE HAVE PEOPLE BUYING VIDEO GAME SYSTEMS TO NOT PLAY VIDEO GAMES ON THEM!! It's Ruined FOREVER!
- Then the Xbox ruined gaming forever by not only trying to be more PC like, but also bringing in even more MTV-style-Faux-Gamers. Now the shooters are full of faux gamers who are nothing but hot air and testosterone, while the RPGs are nothing but faux gamers who play it to masturbate at the feminine emo character models (once more, ignore how many shooter fans don't even touch multiplayer or RPG fans never even thought of masturbating to their games).
- Considering it was their initial business strategy, one wonders where the hell these G4rians were sleeping the past decade or so.
- Nintendo has been ruined forever more times than anyone can count. People chastised Nintendo for not having the Gamecube, Wii, and Wii U being made with a DVD player and demand that they have it because the other consoles have it. Since it was recently announced that the Wii U won't have the ability to play DVD movies, now the console's ruined and not worth getting.
- As we are already talking about Nintendo: Their portable consoles pretty much were ruined FOREVER each time they were released/announced:
- The Gameboy was all wrong: "only 4 shades of gray?". "Nintendo is totally going in the wrong direction and ruining portable gaming for everyone" (As it turned out, the better battery time was nice-to-have for portables and for a long time it ruled the market)
- Consider the Game Boy's only competition; the Sega Game Gear and Atari Lynx. Both fixed the Game Boy's "flaws", backlit screens in full color, but they failed to pose a serious threat to the Game Boy due to their short battery life, lack of portability, higher retail price, and lack of decent third-party support.
- The Virtual Boy was all wrong. "A portable console with 3D and a half-helmet you have to wear? in red/black?". It didn't ruin portable gaming (as it wasn't really portable...) but the low game support and compatibility might have ruined that system.
- The Gameboy Pocket was all wrong: "A new link port? You want me to update all my link equipment?" "Nintendo is totally going in the wrong direction and ruining portable gaming for everyone"
- The Gameboy Color was all wrong: "Why add color? Four shades of gray were perfect!" (which is ironic, considering the original gameboy comment) "Nintendo is totally going in the wrong direction and ruining portable gaming for everyone"
- The Gameboy Advance was all wrong: "The screen in the middle of the buttons?", "the new cartridges are so small / the old cartridges stick out so much", "my old games either need to be stretched and blurred or only use half of the screen!" "no backlight!" "They want me to pay for my SNES-games, again!" "Nintendo is totally going in the wrong direction and ruining portable gaming for everyone"
- The Advance SP was all wrong: "the screen _not_ in the middle of the buttons?", "I can't exchange the batteries", "the colors are so washed", "What did you do to my headphones port?" "Nintendo is totally going in the wrong direction and ruining portable gaming for everyone"
- The Advance Micro was all wrong: "The screen in the middle of the buttons?", "I cannot play my 10-year-old-games any more" (which - in turn - fixed the "sticking out"-problem of the old GB-Advances). "I cannot use my old cables any more!" "It's much too small!" "Nintendo is totally going in the wrong direction and ruining portable gaming for everyone"
- The DS was all wrong: "Why would I want two screens?" "This touchscreen will ruin portable gaming forever!" "Cue stupid minigames for the touchscreen and every mouse-supported-game ever to be poorly ported to the DS" "With all those pedophiles waiting on Picto Chat, I can never let my child play with a portable console, again"* "I cannot play my old gameboy games, any more!", "I cannot link my GBA-games any more" "Nintendo is totally going in the wrong direction and ruining portable gaming for everyone" (Ironically, even Nintendo thought that the DS might ruin the "Gameboy"-name FOREVER and decided not to call it the "Gameboy DS")
- The DS Lite was all wrong: "Now my GBA-games nastily stick out of the Slot2!", "it's much too small!", "My GBA-SP charging cable doesn't fit anymore!", "All those case colors are completely unnecessary!" "Nintendo is totally going in the wrong direction and ruining portable gaming for everyone"
- The DSi was all wrong: "Region locking? I will never touch a Nintendo again!", "Downloadable games? I like my games as physical cartridges!" "A portable console doesn't need camera" ".. doesn't need two cams" "The resolution is much too low!" "no mp3 support!" "Nintendo is totally going in the wrong direction and ruining portable gaming for everyone""People might share nasty photos with it" "I cannot import other photos to view on it", "I cannot play old GBA games any more!" "A new charging cable? again?" "Now, they are gonna drop all regular DS support!" (turns out that hardly any DSi-only-games appeared) "Nintendo is totally going in the wrong direction and ruining portable gaming for everyone"
- The DSi XL was all wrong: "This thing weighs a ton!" "Nice toaster but why would I wanna play on that?" "It's too large!" "It's the same resolution, it's just more pixelated!" plus everything else from DSi "Nintendo is totally going in the wrong direction and ruining portable gaming for everyone"
- At the moment, the 3DS is ruining portable gaming FOREVER for everyone: "I cannot really play my DS-games on the screen - either it's blurred or only uses parts of the screen" "What game might every reasonable use this stupid 3D?" "All those 3D-calculations bring down the battery in no time!", "You can't really share anything with that friend code system!", "Everything's going into the wireless - what a crap!" "There are no really good launch titles" "Almost every game is a remake, so we're paying $250 to play the same old games we played over a decade ago on our N64!"
- However, as it seems, totally ruining portable gaming FOREVER made Nintendo a lot of money and very good sales numbers...
- Now that we have the Wii and DS around, they will ruin gaming by bringing in all sorts of "Casual gamers" who are not "Real gamers".
- As for the PC gamers? The jump from DOS to more Plug-and-play-style games ruined gaming forever because now people didn't need to navigate the clunky interface of DOS.
- Then the Consoles ruined gaming forever because they committed the sin of making money.
- If you ask some people, it's not developers who are ruining gaming, but the gamers. A lot of gamers seem to have this overdeveloped sense of Entitlement... which is kind of sad, considering magazines and blogs encourage King Customer Mentality and this kind of behaviour. This is perhaps the only medium in which you will be considered a "non-gamer" because you played something that is not considered a "game" by the shadow council of cabalists who declare what games are. And sure enough... any game that's popular is not a game, nor is it anything that isn't something completely and utterly new.
- There's also piracy, which can be more or less summarized like this.
It is not a mischaracterization to say that conversations with the hardcore PC community about software theft follow these tenets: - There is no piracy. - To the extent that piracy exists, which it doesn't, it's your fault. - If you try to protect your game, we'll steal it as a matter of principle. It's like, who wouldn't want to bend over backward in their service? You need to know it, because nobody else is going to tell you: you guys sound like Goddamned subway vagrants.
- Downloadable Content deserves a mention, as now all games will be released incomplete.
- Which, while it can be considered a legitimate complaint that DLC often is used to finish content that was intended to be in the game but cut for time, budget, or other issues, largely seems to ignore the fact that prior to DLC, games were still being released incomplete; the only difference being, once they were out the door, you would never see the cut material without a massive fan-effort to bring it back. I'm looking at you, Knights of the Old Republic.
- In Spain, this is the reaction you get when you announce a game will be released on English (Instead of being translated to Spanish). Nevermind that until halfway the fifth generation video game translations weren't commonplace (for example, Ocarina of Time came untranslated; nobody insults it, despite the translation existing, just not being inserted into the game), most countries never get translations anyway, nowadays most games DO get translated, and those that don't are minor cult games (such as Disgaea or The World Ends with You) where it would cost more to translate them than whatever they would get from the few extra sales they might get from releasing them in Spanish, Spain has and a higher percentage of "casual" gamers (Not deriding them, just saying there's a smaller than usual percent of people who buys the games in question). Nope, they're doing this just to screw with Spaniards. Of course, when the game gets translated but it's a sloppy translation, no one says a thing, except Final Fantasy VII and its Blind Idiot Translation on top of the English Blind Idiot Translation. Double Standard much?
- Given that Spanish translators are now much more capable to actually do a good localization, this is hardly an excuse now.
- Part of the problem is that learning English as a second language is not as common in Spain as in most other European countries.
- Game Maker has announced a new logo for version 8, chosen from contest entries. It looks like the Awesome Smiley. People are now threatening to boycott the new version.
- Notably, two weeks later, they caved into complaints and chose a different logo. RUINED FOR 12 DAYS!
- Motion controls are THE DEATH OF GAMING FOREVER. Because there have totally been no good games since the Wii came out years ago, sometimes (GASP) even on said system! And don't even get started on PS Move and Kinect! Clearly, hardcore gaming is dead.
- GASP! The 3DS is region locked? WORST. HANDHELD. EVER!
- The recently announced Wii U is, predictably, getting these reactions: WHAT THE HELL? THAT CONTROLLER IS HUGE! IT WILL BE UNCOMFORTABLE TO HOLD!; A TOUCHSCREEN!? MORE USELESS GIMMICKS!; THIS CONSOLE WON'T BE POWERFUL ENOUGH! HOW CAN IT STAY ON THE MARKET?
- Capcom seems to be earning this kind of scorn of late, with some going as far to christen the company as the Japanese Activision. This image sums it all up quite well.◊
Video Games - Specific
- When the new Ace Combat game called Ace Combat: Assault Horizon was announced that it would be the rebirth of the game title, a lot of the hardcore fans felt that it was Ruined FOREVER.
- The announcement of the Rune-Keeper class in the MMORPG video game Lord of the Rings Online, a class that is structured around the lore, built around the lore, and even spoken by the developers of the game to be lore-driven, but has invoked a fury from players claiming to be scholars of Tolkien's work that insist that the class is impossible, despite the video game company's resident and certified Tolkien scholar saying otherwise.
- For the uninitiated, the Rune-Keeper is essentially a Wizard. In the LOTR universe, traditionally, there are very few literal, magic-using wizards (as they are literally demigods descended to earth.) The creators of the game admit that this is a stretch of the Tolkien universe's rules, but feel that an MMORPG just isn't quite complete without a wizard class. They still went through the trouble of clearing it with the Tolkien estate and doing as much as possible to make it make sense, even though it's essentially a Hand Wave.
- Well, there are some who think LotRO in general is an instance of Ruined FOREVER. Because it's all approved by Tolkien Enterprises (who bought most of the rights to adaptations away from the professor in the 1970s) and not by the Tolkien Estate (which is run by JRR's son and literary executor, Christopher Tolkien), it's all illegitimate creation in their mind. The Rune-Keeper was just seen as the last straw by quite a few people (regardless of the lightning-summoning, Ent-controlling, fireball-throwing class that the game already included).
- That is not entirely true. The elves have some... inherent abilities, which are not quite Functional Magic, but surely supernatural. For example, Glorfindel, Luthien, or the King of Mirkwood.
- Although the introduction of the Rune-keeper class with the launch of the expansion Mines of Moria brought the biggest Ruined Forever complaints, the plot line of Moria itself got a lot of heat as well - with some complaining that since Tolkien said that Moria was never retaken, having it in-game was blatantly against lore, and thus ruined the game forever.
- More recently, the move to add a "Free-to-play" option has also gotten cries of Ruined Forever - starting at the exact moment this was announced - which came several months before any players had a chance to see it in action.
- Fire Emblem. The classes and characters in every subsequent game are an insult to the ones in the past. Not to mention that when Nintendo finally decided to start releasing them outside of Japan, they immediately started to suck because now people besides importers were playing them.
- Final Fantasy XIII getting released on a non-Sony console. Outrage ensues!
- Not to mention the Fan Dumb reaction of PS3 owners boycotting the game now... despite the fact that all this will accomplish is proving Square Enix's point that PS3 exclusives can't be sufficiently profitable, and leading to more multi-console jumps.
- To put this in perspective, many gamers thought that Final Fantasy was dead (RUINED FOREVER) when it was finally released on a non-Nintendo console... back in 1997.
- Which is kinda hilarious considering the first game in the series was originally a multiplatform release. FF1 for MSX anyone?
- Every single new Final Fantasy game is the one that ruined the franchise forever, and this is obvious the second they announce the title. Which means that the most virulent critics will line up to buy it on day one.
- Every game after Final Fantasy VII (especially Final Fantasy IX and Final Fantasy XII, because they're based on medieval times) has been accused of not "looking like a Final Fantasy game" despite that fact that: a) each of the worlds that appear throughout the series have no continuity with each other and thus never look alike and b) Most (9 out of the current 13) FF games have been in a medieval setting (what fans are criticizing).
- Their complaints seem egregious when one considers that FFIX was meant to be a throwback to more 'old school' Final Fantasy (at least in terms of setting), and FFXII is take place in an updated version of the same setting used in the Final Fantasy Tactics series. The latter may have its detractors, but both IX and XII specifically resemble previous Final Fantasy games... in a series where resembling previous games isn't popular...
- Don't forget that Final Fantasy is basically a medieval time game BEFORE VII came out. Therefore, VII and VIII doesn't follow the traditional Final Fantasy.
- Basically, anything that has to do with Final Fantasy post VI will have the "fans" cry this while calling fans who don't whine emo-gays.
- Samus Aran's non-Suit appearance in the Metroid Prime series. The first Metroid Prime game had Samus's first appearance in 3D, and they chose to use a more realistic and older appearance that had actually never been used in the series before. In Prime 2, her look drastically changed to her Zero Suit look based on Metroid Zero Mission that was more standard with her other appearances in the series. Fans cried that Samus looked like a plastic Barbie doll, clashed with the overall realism of the rest of the game, and was bastardized by "animu", therefore ruining Metroid FOREVER. Metroid Prime 3 still used the Zero Suit look, just better-rendered, so the complaints didn't end either. You can compare the different suitless Samus endings in this video.
- Now some people are pissed off at her new look in Metroid: Other M. But after release, there are several other aspects causing these cries that it's best not to bring up here.
- Before that, Metroid Prime being first-person.
- Everyone went batshit over Metroid Prime 2 and Hunters having multiplayer. It turned out to be pretty damn harmless.
- There's also the group that believes Samus is not a real female role model anymore because of Nintendo's depiction of her in her Zero Suit for Brawl. Never minding that even the original Metroid showed her in a skimpy bikini (Nintendo has actually added clothes to her since then).
- When they're not complaining about that, they're saying that makes it a Halo ripoff, which is wrong because 1) it's not even the same genre, 2) Space Marines have been canon since Metroid II, 3) Metroid came out in 1986, and 4) tons of great games are ripoffs of a ripoff of a ripoff.
- This is made even more ridiculous by the fact that Metroid Prime entered development before Halo even was in the FPS genre, instead of the strategy genre, at least according to the other wiki.
- Don't forget that Metroid Fusion ruined Metroid forever by changing everything.
- "Pokémon was always better before (insert current generation here)". Usually either centered around complaints that new Pokemon are not as "cool" looking as older ones, or complaints that adding extra evolutions have ruined that Pokemon forever. (Never mind that giving a Pokemon an evolved form makes it stronger and more worthwhile to use.) Diamond/Pearl also had the usual complaints, plus claims that a dramatic re-balancing of all the moves (creating special and physical categories) ruined competitive battling forever.
- The main reaction to HeartGold and SoulSilver seem to be "WHAT they replaced Kris with Lyra! Ruined FOREVER!"
- WHAAA!? the grass looks slightly different! Ruined FOREVER!
- The game has more detail?! It's RUINED 4EVER!!!
- Whitney's Miltank is one level lower in HG/SS?!?! EPIC FAIL GAMEFREAK!
- Perhaps a little conspiracy theory to go with it? "JUNICHI MASUDA IS BLACKMAILING THE TAJIRI-SAN TO TAKE OVER POKEMON! IT IS RUINED 4EVER!"
- Lopunny, Gardevoir, et al led to cries of "FURRYMON" across the Internet. A Japanese video game with Cute Monster Girls? That's just crazy talk.
- As soon as its silhouette was revealed, Zoroark was accused of being a Replacement Scrappy of Lucario. Seriously, WHAT?!
- When people saw Pokemon from 3rd and 4th Gen: A few Pokemon look like robots instead of animals?! RUINED FOREVER!
- It's even more hilarious when you consider that there were some robotic and unnatural-looking Pokemon in the first two generations too. Just look at Magnemite, Porygon, Voltorb, and Skarmory, among others.
- The Tin Tower is now called Bell Tower. THE END OF THE WORLD IS COMING!!
- The titles of the new games are BLACK and WHITE?! Oh no the, series is now absolutely going emo/racist by the NAME ALONE!!! It has been RUINED FOREVER!!!
- Hilariously enough, people said Ruby and Sapphire onward ruined Pokémon FOREVER because their names were gems instead of colors and Game Freak was "running out of ideas." (Nevermind that Gold and Silver are also precious metals and Crystal is... well, a gem). With Black and White, they went back to colors, and people are saying they're ruined FOREVER because they went back to colors, clearly indicating that they ran out of places to look for ideas.
- The starters for Black and White have been revealed. People are, you guessed it, screaming 'RUINED FOREVER!'
- The in-battle sprites are now animated. But the back-view sprites look low-res and blown-up! Nintendo doesn't care about Pokémon anymore!
- The legendaries for Black and White were just revealed. What?! Black on white and white on black?! The black legendary slightly resembles Palkia?!! NO, NINTENDO, YOU SUCK YOU RUINED POKEMON!!
- The English names are somewhat cornier than the last four gens! NINTENDO IS RUNNING OUT OF IDEAS!!!!one (Of course, the Nostalgia Filter prevents anyone from realizing that even Gen 2 had names like Feraligatr...)
- Amusingly enough, as you may note from the above screams, most people don't really care that Game Freak is the one that actually makes the games. People just want to blame Nintendo for everything, it seems.
- One particular troper got so annoyed with the whining that he wrote this.
- The sad part? If one reads through the thread linked to above, some fans either agreed with it being RUINED FOREVER, or pointed out that the fan who ranted was wrong and it was only ruined around one of the more recent generations, both parties missing the blatant sarcasm.
- Triple Battles have been confirmed from Black and White on serebii.net. Hilarity is bound to ensue.
- The evil team for Pokemon Black and White was revealed on Oha Suta recently. The fan reaction? Cries of "The villains are named Team Plasma!? RUINED FOREVER!" or "They dress like KNIGHTS!? They don't look evil! Pokemon is RUINED FOREVER!" have rung out across the internet.
- The most amusing part of this is that, while people are screaming "RUINED FOREVER!!!" at all moments, the amount of Pokemon fans doesn't lower at all. It seems that many of the people screaming about the Pokemon Apocalypse still play the new games anyway.
- Apocalypse? You must mean Apokélypse. A fan made a trailer for a fake film parodying the trend of taking fundamentally silly material and making it Darker and Edgier, a la the recent Mortal Kombat film pitch? This just in from half of the Broken Base: FAN WORKS HAVE RUINED POKÉMON FOREVER!!!
- The English names are normally whined about, but Pokémon Black and White has been hit especially hard thanks to a different company handling the translating and getting ripped into for every last name. "They changed Touya to Hilbert? TPCI IS DESTROYING THE GAME! THIS WILL BE THE WORST GAME EVER AND NOTHING LIKE THE JAPANESE VERSION EVEN IF ALL OF THE ACTUAL DIALOGUE TURNS OUT TO BE CLOSE TO THE JAPANESE VERSIONS!"
- And now there are people complaining that Black and White tried too hard with its plot and that the series would be better off going back to a bare bones plot where all you do is collect badges and beat the Pokémon League. Keep in mind, these are the same people who complained that the series was getting stale and that the villain teams should be more fleshed out.
- The remake of Metal Gear Solid for the GameCube. Fans cried Ruined FOREVER seeing that Naomi and Mei Ling lose their accents (even though keeping foreign accents is rare for people born and raised in the US), many of the cutscenes were modified, and how Snake can pull off superhuman bullet time moves during cut scenes, when he does a 30 one during Metal Gear Solid 2 followed by some superhuman swimming.
- Raiden. "NO! Snake isnt in teh new game. Metal Gear Solid is Ruined Forever!!11one." Take you pick from any Metal Gear Solid 2 or Metal Gear Solid: Rising board.
- Metal Gear Solid 4: "THEY MADE THE GAMEPLAY SEEM MORE LIKE A THIRD-PERSON SHOOTER INSTEAD OF A STEALTH GAME!!! AND THEY EXPLAINED EVERYTHING WITH NANOMACHINES!!! WORST GAME EVER!!!!"
- The recently leaked trailer for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is getting criticism for being such a departure from the main series, despite it being a spin-off and therefore supposed to be different. It's also been criticized for "drastically changing the tone of the series" and being "too cheesy".
- If you register in the forums of No Mutants Allowed, never EVER say that Fallout 3 was a good Fallout game or even a good game at all. The game is in First Person View instead of periferic that doesn't cause camera screws that much? RUINED FOREVER! The game has bugs? Even though the first two games were buggy as all hell and they were 2d emm RUINED FOREVER! People outside of our niche now know about Fallout? RU... you know the rest, the worst part is that this ruined forever thing started as early as Fallout 2, The games has humor? RUIIIIIIIIINED! New Reno? What the fuck? I want things to be the same!
- The City of Heroes community has a hobby of mocking this even while obeying it, as "DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!" This became especially popular just before the Inventions system was introduced. There is even a threat level system (DOOMCON) to judge the level of "DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM".
- Other types of mockery include claiming Accuracy was nerfed.
- Alternatively, "I don't know what you're arguing about, but the devs should make Stamina an inherent."
- Incidents that caused DOOMCON 1, by the way: the introduction of diminishing returns on enhancements, the universal nerfing of defensive powers, beneficial class changes, normalization of any kind, relatively small adjustments to singular powers...
- The really amusing thing is there's a new one of these at least once a year when the new round of veteran's rewards are announce. Generally one of them will be some new bonus power/ability/in-game discount, and whether it's underpowered, overpowered, or carefully balanced, it will still ruin the entire game forever.
- The so-called Sonic the Hedgehog fans are always doing this.
- Seriously, this could fill up an entire page. The Sonic fanbase in general is probably the craziest and most unpleasable fanbase ever. Whether it's complaining about the introduction of a new character (who usually stays dead after that game anyway), or a new gameplay mechanic (the werehog in Sonic Unleashed), they always find something to complain about.
- World. Of. Warcraft. Any and every change to any gameplay mechanic, class, dungeon, mob, weapon, talent, or artstyle will be greeted by copious amounts of this trope, and at least 20 people declaring that they are cancelling their subscriptions, with 50 more breathing a sigh of relief.
- Not mention whenever someone is killed by several people at once. Copious doesn't even begin to cover how much this trope applies to World of Warcraft.
- Special mention to Wrath of the Lich King, which featured tons of shifts in gameplay plus reusing a raid instance that very few people got to experience, a decision both praised and sneered at.
- As a corollary, every. single. time. a new MMO is announced, the World of Warcraft forums become lousy with people who will loudly announce how much they're looking forward to it and talking about how this new game will be the one that'll finally kill of World of Warcraft once and for all. Every. Single. Time.
- This got so bad on the forums, that at one point a Forum MVP made a list of everything that has "ruined" the game.
- Mists of Pandaria, the recently announced new expansion pack. Pandaren are becoming playable race. BLIZZARD RUINED THE GAME!!11!!!ONE!
- The release of the first one-minute teaser trailer for Mass Effect 2 prompted quite a few fans to conclude that the budding franchise is Ruined FOREVER.
- A list of things that will ruin Mass Effect: A darker and edgier story, FPS style combat (ie. no weapon skills any more), FPS style health regeneration, heavy weapons (including mini nukes), new vehicles, more allies (and no old allies from the first game), a better cover system, a loyalty system with allies, and robotic enemies. No, not those robotic enemies. New ones.
- Some fans have also taken the fact that your old squad (probably) won't be playable in ME2 as proof that ME is Ruined FOREVER. (New info has revealed that Garrus and Tali will both be possible companions, still leaving plenty of room for others; once again, people are shouting before anything is certain.)
- Now that the game has been released, most of the complaining has died down. There's still a rather Vocal Minority bemoaning the removal of an inventory system and the streamlining of other RPG elements, however.
- Mass Effect 3 uses Kinect? Ruined FOREVER!!
- Mass Effect 3 features Earth being invaded, Humans Are Special, and they want it to 'appeal to a broader audience'?! BIOWARE HAS SOLD OUT TO EA AND IS MAKING MASS EFFECT A DUMBED DOWN HALO CLONE!!!! THERE'S GOING TO BE ONLINE MULTIPLAYER!!!! RUINED FOREVER!!!
- THERE ACTUALLY IS MULTIPLAYER?! THE APOCALYPSE IS HERE!!!!
- Cerberus is trying to kill Shepard, no matter what his/her previous choices were?! Bioware has forgotten the Renegade players! RUINED FOREVER!!!
- A BLONDE FEMALE SHEPARD! BLONDES CAN'T BE HEROES! BARBIE! PATRIARCHY! SEXISM! DO THE GORRAM POLLS AGAIN!
- This guy is one of your new teammates in Mass Effect 3. Commenter Ursas-Veritas sums the reaction up nicely:
But don't you understand!? The fauxhawk clearly means EA has whored out Bioware to its very core! Don't expect Mass Effect 3 to be an action RPG, it's clearly just the next Call of Duty! It's Dragon Age II all over again! IT'S THE END OF LIFE AS WE KNOW IT, AND I CAN CONFIRM IT SOLELY FROM THIS SINGLE IMAGE.
... There we go, I think I covered enough overreaction there.
- Ace Combat 6 is on Xbox 360 instead of PS3? Big "NO!"!
- When the fourth Ace Attorney game came out, starring a new protagonist and basically turning the old one into a hobo, most fans embraced the changes, but there are many who believe the series has now been Ruined FOREVER.
- The irony being that, when you consider that most of his major cases are spaced months apart, and the clients never paying him, it's fairly obvious he spent most of his employed time living in sub-par conditions.
- BioShock 2 won't have Big Daddies in it? New enemies? A different conflict? Giant squid? What, this is far too original for a sequel, 2K has ruined BioShock FOREVER! Of course, none of those rumors are actually true. BioShock is actually ruined forever because of the sequel's mere existence.
- A number of fans have also claimed that having a multiplayer option in BioShock 2 has, despite the fact that it is being developed by an outside developer and the fact that it is completely separate from the main story, destroyed the "single player"-ness of the game, and thus BioShock is Ruined FOREVER.
- For that matter, Bioshock supposedly ruined System Shock forever by containing a similar plot twist to System Shock 2, having less character customization options, and making permanent death impossible. Given that this is the sort of Ruined Forever that creates a best-selling, critically acclaimed game that increases awareness of the previously obscure original series, there are probably many developers hoping they can similarly "ruin" their own franchises.
- Some of this isn't so much Ruined FOREVER as it is people not seeing a sequel as entirely necessary, given that the appeal of the first game's story would be hard to replicate.
- Ditto that for the System Shock to Bioshock crowd, though they should really be complaining about a PREQUEL if they even take place in the same timeline, shouldn't they?
- And, on the other hand: Bioshock 3 won't be taking place in Rapture? It takes place in an American Sky-City?! It has really nothing to do with Bioshock 1 & 2? The main character speaks? You have to devise different strategies, as opposed to just making one combination of plasmids?! Bioshock is Ruined FOREVER!!!
- The players can actually survive by trying to use their weapons instead of saving every bullet? Stuff happening in DAYTIME!? Resident Evil has been ruined FOREVER!
- On an even bigger note, many fans believed that Capcom ultimately ruined the franchise forever with the supposedly "confirmed" death of Albert Wesker as many believed him to be the best developed character in the series and not to mention it's main villain as well. Then again, Your Mileage May Vary on whether he was a Jerk Ass that deserved to be Killed Off for Real.
- A lot of PKers in RuneScape considered the game Ruined FOREVER after Jagex removed PvP, due to real-world trading. However, Jagex did introduce PvP worlds...
- Every update introduced to stop real-world trading was met with this reaction, the 12/10/07 ones were just met with the most of it. Actually, scratch that, Every update EVER will have at least a few people complaining the game has been ruined forever, like the WoW example above. Sometimes, the complaint is just that it wasn't a specific update a person wanted, and that person or people will complain endlessly about every update that is NOT the update they want.
- Dungeoneering: 'Jagex is trying to turn RuneScape into World of Warcraft! RUINED FOREVER!!!'
- Non-members updates: 'Why should you make updates for peasants, Jagex? We PAY you! Updates should be for members only! RUINED FOREVER!!!'
- Improved weapon designs and animations: 'Why do we need shinier weapons? These look retarded! Jagex, you're wasting time you could spend on new quests and skills! RUINED FOREVER!!!'
- The original PvP Wilderness is back (restored on February 1, 2011) along with the original unlimited Free Trade restrictions? RUINED FOREVER!!!
- Cyber Connect 2 corporation has announced Tail Concerto Spiritual Successor Solatorobo! WOO-HOO!...What was that? The main character can turn into a human now? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
- EVE Online has an Unpleasable Fanbase to begin with, but even so. Every time something is changed/balanced, be it the mechanics of a weapons system, putting breaks on 3/4 of kilometer-long battleships going 10+ kilometers per second, or making the game a bit easier to get into, Eve has inevitably been Ruined FOREVER. As EVE has roughly two expansions and numerous major and minor patches per year, it has been Ruined FOREVER scores of times since release.
- After several years in Development Hell, when Team Fortress 2 was unveiled with cartoonish graphics and over-the-top characters, a huge change from the "100% realism" touted in its early development stages, many fans cried foul. Of course, even after the players actually got their hands on the game, many swore off the game because of the graphics.
- Again when one of the Heavy's unlocks was revealed to be a sandwich for regaining health. The Sandvich went on to be the most-used secondary item for the Heavy.
- The announcement of the random item drop and backpack system had many complaining that the game was starting to become like World of Warcraft. Though to be fair, it also came simultaneously with the Spy vs. Sniper Update, and at the time those two classes did not have the ability to earn their unlockable weapons through achievement milestones, meaning that players could only unlock those weapons randomly.
- In the same vein as above, one of the Sniper unlocks was a jar of pee to be thrown at enemies, which got to the point where fans petitioned to have it removed. Much of the hate seems to stem from the fact that Jarate was first advertised as an April Fool's Day joke, and, as with the Sandvich, is the most frequently equipped secondary weapon for the Sniper.
- And... you know what, let's just say that EVERY major update (and a few minor ones) has invoked cries of Ruined FOREVER.
- And when Team Fortress 2 was announced for the Mac and a miscellaneous accessory that doesn't impact gameplay whatsoever announced for Mac players, guess what fans thought of it? Some servers even started automatically banning anybody even wearing the Earbuds...
- The same happened with the halos meant to reward people for not idling to effortlessly gain items. People began refusing to help teammates depending on whether or not said teammate had the halo.
- And again with the release of the Mann Co. Store, which allows you to buy items - and some of the new (still very rare) hats which give a set bonus with certain other weapons.
- The newest round of Ruined Forever is the Australian Christmas Update. May as well be called the Mann Co. Update part 2, for new item sets with bonuses and all new items to buy. Approximately 3.45 seconds after the update was released, the steam forums were flooded with cries of "Valve Sold their souls!" and "The Mann Co. store was just the beginning!"
- Whenever a promotional tie-in item for another game gets thrown in, expect such cries to be seen on many threads at Steam Forums.
- It's now free to play. While others rejoice, oldbies are definitely moaning, most along the lines of "Oh no, the n00bz are coming! It's not fun anymore!"
- Worse than that, some people are demanding refunds and calling this a huge slap in the face to anyone who paid for the game. To put this in perspective, this is like getting mad at Michael Bay because you bought Transformers on DVD or Blu-ray and then saw it airing on TV three years later.
- "Lego Rock Band? OH NOES, not only has the series lowered down to Guitar Hero-level whoring, but it has become KIDDY and EASIER!"
- Never mind that. Rock Band was already ruined when they announced Country and hip-hop DLC. What is this, Country Band? For the uninitiated, every week some songs are added to the RB "music store". You can buy the songs you want and not buy the songs you don't. Thus, these country songs don't appear in your game unless you buy them. Where was I? Oh yes. Ruined FOREVER!
- Or the new revelation that in the third installation, there won't be an option to specifically assign band members to instruments, and the ability to use a ridiculously fast scrolling speed in Practice Mode is gone. Fans already reported pulling out of purchases and many facing severe disappointment and extreme RAGE.
- Frequent fan responses to announced DLC give this impression. Not to mention just about every setlist since Guitar Hero 3.
- And never mind the fact the Lego Adaptation Games are divisive on their own, with many of its detractors not even having played the games.
- Purple is legendary?? RUINED FOREVER!!!
- Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. Some seemed so convinced that Rare killed the franchise with its Unexpected Gameplay Change that they wanted the developer to crash and burn for it. Also addressed in their letter page:
(After being asked about the possibility of B-K TV show) Never say never to a TV show — VP [Viva Pińata] transferred pretty well — but you must realise that if people thought chucking some cars and planes into the mix was akin to us taking a lead pipe to the Banjo franchise then stamping and urinating on the broken pieces, there would probably be some kind of localised internet apocalypse if Banjo and his fellow freaks started enunciating proper words in human voices''.
- "Left 4 Dead 2? Released a year after the first game and still no signs of a SDK? Oh no, Valve have sold their souls to the money-printing machines!"
- Of course the SDK was in open beta at the time of the announcement and came out of open beta two weeks later, with cross-compatibility into Left 4 Dead 2 no less. The fact that this was an actual complaint only further underscores the general ignorance of the boycott movement.
- The boycott with more than 40,000 users. Enough said.
- Of course, when Left 4 Dead has sold, as of May 2009 (several months before the second game was launched), 2.5 million copies... 40,000 complainers doesn't really add up to much.
- Complainers, by the way, who were complaining about not being able to download stuff with points they got by playing games and would instead have to spend actual money on a full game. Yeah, Valve is the greedy one, here.
- Left 4 Dead has now been ruined forever by the latest announcement that Valve has killed off one of the original survivors for the soon to be released DLC, "The Passing".
- Or how The Passing was now forever ruined because it doesn't have an 8 vs 8 mode or lets you play as the original survivors.
- The Left 4 Dead 1 forums are screaming ruined forever now following the announcement of 'The Sacrifice' DLC, which includes content for both games; one of those being a full port of No Mercy (characters and all) from 1 to 2. One has to go to the forums to see the attitudes of these people. It makes the Left 4 Dead 2 forum pale in comparison. [1]
- Adding to this, Valve disabling custom vocal binds (Left 4 Dead 2 only for some reason) to prevent people from spamming them in-game has also generated many ruined forever complaints.
- Deus Ex Human Revolution will have regenerating health? That will ruin the game! It DESTROYS any strategical thinking the original had! Deus Ex is RUINED FOREVER!!!
- Not anymore. With the release of the latest trailer, hardcore opinion has changed from Ruined Forever to "Could be a good, great even, game, but it doesn't seem to fit in with the universe."
- Except in the original game, there was an upgrade that let you... oh, whatever.
- The devlopers are quite aware of the health regen issue, and the majority of the hands-on previews and interviews go out of their way to mention that the health regen is nothing like a certain game series.
- That, and much of the so-called strategical thinking took a back seat in the original game when you got a hold of the Dragon Tooth Sword in the middle of the game, or even the GEP at the very beginning of the game. Both allowed you to breach almost all locked doors and safes with ease, making lockpicks and multitools almost worthless.
- When some clips of gameplay leaked out, the reaction by some fans were: The takedowns are nothing but an I win button! They're pandering to the casual audience!!! Third-Person cover system? This is what happens when you make games for the peasants!!! Cutscenes??? It is disrupting the flow of the game!!! Deus Ex is officially for the COMMON MASSES NOW!!
- Story, atmosphere, sound and graphics design, exploration, puzzles, and general gameplay are all nothing next to the horror of being able to see your character climb a ladder IN THIRD PERSON.
- None of these comes even close to the level of RUINED FOREVER that came with the release of the multipath trailer. Specifically, the bright yellow highlighting on EVERYTHING. Which can be switched on or off now.
- Ads were added to the game. Specifically, for the loading screens. Fans complained that they ruined the aesthetic of the game—yes, in the loading screens—and even accused Eidos of deliberately lengthening loading screens so players will be "forced" to look at the ads. While the loading had been a common complaint on release, it had long since been reduced by a patch before the ads were introduced. Many of these players said that they had no problem with in-game billboards (as long as the ads were context-appropriate), but the loading screen ones destroyed the game for them.
- As soon as it was revealed that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash Up will have Raving Rabbids as Guest Fighters, fans were far from optimistic to this trope, believing that Ubisoft is wrecking the 25th anniversary of the Turtles with their favorite Spotlight-Stealing Squad who already drove Rayman off his own series. For them, it has hit The Problem with Licensed Games because of three cartoony hares that you don't even have to play as, never mind about the actual gameplay.
- For others, it's The Unexpected fighters appearing in the game, such as the Fugitoid, Nightwatcher, and Utrominator; special mention for the Fan Dumb complaining there are no 80's characters in the game.
- Valkyria Chronicles 2 is going on a handheld where it might actually turn a profit?! RUINED FOREVER! It must be on the PS3!
- Never mind how Dragon Quest IX offers Character Customization and averts Fight In The Nude. Never mind such tiny matters as gameplay, plot, presentation or actually being fun. No, Dragon Quest is surely RUINED FOREVER because the ninth game is being released on DS and happens to have a single save slot.
- After several years in development, it was announced that Dragon Quest X would be an MMO. The ensuing RAGE was also driven by factors such as a planned release in 2012 (very late in the Wii's lifecycle), the number of Wii games with low quality online play, the number of other Square Enix games with delays and setbacks, and the uncertainty of whether the Wii or the Wii U version will be translated.
- Another big factor is how poorly-received another recent MMO from Square Enix is right now. Fans now announce Square Enix Ruined FOREVER Up to Eleven.
- Crash Bandicoot after they turned Tiny from a giant beast into a scrawny pacifist. Oh hell, everything after the PS1 series (when Naughty Dog left the series to publisher Vivendi Universe), it just went downhill and started numerous cry's of Ruined FOREVER by purists.
- No LAN support in StarCraft 2!? OH TEH NOES!!!1!1
- And it's split up into three separate games, each with it's own gameplay mechanics! You can still make maps where all three sides are playable, but still, DOUBLE DOOMED!
- And every other video game sequel ever. This trope might be why sequelphobics exist.
- Fox has a GIRLFRIEND?!? NOOOOOO NOW HERE COME TUH FURRIEZ!!!.
- Ironically if pressed, those who remember the Nintendo Power comics will state Fara is their fanon girlfriend for Fox and was much more worthy than Krystal...despite being just as terrible a pilot. Perhaps it's all down to Krystal's strange fur colouring, which kind of brands her as a sci-fi cliche (what with blue apparently being THE go-to default colour of sci-fi hacks everywhere.) Based upon their personalities, Krystal is indeed worse, but when the most vocal portion of your tribe tells Nintendo that's what they LOVE about her, don't expect any changes down the line. Yep, you got it, Star Fox will continue to be Ruined FOREVER for some time to come.
- Square Enix is publishing Modern Warfare 2 in Japan!? Now the series is tainted by the gay emo girly men that are gay and have gay spiky hair! The series is DOOOOOOOMED!
- This Deviant gives the best solution... [2]◊
- Forget that, they don't know how publishing games outside of their home country works. The real example here is the lack of dedicated servers in the PC version. However, there's at least a more sensible explanation to the feelings of ruin as, compared to most other examples here being petty changes affecting only a single series, the PC gamers fear that this act, if it catches on with other developers, could effectively change all of online PC gaming. Hell, even the developers of the Battlefield Series are shocked with that decision.
- Speaking of Square Enix: Square Enix is publishing Supreme Commander 2? Oh well, we'll have to wait and— YOU MANIACS YOU BLEW THE RESOURCE SYSTEM UP FORGET YOU PEOPLE! SCREW YOU ALL! EVERY ONE!
- Bethesda can't release a game without this refrain. Fallout was Ruined FOREVER, and so was every The Elder Scrolls game since Arena.
- Skyrim is getting hit hard by this. There hasn't been a single scrap of information that hasn't made the official forums explode. That's not a joke. Every scant plot point has been met with "they're making a generic fantasy plot!" and every gameplay element has scores of "they're taking the Elder Scrolls out of The Elder Scrolls!"
- The way people insult the games are even worse. "Fallout was just Oblivion with guns!" That made some kind of sense, but now we have "Skyrim is just Fallout with swords!" So, Skyrim is Oblivion with more swords?
- Note that saying "Fallout was just Oblivion with guns!" will get you skinned alive by the actual people who use that line. Because the line they use is "Fallout 3 was just Oblivion with guns!"
- Bethesda ported Morrowind to consoles. Therefore every TES game after Daggerfall is a dumbed down action hack-and-slash that's beneath the tan-skinned, blond haired PC gaming master race's time, so therefore said master race must spend days and days bashing Skyrim on the Bethesda forums for being an action shooter with swords and insulting Bethesda itself for selling out on its "real fans" in exchange for those console monkeys, going so far as to call the whole company incompetent for taking a long time to give the fanbase a screenshot half the forum were enraged at getting (a Dunmer thief while the forum wanted an Argonian).
- No more online play in Backyard Sports? THE SERIES IS OVER!
- Hideo Kojima likes Twilight? He's not a game designer hero anymore, and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow will be doomed because it's a vampire game!
- Speaking of Castlevania, there's the Symphony Of The Night redub, this has even gotten to the point of fans making parodies of the original dialog. A good example would be, "There words are as empty as their souls. Castlevania ill needs voice actors such as these.
- Total War has several examples:
- Rome: Oh no! The engine has been changed! RUINED FOREVER!
- Medieval II: It's the Same, so It Sucks
- Empire: Naval Battles are broken! BAWWW! And there's less focus on close combat! Big "NO!"!
- Hi there, are you a fan of Lufia II? Well, allow me to introduce you to the DS remake. Take as much time as you need getting all the complaints out of your system.
- The very day that Natsume (not Square Enix) made an official statement that it would localize the DS version of Lufia II, there were RUINED FOREVER style comments on sites such as Siliconera.
- Mega Man 10 has an easy mode, some people are rather pissed about this, because it's "ruining" the game, um, did anybody tell them it's completely optional?
- What makes this even funnier is...Mega Man 2 had an easy mode, and everyone loves Mega Man 2! (Okay, technically it had a "Normal" and "Difficult" mode, but Difficult mode was equivalent to the only difficulty of the Japanese game, so Normal mode was really easy mode.)
- It doesn't matter if it's optional! How can we be expected to have fun playing the game with the knowledge that somewhere out there in the world, someone else is playing the game incorrectly and ENJOYING IT?!
- New Super Mario Bros Wii: Super Guide? RUINED FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!
- The Wing Commander movie is often accused of killing the franchise. Never mind, of course, that the entire genre of space sims was in a decline, in terms of sales, at the time for various reasons.
- Likewise, Electronic Arts buying Origin Systems Inc was cited as the doom of WC (and other Origin titles), even though it was EA's money that made the switch to FMV possible, spawning three of the best selling individual titles in the entire series and boosting Origin out of the "niche provider" position they were holding (and not that strongly, fiscally speaking) prior to that point.
- BUT FMV RUINED WING COMMANDER FOREVER!!!
- Poor Mega Man Star Force fell victim to this trope; being Darker and Edgier apparently wasn't enough to keep the fans of the prequel series from crying foul, mostly due to the difference in gameplay and the perceived simplification of the old chip system. While the first game did well enough, 2 was absolutely hated, and despite a much-improved 3, the series seems to be finished, making it one of the shortest spin-off series of all time.
- Not just Starforce, but Battle Network also got lots of hate too due to it being completely different from other Megaman games.
- Some Street Fighter fans complained that Street Fighter IV was ruined because it was 3d. Other, better-informed fans pointed out that the hitboxes were still 2d, meaning the gameplay was effectively the same.
- No SFIII style parries in SFIV? Ruined FOREVER!
- No SF Alpha air block in SFIV? Ruined FOREVER!
- SFIII doesn't play like SFII? Ruined FOREVER!
- SF Alpha doesn't play like SFII? Ruined FOREVER!
- The current gripe now is: Hakan, Turkish Oil Wrestler in SSFIV? Ruined FOREVER!!
- The changes from Super Turbo to HD Remix seem to take the cake in this department.
- HDR has compressed tiers? It's less interesting since its more balanced therefore its Ruined FOREVER!!
- Move execution in HDR is easier than in Super Turbo (but still harder than in other Street Fighters)?Ruined FOREVER!!
- Samurai Warriors 3 announced as a Wii-exclusive? No! It should be on 360/PS3, it's supposed to be Next-Gen like Dynasty Warriors 6! It Got Worse as the release date grew near with further announcements... Three characters (Musashi, Kojiro, Gracia) are cut, despite having six new characters and one returning character? Seven Characters (Ranmaru, Okuni, Yoshimoto, Katsuie, Toshiie, Kotarou, Nouhime)are without Musou (story) modes? NOOOO! This has gotten worse since reports came in that SW3 didn't sell well in Japan, with the fans blaming it on the Wii, either not realizing or just didn't care that it was likely because it was released within the same period as other games with a larger fanbase.
- Activision announced that Infinity Ward has been fired from making any more Call of Duty games? BLEEEUUUUAARGH!
- Wait, what's that? They also announced a new developer and that there's going to be more entries in the series that aren't first person shooters? RRRRAAAAARRRGH!!!
- Bungie signed a decade-long publishing deal with them? Well, there goes all the Creator Worship from Halo fans.
- You could save a lot of time here by just saying "Activision has done something? UUUAAAAARRARARRR!" Their attitude of pure evil has led to them ruining a lot of things in gamers' eyes.
- Command & Conquer has seen this in spades recently.
- Generals: "They have builders now? They're ripping off Warcraft! RUINED FOREVER"
- Tiberium Wars: "A third faction? RUINED FOREVER"*
- Red Alert 3: "Tanya is blonde? RUINED FOREVER"
- Tiberian Twilight: "Basebuilding has been removed? RUINED FOREVER"
- The worst part about all this is that every time a new game comes out, people look at whatever new innovations are included and bitch about them, occasionally even bringing back old examples (like Generals' builders, holy hell that's seen mileage thanks to CnC4) to talk about how it's done right.
- The X-Com series was a Strategy game series with RPG Elements set in modern times and the future. The reboot, as announced by 2K, will be an FPS with set in the 60s—with appropriate cultural attitudes—and is an Action RPG more akin to Mass Effect. Both games feature government agencies which fight alien invasions by reverse-engineering their technology. Fans of the original series were quick to declare it an In Name Only cash-in...on a series that hasn't had a new entry since 1998, despite both games sharing the same fundamental premise. Not to mention the fact that this game will increase interest in the older games.
There may be some bad memories of X-COM: Enforcer, but the knee-jerk complaints are drowning out legitimate criticism with incessant whining.
- Gears of War 3 is being written by Karen Traviss?! RAAAAAAAAAGEEEEE!!!
- No mention of Chrono Cross? Before and after it was released, most Trigger fans have been screaming that the Chrono series is ruined, because Chrono Cross has things like different main characters, different art style, the amount of party members that you can have... basically, everything. The only thing most Trigger fans will admit to is that it does have fantastic music, but some even refuse to admit that much.
- "Marvel Vs Capcom 3 will adopt Tatsunoko vs. Capcom's controls scheme? The game is screwed! TvC is dumb! [and/or] They're gonna dumb things down for scrubs, and we cannot allow this!"
"Strider Hiryu is popular overseas as well, we took him out of Marvel vs. Capcom 3, because he didn't fit in with its concept."
- And then, it turns out that "there's no character that really doesn't fit" the concept of the game. Apparently, they just don't want Hiryu back. Cue fan rage and lots of people calling out Capcom on their hypocritical bullshit.
- Upon the reveal of X-23 being added to the roster, many cried over a spot wasted on Wolverine's Opposite Sex Clone, despite her moveset being different from Wolverine's.
- Hoo boy, these guys have been preparing for this one for a while. They have a friggin' bingo chart of grievances for a game that Capcom has been slaving away for TEN YEARS with licensing disputes to get into their hands. Those ungrateful bastards...
- You thought X-23's welcome was less than pleasant? Enter M.O.D.O.K. Since his reveal, gamers have been raging about his "goofy" appearance and unconventional playstyle. It seems that most of the complaints come from people totally unfamiliar with his character at all.
- And now, like X-23 above, She-Hulk's addition to the roster is getting this reaction for the exact same reason (declaring her a Hulk clone). Unlike X-23, She-Hulk was never a clone in the first place.
- And it turns out that Ghost Rider, Iron Fist, and Black Panther were excluded because they were "punchy dudes". Hence, forums the net over explode with fury, claiming that Seth Killian has no clue as to what the hell he's talking about in regards to the abilities of certain individuals, asking how other characters got the pass with this reasoning, and giving the community a new meme: "Too punchy.".
- The reveal of Akuma is yet another splinter in the Broken Base. One side believes him to be nothing more than a Shotoclone wasting space on the roster and preventing a legitimate SF villain (most are quick to say Bison or Juri), while others claim that Akuma is the reason the Vs. series even got off the ground and is a cool guy who makes Ryu look obsolete.
- Read this tidbit from the aforementioned interview and then apply it to Akuma above.
"We didn't want you to be able to say, 'this guy is just another one of this guy but a little faster or with a different fireball'."
- Here's some more fuel for the fire: three of the Four Gods (Magneto, Storm, and Sentinel) are back. Unlike Magneto and Storm, who are popular and have managed to avoid most of the scorn, Sentinel is being bashed into the ground because 1) his inclusion reeks of being added in by Niitsuma for no other reason than because of his OP status in the previous game, and 2) it's freaking Sentinel and he's so generic that if it wasn't for MvC2, none of his fans would have even given a crap about him in the first place.
- Some of this has been remedied by the announcement of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Ghost Rider and Strider Hiryu are among the first reveals and leaks indicate that Phoenix Wright and Nemesis will be joining the fray as well. However, the fact that this title was announced little over five months after the release of vanilla MvC3, coupled with some boneheaded decisions by Capcom (namely regarding Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D and the cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3), is causing yet another point of contention among the fans.
- Unfortunately however, some simply do not comprehend the distinction between announcement and public release date.
- The DLC costumes get "leaked"/revealed according to screencaps from the game's official strategy guide. While many people are happy with retro outfits or whole character swaps like Yellow Iris or Jean Grey, the one being singled out causing the most controversy is Zero's, who is none other than...X. After months of incessant, near tumor-inducing whining, he's finally in here. You'd think the whining would have quelled by now. It didn't.
- It's also amusing that these same people won't feel like they're actually playing as X, ignoring the instances of X actually ended up playing just like Zero near the end of half of his games, right down to the very weapons themselves.
- Sengoku Basara 3 has been receiving this within each new information revealed, mostly due to the large number of NPC characters (especially those who are new characters) compared to playable characters (due to the "one character per clan" rule), including regulating fan favorite characters (like Sasuke and Kojuurou) to NPC status.
- It's been announced that Dragon Age is being adapted as an anime movie. Some of the fans not only know that it's going to suck (which admittedly has some precedent), but believe the entire franchise has now officially been tainted. A game with a poor movie adaptation can apparently never be enjoyed again.
- And with the game's sequel released, plus the revelation of a few important gameplay changes, some fans are already starting to decree that BioWare has ruined the franchise. Which was proven correct as the various sites across the internet were quick to decry the series for a variety of flaws and scored quite poorly by reviews (Not Chou Jigen Game Neptune level of bad though).
- With the release of an unconfirmed rumor that Dragon Age might have a separate release that included multiplayer, BioWare's fans once again reacted with shrieks of Ruined FOREVER.
- When screenshots of Deathsmiles's localized dialogue were released, the Narminess actually caused some fans to cancel their preorders. Never mind that it's a shmup and the between-stage dialogue has no bearing on gameplay.
- Whenever Blizzard Entertainment releases a new game, patches a game, announces a game, announces a patch, does nothing for a while, has one of their customer reps post on a thread, a large and vocal portion of Blizzard's fanbase denounces the game and the whole of Blizzard as ruined forever, says that Blizzard has sold out to Activision, and threatens to Rage Quit on the forums to anyone who thought the game was good or even okay. Strangely enough, those same fans pop up on the forums and repeat the cycle every time something happens or doesn't happen with Blizzard.
- Wait, Diablo 3 is going to have PVP ARENAS!?! IT'LL RUIN DIABLO LIKE IT RUINED WORLD OF WARCRAFT!!!
- As a rule of thumb: If Blizzard announces anything to Diablo 3 that even remotely smells of World of Warcraft the Diablo franchise is OFFICIALLY DEAD!!! Even if it's one of the good ideas World of Warcraft had. The average dumb Diablo fan hates World of Warcraft with a passion (and usually without any reason except it being World of Warcraft), so anything that might in theory be thought of by someone who has worked a couple of hours on something related to World of Warcraft ruines Diablo FOREVER!
- Both the Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360/Playstation 3 fans are like this to the most recent NBA Jam game. For the Wii fanboys, they not only did it lose exclusivity, but it would have a Campaign mode, but no online play, while the Xbox 360/Playstation 3 would not only have to buy NBA Elite 11, but they also would have online play, but no Campaign mode. MAKE UP YOUR FREAKING MINDS ALREADY, EA!! Do you want the Wii to have everything around, or do you want the Xbox 360/Playstation 3 to have the stuff?
- The trailer for the new DmC: Devil May Cry game, which is set to reboot the series, and particularly the character design for the new Dante, already has much of the fanbase declaring that the series has been Ruined FOREVER.
- Any rejoicing for Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor's unveiling turned to this shortly after seeing squat VTs that looked less like giant robots and more like tanks on legs, a world with no more new microprocessors, and most of all, the touting of Kinect support. That's right-this game went from requiring an expensive peripheral loaded with buttons and switches to an expensive peripheral with NO buttons. This YouTube response to the trailer sums it up.
- Call of Duty: Black Ops seems to be getting this after the latest reveal that Quick-Scoping with Sleight of Hand is going to be gimped for sniper rifles, meaning that people can't tap Aim followed by Shoot and get a relatively easy kill while jumping in the air and spinning around. Although people who hated this tactic are rejoicing. Obviously. Your Mileage May Vary.
- Tim Schafer accuses would be "fans" and reviewers of spewing "Ruined FOREVER" over Brütal Legend being a multiplayer focused Action/RTS and not a single player platformer, while those who actually tried the multiplayer saw it for what it was and enjoyed it the most, and that reviews not only reflect it, but remain high regardless.
Tim Schafer:: When we showed the game to EA, they were interested but wanted to test the concept. In focus tests, the stage battles rated high. What's interesting is the people in those groups aren't told anything about the game and have no expectations for it. One of the things you notice looking at Metacritic ratings is that the highest scores come from those who really enjoyed the stage battles, and when you get down to the critics who didn't like the stage battles those reviews often center around their expectations about what we were going to make, instead of looking at the stage battles for what they are in a fresh way.
- The characters in the new Goldeneye speak? Fuck no! FUCK NO! I want them mute and looking like a bad photoshop fuckit! Realism is stupid!
- Daniel Craig is James Bond in the game's remake? Ruined FOREVER!
- It's ported to XBOX. Nintendo is the only system it should belong to!!! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUU...
- Dos-gamers who used to play Gobliiins trilogy seems to be enraged by the fact that the recent new sequel was created in 3D.
- While two main BioWare series have been mentioned, the company itself gets this for pretty well every move they make. The fact that people like BioWare despite all the changes have had some of the more extreme Fan Dumb claim that they are ROONIN MAH GAMES for pandering to the console kiddies and dumbing down their RPGs into "mindless shooters" or "mindless hack-and-slash." Then they buy the games anyway.
- THE iDOLM@STER 2. Bishounen? In my girl idol sim game? FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU—
- When the first teaser trailer for DC vs Mortal Kombat was released, fans went ballistic about how DC was forcing Midway to remove fatalities and pretty much strip away everything that makes Mortal Kombat what it is. A few months later, Ed Boon did an interview to provide more details; and he thought it was hilarious how much hard fact was being attached to something that basically just said "We're making DC vs Mortal Kombat." They hadn't even talked about what kind of restrictions DC wanted on their characters at that time.
- When Freddy announced as a guestfighter as DLC for Mortal Kombat 9 fans complained that he didn't fit in. Never mind the fact that as mentioned above in TMNT Smash Up you don't have to play as him and in Guitar Hero section you don't have to buy him
- When Telltale Games first showed the art direction and later the gameplay style (which is fairly similar to their Tales of Monkey Island game) for their Back to the Future video game, a sizable portion of the movie's fanbase loudly cried out that the game was Ruined FOREVER because the art direction wasn't realistic, that the gameplay wasn't exactly like Grand Theft Auto and/or because none of the original movie cast aside from Christopher Lloyd (and now also Claudia Wells) would be returning to do voice work (never mind that some of the people clearly forgot that Michael J Fox has retired from acting due to his health). Some even went so far as to say the game was also ruined because the interior of the De Lorean didn't match up to the letter with the ones shown in the movies. Great Scott!
- It happens in the Touhou fandom as well:
- Mountain of Faith: No grazing? FORGET YOU ZUN
- Undefined Fantastic Object: No Sakuya, but Sanae? TOUHOU IS RUINED FOREVARR
- What? New characters? ZUN MUST BE RUNNING OUT OF IDEAS.
- For The Legend of Zelda, let's see...Spaceworld demo shows the Gamecube graphics rendering a dark fight between Link and Ganondorf from Ocarina, later there's an announcement trailer for the next game...WHAT? WHY IS LINK CEL-SHADED? LITTLE KID LINK AGAIN? THEY'VE DUMBED DOWN ZELDA FOR LITTLE BRATS AND IT'S RUINED FOREVER!!! And then people played the game...and all was forgiven. Well, at least the art-style.
- Zelda tends to get this alot. Spirit Tracks got flack for having trains, which apparently is sending the series into too futuristic territories, and that by developing a new game for the DS, they weren't paying attention at all to the Wii one, which is what we deserve.
- Skyward Sword, despite having an initial piece of art-work that looked darker and grittier than Twilight Princess is also cel-shaded? Ruined FOREVER! Oh, and the problems with the game during Miyamoto's E3 presentation were CLEARLY not, despite his insistance, due to the interference of hundreds of wireless devices being in one room, but because they were preparing a horribly messed up project that wouldn't work because Nintendo is lazy! Oh...later playthroughs in the booths show that the tech does work...well, we'll find some new flaw soon!
- Pretty well summed up here.◊
- Don't forget that Skyward Sword also breaks from the series tradition of Link being left-handed, making him a righty by default, with no option to select left-handedness, despite the fact that it should have been extremely simple to add such a feature (as well as considerate to left-handed users of the wiimote). NERD RAGE!
- Also Skyward Sword, the exposition fairy can be annoying to some people! This game is completely unplayable to anyone!
- Hats in Portal 2? Well, let's just quote one comment:
FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU TF2 TEAM, YOU RUINED TF2 WITH THE HATS AND NOW YOUR NUINING PORTAL 2 WITH THEM! I HOPE YOU FEEL HAPPY ABOUT YOURSELVES!
- Killing Floor was hit with a similar argument once - at least one fan was under the impression that the game was on the verge of being ruined simply because one of the new weapons for the 2011 Christmas update, a claymore sword, vaguely resembled Team Fortress 2's Eyelander.
- Smackdown Vs RAW gets hit with this EVERY YEAR. Just about anything that gets changed is met with backlash. Yet, of course, the games still do well in sales every year.
- SOCOM 4 got hit pretty hard with this trope by fans of the earlier games (notably SOCOM 2 fanboys). This covers their collected feelings perfectly. Zipper laying off 33 employees about a month after SOCOM 4's release only exacerbated their feelings, and they're far from sympathetic about it.
- Minecraft, of all things, is now being this trope simply because it is being developed for the Xbox360 while the game had been a PC exclusive. That's right, it's ruined because other people get to play the game on a video game console.
- A lot of PC series get this. Once it goes on console, clearly it's an inferior product that's been DUMBED DOWN FOR THOSE EVIL RETARD CONSOLE MONKEYS!
- Forget that. Minecraft is RUINED FOREVER because of the new potion system, enchantments and an "ending", now Minecraft is a generic RPG despite the fact that a) They have no idea what an RPG is, b) the ending is a glorified "YOU ARE WINNER" text and finally the block building is STILL THERE.
- The fact that there will be no decapitations in Ninja Gaiden 3, only one ninpo and one type of weapon, no shops or upgrades, no healing items, stealth kill mechanics, QTEs, humanized enemies and apparently a toned down difficulty (for Normal mode at least) is enough for some hardcore fans to have this reaction. Note that it will still be a brutal game, that the stealth kills are optional, the QTEs rare and minor, and that from the point of view of newcomers it's still pretty difficult; but some seem to think that these changes retroactively ruin the previous episodes.
- This was also previously the case with the PS3 port Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 that had NG2's dismemberments but with much less blood and dramatically reduced the number of ennemies compared to the Xbox 360 title, making it generally easier on lower difficulties (though one might argue what kind of difficulty was mostly reduced). Needless to say, even those who hadn't really played Sigma 2 quickly started to declare it was for wusses and that Itagaki's games were the only true worthy ones for hardcore gamers. Hell when you look at some comments, the mere fact that Tomonobu Itagaki is no more in charge of the series seems enough to make it Ruined FOREVER.
- The cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3 has not been doing Capcom any favors of late, especially considering the amount of hype raised for the project, a sequel to a Cult Classic Mega Man sub-series over a DECADE in the making. Capcom's unceremonious canning of the title makes many suspicious of the act being a cheap-shot done in response to Keiji Inafune's resignation from from Capcom. The rage-fueled flames don't look like they'll be subsiding any time soon.
- Rayman: Raving Rabbids ended up becoming a mini-game collection instead of a platformer, and fans were not happy. Then pretty soon, the Raving Rabbids games started focusing way too much on the Rabbids and barely any Rayman, and then went to the point where they kicked him from the series all together so it was ONLY the Rabbids. Fans were even angrier at Ubisoft. So finally, after all the requests to bring Rayman back, Ubisoft announced Rayman Origins, a game showing Rayman's origins, how he came to be, and how he evolves from an uncivilized, immature idiot to the gaming hero he is today, so you'd think the fandom would rejoice, but..."WHAT!?!!!! RAYMAN USED HIS HELICOPTER HAIR TO LOOK UP BETILLA'S DRESS!!! WHY DID YOU MAKE RAYMAN INTO A PERVERT, UBISOFT??? I HOPE YOU ALL DIE!!!!" And then "NOOOOOOOO! YOU MADE RAYMAN AND GLOBOX INTO COMPLETE RETARDS WHO SLAP EACH OTHER WHEN THEY FIRST MEET!!!! SCREW YOU UBISOFT!!!! SCREW YOU ALL!!!!"
- Syndicate is finally getting a game after talks of a new game being in the works. This trailer makes it out to be a first person shooter in the vein of Call of Duty, unlike the other games which were RTS-based. Cue the rage and ire of older fans calling the sequel In Name Only.
- Whenever a patch is released for League of Legends, any amount of change, regardless of how insignificant in nature it is, will be met with immediate crys of "RUINED FOREVER!!!!!! OMG ROIT, HO DARES YOU!!!!!!" on the forum, from what is potentially the most childish community in all of video gaming.
Web Comics
- Many claimed that Ctrl+Alt+Del Jumped The Shark after Lilah's Miscarriage, pretty much since the day it happened. Then again, since half the people complaining never liked the strip in the first place, it's hard to tell if that was really the strip's actual fans that felt that way, and the notoriety of the storyline seems to have just given them something specific to vent their rage on.
- As a minor note, the strips in question were complained about for having possible Cerebus Syndrome material mixed in, which is not a good junction to be at.
- For a while, the Gunnerkrigg Court fandom had a distressing tendency to project that the future of the comic would be exactly the same as the latest page or two, and then use this as the basis to declare that they didn't like the new direction the comic was taking. In every case, said "new direction" was more like a brief detour. For example:
- Some fans complained about post-Chapter-14 Annie Character Development ... upon seeing the very first page of Ch 15.
- Some fans complained that the brief "Metal Gear Theater" interlude was a sign that the comic was descending into a mess of Dadaist nonsense and pop-culture references.
- Note that any such comments should be taken with a grain of salt since most of the comments tend to be a bit on the snarky side.
- While there is a fair amount of disagreement about exactly when or why Dominic Deegan Jumped The Shark, be it the Super Greg arc, the vacation arc, or the March on Maltak arc, a consensus seems to be that the comic was Ruined Forever by Mookie's characterization of Siegfried after his death and transformation into a demon lord's servant and has only gone downhill since then.
- Erfworld is promptly Ruined FOREVER whenever anything that seemingly violates the rules of the setting occurs on the grounds that it's a Deus Ex Machina, or whenever the tide seems to turn unexpectedly against the "good guys".
- Ruthlessly parodied in Short Packed. Poor Ethan is constantly being confronted by obsessive toy fans crying "It's ruined forever!" over the most trivial things.
- Homestuck has had this charge levied at it a number of times. One of the most notable examples is the reaction to the "Hivebent" arc, which shifted focus away from the main characters at a point of high dramatic tension to develop a large group of internet trolls, who had for the most part had either secondary roles or not appeared at all. Part of the complaint stems from the fact that opposed to the fairly subdued main characters, the trolls spend much of their time killing each other, making out, or crying about either of the above.
- The main complaints of the Hivebent arc are that it caused a massive fanbase shift, and early adopters had to deal with suddenly being outnumbered 4:1 by a crowd that thought this was a comic about trolls and their funny human friends.
- Earlier and more generally, anything perceived as a step away from reader-driven content got some measure of this.
Web Original
- Everytime Facebook announces new privacy settings, a new profile layout, or more people join, people complain that it's not as good as it used to be.
- And now, they're all rushing YouTube for the same reasons. Odds are the yelling will prove useless on Sept. 30.
- Myspace suffers from this as well, granted, their version 2.0 profile layouts really are considered inferior for most users. Unused spare 1.0 profiles have become a hot commodity among the Myspace RP scene. Most agree that they began to Jump the Shark once they started copying Facebook.
- It's even funnier when the people claim "the administrators want to copy facebook/myspace/youtube/..." even though those sites also get ruined forever every year.
- Timeline anybody?
- Yahtzee beat the fans to the punch when he unveiled the new musical intro to Zero Punctuation, noting at the end of the video that "I'm certain some of you pricks are already putting this down as my shark jumping moment". They were. (The update to his website that week was titled 'You Changed It, Now It Sucks'.)
- Of course, Yahtzee's own reviews often sound like this, with each new game heralding that the industry is even more ruined for even more forever.
- Lots of fans were angry when Ben Leffler came out with Ex Mortis 3, the third of a trilogy of flash games. Problem was, this time you had to pay $20 to get the full version, where the first two had been free online games. Granted, there was a free demo version, which was nice, but was composed only of the first level and revealed none of the plot. Fans who weren't willing to cough up 20 bucks were not happy.
- The Transformers Wiki timeline, as quoted in the page above, has such gems as:
"13500000000 BCE: The Big Bang creates the universe as we know it. The protons, neutrons, and electrons that will eventually compose Transformers are formed, thereby ruining the Transformers franchise forever."
" 1964: Hassenfeld Brothers introduces G.I. Joe, the first "action figure." The action figure industry is simultaneously born and ruined forever."
"July 1, 2011: Transformers 3 is currently scheduled to ruin Transformers forever by opening on this date."
- It also has a page on the subject, which lists a good amount of Transformers series that ruined the franchise FOREVER and also happens to link to the one for "GEEWUN"
- Deviant ART's new Version 7 layout has sparked much complaining as well, as it takes forever to load and crashes some browsers. The developers say it's to look good on the iPad, yet there is still no support to write journals on the iPhone format.
- And the new membership system, hoo boy, everyone complained how it made them look like beggars because it said "Needs Premium Membership" on their page (although they had stamps saying "I wish I had a subscription so I could use this stamp) and that it also displayed who donated a membership and what not... DA RUINED MEMBERSHIP STATUS FOREVER!!
- The new deviation and journal "stacks" system is now effect, meaning that you'll no longer have some 20 pages of deviations to look through on your message bar (as well as journals) since it organizes things into stacks by artists. The complaints are really starting to roll in, to the point there's stamps made issuing how horrible this feature is.
- Neopets, when it went through a site overhaul and the pets got re-drawn so users could put clothing and stuff on them without giving the artists a headache. Yes, there IS now a degree of sameness that takes some of the fun out of the pets (the Meerca no longer stands on its tail, the Usul no longer looks demonic when angry/upset), and every new change introduced thereafter has sparked outrage and threats to leave across the boards.
- Or even earlier, when they started integrating advertising tie-in games and items.
- As soon as the solution to the Bonju avatar was discovered, people began complaining that the avatar was "ruined forever".
- Wait. What's that? ...Neocash? ...no.
- Oh wait. There was that world which you can't enter without paying for a subscription.
- Pretty sure the game was Ruined Forever when they got rid of Dating Threads, guys. Like nine years before any of these changes.
- Not to mention even earlier then that, when they removed the human-type pets such as the original Bruce design.
- Ironically, the posters at the 'official' Jump The Shark site demonstrate a tendency to do this; it seems that, for most (if not all) currently running shows, every week something happens to have its fans cry that the show has now jumped the shark (when it seems that they actually mean this trope). There have even been instances of people logging on immediately after the very first episode of a particular show to bemoan how something they didn't like is a clear evidence of a shark being jumped, despite the fact "jumping the shark" is supposed to be a moment when a show makes some radical departure from the original cast/premise/tone/etc., and the first episode is by definition the original cast, premise and tone.
- Even more ironically, Jump the Shark itself was said by almost everyone to be ruined forever when TV Guide decided to remove the ability to post and stripped about 95% of the site's content.
- When Game FAQS.com and GameSpot.com merged their forums, everyone lost their minds, positive that this would instantly fill every board on Game FAQS with flaming, trolling, innumerable spelling errors, and just general horror. While it's true that for a while after the merge, you could click on just about any abysmal post's poster and be told that they were, in fact, a GameSpot user, the general idiocy levels only increased slightly overall, and it wasn't long before terrible posts were as uncommon as ever and you'd find interesting and insightful posts from GameSpot users as often as from Game FAQS users. Nonetheless, many Game FAQS users still quote CJayC as saying that he'd never merge Game FAQS with another site.
- Gaia Online, anytime the slightest change is announced. Boy, and how the users do whine. And yet they never leave the site...
- The massive overreaction when it was announced that YouTube was making deals with major studios to put movies and TV shows on the site. I'll just let this oft-mirrored video speak for itself. This was from April 2009, and aside from some unrelated layout changes, very little has changed as of October.
- Granted, that might actually be because of the widespread 'Ruined Forever' outcry generated by that very video, as well as news which was leaked onto various online articles at the time. It's possible that Youtube decided not to go through with the changes after the criticism, or, that they're only going to go through with the changes much more gradually now.
- Websites like Bauer Radio's, which fans have seen the quality of go downhill since 2005.
- When Fark.com did a site redesign back in 2007, many claimed the site was Ruined Forever. So many in fact were claiming it sucks, change it back, that a moderator came on and said 'you'll get over it'.
- The Gawker family of sites did a massive redesign in early 2011 that was not well-received. The Internet Backdraft was pretty huge, prompting things like this Penny Arcade comic. However, this seems to be more than just a vocal minority, as it's been reported that traffic to Gawker sites has dropped 25% since the redesign.
- My Anime List now has a new layout and navigation page. Cries of "Ruined FOREVER!" were shouted almost immediately after these changes were announced. There's even a club at the site demanding MAL to change back to the side panel.
- And for a lampoon on this site, head over to the Darth Wiki Ruined FOREVER page.
- For another lampooning, the Hitler Rants About videos on YouTube parody the idea of ruined FOREVER relentlessly.
- Ironically, people are not allowed to upload these Hitler videos anymore because the company that owns the rights to that footage got wise and claimed copyright infringement! RUINED FOREVER in reverse- those things are very fun to share!
- Pick any Video Review Show. If said reviewer doesn't deliver just ONE episode up to normal standards, prepare for cries of ruined forever.
- Averted: On the Red vs. Blue Revelations commentary, Burnie Burns says that he and the others were scared that they did this with the new pre-rendered scenes that didn't use the Halo engine. This technology was used to amp up the action scenes and do things that weren't possible using the games. However, their fears were put to rest when they debuted it at a Convention and everyone cheered like mad.
- Epic Meal Time had lots of people complain it had jumped the shark (naturally meaning this trope) when they did their Drunken Mess video.
- Toyota Motors decided to put Miku Hatsune in a few of their commercials. The fan reaction is predictable. Sankaku Complex has put up several responses from both America and Japan right here (side columns NSFW).
- Netflix's price increases are causing this from a lot of users, with a lot of them angrily threatening to cancel their service.
- A strange in-universe example with The Irate Gamer and his "Breakfast Rants". He complains about minor cosmetic changes to breakfast cereal, including different marshmallows in Lucky Charms and Cinnamon Toast Crunch having only one of the three original bakers on the box. He even ends his rants with "Face it, breakfast is ruined!"
- On The Other Wiki, they now have a bot that prevents one from adding something like Yaoi FTW!!! to a random article nobody uses.
- Some users of Mario Paint Composer felt this way after the use of soundfonts became so popular that it eventually came to be regarded unfavourable to NOT use them.
Western Animation
- Because Transformers fans never appear to be satisfied no matter what, almost anything past G1 is considered Ruined FOREVER to at least somebody. (Some of them have declared it Ruined FOREVER as early as the second wave of the 1984 toys.) In fact, as seen by the page quote, the Transformers fandom actually named this trope.
The Big Bang creates the universe as we know it. The protons, neutrons, and electrons that will eventually compose Transformers are formed, ruining it forever.
- They turned our favorite animated shows into a live-action/CGI-animated movie?!? It's now Ruined FOREVER!!!
- Static Shock and the "Hoop Squad". Were the super-powered basketball players absurdly dumb? Yes, of course they were. Did their appearance mark the show's all time lowest point? Almost unanimously. Was it one of the worst uses of guest-stars ever? Quite easily. Did the show actually get any worse after that? Not really.
- As soon as it was announced, The Fairly OddParents's fandom was torn over whether or not Poof's birth was yet another shark to jump. Most believed that the show was Ruined FOREVER.
- Then there's The Movie. Which is live action, and involves a 23-year-old Timmy still in primary school with his fairy godparents with CG so bad that it will make the live action Yogi Bear movie look like something that came out of Pixar. What.
- G.I. Joe seems to be undergoing its own version of this right now. While one of the smaller hardcore fanbases out there, the vast majority of said fanbase seems adamantly determined to apply this trope to the live-action movie. Primarily because it dares to suggest that GI Joe might not strictly be a Real American Hero.
- More like, "The baroness was only brainwashed? DEATH OF THE LINE!" Now, this was an actual out-of-left-field plotline in the original comic run, but she found she quite enjoyed being a badgirl and was already shacking up with Destro. So the real crux of many arguments falls to by turning her into a goodie it eliminated the excuse of the nostalgia filter hot-as-all-getout leatherclad Baroness in subsequent movies due to her normal personality being a delicate wallflower. Thankfully, it doesn't seem like that particular storyline will go anywhere since the movie flopped. Also, the final climatic underwater battle actually came off as less realistic than even the cartoon, which had a no-kill policy! It was just a poorly handled movie overall.
- The Joes also had their fair share of wackjobs in the original, but the big anger over characterization is that they had an offensive as Michael Richards Hollywood Jive Negro as the sidekick, when the original had Roadblock, who still remains among one of the most positive portrayals of a black guy ever in a children's cartoon (not an easy shoe to fill), and also put Duke back into being a new recruit, despite all other characters being already active and accounted for. Many many problems with the movie come about because the director seems to have not done the research, even though he did, he just put too much Hollywood into the franchise. The running time doesn't leave much room to flesh out anybody either. The animated movie which aired on CN got a MUCH more positive reaction. (Aside from Cobra Commander's rant, which is strangely based upon the fact he used the word crap.)
- The G.I. Joe: Sigma 6 cartoon was under a considerable amount of flak by the fanbase as well, because of the use of a Japanese animation studio (GONZO). Comments such as "The Real American Hero shouldn't be an anime!!!" were common during its run.
- To be honest, animation wasn't all that they used...The very worst elements of anime were in full effect. Its death was assured the moment it aired, as the target audience were NOT anime fans. (and to the anime fans it did attract, the toys were not up to snuff, as they are far more experienced with the high-quality static resin figures.)
- Also, the 1st series was also done in Japan (by Toei Animation) as well.
- The humorous "DETH OF TEH LINE!!1" originated from overreaction to changes in how the G.I. Joe franchise was being handled some time in 2005, is regularly used by some G.I. Joe online forums when some react negatively to new releases or change of plans. It's sort of the Joe equivalent of "RUINED FOREVER".
- Strawberry Shortcake has been prone to this due to the uncertainty of the direction each of the master licensees want to take the franchise which has angered fans due to it's frequent changes. When the 2003 version started, some (and I stress some) of the older fans felt that the franchise was doomed. And when the 2003 version was aged-up in 2007, there was trepidation from some (particularly, fans of Honey Pie Pony, who weren't pleased that she had retired to Ice Cream Island permanently, and even then the send-off was only mentioned in a chapter book and not on the TV series officially, and after that the existing fillies, Honey Pie and Ice Cream Island was never mentioned ever again, while others who disliked the Pie-Man voiced their dislikes in the franchise bringing him back). Then there's the 2009 series, which were widely decried by the Educational TV connisseurs who're drawn to the series by the 2003 series being educationally wholesome as lacking in terms of educational content and emphasis on beauty over moral values, the transition to CGI, as well as being nothing more than a 30-minute toy commercial.
- This, however, would be the exact and the fandom rejoiced opposite of Ruined FOREVER.
- Until American Greetings' lawyers sent out that cease and desist letter. I recall there were a few people claiming that they will not buy gifts and greeting cards from that company ever again.
- Another American Greetings franchise, The Care Bears, went through this and are going through this again. Some people decried the franchise as ruined forever when they redesigned the bears in 2005, and now they're going through another round of fire when plans leaked that they're going to revert back to the pre-2005 designs and fans aren't pleased.
- An ironic form would be The Spectacular Spider-Man, people were angry about the style, mainly the fans of the 90s show and comics, who thought the show would be kid-oriented, but after watching a few episodes, it became very well thought of by comic book fans, but some will still try to discredit the show.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles went a very specific instant of this. As soon as the 2003 animated series was released, fans of the 80's cartoon complained because it was so drastically different in tone to what they had watched 20 years prior (dark, stylish and character driven as opposed to outright cheesy, goofy and with little motive to enhance the plot beyond a single episode). Thus, complaints were made to bring back the ORIGINAL Turtles. The irony of this, is that the 2003 series was based on the original Mirage comics that started from 1984, as opposed to be much more lighthearted cartoon that first aired in 1987 and that one of the Turtles' co-creators (Peter Laird) was actually involved in the production of the 2003 series.
- Of course, partly in response to this the series was retooled into "TMNT Fast Forward" where the Turtles are transported 150 years into the future; the series was dumbed-down and made more kid-friendly. The poor response to that change led to the following season (which turned out to be the final one) seeing the Turtles returned to the present-day, and darkened yet again.
- Also, similar to the Disney/Marvel example above, Peter Laird selling the TMNT franchise to Nickelodeon.
- Laird had his own "RUINED FOREVER!" moment, apparently, over the character of Venus de Milo in The Next Mutation. The moment he bought total control over the property, he ordered any and all mention of her in every other continuity of the media excised without in-story explanation, with the other characters seeming not to notice. The character was such a Berserk Button for him that anyone coming on board the creative staff was advised to never even say the name around Laird, even as a joke.
- People are preaching this about Iron Man: Armored Adventures solely because Tony is a teenager in this adaption. Granted, perhaps they do remember the actual teen Tony from the comics...
- Total Drama Island. Every single season after the first has been accused of this. To wit:
- EVERY SINGLE EPISODE of The Simpsons has had this accusation hurled at it by one fan or another. Go back in time to the ancient days of usenet and you'll find post after post declaring each and every episode the "worst episode ever" (the phrase actually originated on a Simpsons forum) and destroyer of the franchise. This even applies to the very first episode, which some fans of the Ullman shorts hated. Today, no matter how good or bad an episode is, you can bet someone somewhere on the internet will make an overdramatic "this is the end of The Simpsons" post about it.
- Other things which have ruined the Simpsons forever include: the movie, the butterfinger commercials, the Coca Cola super bowl commercial, the Tik Tok music video in the opening (regardless that anime productions use pop songs in there openings and endings all the time), and anytime Matt Groening says anything to the press.
- A reviewer at The AV Club opened one review with an essay about how the Frank Grimes episode, despite being a good episode, ruined the Simpsons forever.
- A frequent complaint is that the "panda rape" episode ruined Homer forever (Homer put on a panda costume and was accosted by a smitten male panda ... which is nasty if you really think about it, but is also what happens to EVERY character who puts on an animal costume in a slapstick comedy and then encounters a real version of that type of animal). As if it somehow made Homer "dirty."
- Western Animation in general has always had someone declaring it Ruined Forever. Winsor Mc Kay declared it ruined forever when they started using cels, it was declared ruined forever when it moved from movie theaters to television (not entirely without reason though), and now with the advent of computer animation, crudely-drawn Thick-Line Animation and the influence of anime, it's once again considered ruined forever by many.
- Vocal anti-furries sometimes complain about their entire childhood being ruined forever after seeing fan art of old cartoon characters, whether sexual or not. Sometimes non-fanart furry art still gets this reaction, possibly stemming from the idea that anthropomorphic animals should be limited to kid shows only.
- The Looney Tunes Show recently released some artwork online, and the reception from some sites (especially Cartoon Brew) was less than positive. Also "Woah, the Looney Tunes are living in a suburb and looking like something in the vains of Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt instead of doing solo cartoons that look like a real cartoon!"
- Similarly, Loonatics Unleashed got and continues to get this reaction from fans of the classic Looney Tunes. kind of stupid once you consider that the characters on this show are technically different from the ones in the original shorts.
- The (definitely noticeable, but relatively minor) redesigns to a couple of characters from Shaun the Sheep ruined it forever.
- The new pony reboot, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, had not gone beyond the first season before fans of the show (both fans of the older generations and just this one) started screaming RUINED FOREVER.
- Haters of the show frequently have this reaction when ponies are added to things they enjoy watching or listening to (such as in the case of PMVs, or remade anime intros featuring ponies, etc.), especially on YouTube, surprise, surprise. Usually their argument for why the show is terrible and why they hate all the fans of it is that it's "ruining the Internet", or "ruining" the medium the ponies have been applied to, even though it was them who clicked the link and watched the ponified media in the first place. And yes, this does lead to many a Flame War.
- Episode Examples
- Episode 12, Call of the Cutie: What?! An episode focused on a side character?!? NOOOOOO!!!!
- Also, sweet, kindly Chantal Strand Playing Against Type as Diamond Tiara?!? NOOOOOOO!!!!
- (In hindsight, this episode helped set up The Cutie Mark Crusaders, who appear as the lead characters in later episodes. Ironically, these later episodes didn't meet the same large reaction as Call of the Cutie did.)
- Episode 23, Cutie Mark Chronicles: Rainbow Dash's first "Sonic Rainboom" led to all of the 'Mane 6' earning their Cutie Marks? Thus unknowingly ensuring that the future played out the way it did (If Twilight failed her exam, which was saved by Dash's Rainboom, then she'd never have been sent to Ponyville by the Princess, for example)? What a Mary Sue! That makes her too important/powerful/special, it's like those self-inserts in the fan fictions!
- (It is worth noting that this episode featured the Cutie Mark Crusaders as the lead characters, and nobody seemed to rage about that.)
- Episode 26, Best Night Ever: Fluttershy, the shyest, quietest, KINDEST pony in the 'Mane Six' goes into a psychotic rampage? That's way out of character! What were they thinking?! It's ruined forever!
- (In hindsight, it was clearly done just for fun, and others have pointed out that throughout the season every member of the 'Mane Six' had lost their minds once except for Fluttershy, prior to the season finale "Best Night Ever").
- Season 2 to the Slice of Life show fans. Discord? NO! Discord not completely destroyed and did not go through a Heel Face Turn at the end of the two parter premiere? No no NO! Word Of God tagged entries in WMG section mentions that the season will have recurring villains? NOOOOOOO! The lack of the E/I bug on the both of the two parter premier episodes? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!. Also, the brainwashed and broken mane 5 picking on Twilight? I Need a Freaking Drink
- Lesson Zero. Hoo-boy, Lesson Zero. Within a half hour of the show being aired, there were people online saying the show had started "pandering" to the Brony fanbase, and that the creators were "forced" to make episodes like this, with many even flocking to Lauren Fausts Deviantart account to apologise for what the fans had done to her series.
- And the Genre Savvy fans are already batting down the hatches for Luna's return. The literal Ensemble Darkhorse has had so much fan work and fanon built around her that the mere mention of a canon portrayal has attracted rage from fans afraid their own theories and ideas will be rendered null and void.
- Ironically enough, the canon Luna is generally accepted by the fanbase.
- Cutie Pox got labelled Ruined Forever because it (a) had a minor shout out to the Big Lebowski (a decidedly un-kid appropriate movie), and (b) because it showed Applebloom immediately developing Aesop Amnesia. Despite this being the basic point of the CMC's for every episode.
- Fandom Examples:
- Anthro fanart - despite the original characters technically being anthropomorphic, and them being in a cartoon where anthro characters belong - specifically art where a character is given more human-like characteristics than the actual show, brings about the "RUINED FOREVER!" cries. Many anti-furries in the fandom despise the mere knowledge of furry artists being fans of the show, this leads to the occasional flame war and "RUINED FOREVER" reaction.
- The term "Bronies" and the fan name, DJ PON-3 (DJ Pon-three), being mentioned and canonised respectively in the Equestria Girls promo was met with concerns over fanservice getting out of hand.
- The news of Derpy Hooves having planned appearances in Season Two's episodes, rather than being a randomly thrown in background character, lead to some fans crying foul over the fanservice.
- The store chain Hot Topic recently started selling G4 T Shirts, due to the reputation of the store, and it's average customers, current members of the fandom feel that the show and the fandom will be "RUINED FOREVER" by the publicity gained through that store.
- And do we even need to mention Cupcakes?
- Seth MacFarlane is rebooting The Flintstones and now it's been RUINED FOREVER!!
- Many, many fans cried foul upon learning that the Sequel Series to Avatar: The Last Airbender would be called The Last Airbender: The Legend Of Korra. Partly because it's a mouthful, partly because it's an Artifact Title, and partly because it brings up memories of the hated Live-Action Adaptation. Even among people looking forward to the series, you won't find many happy with the title.
- Futurama has been accused of both Jumping the Shark and being ruined forever ever since the fifth "season" (the four movies are counted as this) and the revival.
- Disney took over Doug from Nickelodeon? RUINED!
Real Life
- Every time there's an election, particularly in the U.S., someone on the losing side will declare that the country is now going to be run into the ground. Bonus points if they declare the election day "The day America died" or say "RIP America". This is made even funnier if you look up the history of how long this has been going on. Someone's always declaring whoever the president is as the anti-christ.
- For your die-hard liberals, talk of fleeing to Canada, Japan or even Europe is thrown around. Meanwhile, your die-hard conservatives will start stocking up a bunker to wait out the next four years.
- Some sociologists and psychologists have deemed they time from around 2009 to the present as the 'years of fashionable fatalism'. A combination of a weak economy in many western nations, akward faults starting to show in things like the Euro-zone, uprisings in various countries (along with attempted grassroots movements in more stable nations), and shifts in the world power structure have created a climate where declaring one's own nation 'doomed' or 'fallen' has become so common that researchers worry that people have become so wrapped up in declaring the world ruined forever that they no longer care about trying to fix it.
- The irony of it all is that, aside from being in the low-swing of the high/low system economies inherently go through, the world isn't even all that bad compared to centuries with plagues and World Wars. It is believed that a big part of fatalism is the Internet and the proliferation of Web 2.0-style user generated content.
- For example, the Middle East is no more a big mess of ethnic groups fighting than it was 100 years ago, but now you can see every detail in real-time, whereas a person living in the United States or Europe 100 years ago wouldn't have read about it in the newspaper.
- Likewise, people no longer have to accept that sometimes a crazy idea (say, the world is run by lizardmen) when no one believes them; they can just go online and eventually find someone else who believes that, and thus validates their stance.
- Fans of certain car marques can devolve into this. For example, Porsche fans were screaming "Ruined FOREVER" when they learned that the German sports car brand was going to make, of all things, an SUV. Never mind that the SUV was profitable enough to fund development of more Porsche sports cars, like the Carrera GT supercar and the 911 GT3 RS.◊
- The screams only got louder when Porsche decided to make, of all things, a luxury sedan. Time will tell if the result is the same, though.
- If you didn't think tropes can pop up in the most unexpected places, learn how people believe heraldry gets RUINED FOREVER:
I wrote a paper several years ago entitled "New Directions in Heraldry", the thesis of which was that of all the modern innovations and introductions of new charges, etc. that we see in heraldry today are not a new phenomenon at all, but that the field of heraldry has always added new stuff to its repertoire from its earliest days to now.
The stimulus for writing the paper was the disputes I would sometimes see between heraldry enthusiasts in one or another of the internet newsgroups, where someone would protest that this or that innovation or the grant of a modern change (for example, a locomotive) was almost an affront to the purity of the field.
- As soon as you become old and cynical enough to see through all the silly hype around Christmas, it seems it is ruined FOREVER and it "has become too commercial" all of a sudden.
- After Fender decided to partner up with T-Mobile to make a smartphone that had a Fender color scheme, the backlash from Fender's userbase was huge. One guy even suggested Fender's next product would be breakfast cereal.
- Demoting Pluto from Planet to Dwarf Planet status has RUINED the Solar System FOREVER, or at least until Disney whats more money.
- New Coke ruined The Coca-Cola Co. FOREVER!
- Whenever a shop moves around it's stock for whatever reason, customers will inevitably be irate. Some to the point of swearing at staff. This is especially true for a supermarket since more people use it more regularly than other stores so the change will be all the more jarring. Even though this happens many times in one's lifetime and they always get used to it within a week.
- This can happen to employees too. Even more so if they aren't working the day(s) things get moved, thus they're as confused as customers are when they return, making their job harder when a customer asks where something that got moved is.
- Of all things, this can even hit religion. There are some Catholics who have declared this since the closing of the Second Vatican Council due to the fact that the Council altered the Mass in some fairly significant ways intended to return the laity to active participants rather than passive spectators in the liturgy. Since the Pope himself ratified and endorsed the Council's changes, some of those calling "ruined forever" have gone so far as to say that no pope since Pius XII (the last Pope to reign before the Council) has validly reigned and that the Chair of St. Peter is officially vacant.
- The number of different sects of Christianity alone can tell you how often this happens in the religious community.
- It happens with web site re-designs as well. Any website that undergoes a drastic design change will invariably have many of it's regular users complaining about how much it sucks now, that is, until they get used to it. As an example, ever since The Washington Post completely overhauled it's web site on March 13, 2011, most of the online chats and many of the comments to articles and blog posts are dominated by complaints of how much the web site re-design sucks. The Ombudsman and various other staff members at the Post have spent most of their time defending the re-design.
- Facebook is ruined FOREVER every time they make a minor tweak, let alone a significant change.
- The Eiffel Tower gets built. Paris is Ruined Forever.
- Also the Louvre - Ruined Forever by the glass pyramid.
- Very much done in TV Tropes whenever any change to the website is made.
- Trope Renames in particular are always met with reactions of Ruined FOREVER
- Youtube had the audacity to have a new layout? I must complain about it at once! And then once it's changed again, I shall defend the most recent one even though I hated it as much as I hate this one now! In short, Youtube is always Ruined Forever to some people.
- The Mac OS X developer community once had a very persistent Usenet troll named David Stes who claimed that the introduction of Open Step c. 1995 (i.e. the environment that Mac OS X and iOS are both based on) ruined the Objective C programming language FOREVER. Not only were Stes' rantings generally agreed to be completely pointless, but even the creator of the language, Brad Cox, spoke up to indicate he really didn't care that much. (These days, with the decline of Usenet and the rise of iOS as a platform, Stes is largely retired from the trolling business anyway; given that the matter in question was a highly technical and nigh-impossible to explain issue of memory management, it's just as well.)
- The Internet (and young people in general) have Ruined the English language FOREVER with their inability to spell or... do grammar stuff
- Any version of Adobe Photoshop newer than version 5 is bound to invoke this trope, since Adobe had been removing features they deem archaic or too difficult to use, and shuffling options in the menus around. It now takes three extra steps to add a glow around an object or text!
- Final Cut Pro X is getting this from video editors, since it's missing a lot of essential features.
- Ironically, this is also happening with Microsoft's competing offering, Windows Movie Maker. Probably justified in that due to Microsoft's Executive Meddling to make the software more user friendly, features deemed important to some users were removed. For example, Windows Movie Maker Live, the latest version of the software, completely lacks a timeline, makeing it way more difficult to create AMVs on it. And the previous version of the software changed the way audio was handled when the video was sped up or slow down (removing pitch shifts from the audio, to be precise), to the ire of YouTube Poop makers who primarily use it for that effect.
- HP Sauce cut down on salt levels in their products. Thousands of people complained about how the sauce was now "bland" and "disgusting". No, really.
- Many people were crying this when Cartoon Network started putting a heavy focus on live-action shows, the justification being that as Cartoon Network, they should be airing cartoons. As a result, the ratings for the live-action shows were abysmal, despite being constantly advertised and receiving tons of air time. They removed the CN Real timeblock, though they still heavily promote the few live-action shows they have.
What, nobody's put a stinger on this page yet?! TV Tropes is officially RUINED FOREVER!!!
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