Main Tropes Index

Troperville

Editing

Tools

Toys

Narrative

Genre

Media

Topical Tropes

Other Categories

new edits
page history
related to...
edit page
discuss
view source
forum

Unpleasable Fanbase
Western RPG fans, as drawn by game designer Chris Avellone.

Fans are clingy complaining dipshits who will never be grateful for any concession you make. The moment you shut out their shrill tremulous voices the happier you'll be for it.
- Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw

Sometimes, fanbases are, or appear to be, perennially complaining not just about minute details of the Canon, but about everything. This sometimes relates to fake fannishness: some people just don't like a piece of fiction, yet insist on consuming it. It's not just Snark Bait, it's just some people who call themselves fans but think, "Well, those new additions aren't very good. But, then again, it wasn't very good in the beginning either."

A possible sign of an Unpleasable Fanbase is a Catch-22: if they complain about one thing, and the people behind the franchise listen and fix it, only to have other parts of the fanbase complain about the change. This is because, in extremely large fandoms, different portions of the fandom complain about distinctly different things, so that any change will inevitably anger someone.

Basically, this is about a fanbase which is so varied and divided in opinion that it's impossible to give everyone in it what they want. No individual fan is truly unpleasable (well, ALMOST none,) but when it's impossible to please everyone, you have an Unpleasable Fanbase.

While Unpleasable Fanbase has been a problem for any media with a sufficiently large fanbase (you simply cannot please all of the people all of the time), in the Internet Age it takes on a new dimension when even a small minority can make their opinions heard. It's enough to make an author want to give up.

See also Accentuate The Negative, Contested Sequel, The Law Of Fan Jackassery, Ruined FOREVER. Oh and They Changed It Now It Sucks and It Is The Same Now It Sucks. When the creators do something that actually gets the fandom in line with them, it's a Cue Cullen.

Examples

Anime and Manga
  • Let's pause to consider the Naruto fanbase. After 85 solid weeks of bitching about the endless filler, they are now dissecting every facet of Shippuden with a passion. For example, people that dislike Sasuke don't just claim it's a case of author favoritism but actually say he has a Perverse Sexual Lust for his own character.
    • Writing Sasuke in a way that pleases everyone is impossible: he's so wildly divisive among the fandom that he is both the most popular and most hated character.
    • And there's plenty members of the show's Estrogen Brigade that hate any female except Tsunade and Temari becuase "they're not "strong" enough" and accuse Kishimoto of being biased against women... while they act even worse.
    • And let's not get started on complaints concerning Naruto's portrayal and how main characters have to be awesome.
    • There's also people that have a liking for some of the Loads And Loads Of Characters and thus hate anything involving the main cast. Really, way to many people fall into the trap of judging the quality of stories as bad the second they find out it's about a character they don't like.
      • Shikamaru is the main example. He already got the "Kill Hidan" arc almost devoted to him, but apparently that's not enough for people. "Who the hell dared to focus on other characters after Shikamaru, damn him!"
  • Anime Dubbing and translation in general. Especially the debates surrounding which dubs are Woolseyism, Macekred, or a Pragmatic Adaptation.
    • This troper once followed a link from the Gainaxing article to the announcement trailer for the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann dub. No actual voice acting was featured (being a humorous overview of the series with fast-talking narrator), so the commenters immediately started criticizing the announcer, and theorizing that the dub was so bad they didn't want to show any of it. No Really. (FYI, there was a second trailer composed of Simon's opening speech from the first episode, and a line from Kamina)
      • On at related note, there are a ridiculous number of people condemning the dub based entirely on Kamina's voice.
    • Despite the fact that DVD rendered the majority of the dub vs. sub wars moot, there are still people that insist that dubs cease to exist or that people who want subs are elitists that should just learn Japanese if they don't want to watch a dub. I repeat - this is despite the fact that both sets of fans are catered to and nobody has to watch anything they don't like.
      • ...except now that the industry is experiencing a downturn, a growing number of series perceived as a risky sell are not receiving a dub track. The companies do this because while a dub track will always increase sales by some amount, many niche series have actually gone down as flops because they didn't make enough money back in sales to justify the cost of commissioning a dub. But for some people, you'd think they were deliberately doing it to spite the dub-only viewing audience.
    • There will always be a group who completely hate any dub despite the quality. This includes the nominally respected dubs like Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo and the Disney produced dubs of Studio Ghibli films. For them, having Chihiro in Spirited Away say "It's a bath house?" in a scene that originally had no dialogue is unforgivable. They will ignore any defense that western audiences wouldn't recognize a bath house without that comment. Never mind that Hayao Miyazaki approved the dubs.
    • And Gundam 00 fans have already started to whine about the dub. Specially over Haro's voice. HARO'S VOICE! Oh, and how dares Alex Zahara say "Stratos" as "Stratus".
  • The Code Geass fanbase is approaching this status at light speed. It doesn't look like the end of the series has stopped them either.
    • Of course, you have your usual shipping wars...
    • Furthermore, many people, particularly the Estrogen Brigade who normally watch mecha and CLAMP shows expecting some sort of romantic subplot, got turned off because the show is more steeped in politics and mind-gaming (much like Death Note)
    • As R2 progressed, nearly every character was being hated on by some subsection of the fanbase (sometimes for logical reasons, sometimes not so much), even those whom they were firmly behind in the first season. Crapsack World? Bad Writing? Who cares! In their eyes the characters sucked and they didn't like them anymore.
    • As the show began to wrap up, the fans complained that it was too dark and they didn't want a Kill Em All, Downer Ending. After the last episode aired, they complained the ending of the series was far too idealistic and a cop out to the Downer Ending it "should have had."
  • Samurai Champloo is frequently criticized either for being too much like Cowboy Bebop, or not enough like Cowboy Bebop.
  • Several Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann fans have criticized Gainax for giving Kinon Character Development, stating that they would rather have her old stereotypical Moe Moe personality (were the only difference between the three sisters where breast size), rather than her new personality as Rossiu's most loyal supporter and the only person who truly understands him.

Comic Books
  • DC Comics reportedly has a hard time getting writers to work on Legion Of Super Heroes because many writers feel that "you're doomed no matter what you do". It doesn't help that each iteration of the Legion has its own fanbase that considers all other versions "fake".
  • Fans constantly clamor for more new characters, but no matter how well they are written, fans would still buy yet another comic with Wolverine or Batman, dooming most new books to barely 25 issues before being canceled.
    • DAMN RIGHT. This Troper, so far, has had Manhunter, Birds Of Prey, Irredeemable Ant-Man and Blue Beetle canceled on him. And yet they publish crap like Jeph Loeb's Hulk. *sigh*
  • If you don't want to be annoyed by a flame war, don't visit the Supergirl board at DC Comics, become half of the people that post there think that the latest Supergirl, a.k.a Kara Zor-El, is entering a Dork Age, while the other members think that Supergirl is exiting a Dork Age.
    • How about this: she's in a Quantum Age.
  • There's a substantial subculture of feminists who seem to read a lot of superhero comics entirely because they're the most misogynist things ever and give them a never-ending chance to voice their displeasure.
    • And before anyone gets the chance: yes, this troper has just called Bingo. At least three times. Step up and claim your No-Prize.
  • Virtually anyone who has the audacity to be the head writer of any major comics event at any company. It doesn't matter how good they are, Fan Dumb will attack them like a school of angry Piranha, complaining and nitpicking about anything sometimes real and sometimes imagined. Then they will reevaluate the writers work before he signed on to the event and proclaim it unreadable garbage, followed by painting the writer as an utter hack whose only purpose in life is to spread pain and misery wherever he or she goes.
    • Especially the case with Quesada after One More Day. First, Mary Jane hate. Then Mary Jane goes away, and everyone rips Quesada a new one.
    • Although it was more how stupid he did it. Plus a lot of fans seem to think they don't mind anymore if Spider Man stay married, if it will avoid any more utter stupidity like that.
  • Controversial example: Whenever a gay character and/or couple is introduced. Usually, in addition to the part of the fanbase that does not want gay characters, the other part of the fanbase does not want a long running character to have Suddenly Sexuality, but will claim any new characters as a Captain Ethnic or a Pet Homosexual. When a gay couple is established, the criticisms continue that characters are underdeveloped, too realistic, not realistic enough, get too much attention, or not enough attention. After a while there's a question of whether or not the criticisms are valid opinions on bad writing or a symptom of Unpleasable Fanbase inspired Creator Breakdown.
    • Small example: When a kiss was announced to finally be shown in The Authority between two gay characters, it was criticized that it was a gimmick and violated the idea that these were two-superheroes-who-happened-to-be-gay instead of two gay superheroes. Once the kiss turned out to be entirely unnoticeable (casual and in the background of a party), the book was criticized for not making the kiss out to be a big deal and disappointed a lot of fans.
  • DC Comics fans keep protesting about the whole "continuous crossover" idea (where one Crisis Crossover leads into another) for years- that they're too long, that their quality sucks, that they're poorly edited, that they make them waste money on unnecessary tie-ins, etc. While they do have a point, the fact is they still buy them. If they would stop, DC would have no choice but to drop the idea.
  • Peter David wrote a book called Mascot To the Rescue! that lampshades the tendency for comic fans to do nothing but complain. It also deconstructs the fans' requests to kill off Jason Todd.

Film
  • Three Words: Star Wars fans.
  • Looking through the Bond entries, most of them are all declared "hated by Bond fans." Except Casino Royale, for some reason.
    • Of the complaints leveled against Casino Royale was that it had too much talking. Quantum Of Solace significantly upped the action quotent, and has been widely criticized for being too much like The Bourne Series.
    • Not to mention people criticizing the old movies for getting too silly, then criticizing the Re Boot for being too serious. This troper has seem someone say Quantum is an "unrealistic [and] silly" movie that thinks it's serious. Considering that a similar incident actually happened...
  • The Lord Of The Rings movies by Peter Jackson. For every fan that likes (or doesn't mind) a certain change/cut, there's a fan that's in a frothing rage over the exact some change/cut.
    • This happens with a lot of film adaptations of popular (and not-so-popular) works. For example, This Troper sees a lot of this over the Narnia films.

Literature
  • Harry Potter fandom exploded into a prime example with the revelation that Dumbledore was gay. More specifically, one side was proud of Rowling for outing a character, while the other thought she was a wuss for not putting it in a book.
    • This troper wonders how blind you'd have to be to not notice the gay overtones in Dumbledore's past relationship with Grindelwald. To say nothing of his flamboyantly plum velvet suit.
    • Hey, don't forget the side that thinks this is more reason that Harry Potter is of the devil, the side that got over the witchcraft but can't handle the homosexuality, the side that thinks it's just a cheap gimmick, and the side that doesn't mind the witchcraft or homosexuality but now has to justify to relatives their reading of satanic gay novels.
    • Shipping. Oh god, anything involving shipping.
    • Anything involving the movies. Any change is bad, but so is anything that's incredibly boring when actually seen. And the fandom is so fractured that any scene that's cut will almost certainly have a sizeable portion out for blood. But the news that the seventh film would finally be split in two, so nothing would be left out, was received with practically universal acclaim.
    • In the end, Potter may be the largest existing fanbase in the world. The books are second-best-sellers of all time only to The Bible. It may not actually be possible to get that many human beings to agree on the same thing...ever. (Which readers of, among other books, The Bible have known for years.)
      • Riffed on in this Home on the Strange strip.
  • There are silly amounts of people out there who insist that anything from the last five books of The Wheel Of Time to everything Robert Jordan ever did is crap, yet keep on religiously reading all of it. This for a series that consists of currently eleven Door Stoppers, or somewhere around nine thousand (WHAT? NINE THOUSAND?!?) pages.
    • And that's not even including characters. Pick a Wheel character, any character. Got your character? Good. Anywhere from 30 to 90 percent of the fans (at least the vocal ones) hate that character.

Live Action TV
  • Pick a Soap Opera, any Soap Opera. Way too many soap fans want to die for their ship. And then when they get it, they complain it's too boring.
  • Doctor Who fandom, constantly. Too many examples to count, but especially in the conflict between fans of the old series and fans of the new.
    • Russell T. Davies, producer of the new Doctor Who, commented in an interview that he isn't interested in hearing the opinions of the fans, probably because of this kind of fan reaction. Naturally, the fans did not like this. He may also have remembered that John Nathan-Turner was criticized for being too aware of the fanbase.
    • In a recent memoir of his time on the show, "The Writer's Tale", he included how stressed out the writing staff would get over the more vicious fans floating around Outpost Gallifrey.
  • Absolutely anything to do with the last two seasons of Stargate SG 1. For that matter, the splts started around the time of Jonas Quinn, but not to the point they did after season 9.
    • Stargate Atlantis has entered this territory in the past couple of seasons, due to back-to-back cast changes, as well as the persistent apparent bastardry—and not the magnificent kind—of the cast. Gate World Forum battles still blaze between "Carter vs. Weir vs. Woolsey as leader" and "Beckett vs. Keller as chief medical officer." This troper just sticks to the Stargate: Aftermath RPG threads.
  • Star Trek: This is largely a result of the sheer length of the saga. The fanbase was already winding down at the end of Voyager, but Paramount wanted another series. Addressing many of the complaints about Voyager (and some about Deep Space Nine), the producers decided to create a prequel series in Enterprise. This was to try and make "strange new worlds" seem exciting again. Unfortunately, too many of the debates were on whether the theme song was appropriate for Trek and The Aesthetics Of Technology and Zee Rust that clashed with the 35 year old Star Trek The Original Series.
  • For two seasons, Lost fans complained that there were some 30 other survivors of Flight 815 whom we never got to meet. So the writers introduced Paolo and Nikki, only to have the fans complain about being expected to believe they were there all along.
  • This Troper will dare to list Supernatural since this comes up nearly every time a female cast member is introduced to the show. Season 2 was attacked for the character "Jo" being an unrealistic goody goody female hunter, so for Season 3 the writers created two female antagonists, thinking that Evil Is Sexy. The Season 3 characters were loathed so much that many viewers actually started saying they missed Jo. And now that Ruby has been Nth Doctored, some people are actually saying they miss the old one. Whether or not the show's issues with these characters is due to an Unpleasable Fanbase, Executive Meddling, or a case of Writer On Board is up for debate, but the first seems very likely. Some fans seem to hate anyone either brother expresses any romantic interest in.
    • They can't win when it comes to the boys, either. Dean acts like a jerk and the Dean!Girls think the writers are Mean To Dean and only care about Sam. Sam acts like a jerk and the Sam!Girls think the writers to Mean To Sam and only care about Dean. Dean acts nicely and the Sam!Girls think they're making him out to be a saint at the expense of Sam's character. Sam acts nicely and the Dean!Girls immediately hate him for being Saint!Sam. Seriously, unless they both act like good little choir boys, nobody is going to be happy.
      • But hey, we all love Castiel.
  • Heroes. Oh Heroes, you just can't win. New powers? They're ridiculous. Old powers? Not original enough, make some new ones. Too much time travel/not enough time travel. Character X is too powerful/Character X needs to become more powerful, he's boring. Also, people too damn stupid to listen to stuff, and thusly declare everything as plot holes.
  • Saturday Night Live was better three years ago. Saturday Night Live has always been better three years ago.

New Media
  • Zero Punctuation by Ben "Yahtzee"; Croshaw is a series of video reviews which always Accentuate The Negative, with precisely two exceptions in the 40-odd videos so far, (both of which people bitched about). Fans badgered him incessantly to do a review of Super Smash Bros Brawl, which he did. Many fans were then surprised that he accentuated the negative. Their response was so large and loud that he created a response to their emails. However, a good majority heaped excessive praise on him for ripping into the game they hated (and also bug him to review certain games just so he'll give it a bad review), and plenty of the people sending him e-mails are probably trolls just trying to piss him off. These were probably most of the people that complained about him giving Psychonauts and Portal good reviews. It's more of a Broken Base than anything else.
    • Recently, Yahtzee replaced the Suspiciously Apropos Music characteristic of his intro and outro to a more generic-sounding guitar riff (with more polished graphics) to skirt copyright issues. He claimed in the credits that people would begin to claim this as his Jumping The Shark moment. As if proving his point, within minutes the Escapist boards were barraged with both complaints and compliments on the new intro.
      • ... what "point" was this that got proved? Snarkily mocking a criticism does not negate that criticism.
      • Given that Yahtzee himself is a deliberately merciless Caustic Critic, he's most likely aware of the hilarious irony.
  • Yu Gi Oh The Abridged Series hung a lampshade on this. In Cr@psule Monsters: Episode 2, Joey gets attacked by birdlike monsters that are essentially LittleKuriboh's unpleasable fanbase. Any of Joey's (and by extension, LittleKuriboh's) reasoning gets drowned out by constant squawks of "Where's the new episode?" and he eventually gets attacked.
    • "UPDATE!"
    • In fairness, the guy does take much longer to update his series than most others. I've seen people put out entire abridged series in the time it takes him to make a few episodes.
  • Facebook. Oh, dear heavens, Facebook. Every - and I mean every - single solitary change to the website will be followed up with five million different groups cropping up saying "I hate this new change!" It happened with the Mini-Feed, it happened with Applications, it's happening with New Facebook...
    • DeviantART and LiveJournal are even worse. Every time the former makes a change to the site design or the category system, people complain. Every time the latter makes any change at all, people complain. Then again, the latter has over a million active users, so both are probably an example of Broken Base.
  • YTMND. Anytime a new fad catches on in this site, it's instantaneously spammed endlessly by angry trolls and members who think it's unfunny, with the random person yelling "cry more".
  • One particular furry art website changes its banner every month to reflect that time of the month. It's usually followed by people crying over how horrible the banner looks and this happens every single month, which could basically mean every year.
    • For Thanksgiving 08, they changed it to show two massively overfed fatfurs and the remains of their Thanksgiving dinner. For just one day. Oy, the kvetching.

Professional Wrestling
  • Smart Marks degenerate into this from time to time. For example, when smark favorite CM Punk beat Edge for the World Heavyweight Title, smart marks - rather than celebrate that one of their poster boys had won one of WWE's top titles - instead bitched about the fact that Punk won it by pinning Edge after he had been beaten up by other wrestlers, supposedly making Punk look "weak" and "cowardly". Never mind that Edge had previously won the title in that exact same way months ago, and Punk defeating him in that fashion was (from a storyline perspective) karmic backlash for the heel Edge.

Square Enix
  • Final Fantasy in general suffers from an unpleasable fanbase. As every game is set in a functionally different world, with different characters it is unsurprising that virtually everyone has a different opinion on which games are best, or worst, and which characters and plots are best and worst etc. And this was going on *before* Square decided to make direct sequels and spin-offs of individual title.
    • And when they did start making direct sequels after years of begging for more games set in the individual game universes? The fans complained they were just milking the popularity.
  • Case in point on the topic of gamers clamoring about originality - for all the harping about Square Enix for continuing to make Final Fantasy games, there's an equal amount of fury every time they release a non-Final Fantasy title on the basis that they should be releasing more Final Fantasy games. This year sees them launching several new franchises, and what does everyone focus on instead? That Final Fantasy XIII isn't out yet.
  • Final Fantasy XI: Changes were made to two-handed weapons, which people complained about being inferior to one-handed weapons, only for a sizable portion of the fanbase to complain that they were too powerful, even some of those that wanted the change.
    • Hey, the purported purpose was to make both 1 and 2 handed weaponry on par with each other. It took FOUR patches for them to get the damage calculations right; very few people complain about it now. The initial changes simply changed people from one 'onry' to another and prove that the players are the testers - no _practical_ pre release testing happens.
    • This troper knows from experience that every time Square-Enix releases an patch, each item in the patch notes (no matter how minor or requested it was) will be complained about by at least one forum-goer.
      • Pre-Patch teasers that don't interest a particular group of forum-goers will usually result in at least two pages of bitching about them, followed by two pages of people bitching about people bitching (chocobo racing related teasers usually meet with this type of treatment on endgame forums).
  • Final Fantasy XII, which replaced the traditional turn-based random encounters with a seamless world map of visible enemies and an innovative AI-controlled party system and was immediately accused of being untrue to the spirit of the franchise. And this was after multiple reviews and fans complained upon FFX's release that using a turn-based system on a next-gen console was too dated.
  • While we're at it, let's look at Final Fantasy and its history, from VII to XII. Square released FFVIII, and people too accustomed to Materia hated the Junctions. Then FFIX returned to the preset Jobs, and people bitched again. Later, FFX used the infamous Sphere Grid, and it was "too hard to understand". Then X-2 was released, and fans… vomited at its girly look and "not having anything better to do at end-game than to max job levels".
    • This editor remembers the criticisms of FFIX being more commonly about the cartoony look of the characters…which is, in true Unpleasable Fanbase style, in stark contrast to the complaints about VIII moving toward a more realistic design ethic.
  • Don't forget the original VI die-hards. Any game from that point on, when the series had the gall to become popular, is immediately declared to be utter filth that any True Fan should decry as blasphemy upon the glorious 2D age.
  • And howabout the GBA remakes, which were by the way begged for, for years upon end, so the unwashed masses could see what a "real" Final Fantasy should play like: "It is humanly undoable without Level Grinding", "There are too many missables" or "Half the characters are useless after getting the Infinity Plus One Sword or the Last Disc Magic".
    • Plus the storylines! The recent remake of Final Fantasy IV had nostalgia gamers aiming slings at it for either changing too much or not enough. And yet if Square completely rewrote the story, you can bet they'd be the first in line to complain about the sullying of the original text to pander to casual gamers.
  • Final Fantasy storylines are always criticized either for being too Wangsty and serious, or too silly and light-hearted. Final Fantasy X is a textbook case - the original was criticized for being too dark and miserable, the sequel for being too upbeat and perky.
    • The Tactics series has the same problem - either complaints of too much politics and not enough fantasy, or too little politics and too much fantasy.
  • Final Fantasy XIII will be multi-platform?! Multi-platform games can only suck! I paid $400 on a PS 3 for nothing! Never mind the fact that I own the only Blu-ray player worth having, and I still get to play the game—someone besides the tiny majority can play the game now! Is nothing sacred!?
    • See also Devil May Cry 4 for this last complaint. Why does everyone care so much about this? I mean, you still get to play the game, the developers get more cash money, to make more of that game...are you really that invested in the platform? Do you really need to be proven "right?" Do you really think Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo actually give a flying crap about you?
    • Not to mention the fact that the 400+ dollar cost for the system is likely a key factor in why Square-Enix isn't limiting their audience to those able to afford the thing.
    • Well, actually, the problem a lot of people have with an exclusive going multiplatform is that it will often result in a downgrade in quality. Exclusive game designed with a focus on a single console's architecture > Multiplatform game forced to compromise by performing well on different systems (obviously, this can vary with different devs/engines/games and only refers to the different ways in which a single game could be made). This Troper firmly believes that had Devil May Cry 4 stayed a PS 3 exclusive, it would have been a technologically superior game, if only due to the ways it may have been able to take better advantage of the PS 3's tech.
  • Even the art style has an unpleasable fanbase! Between Final Fantasy VI and Final Fantasy VII, the lead artist switched from Yoshitaka Amano to Tetsuya Nomura. They have two distinctly different art styles and Nomura's has become synonymous with the series entirely because of the popularity of Final Fantasy VII, which quickly riled the 2D nostalgia crowd. Furthermore, even though Nomura actually hasn't been the sole artist, his art is frequently accused of being filled with Rummage Sale Rejects from the Blue Bishonen Ghetto. Meanwhile, Amano was known for...drawing willowly, long haired, effeminate men in Rummage Sale Rejects. With black lipstick. Many fans criticized Kuja for being typical of Square Enix's "new" approach, when in fact that character was designed by Amano and looks very typical of the kinds of characters he draws.
    • Amano gets away with it because he has a very distinct style. It's hard to mistake an Amano drawing. Nomura's art is more generic, and that's why he draws the flak he does. That and nostalgia glasses.
    • Just look at the artwork for Dissida, which had characters designed by both Amano and Nomura and an art style that was a mix between the two artists. That is to say, Nomura did the artwork for Dissidia in the style of Amano. The only difference was a lack of zippers and an excess of earrings.
  • The Dragon Quest fanbase teeters on this from time to time. They create a fan-site (the now dead SlimeKnights) for DQ games in the US, they release the niche Rocket Slime and Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker titles in the US, and have even recently trademarked names that could only be the "missing" Dragon Quest 4, 5, and 6 DS games... and yet, they're still considered "The enemy" by the fanbase.
    • Although, to be fair, this is not completely without justification; there's some bitterness over the translations of Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Hearts and Dragon Quest V PS 2 being lost in the shuffle during the merger, as well as Dragon Quest IV DS coming out with a terrible translation, featuring the inexplicable removal of the Party Talk feature, and an introduction of Fantasy Counterpart Cultures to the game that never existed prior to it, an act can generously be called one of the worst attempts at Accent Adaptation in the history of translation; less generously, it borders dangerously on Macekre. However, the response to these slights by some parties is truly disproportionate compared to everything they've done right.
  • As time goes by, Kingdom Hearts is starting to reveal itself to have an unpleasable fanbase. The first one was the best! The second one was the best! One was so mindbowingly hard that its impossible to finish! Two was nothing but button mashing, you could close your eyes and beat the hardest boss! The games are too cute and fluffy! They made the second game too edgy! The card system in Chains of Memories sucked! They Nerfed the magic system! The intro in two was stupid! They should have made Roxas the main character! The Nobodies should have had more of a backstory! What the hell is with the Nobodies, make them go away! More Disney! Less Disney! On and on and on. Oh, and if you think we forgot something, just check the top of the page.
    • Also of note is that before September 19, 2008, the people were pissed that Square was keeping KH2 Final Mix + to Japan. After that one date, a number of them are now angry that Re:ChainOfMemories will be released in America as a standalone title or that they spent their money on an import or that Square is too slow or yadda yadda yadda.
  • Of course despite the very vocal members of the fanbase, Final Fantasy has not lost an inch of popularity; people continue buying games in the millions of copies as if none of this has ever happened.
  • Chrono Trigger and its Contested Sequel Chrono Cross have a fandom that comes to blows quite easily. In one corner are the fans of Chrono Trigger that argue whether Cross was really a sequel at all, for reason that are too numerous to discuss on this page but usually boil down to being completely different in mechanics and tone from Trigger and the Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome of pretty much everyone in Trigger, as well as a Gainax Ending. In the other corner are the Cross fans who point out its positive critical reception, its good sales, and what they felt to be a deeper and more satisfying storyline with an epic Gainax Ending. The easiest way to find examples of this is to head over to well meaning, and perhaps most active fansite, Chrono Compendium and say you like Chrono Trigger better, which you then will receive a dressing down from several posters for not appreciating the genius of Cross, followed by them being dressed down by several other posters for not appreciating the genius of Trigger, followed by a potential Flame War. Needless to say, both games are treated as classics as they both have received near perfect to perfect scores.
    • It is never outright proven that the Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome effected everyone that mattered, which only makes things worse.
      • Whether that trope is actually canon or not can start some pretty nasty flame wars by itself, even among people who liked Chrono Cross.

Tabletop Games
  • The complaining that ensues from many new editions of RPGs.
  • The Yu-Gi-Oh card game fandom will often complain that "they don't have enough support for X theme", or "they don't have X anime card, yet". On the rare occasion that Konami actually listens to these complaints, they're met with further complaints that the cards they've given are either too broken or too restrictive to the point of uselessness.
  • Regarding the 4th edition of Dungeons And Dragons. The fanbase is divided between the "old school" and the "new school," the "roleplayers" and the "roll-players," and most of the time this troper isn't sure which edition each side is supporting. The phrase "I don't want your anime in my Dungeons and Dragons" was repeatedly seen in the WotC messageboards. You have to wonder about the "you" they are talking about.
    • For additional irony, the "I don't want your anime in my D&D" line was also extended to the Book of Nine Swords which was intended to help even out the Linear Warriors Quadratic Wizards equation for physical fighters. Opponents of use of that book often decried it as too much anime... and many of the same people who hailed the Bo9S for giving some parity to melee combatants decried the changes of Fourth in the exact same manner as their predecessors.
    • This Troper, having read through the 4th edition core rules, can only ever reply to that 'accusation' of it being 'too anime' with, what's so freakin' anime about it? Its Dn D, its as 'realistic', 'anime' or whatever as you the player make it out to be. Jeez, some people just can't seem to exercise a bit of imagination.
  • Warhammer 40,000 is subject to this, especially by several communities on the net. People cry that 4th/5th Edition rules suck, and long for the good old days, others who (rightly) claim that 2nd Edition was a shoddily-constructed Wall Banger, and others who are just waiting for the Dark Eldar update. Complaints regarding minor points of background also seem to be popular, especially concerning non-tabletop adaptations.
  • Magic The Gathering has this every three months when a new set comes out, and also between when sets come out, and on days that end in "-day".

Toys
  • Transformers is another good example of the "fractured fanbase" variety, and Hasbro and whoever works with them tend to wind up in a bit of a balancing act. Everyone wants something different. The movie figures are too stylized, I hate these gimmicks, the new Animated figures look too cartoony, when are we gonna get realistic animal modes again it's been ten years, Trukk Not Munky, etc. Of course, when we do get die-cast toys, they can't hold their arms up, etc. And this is just the toys... Don't start people on either movie, any cartoon, the comics, or... anything, really... Some of us are laid-back about the whole thing, while others are... erm... not. To be fair, the fanbase knows this more than anyone, and are generally quick to voice what they like to drown out the chorus of hate when it doesn't need to be heard. Of course, Transformers fandom being Transformers fandom, they've actually managed to turn this very trope into a meme, known as "RUINED FOREVER!"

Video Games
  • Many MMORPGs.
    • Final Fantasy XI: See Square Enix section.
    • City Of Heroes: After the release of the standalone Expansion Pack City Of Villains, the developers spent a content update on it, only to have the City Of Heroes players complain about being neglected. The next content update focused on City Of Heroes, promptly leading the City Of Villains players to complain about being neglected. Subsequent updates have tried to bring equal focus on both halves of the game, which predictably resulted in both sides complaining that they were being neglected...
    • World Of Warcraft forums are full of people complaining about a class being too weak or too strong, especially after the latest efforts of Blizzard to balance things. And don't think more than two people will be able to appreciate added content. For the rest, it will either be repetitive or out of their focus.
      • That's not even getting into the massive arguments that Blizzard is "obviously" biased towards one of the two factions. Interestingly (but unsurprisingly) enough, the Alliance players think that Blizzard favors the Horde, and Horde players think Blizzard favors the Alliance.
      • And don't even get them started on the looks of the playable characters...but since you started us: the Tauren and Troll females, as well as the Blood Elf male, were all altered before the release of the game (or, in Blood Elf male's case, the Burning Crusade expansion). Apparently The Troll and Tauren females did not look attractive enough and the Blood Elf male looked too waifish. Of course, there are those who bemoan the changes and complain that the Troll and Tauren now look too human and not enough like their male counterparts, and that the Blood Elves, being drug magic addicts, are more realistic as thin. For the record, This Troper, though not bitter at all, would much rather her Troll priest looked like the original Troll female, or at least being allowed proper tusks.
      • This troper would settle for face paint for her trollies. And better hairstyles.
      • The next round has begun with the second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, going into the beta stage. The developers are changing their design towards more uniform classes sthat don't require as many different kinds of equipment and are viable in any situation, but of course everyone who plays one of the popular classes in raids or Pv P is up in arms about that.
      • Speaking of raids, the minority that raids the big stuff is outraged at the notion of having 10 man versions for every raid, even though Blizzard was quick to assure that the 25 man versions are still going to have better and more loot. And the tanks are upset about the idea of another tank class even though most servers have a severe lack of tanks...
      • One of the telltale signs of Unpleasable Fanbase are forum threads about someone threatening to quit the game... considering the game recently hit eleven million subscribers, the number of those that actually acted on that thread can't be that high.
    • You know an MMORPG is balanced when every character class is screaming that every other character class needs to be nerfed.
  • EVE Online is another serial offender for people complaining about changes. Every patch contains a 'nerf', even the patch touted by the developers as 'the boost patch' (though naturally, one man's boost is another man's nerf). Recently an even more extreme example occured during the graphical overhaul where all the ships were given updated models, the colour of which for the Gallente races ships was deemed 'offensive' by a significant portion of players and eventually caused enough uproar that the colour was changed shortly after.
  • JRPGs have turned into this. Either they complain that the games in a franchise or the genre as a whole are too similar, or they complain when someone tries to genuinely create innovation in the genre that it is not true to the "spirit" or they're not a real RPG. See Final Fantasy in the Square Enix section above.
  • Possibly the ultimate Unpleasable Fanbase might be fans of the Fallout series (and Black Isle Studios in general, to a lesser degree.) the exceedingly loud and vocal No Mutants Allowed forum inhabitants. These fans have become infamous throughout the game industry not only for their immense whininess, but for their tendency to whine about every little thing. It has been said that “All of the normal people are no longer a part of the 'Fallout Community,' they're just fans of the games. The people who are a part of the 'Fallout Community' have been refined and distilled over time into glittering gems of hatred. (In the interest of fairness, the Fallout series has had a very rough history.)
  • Much of the Mortal Kombat fandom is like this. An example: when Khameleon (the female, as opposed to the male Chameleon) wasn't a playable character in the X-Box and PlayStation 2 versions of Armageddon, fan demand eventually forced Midway to include her in the Wii version. Then those same fans argued that Khameleon looked and played ugly and generically. Further, when it was revealed no character bios were in Armageddon, fans petitioned to have them made...which about a third of them were, before being cancelled. The ones that were made, though, were more or less panned by those fans for being terribly written.
  • Sonic The Hedgehog fans are no exception to this trope. There seems to be no way to please them all, despite numerous attempts to do so after the series entered into the 3D era.
    • Repeatedly on this very wiki, actually. In fact, you're probably thinking of adding something to this bit right now about how the last good game was Sonic So-and-So. Please don't, someone'll just delete it again.
  • The particularly vocal elements of the Halo fanbase had such a violently negative reaction to the inclusion of bosses in Halo 2 that there were no boss-like enemies in Halo 3. Naturally, Halo fans then complained about the lack of a decisive confrontation with the Gravemind.
    • To be fair about the bosses and Gravemind thing, we did get a boss at the end of Halo 3. In the words of Zero Punctuation, it was like fighting a cross-eyed, wheelchair bound Hobbit and you were armed with a BFG 9000. We got that instead of Gravemind, this troper thinks they had a right to complain about that.
    • And don't even get started on the handling of the pistol over the course of the series.
  • Since There Is No Such Thing As Notability... Gaia Online. To an absurd level. In fact, it seems like some people think hating everything make you cool. Brilliantly parodied in this thread, which has become a sort of meme on the forums. Though, some people seem to like emulating the comic...
    • Mother of God, you have no idea. The Site Feedback (and the Gaia Community Discussion, to a lesser extent) forum is one pure, concentrated mass of Unpleasable Fanbase. As soon as an announcement is released, there are ten threads complaining about it's content, it's wording, it's images... the admins could give every Gaian a pie with a side salad of $20 bills, and people would be complaining about the flavor of pie, about how nationalist it is to give out American dollars... Ugh!
  • The Xenosaga trilogy falls under this. Players complained of "too much story" in the first game, as well as a few other things. Granted, there was a half-hour cutscene in the first few hours, but still... Cut to Episode II. For the most part, the creators listened to the US players (who had bought the highest percentage) about flaws in Episode I. This one game alone sparked the most controversy, from people complaining that "I can't get the battle system! I want something simpler!" despite it already being simple and less complicated than say, certain MM Os, to say, the change in the animation style (granted, those who played the games consecutively did have bit of a shock), hell, even the reduced story focused on the "other" main character. The players begged for the game to be like this. Cut to Episode III, the last due to the previous failure as well as certain issues in Namco. Again, they listened to the fans, and again they tried to fix the problems. Cue the weakest battle system, a return to the main character (and more plot, obviously), etc. and people still complained about this. Again, keep in mind that most of the decisions were made due to loud voice from the US market.
  • There's a good chance that Star Control II will never get an official sequel because of the intra-fanbase dissent about what could possibly improve on the predecessor. If one ever does get released, expect reactions similar to the ones the second Star Wars trilogy produced (i.e., the wait will have been too long for the product to meet the fans' expectations).
    • Well it DID get an official sequel... we just don't like to talk about.
  • The worst part about the Silent Hill fandom is that Konami and this American company making Silent Hill 5 are dealing with two vocal minorities of an unpleasible fanbase. One is outraged whenever pyramid head is in anything other than Silent Hill2, and the other is outraged that he isn't in more games.
  • Never go on the Rock Band forums and check out the DLC request/discussion section. People get very, very angry when certain songs/bands don't show up. Regardless of genre. Tool fans have been known to be very, very vocal, but many people get over-excited and often assume that the announcement of "something big" is Beatles and Led Zeppelin finally. It starts with one person saying "is it Beatles and Zeppelin?", and then people begin to think it is. Then they get ticked off when it isn't.
    • There's either too much metal or not enough. Then there's the definition of metal, the various types of metal, among other things.
    • Don't mention Rock Band Japan to the otakus in the crowd. You'll never hear the end of how it's being neglected for the main stuff.
    • The sheer numbers of unpleasable fans for Rock Band seem to grow with each DLC release. Some gems from 4th quarter of '08 include the lack of key Nirvana songs in their downloadable pack, the offering of songs from Nickelodeon TV programs, and the especially bile-tastic response to, *GASP* Country!
  • The Team Fortress 2 fanbase is the closest one can get to Fallout's in terms of bitching about everything. The official forum is constantly besieged by players deciding they know better than Valve how the game should be designed and what each class should receive as new weapons (which aren't supposed to be upgrades, just alternatives, anyway). This also includes suggesting new classes. Possibly a case of They Changed It Now It Sucks, except that it would suck more if any of those suggestions made it into the game.
    • General strategy for playing the Pyro class is not to brazenly charge into the middle of a fight, but instead to sneak around and ambush from the sidelines. When Valve released a new weapon for the Pyro that encouraged this strategy, it was decried by the fan base as overpowered.
      • Seriously, what the hell. The developer encouraged good strategy and the players had no idea.
      • The weapon originally gave the Pyro an extra 50 HP, which gave him more HP than a Soldier. Combine that with the most powerful weapon in the game and the fact that it's only good at close range. The result was every Pyro charging head-on into battle and surviving despite both being an ambush class and holding a weapon designed to encourage ambushing. This troper isn't usually one to complain, but this was too much even for him.
      • The stupidest post this troper has ever read concerning removing the 50 HP from the weapon went like this: "But what if the Pyro doesn't want to ambush? Is he forced to use the other weapon because of this?"
      • The weapon's only other advantage was 100% critical hits from behind. As such, many people who couldn't bear to see their tank taken away from them said that there would be no other reason to use the weapon on no-crit servers. Valve, of course, are not likely to have the Stop Having Fun Guys rules in mind instead of their own when designing weapons.
      • This Troper found the additional 50 HP made the Pyro a workable ambush character for the first time since it was now possible to get an ambush kill and get away alive. Taking the away the 50 HP made me cross. And now this entry is a perfect example of Unpleasable Fanbase and a good sample of the