Unpleasable Fanbase - Television Tropes & Idioms

Shipping. Full stop.

Close Meta Concepts

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 because "they're not "strong" enough" and accuse Kishimoto of being biased against women... while they act even worse.
- Pretty much anything involving Hinata: you'll have one side bashing her endless whenever she does anything, and another complaining that she isn't more important.
- And let's not get started on complaints concerning Naruto's portrayal and how main characters have to be awesome and effortlessly better than everyone else.
  - And then when one arc really gives him time to shine everyone complains about everyone else being "useless".
- 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, generally assuming any secondary character with only a vaguely established personality would automatically make for a more interesting story than one about a well-established one that has opportunities for Character Development (ignoring any problems that story might have with its execution, or what it could even be about). Really, way too 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.
- Chapter 449 is a primary showcase: People complained about Kakashi, Fukasaku, and even Shizune dying but when they end up coming Back From The Dead, people were still upset that the characters couldn't "evolve" from these characters' deaths.
- Almost any time the Sharingan is used in a battle you'll have people complaining about it being overpowered and it being continually useless.
Neon Genesis Evangelion: fans were pissed with the TV ending, then they were upset over the film's redone ending (your mileage varying on whether or not Director Anno was screwing with the fans doesn't help). They were upset that there is no merchandise for Evangelion then they're pissed when there is. They don't like how dark and depressing the series is, then scream about the levity of the commentary (which had to be done otherwise the people behind it would have slit their wrists). Some fans treat the show as serious business, turned up all the way to eleven.
Anime Dubbing and translation in general. Especially the debates surrounding which dubs are Woolseyism, Macekred, or a Pragmatic Adaptation.
- For one good example, a thread discussing the announcement trailer for the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann dub devolved into this before any actual dubbing had taken place. No actual voice acting was featured in the trailer (being a humorous overview of the series with fast-talking narrator), so the commentators immediately started criticizing the announcer, and theorizing that the dub was so bad they didn't want to show any of it. A second trailer was eventually made with Simon and Kamina.
  - On at related note, there are a ridiculous number of people condemning the dub based entirely on Kamina's voice.
- 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.
  - There are even those who have been excessively overcritical on the voice actors involved in the Ghibli dubs, claiming that they have "utterly destroyed" the characters and the movies they're in just because they're celebrity stars. Even when the trailer for the newest movie, Ponyo, was released, there were people already planning to hate it simply because it casts two icon child stars as the child protagonists.
- 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".
  - To be fair, for this Irish troper, Lockon's generic American accent is something of a disappointment.
  - In the case of Gundam 00, director Seiji Mizushima actually called the audience out as an Unpleasable Fanbase in one interview, saying (paraphrased): "The people on the Internet who complain about the show were going to hate it no matter what I did, so I don't really care about their opinions."
- One Piece dubs. Understandable when 4Kids was at the wheel, but Funimation was decidedly "not good enough" by a majority of fans. 4Kids haters say their voices were too silly and didn't describe the characters at all, meanwhile, Funimation haters say their voices are bland, too serious, and generic. Note, most 4Kids haters moved on to be Funimation haters as well.
The Death Note Fandom. Definitely. It was better when L was alive, it was better when L died, Mello and Near were good characters, Mello and Near were dislikable characters. The series should have ended when L's life did. The Movies sucked, the movies ruled, Misa's voice is annoying, Misa's voice sounds less whiny in the dub. The dub made Light sound like a pompous ass by describing himself eating a potato chip in a scene that was there in the manga...The manga was better, the anime was better, the movies are better, the movie is fanfiction, the actors don't fit, Ryuuk looks unnecessary, Ryuuk is there too much, Ryuuk isn't there enough. They spend too much time one-upping each other, they don't spend enough time one-upping each other, Higuchi was there for no good reason...practically the only thing you can get them to agree on is that they like Death Note.
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."
- There's also a sub-U.P. about a dub's fidelity. Since Japanese is a highly nuanced and poetic language, a high-fidelity dub will sound a lot like Purple Prose in English, and fans will still rip into you for missing a lot of the "subtleties" of the Japanese version. Go the other way, making it idiomatic English, and you get torn apart for not being as close to the original Japanese as possible. Heaven help you if you try to split the difference.
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 (where the only difference between the three sisters were their breast sizes), rather than her new personality as Rossiu's most loyal supporter and the only person who truly understands him.
- To be perfectly honest, Rossiu is The Scrappy, and Simon dropped a few notches in many fans' books when he decided to keep Rossiu from killing himself. It's more the fact that she's the number-one fan and supporter of The Scrappy than the fact that she got character development.
- And speaking of Rossiu, that sentence should be a good indicator of how utterly unforgiving the fanbase has been to him. Even though he was doing what he *truly* thought was right (albeit not in the most constructive manner), eventually realized he was wrong, entirely regretted it, nearly killed himself over it, and got The Return Of The Kaminaslap fans still think of him as a complete bastard who did everything for the hell of it. They seriously think Simon should have let him kill himself.
The anime community has become this about free streaming videos. Basically companies like Toei, and Funimation allow you to watch entire episodes for free on the internet and then people complain about how they don't allow free downloadable anime (in other words legalize fansubs), or the selection isn't gigantic (only 10+ episodes of Gintama and not the entire series). This is somewhat justified when those complaining do not live in North America, as the streams are region-locked and thus a stream only open to one region may as well not exist to those outside of that region. The people from America who bitch about how the companies should release high quality free downloadable episodes? Not so much.
- Okay. First off, the fact that only a few episodes are offered at a time creates huge Continuity Lockout, requiring someone to just watch the damn thing fansubbed anyways. Second off, the subs (at least on Crunchyroll) are usually very bad ly done and the video is often nigh-unwatchable. Third off, some of us would rather watch anime on our TVs instead of on our computers, so we want downloadable episodes.
Pokemon gets this a lot. So much that even people unfamiliar with the show hate it already and apparently always have. When the new seasons offered to introduce new characters, people kept complaining that their favorite characters were done, despite the fact that one of the biggest complaints was that it didn't have more themes from the game in the first place. Oddly enough, the more recent movies (according to the IM Db) are actually getting better scores.
- It even at times gets to the point where they complain about so much that you sometimes have to wonder if they're actually being serious. Some examples include: "This show sucks! The floors are too shiny!" Or the ever popular, "I hate the name Dialga! Diaruga was SOOO much better!."
Sometimes it seems like certain people in the Bleach fandom complain every single time any character wins or loses.
- Then there is the fan treatment of certain characters. While the hatred towards Momo Hinamori has cooled slightly since her last appearance, poor Orihime Inoue is bashed at every corner. Take, for example, her recent nervous breakdown and the amount of people bashing her for it, despite the fact that the poor girl had been through an entire arc of Break The Cutie topped off by coming to help Ichigo only to find Ulquiorra waiting for her to arrive so that he could blast a freaking hole through his chest right before her eyes. Add that to the fact that even while she was screaming she managed to get Ichigo's body down without any more damage, as well as how she didn't start crying until after she'd started healing him while Ulquiorra taunted her, ADD how she was willing to reverse Ishida's loss of a hand until Ishida himself asked her to focus on Ichigo instead, and you'll be left shaking your head incredulously too.
Digimon can also be considered notorious for this, especially considering the bashing Frontier (season 4) and Savers (season 5) get. The most common complaints are that it's retarded for the humans to become digimon, the main character of Savers doesn't wear goggles, and/or that those two seasons are just different.
Many Fullmetal Alchemist fans were highly critical of the original anime because it diverges so widely from the plot of the manga. So Bones decides to create a second series, a remake which faithfully retells the manga story from beginning to end. Now fans are complaining that it's TOO MUCH like the manga.
- Actually, most of us are complaining that it's going at way too fast of a pace and doing a poor job of adapting awesome scenes from the manga. Even then, it's gotten better.

Close Anime and Manga

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".
- A recent mini-series, Legion of Three Worlds is trying to fix this by establishing that all three Legions are canonical.
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.
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.
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. It doesn't help that about half the time you have to wonder who is Running The Asylum...
- 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.
- Many pro-marriage Spider-Man fans now even argue the time has come to depend entirely on Bendis' Ultimate Spider Man title, and to regard Spider Girl as the "true" continuity. Inevitably, people raised in the 1990s will also take over the company and might ensure that everything since early 1999 didn't happen (No Mackie, no OOC separation, no Spider-Totem, no OMD, no BND etc), dooming Spider-Man to an inevitable "Legion"-esque chronological tug-o-war between fans of each distinct era with each passing of the editorial torch.
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.
- 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.
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.
- Many fans fail to realize (many because they came in late to the fandom) was that the death almost didn't happen. Yes, fan vote took him from the comic pages (...physically, he haunted in spirit, then came back) but the vote was no where near what many think was a landslide. The final verdict came down to less then one hundred votes.
Strangely Averted by the Ghost Rider fandom. It has ALL the ingredients to produce an unreleasable fanbase. Most obvious being excessive retcons. Wait it wasn't the devil he dealt with...cool. Blaze wasn't the real Ghost Rider, the last ten years were a lie, it was supposed to be Ketch...alright no really Blaze was the real Ghost Rider, the last 20 years of Ketch were the lie...that fine, it means we won't have to explain anything to the new fans who only watched the movie. There are Fan Dumb, but few in comparison to the above comics.

Close Comic Books

Star Wars fans have taken Hype Backlash to a ridiculous level by hating on the man who made the franchise in the first place, George Lucas.
- Just because he created the franchise doesn't make him infallible.
Looking through the Bond entries, most of them are all declared "hated by Bond fans." Except Casino Royale, for some reason.
- If by "Bond fans" you mean fans of the novels, it's because Daniel Craig's Bond is regarded as being much nearer in character to the books' Bond than any other movie portrayals.
- Of the complaints leveled against Casino Royale was that it had too much talking. Quantum Of Solace significantly upped the action quotient, 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. One commenter split the difference by calling it an "unrealistic [and] silly" movie that thinks it's serious. Considering that a similar incident actually happened...
This happens with a lot of film adaptations of popular (and not-so-popular) works. For example, the Narnia films and many adaptations of comics.
Critics are split half and half on the film adaptation of Watchmen. Some praise the film for staying faithful to the comic, breaking the cycle of bad adaptations based on Alan Moore's works. On the other hand, others criticize it for being too faithful to the source material, and that director Zack Snyder didn't do enough to insert his own interpretations and creative vision into the film.
- Some of these critics also seem to have symptoms of the dreaded Lickspittle. Moore's preemptive loathing of adaptations of his works has birthed a sizable hive of loyal fans who hate the new movie because of Word of God. The few small changes are cause of much grief to these people.
- And the fact that co-creator Dave Gibbons wholeheartedly supported the movies(and even drew storyboards for it) is wholly lost on most of this bunch. They just pretend he doesn't exist.
The new Star Trek movie. You know, the one the old school fans called a whole assortment of nasty names and pretty much disowned from the series? Before it was even out no less (though, admittedly, based in a skepticism borne from the poor quality of other recent iterations of the franchise). Well, it turned out that the new film contains everything they had been bitching had been lacking from Star Trek for a loooong time. And still some complained, proving once again you just can't win with some people. This said, the supposed complaints of the fan-base have been greatly exaggerated.
- This video by The Onion perfectly spoofs said mentality.
- There's also a subcomplaint about the portrayal of Orion women, the original Green Skinned Space Babe. Some people were upset about all Orion women being slave girls who were in great demand as "consorts" and dancers. Enterprise attempted to retcon this by saying that the women were really in charge and using their pheromones to seduce men. People complained that it was making women out to be manipulative harpies who you just couldn't trust. The new film introduces Gaila, an independent Orion enrolled in Starfleet Academy(confirmed by Word Of God to have made her way out of the system by means of an underground railroad) who still likes having lots of sex. Matter settled with honor to both sides, right? People complained about a line by Kirk; "How many men have you slept with?" Including a crowd scene, Gaila appears in the movie for less than ten minutes.
  - And remember sex is the Orions’ hat
The Terminator fanbase. The recently-released Terminator Salvation was more action-heavy than its predecessors (and had no time travel), and explained some things which were hinted at during the first two films (i.e. how John Connor received his battle scar). The release of the film has caused a Broken Base, and many fans have decried Salvation for being either too action-packed, boring, not having enough Arnie, or not having enough time travel.
- With the current status of T3 it looks like Salvation is either a Contested Sequel, a continuation of Ruined Forever, or some strange combination of the two. Of course Christian Bale's outburst may have had something to do with fans being even more upset.
  - Maybe, but there were also people who were pissed that the action took place in the day light instead of night time. And then there was also the fact it was directed by Mc G, and had a PG-13 rating.
Kevin Smith seems to find the unpleasable portion of his fanbase higly amusing. "Long live me, internet guy!"

Close Film

Harry Potter may be the largest existing fanbase in the world. So naturally, there are numerous examples of this trope in play, including:
- The fandom exploding 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. With another group who hated that she puts "fags" in children's books.
- 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 universal acclaim...except for the folks upset that it appeared to be a ploy to get more money out of them.
- There was no way JK Rowling could end the series so that everyone would be happy, so "fans" continue to whine endlessly about how she screwed it all up. Particularly unpleasable are Slytherfen, Snape fangirls, and bitter shippers. Here are the most mindboggling examples.
The Wheel Of Time: Pick a Wheel character, any character. Got your character? Good. Anywhere from 30 to 90 percent of the vocal fans hate that character.
- It's the same with A Song Of Ice And Fire, except for Darkstar. Everyone hates Darkstar
Terry Pratchett lampshaded this in an interview with the following quote:
- "Of course I listen to my readers! So the next book will be: Set in Ankh-Morpork/not set in Ankh-Morpork. With lots of the good old characters/with a whole cast of new characters. Written like the old books, which were better/written like the later books, which were better. With lots of character development/none of that dull character development stuff, which gets in the way of the jokes. Short/long. You want fries with that?"
The Warrior Cats fandom... just... the Warrior Cats fandom. They complained about the crappiness of The New Prophecy, but then it suddenly became almost as good as their precious Original Series when they started to hate on Power of Three. They reach another level of annoyingness when every time a new book comes out, people begin praising it, and saying they finally "brought Warriors back", and then about a week later, they start insulting the very same book that they said was awesome. Yeah. Their complaints constantly reach Wall Banger levels.
- And of course, how they keep whining about all the forbidden loves. Admittedly, this plot device does have more of an impact the first time around than the seventh, but they think if it's forbidden, it instantly sucks, or is "overused". Pretty much the entire fandom acts like this, and threatens to stop reading the books if there is another forbidden romance. No matter how well written, or how great the pairing is. This even includes people who ship other forbidden pairings. Ironically, depending on what you would consider a forbidden love, their precious first series actually has more forbidden love than the second and third series combined.
- Of course, thanks to the evil of Nostalgia Filter, everyone loves the first series, so no one places it under the same level of scrutiny as the other books. So, of course, no one notices that Into the Wild and Fire and Ice were sloppily written compared to the later books, or that every single one of the things that they said made Power of Three "suck" also applies to Rising Storm. And of course, any plot device used in the first series is "an interesting, compelling twist", but if something similar happens in the later books it's "complete garbage", and anything irrelevant to the plot in the first series is "an interesting sub-plot", but anything irrelevant to the plot later on is "boring filler".
  - What's this about "no one" placing it under scrutiny?
  - To be more specific, if anything new comes up, They Changed It Now It Sucks, but if anything is similar to the first series, Its The Same Now It Sucks. The authors just can't win.
- About ninety percent of the fandom seems to hate the influx of outsiders into ThunderClan, somehow not realizing how racist this is.
  - They actually have forum banners that say "No more kittypets, no more outsiders. I support WARRIOR BLOOD." This isn't so much Completely Missing The Point as it is flipping the point inside out, twisting it into a pretzel shape, and beating it with a stick.
  - The most frustrating example of their flagrant racism is their reaction to Purdy in Sunrise: Everybody loves Purdy, but they all got pissed off when Brambleclaw invited him to join ThunderClan. Apparently because being able to see your favourite comic relief character on a regular basis is absolutely terrible if it means ThunderClan is accepting another refugee.
  - Not everyone agrees that this is racism.
- And of course, let's not forget how they hate Onestar for hating Firestar for the exact same reasons that they hate Firestar. Seriously.
  - On the subject of Mary Sues and perfect characters, every main character ever except for Jayfeather and Crowfeather has been accused of lacking flaws. When asked to explain why they dislike a character, however, the fan proceeds to list those very same flaws.
  - For that matter, their main argument as to why Firestar is a Gary Stu is exactly what the author identifies as his major character flaw.
  - Oh, and by the way, if you like Firestar, you are either an idiot or a n00b. Or both. Same goes for any other main char—actually, wait, scratch that. Same goes for any cat in ThunderClan.
  - Millie seems to get labeled a 'Sue by almost everyone: the kittypet-haters, the Silverstream fans, and those who hate Graystripe in general. It's gotten to the point where This Tropette has seen a ShadowClan fanshrine, where, in the middle of one article, the author goes off on a tirade about how sucky Millie is, and how stupid Firestar was to accept her. It's also common to hear fans complaining about the fact that she had kits. (See below, on overpopulation.) Despite the fact that no one cares about Whitewing... If only fans would remember that Millie is a MINOR CHARACTER and the Silverstream was, arguably, more perfect...
  - The fact that she had one litter also gets her grouped together with Ferncloud and Daisy, even though they both have had more kits than her, and haven't been outside the nursery. Daisy is also another character who gets a lot of hatred because of this. Apparently, if she doesn't hunt or fight or contribute to the Clan, she isn't worthy of living (seriously, if a Warriors fan's ideas regarding government in the series were applied to the real world, life would really suck). They of course, also ignore anything the author says about the importance of her mothering skills or how she cares for all of the kits in the Clan. Both Daisy and Millie also get bashed for not accepting warrior names, once again ignoring the authors' insistence that doing so doesn't make them useless heathens. For that matter, Brook doesn't get any hatred for not having a warrior name, even though she gets lumped together with Daisy and Millie when the issue first comes up.
- They also complained about the lack of death in Power of Three (even though there were only two or three opportunities for the author to kill off any characters), but then when the author finally killed Honeyfern, some complained that it was "overdone" and "pointless" (even though the majority claimed to have cried during that scene), or just whined about her dying in general. They also complain about how predictable the series has become. This is mostly their own fault, because with all of them scrutinizing the books, posting their findings on the internet, and discussing them, it would be pretty hard not to find all the clues the author leaves us (some people have acknowledged that if they hadn't read about it on the internet, they probably wouldn't have guessed that Leafpool and Crowfeather were the Three's real parents any earlier than the end of Long Shadows). Even though they complain about the predictability, they did not say a single thing about how few people correctly guessed who murdered Ashfur, or how no one guessed that Hollyleaf was a red herring.
- They complained because the first three books of Power of Three had mostly independent plotlines and didn't have very much of an overarching storyline. Then they complained about the last three books because each book lead directly into the next and didn't have their own independent plots and followed the overarching plot that leads into the fourth series. Translation: They hate some books for having what other books they hate lack, and vice versa.
- The more recent books have mostly avoided meeting the fan's complaints about fewer battles, less death, and too much forbidden love, leaving them almost nothing concrete to complain about. From the looks of it, their only complaints about Sunrise were the lack of closure (they of all people should know that the fourth series is a six book continuation of the third series), and the fact that the climax didn't start until the end of the book (no, really)
- Some fans who have run out of things to whine about have even gone so far as to say that the authors have ruined the series by giving the series a more complicated plot, and making the more recent books more dark and depressing. Is it just me, or are these not bad things?
- Another popular complaint is that ThunderClan is overpopulated.
  - Vicky can say that the other Clans have just as many cats as ThunderClan, and that they just aren't listed in the Allegiances, until she's blue in the face; fans just won't get it (or they'll twist her words around so they can say something negative about the series or insult her, or just say she was lying to make herself look good). They also accuse ThunderClan of being perfect. As in the Clan that is constantly facing pressure from WindClan, was invaded in Eclipse and on the verge of losing the resulting battle, and in Sunrise, was facing the threat of a potential three-Clan alliance against them. Yes, that ThunderClan. Apparantly the fact that their leader has a sense of morals makes all of this, as well as the flawed characters within the Clan, a moot point, meaning they are all Mary Sues.
- Oh, and here's one of my favorites: Fans are now complaining that the Erins are giving in to fan requests too often. It sounds ironic at first, until you remember that most fans don't agree on what they should add/change.
- Also the way any storyline featuring a non-fighting oriented conflict and characters who don't have the emotional range of a teaspoon is instantly branded as a "soap opera", and therefore instantly sucks.
- The lesson behind this wall of text is: There are two kinds of people who read Warriors: People who like Warriors, and Warriors fans. If you happen to be the former, stay the hell away from any of the latter for the sake of your health.

Close Literature

If you're hoping to be one of the writers/producers of 24, know this...you will NEVER please the whole fandom. Don't try because no matter what plotline or character, somebody will complain, loudly. Seriously, Jack Bauer has a better chance of stopping an invading horde of vampires in 24 hours with nothing more than a toothbrush.
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.
  - Hopefully the newly-cast Matt Smith has been advised to stay well away from that site. Or has a very secure ego.
  - David Tennant has mentioned having gone, just once, after his casting was announced, and never returning.
- Rose vs. Martha, and to a lesser extent Rose vs. Romana. Just mentioning any of them is enough to cause Internet Backdraft in some areas of fandom.
- Some of this turns up every time a new Doctor is announced- the latest being "Too young"; no doubt, if Patrick Stewart had been picked (not that I'm aware of the possibility, just an example), they'd've said he was too old...
Absolutely anything to do with the last two seasons of Stargate SG 1. For that matter, the splits started around the time of THE Jonas Quinn, were not as...vocal, shall we say...as they became 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. Elizabeth vs. Woolsey as leader" and "Carson vs. Keller as chief medical officer."
The fanbase of the American Big Brother is extremely unpleasable, especially the fanbases of individual players in the show. "They should go back to basics, "The basics are boring after awhile, let's spice it up with some TWISTS!!", "You should be able to play the game from start to finish," "You should NOT be a huge threat" and a big one... "You should be able to win Head of Household twice in a row!". You can bet the people who want this wouldn't be saying that when a player they really dislike chain-wins Head of household all the way to the finals
- The recent season has a lot of unpleasability. Jessie should be around...now JEFF should be around! The coup d'état made the game...no the coup d'état BROKE the game because Jessie was evicted! Jordan was riding coattails, no NATALIE was riding coattails, Kevin should have won, no, NATALIE should have won, no, JEFF should have won! Every season something like this happens.
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.
- This Onion News Network video pretty accurately reflects the attitudes of longtime Trek fans towards the new movie. It's worth noting that these same fans were complaining about the series being cancelled with Enterprise.
Battlestar Galactica has this in spades with two distinct fandoms (TOaSters and GINOs), a massive amount of (competing) shipping in the new series, and very vocal elements regarding the finale and what it means to the rest of the 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.
- Lampshaded in a Take That episode in the very first season, when one of the other survivors— a schoolteacher— berated the main cast by pointing out that they weren't the only survivors here, darn it, so why was everything revolving around THEM? Said character got blown up by a stick of decomposing dynamite within the next thirty minutes—- in mid-lecture, no less.
- Arguable whether this is an Unpleasable Fanbase, or the writers just misunderstanding what the fanbase was actually asking for. As someone who had this complaint, the issue wasn't that we wanted more characters who happened to have more minor roles— it was that we had been seeing all these existing people in the background, with nothing said about them. Adding two additional minor characters who had never been seen even in passing in a group of only 40-ish people was actually rather jarring, and not at all a response to what we were really complaining about.
On Supernatural, 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. This extends to real life.
- 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.
  - This was recently acknowledged in an episode dealing with a prophet of God who wrote a series of novels entitled "Supernatural", which detailed the boys' adventures. While reading fan comments about the books online, Sam says "Boy, these people sure complain a lot." And people complained about that, saying that Eric Kripke is "having too much fun playing." Ladies and gentlemen, we have a Most Triumphant Example.
- It's also been noticed that they complain about any women on the show, then complain there aren't enough women on the show.
- Half of the female population of the fanbase (most of it), complains about misogyny when Dean—who is openly a dick—calls a female demon a "bitch". The other half of the fanbase calls her a bitch. There's probably some overlap. You see the problem here.
  - One excellent example of this schizophrenia was the reaction post on the LF community for "Abandon All Hope". Jo decides go out in a Heroic Sacrifice, and the fans complain they were just starting to like her. Fair enough. Then Ellen decides to join her, and they start complaining about how the show treats female characters. Fair enough. Then Castiel gets one over on the demon Meg. "KILL HER!"
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.
- This even happens in the professional media. An Entertainment Weekly cover story accused the show of both not having enough new powers and having too many, and when Elle was killed off shortly after TV Guide decried the show's reluctance to kill characters off, their response was basically "We didn't mean her!"
Saturday Night Live was better three years ago. Saturday Night Live has always been better three years ago.
- Lampshaded in an interview with one of the original writers, who pointed out that people have ALWAYS complained that the show used to be better. "I think it started with episode two of our first season."
Fans of America's Next Top Model always complain when a talented, quiet, high-fashion contestant loses over a more commercial, outgoing girl that made for better television. So, what happens every time the quiet, high-fashion girl actually does take home the prize? They all complain that she was too boring and high-fashion and the commercial, outgoing girl should have won instead because she made for better television. Then again, Top Model fandom has always been more of a Hatedom anyway.
Power Rangers fans. It's most visible when it comes to originality: If a Power Rangers series does not resemble its Super Sentai counterpart, they've "ruined" it... but if it does, the complaints of lack of originality are just as loud (see Power Rangers Mystic Force.)
Babylon Five's creator was annoyed that people complained about aliens acting too human and about aliens acting too different.
Almost any Reality Competition that doesn't revolve around trapping a bunch of strangers together and watching them play person politics to win has unpleasable fanbases, divided over what makes the show good:
- The Amazing Race:Do the fans want to see the teams scrambling for public transportation, or do they think that's boring? Do they want more remote locations or do they want more beautiful locations? Should the tasks be fun to watch or difficult? (And if difficult, should they be physically demanding or mentally demanding?) Is using the Yield and the U-Turn just part of the game, or playing dirty? And so on...
- Top Chef runs into the same thing: Do you want to know more about the contestants as people or do you just to see more cooking? Are the challenges too gimmicky? Should they be given bigger budgets, more time, fewer twists or the reverse? Which should be grounds for elimination: serving a poor dish, or following the letter but not the spirit of the challenge? Do the judges really judge solely on the chefs' performance that day, or do they take past performances into account? Should they cut a chef some slack for a poor dish if that chef has made other, really good dishes in the past?
This IMDB post points out the endless problems that would arrive if the much-wanted Classic Nickelodeon network was to come into existance. They're mostly due to this.

Close Live Action TV

Ricky Martin. When he sang in English, the Latino fangirls thought he sucked and watered down his material. Now that he sings in Spanish again, the Anglo fangirls from the late 90s disavow his existence and the American music press call him a joke, but his Latin career has never been better and he remains fairly popular in Latin America. (Compare his Spanish material to the lower-quality English C Ds, and it becomes clear he brought it on himself, though.)
Linkin Park. When they released their sophomore album Meteora, some decried it for being Hybrid Theory, Pt. 2. When their third album Minutes to Midnight dropped, others complained about the departure from rapcore/nu metal present on their previous albums.
HIM frontman Ville Valo once lampshaded this during an interview with metal hammer regarding the album Dark Light "It's pretty much going to be like Cradle Of Filth, but without the heavy guitar riffs, or the thundering drum and bass lines, or the leather, or the Goth imagery, or the eroticism, or the strippers, but essentially it's going to be like Cradle Of Filth, and I'm thinking of changing the name from HIM to The Fluffers, what do you think?"
Black Metal - sometimes it seems as if every album that wasn't recorded in a garbage can on a 4-track while the band were too drunk to stand and on the lam from burning a church will -always- such in the eyes of the tru and the cvlt of the black metal fanbase.
- Fortunately, most of the black metal fans over 16 years of age think the kvlt-kiddies are an utter joke. Still, even a reasonable black metaller tends to dislike super clean production on black metal albums, mostly because a rough and raw sound adds a certain dark texture that was integral to classic black metal.
Metallica. This trope could easily be called Metallica's New Album Sucks.

Close Music

Zero Punctuation by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw is a series of video reviews which always Accentuate The Negative, with a few exceptions in the 100+ videos so far. 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.
- Amazingly there was fairly little backlash when he gave a largely positive review of inFAMOUS.
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. (Granted, YGOTAS often goes months between updates.)
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.
With complaints of "He's being too horrible", "He's being too nice", "He's being too sane" or just the usual He Panned It Now He Sucks, The Nostalgia Critic's fandom has a reputation for being this. But hey, what do you expect from a group of people that sent him death threats for leaving out Optimus Prime's death in the Top 11 Saddest Moments review or poking fun at Mako in his TMNT review?
Neo Pets:
- The unpleasability seemed to start with the Lost Desert comic of 2005. It had a stupid ending where two characters who had never met declared their undying love for each other at their first meeting, and the jackass who had spent the entire plot terrorizing the kingdom got a happy ending. Other problems included a completely anticlimactic resolution and the completely predictable "revelation" that our heroine was a princess. OK, one bad plot - big deal, right?... yes, big deal. Such a big deal, in fact, that TNT ("The Neopets Team," I.E. the site staff) apparently got huge numbers of flaming e-mails. With this incident, constant biting criticism of TNT became fashionable and it still hasn't stopped.
  - To be fair, the huge negativity did create a small backlash of equally rabid TNT-worshippers. It's mainly only visible in the editorials these days, however - the trend of typing "*gives cookies*" or the like when sending in a question, which so confuses TNT themselves, began right about this time and continues to this day.
- When Viacom bought neopets in 2005, the users panicked, assumed TNT had been fired and replaced, and started to blame Viacom for everything wrong with the site. But judging by the changes made, it appears that TNT still has nearly full control over the site's content - it seems the only Viacom-related change was the addition of more revenue-producing features.
  - One of those revenue-producing features is the NC mall, where you use real money to buy clothes and items for your pets. The feature's optional, and the items are strictly for show, so it doesn't affect the neopian economy in any way. Which didn't stop claims that neo was Ruined Forever and loud accusations that they had "sold out". Because wanting profit makes you a sicko.
- The redraws. OH LORD THE REDRAWS. In 2007, all the pets were redesigned to standardize their poses and body types. This was so the pets could wear clothes and accessories - if they hadn't gotten the pets into uniform poses, the artists would have had to redraw every single clothing item forty-some times to fit all the different species. The fans had been begging for eight years for clothing items to be wearable; when the feature was finally introduced in the only possible way, they balked. Angry letters were sent, a mass number of people left, and the site's population never recovered.
- Then there are all the claims of "unfair freezing" (Freezing = the on-site term for banning). While there are legitimate cases, they are usually quickly rectified; eighty percent of the time, the person claiming they were punished unjustly is either lying, did not know the rules well enough to realize they broke them, or had their account inactivated when their security was compromised and assumed the worst.
  - One such claim once led to a full-scale riot on the neopets chat boards; hundreds of people got in on the act just for the lulz, posting thousands of obscene and threatening messages. The flow was far too fast for the relatively small moderating staff, and so the boards were locked completely for a day or two in order to allow all the necessary warnings and bans to be dealt.

Close New Media

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.
- Considering that CM Punk was buried while holding the World Heavyweight Championship and that he wasn't even in the match where he lost the title, smart marks had a good reason to "bitch" about CM Punk looking weak.
WWE fans often accuse anyone who doesn't like the WWE product of being an Unpleasable Fanbase.
The Internet Wrestling Community (IWC) definitely qualifies.

Close Professional Wrestling

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." 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.
Speaking of Dungeons And Dragons, the D&D Miniatures line follows a set pattern with every releawse: After the first previes, each set is "the best set ever." Right around release time, it becomes "the WORST set ever," regardless of what is actually in it. Every aspect, from sculpting, to paint jobs, to figure selection will be absolutely hated by the same people who buy twn or twenty factory-sealed cases (This includes people who only play older editions, and thus would not use the figures in RPG). However, as soon as another set is released, that previous set suddenly becomes "The best set ever" once more.
- 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.
  - Book of Nine Swords is better known as the Book of Weeaboo Fightan Magic on 4chan's /tg/. Arguments over it and 4e were largely started because impotent neckbeard rage is an entertaining thing to behold.
- Before 4th Edition, the most common complaint was that the different classes were too unbalanced in terms of power levels (with the Cleric and Druid ranking at the top). Then Fourth Edition comes out... and many of those same people cry that the classes are too evenly matched and similar to each other.Wizards just can't win, it seems.
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.
- Anytime a new codex is introduced, fans instantly pounce with the rage of the entire Warp. Necrons? The ultimate Wesley. Tau? Animu wannabes. Daemons? TOO MUCH CHEDDER! Of all the new codices, the Chaos Space Marine codex caught the greatest amount of flak for their omission of lesser Daemons and units dedicated to each of the Chaos gods. The fans complained so much that Games Workshop is actually rumored to be releasing individual Chaos God codices. Or maybe they planned it this way all along...
- Oh ho-ho! It's worse than that, at least for the Dark Eldar. According to every Core Rulebook for W H40k, the codices overrule the Core Rulebook - even when they're outdated, as long as they are the most up-to-date codex. One of the endearing points of the Dark Eldar are their weird rules which stem from being very outdated. When the Dark Eldar finally get an update, you can rest assured that the fans will start complaining within 15 minutes that the race has lost everything interesting and unique.
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". It has been said that Wizards of the Coast could put $100 bills in the booster packs, and there'd be threads in the message boards that they were folded wrong.
Warhammer Fantasy Role Play has this in spades. For many fans, the pinacle of RP Gs is the Enemy Within Campaign, so any change or addition is blasphemy. Particularly when it's done by Games Workshop.

Close Tabletop Games

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!" We are not the only wiki to 'borrow' it.
- One user on a Transformers forum leveled complaints about the Transformers in the movie not looking enough like their G1 counterparts. Then, when Animated was coming out, the same fan was complaining that the theme song was too similar to the G1 cartoon, even when it was clear that referencing the old 'toon was half the point of Animated.
American Girl. Oh, American Girl. When Mattel purchased Pleasant Company in 1998 (and wholly took over production by 2000), many of the older fans insisted that anything that Mattel created was awful and shoddy and not sized right for the chubbier older dolls. (Which it's not, but still...) Some "reviewers" will insist things are made of plastic even when it's clear they aren't. Yet a majority of collectors keep buying the newer things—all the while complaining that the stuff is nowhere as good as PC stuff.

Close Toys

Just about every Fan Dumb in video game history is unpleasable. Good GOD are they all whiney. They whine about the prices of games, the complexity, how they want new stuff in general then whine that They Changed It So It Sucks and it's gimmicky, whine they don't listen to the fans, whine they are catering to the fans when they listen to them, whine when they don't change something, whine about prices....as long as the gaming communities exist, there'll be even more screaming and crying than the entire maternity wards in the country of Canada.
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...
  - Anything, and I mean anything, the devs work on will be complained about as focusing on the "wrong" aspect of the game. Bugfixes are criticized for not being new content, new content are criticized for not being bugfixes. Both are criticized for not sufficiently advertising the game, and when an advertisement is released, it is criticized for being neither a bugfix nor new content.
  - This is tragic given that the developers of City of Heroes are about the best developers of any MMO ever when it comes to interacting with and listening to the fanbase, including implementing many suggested features and giving lots of feedback as to what's coming. The game punches hugely above its weight in terms of novel MMO features, originating sidekicking, complex custom costumes and leveling pacts. Some people just love to whine.
  - The Issue 14 update introduces Mission Architect, which allows players to design and post their own story arcs, with any enemy group that has ever appeared in the game, or entire factions of player designed enemies. These missions, once posted, provide experience, influence/infamy (the games currency), and a ticket reward system that allows them to purchase almost any reward or enhancement in the game. The forums have exploded into flames and chaos over how it is the worst thing ever, the Dev's are showing clear favoritism in selecting missions for the Dev's Choice gallery, and people wanting the Dev's choice badge shouldn't have to learn to 'write better', because that's not fair.
  - The official forums were recently upgraded, after years of incessant complaining about the matter. Four posts (or twelve, if one is charitable) into the official feedback thread? "The old forums were better, change it back."
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 occurred 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.
Kingdomof Loathing has this with its speed-running players, who look at the game in terms of 'optimal' content (in other words, things which allow them to play faster) and 'non-optimal' content (in other words, things which don't allow them to play faster). While not a statisically common percentage of the game's players, the game's forums are regularly dotted with suggestions to improve the "speed game", mainly by streamlining things. Jick has commented at least once that most speedrunner's suggestions are requested in order to justify their time / money spent on speed-running in the first place.
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.
- In general, JRPG franchises that are rather large (Not just Square-Enix) are subject to this. This has manifested even in the Shin Megami Tensei fandom. You have the "The newer Megaten games suck, let's go count down the days to the Enhanced Remake of Persona 1 or play Megaten online" crowd, as well as the "The older Megaten games are just too tedious and slow, let's go play souless army or Persona"-crowd, along with the "Persona 3 and 4 suck. They're too much like a Dating Sim, because I wanna spend hours talking with demons rather than classmates"-crowds, the "They should localize the NES-and-SNES megaten" crowds, as well as the "Localizion will result in them being Ruined FOREVER"-crowds. Then the flame wars in between each crowds, especially since they are often prone to the Highbrow Elitist and Toxic Genius varities of Fan Dumb.
  - One rather interesting case involving Megaten was how, since Persona 3 wasn't really technologically intensive on the PS 2, that it should be ported to the PSP. But all cries for a "PS Persona 3!" were silecned when the crowd went to play the pseudo-sequel/Gaiden Game "FES: The Answer". Then came the announcement that the first Persona game would receive an Enhanced Remake on the PSP, and that they wouldn't keep the localization that the first game received. (Meaning the "Snow Queen Quest" would be included) Some cries for the PS Persona 3 crowd showed up again, and when it was announced to just be a "Portable adaptation" of Persona 3 (No FES) with some changes to the game's storyline, and the option of selecting a male or female protagonist. (Which will affect the game's storyline and music) The Fan Dumb cried foul, because it wasn't Persona 2 (nevermind that, of course, Persona 2 covers two full-length game and for all they know they could be working on it right now) and that "Persona 3 will be Ruined FOREVER because you have full control over your allies". Nevermind that this was actually a common complaint about Persona 3 because Allies were known for doing stupid things or disobeying orders, and it was actually praised in Persona 4 when full-control over allies returned. aye-yi-yi...
- Tales Of. "It should be more like Destiny! There was no point after Destiny!", "No, I like the flex-range systems better." "Symphonia sucked, let's play Hearts." "The Flex-Range ruined Tales of! It's not linear motion even though you still have to be on a plane!" and of course, the biggest faction are the fans who want the other games to be released on European and American shelves. (Because Europe hasn't seen Legendia or Abyss, despite having received the PSP-port of Tales Of Eternia)
Possibly the ultimate Unpleasable Fanbase might be 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." It's gotten to the point where, somehow, someone who enjoys the original Fallout games is instantly branded as one of these just by how loud the NMA forumgoers are. (In the interest of fairness, the Fallout series has had a very rough history.)
- There is also the "And the sound is like a hundred thousand bats shrieking as they swirl around a jutting spire of obsidian" comment by Holkins of Penny Arcade, concerning the opening of the Fallout 3 forums.
  - Furthermore, any forum that houses both Elder Scrolls fans and Fallout fans quickly degenerates into a bitter Jets Vs Sharks style feud, only with less singing and dancing (probably).
- The fact that they all act in a superior manner that is the epitome of Elitist as they bitch makes a trip there seem like (as a forumer said) "pouring Tabasco sauce down your penis" .
Don't forget Duck and Cover, another 'major' Fallout community that generally acts the same way. On a whim, this troper looked at Da C for Fallout 3 reviews, and found that the members there were convinced, like NMA, that every single positive review had to be based on the reviewer being a Bethesda whore that heaps praise on such a horrible game. The thought that Fallout 3 was a great game for everyone else was lost on them.
Speaking of The Elder Scrolls, the most recent and commercially successful installment of the series, Oblivion, fits this trope to a T. While the game was well received by both critics and those new to The Elder Scrolls games, long time fans almost unanimously regard it as the worst of the series. However, this isn't anything new. The previous game, Morrowind, underwent similar scrutiny for "dumbing the series down" (Though many fans agree that the well developed lore, back story and game world made up for much of its faults). Ironically, some of the complaints that were acknowledged by Bethesda studios, such as the poor combat and ugly graphics, were rectified in Oblivion. In exchange, however, much of what made Morrowind so endearing despite it's "dumbed down" status was removed, seemingly in exchange for these improvements. Whether this is an inherent problem or simply an unappeasable fan base at work is open to interpretation.
- The Unpleasable fanbase ahs been around since the elder scrolls has. Oddly enough it's just like the D&D cycle of hatred. There were actually fans who, just like the 1st edition fans, said Daggerfall and second edition dumbed the series down, or were just trying to make money. Then comes third edition and Morrowind...which again gets similar complaints for dumbing it all down before the people who entered the Fan Dumb with that one begin to endlessly dry hump it, and are unable to understand why there exist people who don't think it's anything less than the greatest thing since sliced bread. Then comes 4th edition and Oblivion...all those people dry-humping the 3rd one now engage in Complaining About Shows You Dont Watch.
  - World Of Warcraft may go the same way with the amount of people who say everyone who joined in at burning crusade ruined the game, then demonize everyone who joined in at Wrath for ruining the game, then those wrath people will chastise everyone who joined in at cataclysm for ruining the game.
  - Same with Guild Wars.
Really, there's nothing in Guild Wars that hasn't triggered this. Every new campaign, heroes, PVE skills, skills being overpowered, skills getting nerfed for being overpowered, Shadow Form (I don't even want to think what'll happen if they nerf it, since it's the go-to farming build at the moment), etc.
- Inscriptions are a big one. In Nightfall, they introduced a new type of weapon mod that replaces the old (unchangeable) inherent mod of weapons with one that can be changed. The old weapon system really sucks (getting a weapon with a good inherent mod is a Randomly Drops thing, and God help you if you want a caster weapon that has all of its mods for one profession, let alone attribute.). The inscriptions fixed all of this (and also added weapon mods for 3 weapon types that didn't have them: wands, focii, and shields). And, of course, all Hell broke loose. Many people liked that inscriptions made it easier to mod weapons to your liking (especially if they tended to get lousy inherent mods on good skins. Or So I Heard...). Some people complained because inscribable weapons made formerly rare skins more common (Or to be more accurate, removed the artificial rarity built up by the fact that only a few types of inherent mod were worth something, so any others were discarded making the weapons seem rarer than they really were), some people complained because it made weapons cheaper (This was more the side effect of an unrelated update, though. Hard Mode opened up new spots to farm a lot of formerly rare skins). Others were just elitist and hated the idea of people getting "perfect" weapons easily. It pretty much started a flame war any time the topic came up, and the anti-inscription people are probably the reason the system wasn't instituted retroactively in Prophecies and Factions (meanwhile, the completely un-controversial armor equivalent was made retroactive LONG ago)...
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.
- And then there's then there's the ever-present backlash when the series went 3D which of course, doesn't seem to make much sense either since digitized actors is very outdated.
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.
- Halo Legends, a new anime series based off the Halo series, has just been announced. God help us from the ravages of the fans.
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 its content, its wording, its 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!
Sonic The Hedgehog fans are no exception to this trope, if anything a textbook example. There seems to be no way to please them all, despite numerous attempts to do so after the series entered into the 3D era.
- This Troper is thoroughly convinced that half the complaints against the current games (with the possible exception of Sonic '06) just boil down to, "It's not Sat AM therefore I hate it."
- A new game has been announced to arrive in 2010 nicknamed Project Needle Mouse. This game is "a return to speed and a return to 2D" which is based on the complaints of Sonic's Nostalgia-Fans. The same fans who demanded 2D now complain of the new main character (just Sonic in a silhouetted Logo of Sonic 1 on the Mega Drive). Sega's plan to appeal to fans with the trailer failed because those fans coulden't recognize their most famous Title Screen.
  - This Troper thinks that the Unpleasable Fanbase is the major cause of Sonic's recent troubles. Sega just can't resist Pandering To The Base, and they just get madder and madder as a result. Good thing they're actually trying to take their time on this one.
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 MMOs, 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!
- And don't forget the 20 songs they released for free as DLC for buying Rock Band 2. That's right, 20 extra songs for free, and people complained.
The Team Fortress 2 fanbase is the closest one can get to NMA 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.
- Dear God, the Scout update. The instant the update came out the fandom was split into people who that the Sandman was overpowered and the people who thought the Sandman was an excellent, well-balanced weapon. The argument eventually fell overwhelmingly to the former side, and Valve released an update that nerfed the Sandman, which split the fandom three ways - those who think the new Sandman is perfect, those who think the new Sandman is stupid and should be scrapped entirely, and those who think the game has been Ruined FOREVER by removing such a perfect weapon.
  - Don't forget the pyro: since Team Fortress Classic it was the cherry-tapper class: pre-pyro update you almost never saw one on a server. Post update... well. Now you're a noob for playing one.
- With each new (free) update, truckloads of topics about how much the update sucks get posted every day for weeks, and for each complaint topic, there's 2 topics telling everyone to stop complaining.
- The system about how new weapons are doled out was based on players getting X amount of Achievements for Y item. This resulted in people creating servers so they could basically Level Grind for the items. As of the Spy/Sniper update, the new items are more or less random. Combined with Valve being maddeningly vague, and fans complained that they wanted to earn their new stuff.
- This◊ image perfectly sums up the level of unpleasability the TF2 fanbase has achieved.
- Oh dear Tzeentch, the Cheater's Lament. After Valve decided to act on the idling system after three months of not saying anything, they decided to remove all illegally-obtained items from player's backpacks. Those that took the "moral high ground" received a new hat for all the classes, a glowing halo called the Cheater's Lament. The fallout from this? There are Medics who don't heal anyone with a Halo, there are Medics who don't heal anyone without a Halo; servers will ban you if you have a Halo or others will hand out bans for not having one. Plus, the script for the account checker was so buggy that it would remove entire inventories at once. Thankfully, Valve did patch that. Steam Forums is the best place to see the mayhem.
  - This Dirty Idler would like to point out that people who had been doing the exact same thing in in-game idle servers recieved their halo just the same as everyone else. This is basically the equivalent of Activision deleting all of your Guitar Hero data just because you used a Rock Band guitar controller to beat the career mode (without making RB controllers incompatible like they were in GH2 and 3), and then giving anyone who used a GH controller exclusive DLC.
- Initially, the Sandvich was near-universally considered a fun idea, but not a viable alternative to the shotgun. Many cried for a buff, and Valve listened. Now the situation is similar to that of the Sandman: one camp thinks it's perfect, one thinks it's still underpowered and the third thinks it's overpowered.
- Despite this, they all claim that their fandom is completely Fan Dumb free.
Resident Evil. People complained the series was getting stale, because all of the previous "main" games occurred within the same few weeks with basically the same gameplay. In comes RE4 with real-time graphics, drastically revamped gameplay, and no zombies. People complained that it wasn't a Survival Horror game anymore. RE5 seems to be well on its way, what with people complaining it's even farther from the series survival horror roots, and some critics decrying it for not "innovating".
- The run-up to the release of Resident Evil: Outbreak was like this. Previews accentuated the idea that voice chat should be left out, because it would "ruin the experience". The game comes out, and what does every single person bitch about? "Why isn't there voice chat?"
Guilty Gear. Oh my God, Guilty Gear. The first Guilty Gear was quirky, but generally accepted as bad since the Instant Kill moves could be done without much risk. X got a lot of the inside community interested, but it broke down to how quickly Millia could kill you with her fast rushing moves and high-low games. Then XX came out, which got everyone crazy... until they figured out Eddie's ability to parallel attack easily was the bee's knees. XX has had three revisions - #Reload, Slash and Accent Core, with the fanbase divided down the line about all three. As it turns out, some people will argue that Eddie being broken was a GOOD thing and balance is actually bad. It doesn't make sense to me, either.
Metal Gear Online. "The M14 is overpowered! No, wait, SMGs are! Survival sucks! Bwaaaa!"
- As long as we're on that series, there's the people who liked Raiden and want to see more of him, and the people who hated even his non-playable appearance in MGS4. Kojima Productions has announced he's getting his own game. Reactions were about as expected. at E3 that this new Metal Gear game would be released on the X Box 360, much to the displeasure of numerous PS 3 fanboys.
- Not to mention that Kojima announced in person
- Hideo Kojima is best known for the Metal Gear series. Some people think he should move on to a new IP. Since the start of MGS, he's released two Boktai and Zone Of The Enders games, completely original IPs, which caused people to complain he should be working on the next Metal Gear game.
Semi-averted in Urban Dead... which actually lost a huge chunk of its fanbase when a massively unpopular (at least, for the humans) zombie buff actually increased zombie morale (Not really - there was a HUGE siege going on, involving almost every major group, and the creator, Kevan, made an update that allowed zombies to block attempts at securing a building with objects. Within a week, the attacks doubled.) Whole groups actually dropped out of the game, and still are - one of the most famous zombie groups just recently disbanded. However... checking most of the group's forums, and you see bitching about zombie accuracy, or bitching about zombie buffs more than human buffs.
The video game industry in general is frequently criticized for its portrayal of women; see Stripperiffic and its subtropes, Most Common Superpower, etc. Along comes Mirrors Edge with its protagonist Faith, who has a slim, athletic build suitable for her job, and clothing and appearance even more so. Shortly before the game's release, some people took a piece of publicity art and edited it so she looked younger, and-of course-gave her bigger boobs with the nipples poking through her top, to wide acclaim. Among the cheers was the claim that the previous version was ugly and "looked like Lucy Liu". Yes. that Lucy Liu.
Ponder "Killzone 2 ", why don't we? After the E3 video a few years back was admitted to be bullshot, Sony promised the game would look and play like the video. Fast forward a few years, and from the review scores, Sony seems to have delivered, serving out a solid, if not particularly original, game. The Sony fanboys have been, naturally, crowing about all the positive reviews and flaming anything less than 9.0. One outlier took issue with XPlay's 5 out of 5 score(vid NSFW). Specifically, he said that the voiceover sounded "reluctant" to admit the game was worthy of full marks. You may boggle now.
- Edge Magazine gave Killzone 2 a 7 in their latest issue. That'll end well. Read the full text here.
Surprised that the Grand Theft Auto fanbase hasn't been mentioned yet. Go to GTA Forums, and you'll find a fanbase that is not only unpleaseable, but almost broken. One side feels that Rockstar shouldn't have abandoned the canon established in GTA III; the other argues that the GTA III canon was already wrapped up, and that it was a smart move to reboot the franchise with GTA IV. One side argues that the Darker And Edgier tone of GTA IV hurt it, and that it should go back to the lighter feel of past games; the other thinks that it did the game wonders. One side wants more character customization, sometimes to the point of being able to create your own character; the other feels that customization should be left alone. And nearly everybody complains that, multiplayer aside, GTA IV has less replay value than past games. The argument even goes beyond reactions to official announcements from Rockstar - on the "GTA Next" board, where the as-yet-unannounced next full-length entry in the series is discussed, people argue over where the next game should be set (should it follow the pattern of Liberty City, then Vice City, then San Andreas? Should it be in London? Detroit? Tokyo? Serbia?), what features it should have, and everything else you can think of. Talk about an unpleaseable fanbase.
So, everyone was really upset with Bio Ware for only releasing one small DLC pack in for Mass Effect in 2007 and then ignoring it, complaining that Bio Ware wasn't supporting their game. So Bio Ware finally announces new DLC (which in the past they had promised would be bridging the first game and its sequel) in the same announcement of the sequel's release timeframe...and the new complaint is that Mass Effect is no longer relevant and they're wasting time when they should be programming the sequel. Even though announcements on other Bio Ware games before that one were met with still more complaints begging for more DLC.
Find any extended gameplay video for any highly- or moderately-anticipated upcoming game on a website like Joystiq, Kotaku, or Gametrailers. Watch the video, then check the comments. If the person playing did well, then the game looks too easy. If they did poorly, then they're a terrible player. Either way, the people commenting are judging gameplay of something they won't get their hands on for months or more.
Even the prices of video games have unpleasable fanbases!!! So far, the Playstation3 is the only system in existence where people whine and demand price drops before the system was even RELEASED and continue to do so for years; then after it's dropped enough, people who already own it whine that they paid full price and wasted money for it. Unless it's the Playstation3, people who bought a system or even PC Parts before a price drop of any size and complained about them were always told "lol you noob you should have done the reading first!", "lol you missed your chance", and to "Cry more noob". Amazingly no one else whines about someone getting something like a Dreamcast for $35 when the people who got it when it was new paid around $200.
Left 4 Dead has an unpleaseable fanbase as well. First, people wanted more maps/campaigns, new modes, more maps for VS mode, and new guns. When a recent update gave survival mode (plus a new map just for that mode), people then complained Valve was lazy by using the crescendo events in each level for survival mode. Then they also complained how some of the new maps in VS mode have invisible walls on rooftops, preventing Hunters from doing great damage from a big pounce, and people are still whining about no new weapons. The fanbase completely ignores the problems that new guns could create for the entire game.
- Valve recently announced a sequel to Left 4 Dead. It was announced to have more weapons, a different setting, and a more fleshed out story with new characters. Some people were happy, but most of the fanbase was not pleased. At least 36,000 of 'em, in fact. The biggest complaints being that the original Left 4 Dead is not even a year old when the sequel was announced and the price for the new game is (supposedly) $60 instead of a lower price (the fans feel the sequel is more of an expansion pack). Not to mention that they're forgetting the notoriously long time Valve usually takes between sequels, as the people who are still waiting to even so much as hear some news that Half Life 2: Episode 3 is even so much as in development will tell you.
  - Whether done as a joke to mock the angry fans or to show Valve support, there are also several Steam groups boycotting the boycotters of Left 4 Dead 2.
  - Speaking of which, the new Special Infected, the Charger got their attention too. Interesting to note that the Charger concept seems to be drawn from a forum post started by one user. New ideas and concepts were meshed in by the forum community, until the sequel was announced. There was an inkling of rejoice that said idea got into the game, before a Face Heel Turn occurred and the one user wanted credit for the idea - this turned into displease over the sequel. The thread now serves as debating ground for Charger lovers and haters.
  - Remember the people that started the boycott group on Steam to get everyone to not buy Left 4 Dead 2? Recently, the leaders announced that Valve invited them to their headquarters to let them play test the game and addressed all their concerns for it and the original game. The boycott leaders were mostly satisfied. The only problem is that this announcement has split up the boycott group. Now people who still insist they won't buy the sequel are now calling the group leaders soft and easily bribed by Valve.
  - And just recently, the group leaders have announced they are closing down the group, saying they accomplished what they came to do. Now there's even more whining, with people saying the boycott should go on or how the leaders are still sell outs.
Nippon Ichi has had problems with this recently. Listening to those clamoring for faster releases, they've attempted to cut down on the translation time, resulting in scattered spelling errors and some very unfortunate Game Breaking Bugs. The recent announcement that Phantom Brave's Updated Rerelease will only have an English voice track instead of including both tracks has drawn plenty of scorn and accusations of them cutting corners and 'selling out', to say nothing of the firestorm over Sakura Taisen, long before the game's even released...
Ubisoft has earned plenty of gamer ire for releasing shovelware on the DS and Wii. This makes everything they do screwed. The early previews for Splinter Cell Conviction had Sam, on the run, looking like a hobo. People complained. A recent trailer has shown him clean-shaven, with shorter hair. People complained they wanted him looking like a hobo.
There are normally two reactions to Star Wars The Old Republic, an MMORPG being made by BioWare [who made also made KotOR 1].
- #1- SWEET! Bio Ware is making a Star Wars MMO that will not suck for once! Bio Ware is going to do a good job
- #2- What? An MMO?! WHERE THE FUCK IS KOTOR III! IT CAN'T END WITH THAT SHITTY ENDING THAT WE GOT FROM LUCASARTS FUCKING WITH OBSIDIAN! BIOWARE HAS BETRAYED US!!!!!
  - Some people also split the difference.
Lucas Arts became rather reviled in recent years for abandoning all of their old, beloved adventure game I Ps, letting them go out of print, canceling all developed projects, and preventing others from doing anything with them. All the while, gamers complained about how they were now doing nothing but Star Wars games. So, fast forward to July 2009, when they finally decide to stop jerking around and actually do exactly what the fans begged for - make new games based on the old I Ps, remake one of them, plan for more, and announce plans to finally re-release their old, out of print titles on Steam. If you think the fans were happy, you have not read this page. No, what was the new complaint? "How dare they! They should be making new Star Wars games!" This has continued into every single non-Star Wars announcement since.
Similar to Diablo 3, when it was announced that Serious Sam III was going to be more gritty, fans opinions separated to the point that their vision about which point of Sliding Scale Of Shiny Versus Gritty should Serious Sam III settle.
Backyard Sports has gradually lost its fandom by making bad moves, such as discontinuing online play and removing beloved characters.
The Warriors fanbase in general. One example is when Dynasty Warriors 6 came out, many complained about several characters having identical movesets/weapons, and for a good reason. Then comes the PS 2 version of the same game which gave several characters new, unique movesets....and people complained that Ma Chao went from a spear user to a BFS user. As for Samurai Warriors, when Samurai Warriors 3 was announced as a Wii exclusive, people started complaining for no apparent reason that is was on the Wii before screenshots of the game even came out.
"The Sims 3" has a particularly unpleasable fanbase, mainly centering around allegedly Game Breaking Bugs. The main offenders tend to be: The sims are doughy and unrealistic, The sims are FAR more realistic than the ones in the prequel, There isn't enough stuff in the basegame, There's actually MORE stuff in the basegame by comparison to the other games, There should be MORE in the game because half of it's in the Store to milk our money, The Store is, indeed, evil, The creators need pay somewhere so the store is a little justified, Story Progression and traits are awesome!, Traits are bland and Story Progression sucks! — to name a glaring few. The only thing people seem able to agree on at all is the fact that EA dropped the ball somewhere in making this game.
Most PC games are pirated at a rate estimated to be upwards of over 50%. Whenever a developer complains about piracy, there are one of three responses. If the game sold well, piracy apologists will say that the devs have lots of money anyway. If it was mediocre to poor, they'll say the devs don't deserve their money in the first place. If a critically acclaimed game sells terribly, the pirates are suddenly nowhere to be found. The ones that do stick around say that the pirates probably wouldn't have bought the game in the first place.
Downloadable Content, full stop. Many people see it as simply a way for the developer to extract money from the players beyond the initial purchase. Many see it as extending the worth of a game. Some, like Left 4 Dead fans, complain that they aren't getting enough DLC, while some people who bought Dragon Age: Origins complain that the DLC the developers made available on release day was them getting greedy. (And keep in mind, that was optional content for a game the developers claimed would take over 120 hours.)

Close Video Games

Fans spent the better part of a decade crying to Blizzard to make Diablo 3. It's announced, video and screenshots are shown, and fans complain that it looks too colorful. Some went as far as photoshopping the screenshots back to brown. Some compared it to "World Of Warcraft gayness". Blizzard's response was entertaining.
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.
- Before the release of the second expansion pack, the developers made little to no attempt to balance the Paladin or Shaman classes so that they would be able to serve any function that the other can in a Pv E or Pv P situation. But in Pv E, they ultimately wound up to be treated as healers when they were in fact supposed to do whatever, as were Druids, who were most specced towards healing since for a little while, that was the only feasible build. Everyone who played the Druid, Paladin, and shaman classes screamed loud and hard because they were advertised as a jack-of-all-master-of-none class in theory when in practice they were little more than a healing and support character, while the priests, who were dedicated healers, were often encouraged to spec Shadow for an offensive build.
- When Burning Crusade was released and the Horde got their paladins and the Alliance got their shamans, more people were complaining that they took the lazy way out instead of balancing the classes.
- When Druids and paladins were finally fixed so they could function as tanks, healers, or Damage-dealers if they were specialized (And geared) to do so, they wound up becoming perceived as too powerful and then the tanks, damage-dealers and healers complained that they were never even needed. This happens to come after thousands of complaints from warriors wanting to be damage-dealers being "Forced into tanking".
- Then there are the complaints about the playable characters appearances. 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.
- The next round began with the second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, going into the beta stage. The developers are changing their design towards more uniform classes that 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, despite many extremely gear-dependent classes like Warriors, Shamans, and Druids were popping champagne and launching fireworks in celebration after it was announced.
- 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, and tanking classes have been complaining since the start about being "Forced into tanking".
- The UI also gets this too. The UI was really not the best at the start, and it was incredibly easy to mod. (Modding was seen as a Sure Why Not.) But after every patch...the beloved UI mods would be made useless. And not after every major content patch...even small emergency patches meant to fix the occasional Game Breaking Bug would render UI mods useless for a couple days. Considering most mods would drastically modify U Is, Blizzard decided to incorporate some features from popular mods (That were also considered "Required" if you wanted to raid or Pv P) into their default UI. Then some people in support of mods cried that Blizzard hates mods (Despite the fact that this allowed modders to be more specific or to customize them even more) even when they do not mind you modding the game and the only mods they have actually cracked down on were borderline bots in the first place and gave people an unfair advantage over people without the mod. The biggest example of crying was from when they cracked down on Decursive and declared it an exploit. The mod Decursive would find a debuff on another player, and if the player who used it could remove it, removes it without even having to target them. It literally trivialized fights to debuff-removing characters to just hitting one button over and over again. People actually complained that because of Decursive, Its Easy So It Sucks. But then they remove decursive, a fanbase that continues to cry that Its Easy So It Sucks complained that it made the game too hard!
- 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.
- Hell, even the storyline is subject to this. For instance, since Warcraft III, the Horde has been Chaotic Neutral by nature instead of being totally evil, with some individuals who actually have a good sense of morality such as Thrall, Saurfang, and Cairne as some of their leaders. One of their major objectives is to not invoke any further conflicts with The Alliance. This was likely done because the Horde in the first two games weren't generally that interesting save for the hilarious gaglines most of the units had. Since then, there has been a small group of individuals who complain about how because the Horde is now a bit Lighter And Softer... they aren't "awesome" anymore, when really they made the Horde into something a bit more complex than the stereotypical Ugly Savage Guys = Evil archetype that's already too common in modern fiction. And that's just one of the more tame complaints, leaving out the story from the recent Wrath of the Lich King expansion and the numerous examples of retconning.
- You know an MMORPG is balanced when every character class is screaming that every other character class needs to be nerfed.
- As you can clearly see, Blizzard Entertainment needs a hug.
- Even more so with the rumors of the new content for the 3rd expansion, where there are mentions of revamping some of the old content into new content.People who have been clamoring for years on end to revamp the old content now whine about how Blizzard is lazy and won't bother showing us new content where they can just edit old content. As well as all of the people crying about the Horde being more complex are now crying about Garrosh, a much more militaristic Orc, leading the Horde into a more or less revitalization of the old Horde. these are all rumors mind you...
  - Thankfully the rumors appear to be false, as Blizzard has said nothing about a new Guardian, a new Warchief, and the person who came up with the rumor had Malfurion wrong. His in Mount Hyjal, and not making Thrall the next guardian when Med'an is clearly being setup as the next guardian. Apparently it was based on the idea that Garrosh and Thrall's feud was going to be getting more in-depth. The other information came from data in the game already such as new class information and Hallow's end mask of Worgen and Goblins.
  - And in the third expansion Blizzard announced that they were going to focus on the old world...ever since the first expansion pack was released, people whined and complained about how it received such a piss-poor treatment with the only new content being for levels 1-20 on both sides. (only once has there been an instance that wasn't made for high-levels made, and that was years ago when people actually did them.) Now instantly everyone complains about having to retread old ground despite the fact that so many changes will be made it'd feel rather different. Then they even announced that Shadowfang Keep and The Deadmines will be given a heroic revamp, and boss fights like Ragnaros and Nefarian, who the raiders complained were made worthless and trivialized by the expansion were also going to be revamped for the level 85 cap. Then the Fan Dumb whined about how Blizzard has no creativity by reusing old content and "Revamping dungeons that don't need to be revamped". Yes, they're revamping the two most loved instances in the bloody GAME that to this day are still praised on the forums. Revamping dungeons that don't need it would be if Blizzard had chosen such Scrappy levels as Uldaman or Gnomeregan, which even the developers admit they screwed up with.
"Wow has been "dying" according to people unhappy with one or two aspects of the game since its inception. Since it began dying, it's been killed by rooftop camping, the removal of rooftop camping, the lack of honor, the implementation of honor, the lack of dishonor, the implementation of dishonor, the removal of dishonor, the removal of wall walking, rank rewards, decaying rank, the removal of rank decay, the removal of PVP titles, Ahn'Qiraj, Scourge Invasion, Zul'Gurub, the cost of mounts, the lack of information about TBC, all information released about TBC, playable Blood Elves, playable Draenei, Horde Paladins, Alliance Shamans, flying mounts, the timing of the release of TBC, the cost of flight, Jewelcrafting, the LFG channel, holding people accountable to the Terms of Use, meeting stones, arenas, the number of arena teams one player can have, arena-based gear rewards, the lack of battlegrounds, the addition of battlegrounds, everything about battlegrounds, Illidan being killable, Daily quests, instance-based reputations, the Darkmoon Faire, /pizza, playable wisps, Tinfoil Hat, the Armory, Warden, the lack of information about Wrath, all information about Wrath, the inability to transfer from PVE to PVP servers, hero classes being implemented, hero classes not being implemented, siege engines being implemented, siege engines not being implemented, cold weather flying, Wintergrasp being a PVP zone, death knights, the inability to start a new character of any class at 55 or higher, the lack of a dance studio, character recustomization, the inability to change race or faction, the cost of mammoths and motorcycles, the fall damage negation of mammoths and motorcycles, the removal of fall damage negation from mammoths and motorcycles, the ability to transfer from PVE to PVP servers, dual specs, Achievements, holiday events, as well as weekly maintenance and patches 1.1 through the current one inclusive." There's a reason Palehoof has that Community MVP title.
- One funny thing about the "Illidan is killable so it sucks" argument is that if they did not put Illidan and other such charactes in the game, the fans would whine about how he isn't in there and how they didnt' want to fight a random mook. Becuase, yeah, for all we know...Illidan's going to walk right up to you in another warcraft game and say "I'm not dead! I feel fine! I think I can go for a walk now!" Of course, for some reason, nobody's complained about how the faction leaders (and Jaina) are killable...despite that on some servers, Varian Wrynn and Jaina are often farmed for kicks and people regularly raid the opposing cities to get the achievements of killing a faction leader.
Starcraft II is another nasty example of this trope. The biggest points of contention are the changes to the UI which include: allowing players to select more than 12 units at a time, being able to select more than one building at a time, and allowing workers to automatically gather minerals after being built when the player sets a rally point to it. These changes have caused enormous amount of arguing between the hardcore players who believe these changes are ruining the "macromanagement", or economical, portion of the game, and casual players who believe these UI changes are beneficial and should be included without question.
- The UI debate has also caused even more fighting about the whole concept of macromanagement in general from those who believe that base/economy management is essential to a Real-Time Strategy game, and those who believe that those aspects of the game are "boring" and should focus more on the army fighting instead.
  - Interestingly enough, Blizzard has attempted to placate both crowds by keeping the UI changes in the game, but implementing "macro mechanics" that boost resource gain when utilized. This has simmered down the UI debate mostly, but debates still continue to spring up from both sides of the debate who accuse Blizzard of "caving in" to the opposing crowd.
- Yet another hot-button issue was the decision to release Starcraft II as a trilogy, where each part has one large campaign dedicated to one race instead of three small campaigns dedicated to each race. Blizzard's reasoning is that the trilogy allows them to greatly enhance the game's storytelling quality by allowing them to add in much more content, characters, and lore for each race without having to squeeze it all into a tiny 10-mission campaign. The fanbase is split as to whether this is an improvement in single-player RTS quality or a money grab.

Close Blizzard Entertainment

The Mario fanbase is no better either. During the days of Super Mario 64, the base was divided up by people who loved the new 3D gameplay and people who hated it and insisted 2D was better. Super Mario Sunshine was bashed for not living up to the standards of Super Mario 64, complained about the "gimmicky" water pack, and whined that some parts of the game were simply too hard. Speed up to Super Mario Galaxy and the fanbase now complains that it's way too easy to get to the final boss after collecting 60 stars, despite the fact that the game has several challenges that can almost be considered Nintendo Hard. Oh, and when New Super Mario Bros was released to appeal to the old school 2D fans, they thought the game was too easy and the new power-ups were useless or gimmicky. Some of the Mario fans even go so far as to loathe the spin offs like Mario Kart for being a milking machine, even though most reviews agree that the spin offs are pretty good. Poor Mario simply can't please everyone.
- Bowser's "Koopaling" children have gotten their own Unpleasable Fanbase. In Nintendo's early days, they only appeared twice; once each in Super Mario Bros 3 and once each in Super Mario World. They pulled a Metroid and simply disappeared for several years, leaving fans confused. When Super Mario Sunshine revealed Bowser Jr. as Bowser's new kid, fans cried foul and wanted their precious Koopa children back. There was an attempt to placate this part of the base when Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga brought the Koopalings back as bosses with no lines or role in the game, but it still wasn't enough as fans to this day want Bowser Jr. axed and the Koopalings brought back.
  - Now that the Koopalings are coming back for New Super Mario Bros. Wii, fans are complaining about having two Toads acting as players three and four as opposed to <insert character(s) here>.
  - Made worse when Miyamoto gave a response (though it could be just a joke) on why Princess Peach isn't playable in the game. Fans were naturally not happy.
- Speaking of Mario Kart, don't even mention Snaking to Mario Kart Fans ever. Some say it's the only true test of skill, and others say it's just a cheap Game Breaker.
- Then there are fans that insist that Mario games should have actual stories and voice acting. They tried both in Super Mario Sunshine, and many fans and critics hated that direction, though the Narm-tastic lines do have supporters. Super Mario Galaxy did have Rosalina's backstory as well, which the fans seem to ignore.
  - Are you freaking kidding?!? Bowser's voice was totally Bad Ass!!!
Zelda fans often suffers from this trope, it's really quite funny to see fans' hatred of the last Zelda game (currently Wind Waker) be replaced by their hatred of the newest game (now Twilight Princess). So it goes on, when the next Zelda game comes out a load of people will be "disappointed" and suddenly Twilight Princess wasn't bad at all...and then it will have to deal with Ocarina of Time. Tough Act To Follow.
- After Wind Waker was released, many articles were written suggesting that all the playing with the formula was bad and that Nintendo shouldn't muck about with three-day time limits or oceans - most articles requesting a game like Ocarina of Time. When that game did come in the form of Twilight Princess, the same people asserted that the Zelda formula was "played out" and that Nintendo ought to try new things with the franchise instead of sticking to the old stuff.
- A recent trend/fad has surfaced for people to decry Ocarina of Time as "bland, overrated, and generally not good" now that Twilight Princess is released, while singing the never-ending praises of Majora's Mask. This from the same groups who lauded Ocarina as perfect and untarnishable during The Wind Waker-era, stating that Majora's Mask was "too different; too short; hard to play" etc. The flip-flopping is headache inducing.
  - Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask use the same game engine. Liking one over another is fine, but saying one is good and the other is bad...generally doesn't make much sense given their intense similarities.
  - When Twilight Princess was in development, Nintendo was inundated by complaints about an apparent lack of Ganon. Interviews constantly asked for his presence, and the fans decried that the serious tone of Twilight Princess deserved to have Ganon appear in the game and that leaving him out would make for an empty experiences. Nintendo only mentioned that he would be in the game, but never released any screens featuring him, leading many to accuse them of lying about his presence. When the game came out and Ganon was The Man Behind The Man...the complaints changed to accusing Nintendo of being too cliché and complaining that they should have left Ganon out and focused a new villain instead, declaring the plot having been Hijacked By Ganon in their rage.
- Want a challenge? Find ANYONE in the Zelda fanbase who has positive expectations about the upcoming Zelda games. The entire fanbase is preemptively unpleasable.
  - I am, at the least, intrigued and hopeful about the next non-cel game and ambivalent about the cel branch. However, much like the Gaia Online example, I might not be part of the fanbase, being merely a fan.
  - I'm excited about both. Even at its most mediocre, the Zelda series has yet to make a game that isn't enjoyable to play. (But since I'm one of those people who had high expectations about Twilight Princess and after playing it was not disappointed in the slightest, maybe that officially disqualifies me from the Zelda fanbase. Apparently to be a part of the fanbase you must never stop whining.)
The Virtual Console service from Nintendo's Wii has also sparked an Unpleasable Fanbase, mostly within GameFAQs. Every week when the games are announced, the fans are divided into the following:
- "Oh wow, I loved that game!"
- "OMG THIS GAME SUCKS!! I DON'T CARE IF IT HAS TOO MANY LICENSING ISSUES!! I WANT EARTHBOUND!"
- "Ugh, more shovelware? Another crappy week."
- "Pfft, I could get those games on a collection disc."
- "Five bucks for an NES game?! Bulltonk!"
- "Just get the ROM!"
- "Meh, Xbox Live has it and better."
- "I've never heard of this game, therefore it sucks."
- "Where's my Secret of Mana, N.O.E.? Don't screw me over, dood."
Some people complained that Animal Crossing: City Folk for the Wii lacks the NES games that the Game Cube version had, despite the above-mentioned Virtual Console allowing people to buy NES games.
The Fire Emblem fandom tends to be a Your Mileage May Vary series in itself, but one of the most glaring examples of unpleasable fanbase happened between Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn. A large number of the fans complained that Path of Radiance was ridiculously easy (it doesn't help that the series is infamous for its violent arguments over Character Tiers). So when the sequel was made more difficult, just as many fans came back and complained it was too hard.
For that matter, remake any video game and you're guaranteed to have people complain that the game doesn't stay true to the original while other people love the said remake. Hell, remake any level or port a level over (such as in Mario Kart Wii or Super Smash Bros Brawl) and you'll get people who hate the levels themselves or liked it in the past and now claim it sucks.
Speaking of Super Smash Bros., ever since the Japanese release, various forums were inundated with complaints about the roster, mostly due to such complaints as many characters not being playable, Mewtwo not being in the game despite Lucario attempting to be a refinement of his movelist, and most vehemently, three characters from Star Fox with essentially the same special moves, including "identical" Final Smashes.
- And now people are now complaining that it's not different enough from Melee, the stages are too gimmicky (earlier there was a complaint to the effect that the stages all looked like they were going to be dull Battlefield retreads), etc.
  - Don't forget the people complaining that it's not Melee enough with the removal of Wavedashing and L-Cancelling, among other things. It's basically made the once strong Smash community a hugely Broken Base.
  - It only goes down from here. People have actually hacked the game and changed the physics to make it be like Melee again.
Pokémon has several examples of these in nearly every facet. In the anime, people complain about how characters are too dull or overshowcased, while some still complain about other characters being dumped or left out altogether. In the games, people complained that there were too many new Pokémon and were unable to enjoy their old favourites, now they introduced new evolutions and people greatly dislike them. Another example could be in Pokémon Colosseum. People wanted a Pokémon RPG on the console and they wanted it to be Darker and Edgier, they got it in Pokémon Colosseum, but fans complained that it wasn't like the original games. Case in point - many fans think double battles are pretty lame in general, so making a game featuring nothing but was a pretty bad move; others love doubles battles, because it forces players to think of a different paradigm for building teams, as some moves become more useful and some become much less so.
- To say nothing of the main games themselves. There was almost constant outcry prior to the release of Diamond and Pearl in Japan about just about every piece of information found about the games. This ranged from "Pokemon X Sucks!" to "Physical/special move split?! Pokemon is Ruined FOREVER!" When the games came out, things quieted down. But you still get people complaining that Game Freak is running out of ideas for new Pokemon.
The most common cry from gamers as a whole is to demand more creativity and originality, such as new IPs, and moan about the flood of sequels and never-ending franchises. However, whenever a company makes a shot at it (i.e. any non-franchise game on the Nintendo Wii), they will turn around and complain that Nintendo has stopped making video games for the "core". Don't ever expect a definition of "core" by the way - to these guys, even Metroid has to be a casual game for this argument to work. tl;dr: Nintendo releasing Metroid is "milking", while Nintendo releasing Wii Fit is "abandoning the core".
- With the announcement of a new Punch-Out!! and a Treasure-developed sequel to import darling Sin And Punishment, the doomsday prophecies have stopped...for now.
  - They're back in full-force: the same people who bitch and moan that gaming is more obsessed with good graphics than good gameplay have done nothing but bitch and moan that Sin And Punishment looks like a Dreamcast game.
  - And Punch-Out!! is getting heat for being too old-school; lacking options and features and being called "a $50 NES remake".
  - On top of that, people whined about the lack of multiplayer, but when it was announced to have local multiplayer only, everyone then whined about the lack of online play.
  - They tried to do this to Excite Bots, the sequel to Excite Truck, bemoaning the addition of minigames and a kiddy look... Then they realized that the 'minigames' are done AS one races and allows you to earn more trick stars, that the bot designs facilitate it, that it plays like Excite Truck but uses the Wii Wheel, that it's online, and that trick meter goes up at least 25 instead of 5. Now it's praised for taking everything loved about Excite Truck and cranking it Up To Eleven.
  - Not even The Conduit is safe. While most critics and some gamers are excited that the Wii is getting a decent first person shooter, most fans are snuffing the game as "just another generic FPS". Note that the fans (probably the same people) wanted some good FPS games on the Wii in the past.
Let's just face facts: Nintendo games in general suffer from unpleasable fanbases. Star Fox has fans who want more variety and fans who just want to fly in their Arwing. Donkey Kong has fans with the desire for a new 2D game but hated Donkey Kong Jungle Beat. Metroid has fans who hate the Prime Subseries, but also hated Metroid Fusion. Even back when Nintendo was test marketing the original NES, everyone in the test group said they hated it. Needless to say, Nintendo tends to make their best and most profitable work when they flat out ignore the fanbase!
- And then the fanbase complains when they are completely ignored in favor of Nintendo oh, actually making money. Such as this here webcomic doing just that.
  - Not only that, but fans (and possibly a Troll or two) are divided up on whether or not Nintendo actually making a profit, compared to Sony and Microsoft losing money in console sales, is good or pure evil.
- In fact, Wii Music, the cornerstone of the E3 2006 Press Conference, went straight to X Pac Heat to some gamers on the internet.
The fanbase can't be even pleased with the way Nintendo treats third parties. Either Nintendo was too strict for putting up many arbitrary rules they had to follow or they're too loose for letting them make anything they want.
- Nintendo has been blamed multiple times for scaring developers away by "treating them poorly" during the Gamecube days, though good luck getting an example or source backing that up. They are being blamed for "letting" too much crap games onto the Wii. Their standards haven't really changed at all.
  - Nintendo never scared any developers away from the Game Cube. In fact, they stopped being strict when games began to have ratings. Most of their strictness only comes into play when they are publishing a title, and they've only denied some first and second-party titles from release overseas only due to how big a bomb it was or overt sexual references that would not go well over here. Sony of America is in fact the strictest of any of the branches of any of the three console makers. Much of the so called shovelware on the Wii are actually ports of European and Japanese PS 2 games.
  - Speaking of Nintendo and 3rd parties, some people believe that bringing back the "Nintendo Seal of Quality" will end the shovelware the Wii has been getting. People seem to forget that the Seal of Quality does not have anything to do with the game's content, but was a measure taken by Nintendo to counteract the problems Atari faced with shoddy, unauthorized games flooding the market and killing their profits (a huge factor in the video game crash of 1983). The Seal of Quality simply tells the buyer that the game is a genuine Nintendo-certified product. If Superman 64 could get the Seal of Quality, what does that tell you?
Nintendo's Wii Motion + is getting tons of flack (it's an accessory that gives 1:1 motion controls or close to it). First people whined that it should have been in the controllers from day 1 (and they ignored Nintendo's comment that it would have made the controllers expensive at the get go) and when the price for the add on was announced for $20, now people are whining that it's too much money. When it comes to the virtual console or Nintendo's add-ons, the fans decry Nintendo as being greedy for profits.
- Should they stop now? Thry've announced a black Wiimote with Motion Plus for $50.
The Metroid Prime Trilogy has been announced; all three games in the trilogy, the first two with updated graphics and controls for the Wii, for only the price of a new game. Fans promptly started complaining about the rerelease they've been asking for screwing over "the fans", and how Nintendo doesn't care about their loyal fans, etc, just because the annoncement mentions that not every Wii owner owned a Gamecube. Also because of the rumoured—I repeat, rumoured—fourth game in the series not being announced yet. Yes, even rumours are Nintendo's fault now.
- The main problem is Nintendo fans (and many others) flip flop too much on what they want. They clamor for something and then don't want it anymore when they get what they want (just like with Punch Out on the Wii, something many people wanted and now hate for not living up to their wild expectations), which is why Nintendo promptly ignore their fans' pleas.
  - Things get worse at E3 2009. Nintendo announced a sequel to Super Mario Galaxy, something you'd think people would want after all the years of crying and lamenting about it being "forgotten" and ignored in favor of Wii Fit, but after seeing a 1 minute trailer, everyone now says Galaxy 2 will suck because it's just a rehash of the first. They also ignore the fact that you can use Yoshi this time and new things still have to be revealed down the road. People have been dying for a new Zelda game and when Spirit Tracks was announced, people bashed it just because it was on the DS and not on the Wii. Oh, and then there's Metroid: Other M, the long-demanded full-3D platformer iteration of the franchise being produced by Team Ninja and coming completely out of nowhere...and everyone's complaining that it has too much action and now they all want Prime back.
  - This is doubly ironic, because when Prime first came out, some fans of the original were complaining it was too FPS-y, and FPS fans were complaining about all the platforming. Not many of them, mind you.
Club Nintendo. Most of the fans blasted Nintendo of America for not having this (a customer loyalty program) since Japan and Europe had it for years already. Nintendo of America announced around 2008 that they would get into the Club Nintendo business. People that registered games and systems would earn coins that could be used to redeem rewards. Many fans complained that the current rewards were garbage compared to the other rewards from the other regions. Once the elite rewards were announced (special gifts for members who reached gold or platinum status by the end of the club year), the complaints rose again for the rewards being not as good as the other regions.
- Somewhat justified, in that the EU and Japan programs have Wii Points and video game OST/OSV's available, while the priciest item for the American version is a deck of Hanafuda cards.
Honestly, Nintendo fans complain about not enough mature games for the Wii and DS, but when we get mature games like Mad World, Dead Space Extraction, The Conduit, and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, no one's buying them. So what's the point about complaining if your not gonna buy them?
- "IT'S TOO GENERIC! THE CONTROLS SUCK! BAD GRAPHICS!" As stated before, demand one thing, then complain about something else. Nintendo can't win.

Close Nintendo

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.
- 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).
- Less than a day has gone by, and people are already up in arms over the announcement of the Square Enix Security Token, which is to be used to keep accounts from being hacked by Real Money Trade groups. The complaint? It costs money. While it's understandable to be worried about the SE Tax, the security token is a physical object, and would obviously cost money to make and ship. World Of Warcraft has such a token, as well, and it isn't free, either.
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.
- And there is the story: FFX was criticized for its linear plot, the over-abundance of cutscenes, the cheesy love story, the fact that the reveal was too obvious, the classical "evil cult" syndrome... so they made a game with a very complex set of opposing factions; lots of sidequests; made sure that most informations would come from the NPC and not from long expositions; the existence of Venat and its motivations came very late; the main female character was a widow and her relation with the "protagonist" never went beyond the war buddy level, while all the others potential "couples" were played subtly; the main religion was ruled by decent people who took care of war refugees... FFXII's story was the most criticized FF storyline since the eight installment.
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".
- FFIX was commonly criticised for its throw-back, chibi art style and 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 that abandoned the light-hearted and cartoonish style of the earlier games.
  - It's happening again with Final Fantasy Gaiden, which is using a super-deformed art style again, to complaints about how terrible and cartoonish the graphics are and how it should be a high-definition PSP title instead. This from the same group that complains about how graphics are becoming more important than gameplay and how modern gaming only cares about "style over substance".
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.
  - In fact, most fans that started with Final Fantasy Tactics disregard Advance and A2, branding them as "too childish" for the storyline compared to the original Tactics.
  - Which is funny because those same people will turn around and call another JRPG (that's not made by Square Enix) the best game ever, despite it having the exact same story conventions that they were complaining about existing in Final Fantasy games, and yet another game that has everything they were complaining about has the better story.
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!? And God help you if you tell them that every FF from the first to eight plus FFXI is multy-plateform now... This has earned Square many accusations of "hating" Sony, despite the fact that they are one of few dedicated third-parties supporting the PSP as much or possibly even more than the DS.
- See also Devil May Cry 4 for this last complaint, in which Capcom had to publicly dismiss a petition put together by PS 3 fanboys demanding that they cancel the 360 release.
- Every time that something, anything, is announced or revealed about FF 13, someone out there will be whining and bitching.
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 and has been a designer as early as Final Fantasy IV, his art is frequently accused of being filled with Rummage Sale Rejects from the Blue Bishonen Ghetto. Meanwhile, Amano was known for...drawing willowy, long haired, effeminate men in Rummage Sale Rejects. With blue 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. Final Fantasy XII took identical flak for "Nomura's" horrible designs when again, the art was handled by long-time Tactics series and Vagrant Story artist Akihido Yoshida. Clearly, one can tell that they Did Not Do The Research.
- Just look at the artwork for Dissidia: Final Fantasy, 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 and lipstick. Compare Amano's concept of Kuja◊ to Nomura's◊. Nomura actually made him more masculine.
- Many people also only seem to think of Nomura's trends when Amano indeed has his own trends outside of Kuja...Line up all the heroes drawn by Amano. The Nostalgia Filter excuses them all. Just take one look at Nomura's designs and the in-game sprites for Bartz...You see that he has brown hair, right? Well look at Amano's art of Bartz...in which he looks like Cecil.
  - Far too many people who dislike Nomura's designs of the Organization XIII characters claim that Nomura is unoriginal and that they're all just "thirteen Sephiroths." As far as this troper can see, only five of the Organization (Xemnas, Vexen, Zexion, Saix, and Marluxia) have any resemblance to Sephiroth whatsoever, and you're stretching it with a lot of them—Vexen is, in appearance, voice, and personality, The Hojo more than anything, Zexion is a tiny, cranky little snake, as compared to Sephiroth's height and cool demeanor, likewise Saix is a pretty small man as well with only his long hair slightly resembling Sephiroth's, and while the other two are more like Sephiroth than the rest, well...I never thought I'd see the day where I was agreeing that a Green Thumb, pink-haired, Manipulative Bastard Starscream with an ...inclination to mess with young children was rather like Sephiroth.
  - The extent of the similarities to sephiroth with Organization XIII as a whole is that they wear black.
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 IV, V, and VI DS games... and yet, they're still considered "The enemy" by the fanbase.
- There are some old wounds amongst Dragon Quest fans. 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 weak localization after having been released for several years in Japan with an English script as an option. The North American localization also featured the inexplicable removal of the Party Talk feature, and a truly botched attempt at the Accent Adaptation that had actually been done well in Dragon Quest VIII. However, the response to these slights by some parties is truly disproportionate compared to everything they've done right.
- Dragon Quest fans do have a lot to be bitter about over the number of games that still get left in Japan, as well as the incredibly lengthy waits for the games that do come over when compared to other Squeenix franchises that have a speedier turnaround. Of any of the groups in this section, they at least have years of actual ill treatment to nurture their bitterness on.
- And let's not forget the complaining over Dragon Quest VIII. "It violates the spirit of Dragon Quest games by allowing you to customize characters!" (We'll disregard the class systems allowing you to do the same in the past, okay?), "They hate America, Europe, and Australia and gave Japan a better version!" (Despite that they actually had no voice acting and the soundtrack was fully orchestrated in the localization), "It's not even Dragon Quest anymore! It's like Final Fantasy!" (Despite that the extent of the similarities it has with most Final Fantasy games are defining genre characteristics), "The Computer Is A Cheating Bastard" (Forget that they always did that), "The game has too many difficulty spikes and requires Level Grinding!" (Once again, ignore that is a staple of the series), and most annoyingly, "I don't have a choice in my party! I only have four characters!" (Which, once again, is something that appears to be disregarded in other games doing the exact same thing, and not even allowing flexible character-roles like making Hero or Yangus heal the party while Jessica and Angelo Whip It Good and fire arrows at the enemy)
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.
  - Although honestly, any anger at Square-Enix for their No Export For You shenanigans is justified...
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. In fact, it's often theorized that the majority of the fanbase, if the sales are any indication, are fine with the state of the franchise - they just feel no need to scream about it on the internet.
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 reasons 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. 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 the 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.
- There's also flame wars about the role of Masato Kato in the franchise. Chrono Trigger was a collaboration of four people - Kato, Akira Toriyama, Hironobu Sakaguchi, and Yuji Horie. The entire scenario of Trigger was Horie's, with input from Sakaguchi, and then scripted by Kato. Chrono Cross only included Kato. Suggesting that the dissonance of the two games could be related to this will get you flamed to hell and back in some parts.
  - Some say he was the only good writer of the whole game, who deserved to write up Chrono Cross, while others would go on to compare Cross to a professionally written Fan Fic.
  - It's also unclear what role Horii even had. While he did write an entire draft for the scenario, Sakaguchi apparently scrapped most of it. There are various extremely early screenshots in existence that show a rather different setting, that looks like it would've been more strictly fantasy-themed and less sci-fantasy than the final product.
- And let's not even go into the DS remake that actually improved the horrible, horrible lag times the PSX remake had, vastly improved the dialogue so that different time periods not only "sounded" different and didn't feel like a teenager came up with it, and that finally had Item, Tech, and other names for things make a lot more sense than the original. Yet after years of people asking for this port, all anyone wanted to do was complain about it and wish it was still using the old Woolsey script they claimed they hated for all these years.
So, after a year of solid bitching that Final Fantasy IV The After was being unfairly condemned to never leave Japan, you'd think the fans would be grateful that the ESRB just rated it for the US, meaning we can actually play it. You must not have read this page. Now that we can actually play it, the fans are complaining that it's a pile of crap and should never have been released at all.
- Most of that is due to the game only being rated for the Wii, even though Retraux games tend to sell best on Wii Ware, considering how many has been announced so far.
- The release has been met with accusations of price-gouging and franchise-milking. There have also been complaints about the games presentation, completely ignoring the fact that the game was made for cellphones.
This is the only fanbase where people ask for the remake of a game and complain about it being milked at the same exact time.
- Only if you don't count Nintendo fans as a fanbase. See above.
- Case in point - before the announcement of Final Fantasy Gaiden: The Four Warriors Of Light, there was much speculation and complaining that it was going to be another remake. When the game was finally announced as a new, original title, there were complaints that it wasn't a port or remake of Final Fantasy V or Final Fantasy VI.
Ask any Final Fantasy fan, and they'll most likely tell you that Final Fantasy VIII is either the best in the series, or the absolute worst. No exceptions.
Final Fantasy XII is arguably the greatest rpg ever, but people hate it because it's not like the other games, even though NONE OF THEM ARE LIKE THE OTHERS!
Star Ocean. The second version, for many, the first (And perhaps only) Star Ocean game they ever played was remade on the PSP, and given a new translation and significantly improved the voice acting. Immediately cries of how They Changed It Now It Sucks show up for adding "Nonsensical characters" and other such "nonsense" to "ruin the game". To demonstrate how powerful the Nostalgia Filter and the unpleasable fanbase are, fans actually liked the playstation version better despite the fact that the Voice acting was a laughable rush job (Characters saying "I'm e-I'm erasing you!", saying "Craude" instead of "Claude", and some of rena's spells not even being recorded in English leading to a massive inconsitency) as was the translation. Another funny is how Square-Enix and Tri Ace actually didn't change that much of the game outside of graphics, voice acting and translation...if anything it was actually an enhanced port rather than an actual remake; The first game (First Departure) meanwhile had more changes made not only to the graphics, translation, and voice acting but the storyline itself. (Eg including a way to recruit Erys, therefore adding two characters with just Welch, adding P As for T'Nique, and removing Ashlay's injured arm altogether)

Close Square Enix

The Dominic Deegan fandom consists of three boards. Reportedly, they're set up to be "critics, flamers, and cheerleaders," but it's hard to see anything universally or even generally positive posted about any of the author's work in the last four years.
- Then there's the Giant in the Playground threads, which spend each day nitpicking, strip slaying, and making pseudo-scientific theories (called Dominology) based on Mookie's day-to-day strips.
And hey, let's not leave Order of the Stick out of this either! If Rich posts a comic that focuses on one character, he alienates the fans of the other characters, and vice-versa. Though for this very reason, Rich never takes his script from the fans' ideas or requests.
- Not to mention the people who take him to task for any action shown in the comic that seems to violate the rules of D&D (or even failing to show the average statistical outcome of whatever they think the stats are for the characters). Not one strip goes by without a near-flamewar about whether such-and-such a character could possibly have survived said damage, or what spell would have been MORE effective than the one they cast — even if there's no evidence the character even knows the spell, much less prepared it that day.
Amber of Dan And Mabs Furry Adventures had this sort of problem with her comics falling somewhere between wacky gag-a-day strips and developing story, and fans unable to decide which they preferred. Amber's response was entertaining.
Parodied in Sabrina Online, in this comic◊.

Close Webcomics

Fans of Red vs. Blue are divided over which videos were better: the early humor-oriented videos or the dramedy trilogy starting with "Reconstruction". When Rooster Teeth returned to its comedy-focused roots, fans that came in after the Re Tool cried foul. Likewise, the fans of the earlier stuff blame the newer fans (often Wild Mass Guessers) for "ruining" the series in the first place.

Close Web Original

Ever since the Academy Awards added the Best Animated Feature and Best Animated Short Film categories, animation fans have been complaining that the award "ghettoizes" animation.
The Simpsons' fanbase. The Comic Book Guy exists largely so that the writers can comment on the phenomenon.
- In fact, the episode that introduced his catchphrase ("Worst. Episode. Ever.") took another shot at this trope by showing the creator of Itchy and Scratchy attempting to focus test the fans to figure out what they wanted to make the show better. The children in the focus group all have myriad, contradicting suggestions for improving the series that are utterly useless to the writing staff.
  - Which didn't quite work as a problem for Itchy and Scratchy, since it's supposed to be a series of unconnected shorts, where various episodes could use some but not all of the ideas. Nobody ever complained about Bugs Bunny being in the Old West and then on the Moon after all.
The fanbase of the DCAU cannot seem to move on now that said DCAU has ended, and will automatically despise any new DC show that comes along as a result. This includes Teen Titans, Legion Of Superheroes, and (most infamously) The Batman~~. Probably gonna happen with~~, and Batman The Brave And The Bold.
- Thankfully averted with that last one; the general consensus seems to be that the show is glorious, Silver Age "AWESOME-SAUCE!", as Bat-Mite would say.
- It was much worse a few years ago back when Justice League/Unlimited was still on the air. There seemed to be no end to the complaining in forums such as World's Finest over George Newburn's voice not being right for Superman or the Cadmus arc not living up to expectations.
The Daria fanbase gets quite violent about Shipping, even several years past the end of the show and the regular airing of reruns. Especially when the subject of Tom comes up.
- Not so much, anymore - especially with the fandom shifting more over towards the Daria Expanded Universe (which include fan-based works) and some of the better ships with fanon characters. Richard Rawlings, Michael Fulton - the day of the T(h)om-haters has passed.
Kim Possible. The main argument here is if Kim is the victim of Chickification or not.
Disney's upcoming The Princessand The Frog is their first movie to have a black Disney Princess. It's been plagued with controversy from its announcement, with some people decrying her original name "Maddy" (later changed to Tiana) as stereotypically a lower-class slave name, to her position as a chambermaid (several of the "Disney Princesses" were also of low station), to the original title of "The Frog Princess" apparently being racially insensitive, to people getting angry over the racially ambiguous prince being too white. You can still find a video on Youtube complaining about how Disney thinks all black girls "have" to have a little badonk-badonk. For context, publicity shots of Tiana were the only human character images released at the time. Other images show a diverse series of character types, including a Creole witch doctor (also racist!), a black voodoo godmother who helps the main characters (labeled a Magic Negro before anything was revealed about her character), and then the requisite animal characters.
- For a more recent example, read the DailyMail milking this for all its worth. Oh, the irony.
- To be fair, Disney does have a nasty track record of Unfortunate Implications in past attempts to appeal to minorities. Pocahontas was heavily criticised for resurrecting the stereotype of the Noble Savage or their supposed usage of Naomi Campbell when trying to come up with the image of an actual historical Native American woman. (She was actually based on her Native American Voice Actress) Fifty years ago they did some racially insensitive portrayals of black characters (See Song Of The South or Dumbo for just two such examples). The problem is more that the vast majority of cries about "racism" for this project are seriously overblown make it hard to take even the legitimate concerns seriously.
- The Livejournal Community for the movie has this discussion on this topic which has fans (many of them black) saying how they actually disagree with all of the "racism" cries. Read it and breathe a sigh of relief. It's hard to take someone seriously when they're decrying a Randy Newman jazz song as a "Negro Spiritual".
- Many have expressed outrage over Ray the firefly being a blatant black stereotype, even though he has spiky red hair and a pretty well done Cajun (read: white) accent. Now, it would be just as wrong to mock the Cajun people, but there've been funny accented Disney sidekicks before, and they usually outshine the leads in terms of personality and character development. Keep in mind all we've seen of the character so far is him smiling at the camera, saying two inoffensive lines and flying away.
- Following the announcement of The Princess and the Frog having the first African American Disney princess, people immediately started crying racism, from the princess's original name (Maddy, apparently too close to "mammy") to her original job as a chambermaid (coveniently forgetting that Cinderella and Snow White were also in servitude in their movies). Even after Disney changed the name and job, people still complained about Tiana's "ghetto" accent (ignoring the fact that she was a resident of New Orleans), her character not being drawn attractive enough, and her character being drawn as a "stereotypical" black girl. Her prince, Naveen, has come under fire as well. Disney deliberately made him ethnically ambiguous, leading one half of complainers to scream that Disney is balking at their first interracial romance and the other half whining about how little African American boys won't have a Disney prince for the African American girls' princess.
  - Tiana and Naveen have often been Mis Blamed as the first Disney interracial couple...Nobody seems to remember that couple in The Hunchback Of Notre Dame...you know, Esmeralda (a Gypsy) and Phoebus (a European). Maybe the first interracial royal couple, but certainly not the first. (Many shippers argue Pocahontas and John Smith as counting.)
For all of their complaints about the Animation Age Ghetto, 3D animation fans decry any 3D film not made by Pixar, regardless of its own merits. Somehow, they all have penguins.
For TMNT 2003, there is the Fast Forward season, which was reviled upon announcement, and was met by Critical Backlash by many 2003 fans, who preferred the grim tone (Can you blame them?), but when Back To The Sewers was announced to be going back to New York, some fans went insane, this is probably because of news that, among other things, there was going to be a Triceraton Shredder in the scrapped second season, but the season wasn't produced because of general unpopularity with the fans.
No mention for the Scooby Doo fandom (or Fan Dumb)?

Close Western Animation

Controversial real-life example - deal with any religion in any medium, and no matter how respectful you are there's still going to be someone who'll kick up a fuss about some "blasphemy" or "ignorance" that you'll be somehow committing.
- And then there's the equally frequent commenter who rags on you for not being disrespectful enough.
The American news media. You have Conservatives claiming that the news media has a liberal bias. Then you have the Liberals claiming that the media does not report enough! The media has it worse than Sega.
- For that matter, American politics in general. To quote Dave Barry, "It would be easier to get the entire population of Tokyo to wear matching outfits than to get any two randomly selected Americans to agree on pizza toppings."
Hardcore Gamers. You will be very hard-pressed to find a self-professed hardcore gamer that actually spends more time playing video games as opposed to whining and crying about them.
- Gamers in general play two games. The Crying Game and the actual games themselves. The ones who cry the most and get catered to are the winners. Never mind that Gaming is an actual business and catering solely to fans would cause so many companies to release projects that would lose money due to it catering to specific fans that won't pay enough to make it worthwhile.
Entertainment example: Orlando Bloom fans. Nothing he does is ever good enough for his fangirls anymore, and his actions are exaggerated to the point of parody. If he goes a while without a movie role, he's lazy. If he DOES accept a role, the movie sucks. If a set of candid photos shows up, he's whoring himself out to the papes. If he falls off the grid for while, it's because no one cares about him anymore. If he's spotted with a drink in his hand, he's a hopeless alcoholic who is self-medicating. If he appears to have any kind of visible injury, he's self-destructive. Heaven forbid he should spend any length of time in LA, because then he's a sellout. Any woman he dates is the devil and proof that he has lousy taste in women (unless it's Kate Bosworth). Trolls rarely show up to start trouble...they don't have to! Ironically, the tide seems to be slowly turning in his favor regarding the entertainment media, who tore him to shreds when he was popular.
- The man fell three stories and not only survived breaking his back, wasn't paralyzed and recovered completely. No matter how popular he is or isn't, that will never be anything less than epic.
Sports example: NHL fans about any rule change, ever. Change a rule that the fans complain about, they'll start bitching about the new rule, and how it ruined the game and it's disrespecting the traditions of the game, etc. Example: the crease rule. For years, fans complained that there was a goal review every time someone scored, and that half the goals were waved off because someone's skate lace was in the crease or something. So they abolish the crease rule, and now everyone complains about how no one's protecting the goaltenders. And let's not even start on the instigator rule...
Another sports example: MLB fans. They whine about how sick and tired of hearing about the Yankees/Red Sox/Cubs/Mets/Dodgers...then once all five of them are eliminated from contention, they whine about how "no one wants to watch (team that outlasted this group) play (other team that outlasted this group)!" If we're lucky, this whining doesn't start until the World Series. If we're unlucky, it starts earlier. Take this current (2008) World Series for example. They whine about how ratings are going to be bad before it even begins, then whine even more about the fact that no one's watching because Game 3 got delayed an hour and a half by rain. They also complain about the weather in Game 5, how it should've been stopped earlier (maybe true), how they shouldn't have even started (bullshit—it only just started sprinkling when the game began, and the weather forecast did say that the heavy rains weren't supposed to come until later). But if you suggest that maybe they should make every team get a dome, you're just begging to be Flamed—and the other ballpark in this Series is example number one as to why domed stadiums are an affront to the game. (Never mind the fact that there are "traditional" ballparks with design quirks much more game-altering than the Trop's catwalks—like foul territory with oddly angled walls and a garage door, a 37-foot-high wall with a slightly protruding scoreboard near the base and a not-so-slightly protruding ladder halfway up, and another set of odd angles in right center known as "The Triangle"—and this is my favorite team's home ballpark I'm talking about.) Also, the games themselves have been pretty close so far, with one exception, and to a baseball purist, this has all the makings of an all-time classic. Now all it needs is a dramatic Game 6 extra-inning walkoff homer and an equally dramatic Game 7, and it can contend for the title of greatest ever. Not bad for something that "sucks", huh?
Another one with an unpleasable fanbase in fans of American Open Racing. For 12 years two US championships for open wheel racing existed. CART (Championship Auto Racing team, which was formed in the 70's, then became Champ Car World Series in 2003) and IRL (Indy racing league, but the series is called Indycar Series) The difference between the two championships were that CART/CCWS ran both ovals and road/street circuits (p until 2006 when in 2007 it was just road/street circuits) while IRL ran just ovals (Up until a few years ago when it then started to add road and street circuits to their schedule.) When the two series merged in 2008 to have one series for the national championship people were still pissed. People were either pissed because of the cars the IRL used (Most people claim them as ugly which I've seen worse), a lower horsepower engine (650HP for IRL compared to the 900 some that CART ran in the mid 90's and 720 to 850 used by CCWS.) The unhappy fans go on and on about what can be done to fix it, and it's like dude Rome wasn't built in a day and neither is this. It will take time for AOW to be what it used to be and the merger was just the start.
- This could even be taken to a more general level with racing fans of any series (NASCAR, F1, etc). Some changes gets made and you have people on both sides who bitch about it(For a NASCAR example, the COT or Car of Tomorrow. Some people like it, some hate it.)
Any rating organization. If they have loose guidelines, they're accused of making the guidelines arbitrary and subjective. If they have precise guidelines, then they're laughed at for taking subjective matters too seriously.
Many radio stations tend to fall victim to this. Whenever radio stations tweak their music format, there'll be the old fans who are unhappy with the change. Note that this isn't really about radio stations changing their format completely. It's about radio stations that are more subtle in tweaking the format, while acting as if they're the same radio stations that they always were.
Politics. Now let's all just walk away...
- Let's take one step further, America's Armed Forces deployments. Controversy in all 31 flavors. Invade a nation; American is labeled a bunch of imperialist cowards who hide behind big guns. Sit back and try to use tact and diplomacy instead; America gets labeled a bunch of soft dreamers who've lost their backbone and have failed the world by not using their superior firepower to uphold peace. And the best part is, this comes from.....Americans by and large. You just can't freakin' win.
- British Prime Ministers are either too presidential and controlling (Margaret Thatcher & Tony Blair) or too weak and wishy-washy (Jim Callaghan, John Major).
Believe it or not, the fanbase of General Motors. Lets just say there is VEHEMENT disagreement over what GM should/shouldn't do, or what each of its brands should stand for.
Most forum software fanbases, apparently. For example, the vBulletin support forum has a ridiculous amount of whining in the hidden custom feedback forum, resulting in everything from insult meme pictures being posted as responses to people threatening to sue the company for merely $50-100 and fad avatars with little lock icons in response to locked topics. To be honest, it sometimes more resembles a gaming fanboys forum than a customer support forum on some days.
Heather "dooce" Armstrong has a very popular blog, and frequently makes fun of the people who complain about everything she does. She's not exaggerating; just look at any post with the comments open.
It happens every single time I write something. Every. Single. Time. I am so in tune with human nature now that I've been dealing with it for eight and a half years that I can predict what someone will send me in an email in response to a word or sentence or paragraph that I've written that is totally and completely innocuous. At times I feel like an accidental puppeteer.
Apple Inc's legion of iFanboys. For years now whenever there has been a build-up to a major product launch (Apple famously refuse to comment themselves on any upcoming releases, most of the time even refusing to confirm that there is going to be a new product coming out) the rumour mill goes into overdrive, and then once the product is finally revealed the rumour sites and technology blogs will be filled with people complaining about how it isn't revolutionary enough, how it lacks basic no-brainer features, how it's not as pretty as the model it's replacing, and how it spells the beginning of the end for the company. Of course, Apple go on to sell millions of these new products and increase their user base every time, as they have done successfully now for the last decade.

Close Real Life

Main Tropes Index

Troperville

Editing Help

Tools

Toys

Examples