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Shank’s Spiel: Fanboy Incompetency

SHANK'S SPIEL

Imagine you’re outside on a beautiful day. The sun is shining, it’s not too hot, and there isn’t a cloud in the sky. You sit back, relax, and take in the beautiful opal blue sky above you. Prepare for Shank’s Spiel.

You turn to your friend and remark on how blue the sky is. He turns to you, deadpan, and says, “The sky isn’t blue, it’s yellow.”

You then proceed to explain to him that he’s objectively incorrect, citing actual facts and science. The sky isn’t yellow. It’s blue due to atmospheric scattering. At this time of day, the molecules in the air scatter blue light more than red, thus the sky appears blue. This can be measured and quantified.

After your explanation, however, he looks at you and says, “It’s not blue. It’s yellow.”

You feel frustrated, right? How can someone, after having actual facts explained to him, still claim something that isn’t true? It’s as if he ignored everything you said, and what’s worse, rejected the factual observations.

If this scenario sounds ludicrous, it isn’t too dissimilar to what happens in our games industry. People are so hell bent on defending their favorite game, their favorite developer, or their favorite publisher at all costs, in spite of all facts laid before them.

In fact, we have a word for such people. They are called fanboys.

There are very few things in this industry I hate more than fanboys. Blindly defending something in spite of all factual evidence isn’t loyalty. It’s stupidity. You are no longer a consumer. You are a thrall.

You see this plain as day in the so-called “console wars” that Sony and Microsoft claim to not want to participate in, only to chest thump talking points about their plastic box, such as timed exclusivity. This only incites logically deduced comparisons and competition amongst their consumers, which quickly deteriorates into the aforementioned console wars.

These companies tend to contradict themselves, if you couldn’t tell. And it’s not just limited to Sony and Microsoft, as we’ll explore further on.

To illustrate my point, I’ll discuss the debacle from last summer regarding Destiny 2 and PS4 Pro. To be clear, while this example may seem very specific to the PS4 Pro and Destiny 2, the takeaway is the line of thinking involved here.

In other words, don’t focus on the “what” (Destiny 2 framerate on PS4 Pro). Focus on the “how,” that is, how these fanboys think.

With me so far? Ok, let’s dive in.

Last year, the very respectable and reliable Digital Foundry published a piece discussing why Destiny 2 wouldn’t run at 60 frames per second (fps) on the PS4 Pro.

This article contained some incredibly detailed information and analysis, with explanations from Bungie themselves. We were literally getting the information from the horse’s mouth, as it were.

Despite all this excellent information, almost immediately, the article contains material that fanboys could use as ammo.

Remember how I mentioned that these companies contradict themselves? Bungie’s Luke Smith stated the following, “The console, the PS4 Pro is super powerful, but it couldn’t run our game at 60. Our game’s this rich physics simulation where collision of players, networking, etc, and like, it wouldn’t run… [there’s] not enough horsepower there.”

So then, it’s clearly not super powerful. If it was, it could run the game at 60fps. How does this tie back into fanboys?

By falsely claiming that the PS4 Pro is “super powerful,” Bungie is appeasing the console fanboys assertion that their plastic box is this ungodly powerful machine. (As an aside, a mid-range $450 PC annihilates the PS4 Pro, as proven time and time again by Potato Masher Pro.)

Even though Luke Smith says that there’s not enough horsepower, console fanboys won’t read this, they won’t take this in. They’ll only see the part where Luke Smith mentions that the PS4 Pro is super powerful, thus adding fuel to the fanboy fire.

Let’s continue. Bungie’s Mark Noseworthy goes on to state, “It’s on the CPU side…Destiny’s simulation, like we have more AI, more monsters in an environment with physically simulated vehicles and characters and projectiles, and it’s part of the Destiny magic, like that, like 30 seconds of fun, like coming around a corner and throwing a grenade, popping a guy in the head, and then you add like five, six, seven other players in a public event; that is incredibly intensive for hardware.”

Again, don’t focus on the precise wording Mark Noseworthy is providing here. Instead focus on the fact that he’s providing a factual explanation regarding the CPU limitations with the console.

Perhaps pre-empting a response from consumers, Digital Foundry expounds further this explanation hasn’t been received well by certain people.

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There are even people here who outright reject the factual explanation provided by Bungie:

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Naturally, some of their disbelief could be due to the perception that so many other shooters on console are running at 60fps, specifically, Battlefield 1 being cited as an example.

However, even here, as Digital Foundry explains, Battlefield 1 on PS4 Pro isn’t a stable 60fps, almost certainly due to the CPU.

Second, they explain that the reason why Battlefield 1 aims for higher framerates than Destiny 2 on console is because the former was built specifically with a higher framerate in mind.

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Via Digital Foundry

Again, don’t focus on the specific phrasing here. Focus on the fact that an objective explanation is being provided with clearly stated facts and thorough measured analysis.

Digital Foundry continues in an effort to provide further information, asking and answering: if the engine wasn’t designed for 60fps gameplay, why was it running at 60fps on PC at the reveal event?

“Bungie demonstrated the title running at 4K with 60 frames per second gameplay using a GTX 1080 Ti paired with a Core i7 7700K. Even compared to Intel’s very best enthusiast-grade six, eight and ten core CPUs, the quad-core 7700K is still an exceptionally powerful performer and a vast leap in processing power over the eight AMD Jaguar-derived cores found in the current-gen consoles and their mid-gen refreshes. Something comparable will eventually come to console hardware when AMD’s Ryzen architecture makes the leap to the next generation, but this is years away.”

Once again, don’t focus on the specific phrasing. Focus on the fact that a measured objective explanation is being provided by people who know what they’re talking about.

Now, to any reasonable person, when all this analysis, objective measurement, and explanations are taken a whole, he would be satisfied with the answer as to why Destiny 2 can’t and won’t run at 60fps on PS4 Pro:

  • The game wasn’t designed with 60fps in mind.
  • The CPU can’t handle the simulation and networking because it’s too weak.
  • Even games designed with higher framerate in mind can’t achieve consistent 60fps on PS4 Pro
  • The reason PC can run the game at 60fps is because PC CPUs are vastly more powerful than the CPUs in these consoles.

Seems fair, right? A question was posed. A measured objective explanation based on facts was provided. So we’re good, right?

Wrong. Enter the fanboys.

Here are actual comments taken from Digital Foundry’s article and accompanying YouTube analysis:

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These comments exemplify the mindset of fanboys, brought about by a few different things.

There is a complete inability to digest and accept facts. It’s not just that these gamers deny facts. They actually categorically outright reject facts.

But why do they do this?

Part of the blame I place on games media for not doing their job of educating consumers, thus feeding the bias of these fanboys. For example, posting so-called “graphics comparisons” with zero analysis (i.e. information for consumers) allows fanboys to substitute their own misinterpretations, only adding fuel to the fire. Just look at the comments.

Part of the blame lies with these console manufacturers, developers, and publishers for stoking this “us vs them” mentality, as I explained above at the onset.

However, part of the blame lies in the fanboys themselves. They are seemingly too incompetent to recognize their own incompetence. When something doesn’t line up with their own personal beliefs, they go on the attack and try to rationalize their irrational delusions.

This is simply dangerous. It genuinely blows my mind how some people can be so delusional so as not to be able to think for themselves. To not possess a modicum of basic common sense, only to blurt out the old talking points, based in nothing but pure fabrication is genuinely mind boggling to me.

As a consumer, one must always ask: What do I owe Sony and Microsoft? What do I owe these developers and publishers that I should go out of my way and defend them?

The answer is simple. You owe them nothing. You owe them absolutely nothing.

In fact, they owe you something because they’re asking you to shell out your hard earned money for a product.

Now, I’m not so idealistic nor naive to think this fanboy problem will go away. But I do believe that consumers can inoculate themselves from such incompetence through education and knowledge, education and knowledge that is on the onus of games media.

If you’ve gotten to the end of this article, this is exactly the type of stuff I want to analyze and bring forth. This is what you can expect of me moving forward.

No doubt I’ve probably upset 80% of you, and frankly, I don’t really care. I can only put forth my analysis and opinions, both of which I try my hardest to base in fact.

I don’t believe you can change ideology. But you can change the way people think. And I hope to do so for the better.

4 Comments

  1. I can’t wait to watch the performance I get in Far Cry 5 on PS4 Pro absolutely CRUSH Xbox and PC. You simply don’t understand how technology works. Developers are given the specs of these consoles MONTHS in advance, but they have no clue what your PC specs are. Ever heard of OPTIMIZATION? Yeah I figured not. They have no idea what specs you’re running, and they cant possibly optimize for your machine, or ANY PC for that matter. But Sony has made sure that all developers have access to their dev kits early on, so developers like Ubisoft know EXACTLY how to make their game run at a buttery smooth 30 FPS. You can sit there and claim that 60 FPS is better, but every time I see it I want to puke. You really need to stop talking about things you don’t understand dude.

    • Good job proving the article right about people like you.

      • It’s hard to tell if he is just being sarcastic with his answer, but unfortunately, I don’t think he is. I’m not sure since I quit reading as soon as I read the quote about the PS4 Pro being super powerful…all I needed to know.

    • That’s the funniest thing I’ve read in ages Brian. I thought you were only miserable these days. Or dead

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