Power To The People
I am a big believer in the power of individuals. We, as in people in general, tend to whine about a lot of things. Go to virtually any forum or comment section on any subject on any website, you'll find a bunch of people complaining about something. I'm sure some people reading this will take it as me complaining about people complaining.
I think people in general are predisposed to taking on an identity of a victim. We tend to look at anything that goes wrong or that we don't like as some sort of affront to us personally, rather than a confluence of circumstance that it usually is. We see conspiracies against us rather than simple matters of our own will falling against someone else's. Sometimes your bottle of soda missing from the fridge at work is just somebody's mistake, not a conspiracy by your co-workers torment you.
But this isn't always a bad thing. It is often annoying, but it isn't always bad. With so much complaining, You're bound to get a few good outcomes from all the noise. That's obviously subjective based on your own viewpoint though.
Last week I did my own little coverage of E3. In my predictions I talked about what the big 3 console makers were doing, what they were expected to do, etc. I said that Xbox would have a tough time because of the unpopularity of their need for a persistent internet connection (or at least once every 24 hours) and their relatively stiff restrictions on used games.
In my post-E3 coverage I noted how Xbox was in for a very rough ride in light of their competitors not doing the same types of things - the same type of negative things - that were making it so unpopular before it was even launched. I said before E3 that unless Xbox was significantly cheaper than the PS4, Sony repeated the same DRM features on their console, or Xbox reversed course on their DRM features, there would be a mountain to climb for Microsoft in convincing large numbers to buy in.
It's roughly a week later, and the seemingly inevitable pivot has come.
Microsoft announced yesterday that on day one of the Xbox One's release there will be a system update. That system update will remove two of the biggest controversial aspects of the system. The requirement to have your XBOne connect to the internet every 24 hours even when playing off-line games will be removed. The paradigm they were trying to set up with used games (lending it to Xbox Live friends of at least 30 days, having to jump through hoops to trade-in/sell/buy used games) will be gone.
It seems to be all but certain this change came from people complaining. It is the result of a lot of people on the internet and off saying to Microsoft, "we aren't gonna buy your product if it's like this". And that is a good thing.
I do think that in general people complain too much about too many inane things. This is not the most important matter for the will of the people to be exercised. But I think this is a good reminder to the citizens, particularly in the U.S. We tend to label ourselves as victims and throw up our arms saying we can't do anything about anything. But we can. We can change things, if only we can stop feeling sorry for ourselves, stop saying "it's too much" or "it can't change".
If only we could use this same kind of passion to affect change in areas a little more substantial than video games.
I think people in general are predisposed to taking on an identity of a victim. We tend to look at anything that goes wrong or that we don't like as some sort of affront to us personally, rather than a confluence of circumstance that it usually is. We see conspiracies against us rather than simple matters of our own will falling against someone else's. Sometimes your bottle of soda missing from the fridge at work is just somebody's mistake, not a conspiracy by your co-workers torment you.
But this isn't always a bad thing. It is often annoying, but it isn't always bad. With so much complaining, You're bound to get a few good outcomes from all the noise. That's obviously subjective based on your own viewpoint though.
Last week I did my own little coverage of E3. In my predictions I talked about what the big 3 console makers were doing, what they were expected to do, etc. I said that Xbox would have a tough time because of the unpopularity of their need for a persistent internet connection (or at least once every 24 hours) and their relatively stiff restrictions on used games.
In my post-E3 coverage I noted how Xbox was in for a very rough ride in light of their competitors not doing the same types of things - the same type of negative things - that were making it so unpopular before it was even launched. I said before E3 that unless Xbox was significantly cheaper than the PS4, Sony repeated the same DRM features on their console, or Xbox reversed course on their DRM features, there would be a mountain to climb for Microsoft in convincing large numbers to buy in.
It's roughly a week later, and the seemingly inevitable pivot has come.
Microsoft announced yesterday that on day one of the Xbox One's release there will be a system update. That system update will remove two of the biggest controversial aspects of the system. The requirement to have your XBOne connect to the internet every 24 hours even when playing off-line games will be removed. The paradigm they were trying to set up with used games (lending it to Xbox Live friends of at least 30 days, having to jump through hoops to trade-in/sell/buy used games) will be gone.
It seems to be all but certain this change came from people complaining. It is the result of a lot of people on the internet and off saying to Microsoft, "we aren't gonna buy your product if it's like this". And that is a good thing.
I do think that in general people complain too much about too many inane things. This is not the most important matter for the will of the people to be exercised. But I think this is a good reminder to the citizens, particularly in the U.S. We tend to label ourselves as victims and throw up our arms saying we can't do anything about anything. But we can. We can change things, if only we can stop feeling sorry for ourselves, stop saying "it's too much" or "it can't change".
If only we could use this same kind of passion to affect change in areas a little more substantial than video games.
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