Are divided fanbases harder to please?

[masteroflostrain]

Before I go in, I understand blind loyalty or blindly hating something are just as bad. You gotta point out the good and bad because no videogame/movie/TV show is perfect.

Now that's out of the way, I'm talking about a fanbase that genuinely enjoy a game/movie vs the ones that doesn't genuinely enjoy it. Probably the biggest example is kingdom hearts 3. It's the definition of a 50/50 fanbase. While yes you can dislike something because you have valid compliants that needs to be addressed, the other half still genuinely enjoys despite it's flaws. Heck even fans that genuinely enjoy something might actually like the flaws(what could be a flaw to some could amazing to others, fillers are a big example of this).

I'm not good at explaining, so I may have missed a few points in my own arguments. But nonetheless, this could be a problem because if both sides genuinely enjoys/dislikes something, it's going to be hard to find a balance.

Too long; didn't read- If both sides of a fanbase becomes 50/50(genuine dislike/genuine enjoyment), it's going to be hard to please people in those fandom.

 

[Deleted member 246005]

It's hard to please everyone so being a creative person is like being a gambler. Sometimes you have to just take a guess and hope it works out.

Honestly, most fanbases that last are gonna be divided and you can't really avoid it. Or the internet makes it harder to let certain beliefs go.

 

[Absent]

It’s a byproduct of fandom and internet culture. I’m more of the opinion that it’s not a matter of how or why, but when. Once a community reaches a certain point, extremes will form. Best thing to do is to focus on what makes you happy and ignore/mute others who bring down your experience.

 

[Veevee]

It's difficult, I guess. There are times when fanbases are divided over concrete decisions (e.g. round-based battle vs. action battle); and others where some part of the fandom is just way more lenient than the other. In a lot of cases publishers do good when they stick to the core essence of their stuff, whatever that is. Dragon Quest, for example, is not a shining example of novelty, but it knows that it tries to appeal to turn-based combat lovers and sticks with that. The Sonic the Hedgehog series on the other hand has felt all over the place in recent years and its criticism is less about individual games and more about the games not getting fundamental things right ... Sonic is to be the fastest hedgehog in the world, so people kind of expect to rush through levels, instead games like "The Lost World" felt slow, sloggy, with terrible controls and like a half-baked attempt. That game was pretty, though, so the fans probably would've been much happier to play it in a classic way.

Another problem is that sometimes fanbases don't get that a game is not for them and that it doesn't make the game bad. I love farming simulator relaxing games like Stardew Valley, but Story of Seasons wasn't my cup of tea. People love that game though, so I shouldn't assume it's bad - I just have some very concrete issues with it that don't bother other people as much. I can still play tons of other games of the genre, so no need to get hung up on this.

 

[Blackrazor187]

Challenging yes but impossible not really. I like the Final Fantasy 7 remake now the o.g veteran fans however they may not necessarily like it since there could be aspects from the gameplay or story that they didn't like while other areas of the fandom did liked.
To me a remake,reboot or sequel could be done perfectly if it improves and expands upon what the original has made while also adding in new touches and refinements to the original product while still remaining very faithful to the original like Resident Evil 2 the remake.
Critcizing the microtransactions of DMC 5 i understand and i agree with it being totally pointless since you could get as much as they are selling to you in game for free but blindly defending it saying that oh you're going to ruin the series and sales just because you're a hardcore dmc fan who will whale out any merch Capcom puts out is really silly.
I have an innocent till proven guilty kind of view on things so i'll have to look at stuff myself and decided whether or not its bad as it was said or just over exaggeration. (NEVER TRUST ANY REVIEW SCORE OR HOW MUCH LIKES A CHARACTER OR ANIME INDUSTRY MEMBER HAS ON MAL.)

 

[Vulpes XIII]

In my opinion I would say the answer is both Yes and No.

The reason I’m saying no is I believe that if the fanbase has mostly been on the same page about stuff in the movies/games/books etc for the most part and there has only been 1 or 2 things that have divided the fanbase then the fanbase won’t be hard to please as long as the creator knows what causing the divide and knows how to fix it so the majority of people like it after all it’s impossible to please everyone.

As to why I’m saying they are harder to please is that I believe there is a point where the fanbase have became so divided that it’s impossible to please the majority of the fanbase and I can think of no better example than the Sonic fanbase. As from what I remember when I used to be in the Sonic fanbase is that considering how many different games there used to be some people used to refer to the Sonic games being parts of different eras and the three I heard of was the

Classic Era - original games

Adventure Era - which referred to the games released on Dreamcast/ Gamecube

Modern Era - This is harder to say when this started as some people will say this era started with Sonic 06 where other will say Sonic 06 was apart of the adventure era of games, but anyway this era continues to present day however I heard people debate that games like Sonic Boom and Forces are apart of a 4th era of games.

Anyway the point of me discussing eras was to highlight the first problem that can divide a fanbase is when people start dividing stuff in the one franchise into separate parts when there is no need as it doesn’t make sense to do so. However there is times when it makes complete sense to separate stuff in a franchise as they are different things for example it’s fine to separate Pokémon games into main games and spin- off games as that is actually an official thing as far as I’m aware. Another example is Kingdom Hearts where it makes perfect sense to categorise the games as phase 1 and phase 2 as there two different sagas. However is the Sonic franchise it makes no sense because there all main series games and there all stand alone titles (apart from a few exceptions riders series even then you can understand it without playing the other games) honestly when this happens in the Sonic franchise it’s more about people trying to prove that the games they grew up with and played are superior to other people and that all games should be like those games. At this point it just causes way too many problems and the developers have no idea how to please the majority of the fanbase. Which I honestly can’t blame the developers when you have debates like:

Sonic should be the only character vs Sonic needs less friends vs Sonic needs more friends
The games should be 2D vs the games should be 3D
They should go back to using classic Sonic vs use adventure Sonic instead vs use modern Sonic plus many more arguments.

Unless they come up with a miracle game that pleases everyone how do you actually please a fanbase when it’s gets as divided as the Sonic franchise?

TL;DR - The answer can be either yes or no depending on a variety of factors on both sides such as do the creator know what the problem is and how to fix it? Do they know who their main fanbase are? Do they know when they should and shouldn’t be listening to the fanbase? If they know how to fix the problem then it easier to please the fanbase because they can do it right next time even though the fanbase will still be divided over the previous thing. If its get too the point where they don’t know how to fix the divide in the fanbase then all the developers can do is hope they somehow manage to make a miracle game that solves all their problems.