Society has changed so much within the past few years. Entitlement seems to be the number one diversion from "the way we were." We're all entitled to perfection these days, apparently. Tiger Woods and all the other golfers moan and complain about imperfect greens at the East Lake Golf Club. Gamers moan and complain about every imperfection they perceive in every game (not just EA games). In our mind, it's our right to download movies and albums for free even! We've seemingly lost our ability to grin and bear it - about anything. Constructive criticism is no longer tolerated or offered. In its place, seething vitriol from everyone, regarding every issue.

Maybe it's that games cost ten dollars more than they used to that causes people to seek out the official Forza 2 forum (not ours, yet) and talk about how the game "sucks" because it "doesn't feel fast enough." Because Gran Turismo had more cars. Because it's too hard to take the corners.

Seemingly, nobody takes the time to think, adapt, consider and hone their thoughts about anything before spewing them all over the internet like so much piss streaming down the walls of a gas station bathroom.

Maybe it's the ease with which we can procure anything in this day and age that makes us so impatient and drives our wanton insanity. On a personal note, my ISP recently had trouble hooking up with Google. I couldn't figure out why the damn thing was fine one moment (when I would click links other than google in my bookmarks) and then not connecting the next. I got pissed and just about threw my computer through a wall because my typical route through the internet - typing something in the Google search key in Firefox - wasn't working. Nevermind having patience to figure out the root of the problem or a workaround, I was ready to get angry!

My obvious hypocrisy aside, I'm convinced there's something to this entitlement issue. Only a few years ago we complained about the fact that none of the recruited players in NCAA Football had any wristbands or gloves. "Bare-armed freaks" is how we referred to them. But I don't recall anybody screaming out that "EA SUCKS" about it. We just dealt with it. What was typing those two words going to do about it? I don't think any of us had developed our e-penises yet, we were still just people using the internet as a form of communication while using the already-in-place forms of common courtesy taught to us by society at large. That seems to be long gone now.

I think part of the issue is that we're now used to the graphics. That doesn't impress us anymore. Did anybody else fire up the PS2 for the first time and just sit there drooling? Honestly, it was enough for me that the games looked so good, I didn't even care about the gameplay. But now, all the games look great. Developers are scrambling to perfect the game play. It's almost as though they have to figure out how to make the near-perfect graphics walk hand in hand with our expectations for the game play. We want the new games to look like the new games but play like the old ones.

We don't want a 260-lb linebacker to feel as heavy and real as a human being of that size would, because we're moving around a little stick and he should move just as fast as that. But not too fast, because that's not realistic. We still want lollipop passes like in Bill Walsh football even though the game now looks and plays almost identical to the games on television - which feature quarterbacks that throw through lanes because leaving the ball up in the air is just asking to get it picked off.

What I'm trying to say is that there is a process of meeting in the middle here that is still in work. The incredible graphics will have to be offset by equally incredible and convincing game play. It'll happen, just not all at once. Great titles will spawn other great ones and believe me, it will get better.

The application of complaint and criticism is a necessary tool for the developers to hone their product. But simply put, it doesn't solve much if done more than once. My wife always gets angry at me if somebody cuts in front of me and I don't honk my horn at them. I ask her, "why use the horn if it's not going to help us avoid an accident?" I guess she just wants the momentary satisfaction of letting somebody know just how angry we are that they cut us off. I can understand that, but the person who sees a car 5 feet behind them when they thought the lane was empty probably already knows they made a boo boo. I say the horn is best used to spare your life, not your feelings. Same with criticism. Do it constructively and civilly. Add new angles to the criticism rather than just hateful rhetoric. Act as though your best friend is the one creating these games, because the people who do create the games are people just like you and me. They do it because they love the game, not because they love plugging away at code and working 80 hours a week to meet deadlines.

I know it's frustrating to buy a game and not have it turn out to be everything you hoped it would. However, overreaction simply makes you look foolish. Like 1UP.com giving NHL2k8 a 4/10. You might have noticed this in SlizeezyC's metareview of the two NHL games published yesterday on our site. The game disappointed them out of the box, so they gave it a 4 out of 10 rating. We all know it's not a 4, and personally I now know to take their input with a large grain of salt before assigning credence to it.

The thing about pointing out deficiencies is that it's great for the developer the first time around, and bad for just about everybody who has any interest in the game all the other times around. Believe it or not, a vast majority of the people who come to our forum from the web like a game and want to get better at it. Or better yet, they're looking for a community to get involved with and share their love of the game. If all they see is hate aimed at each and every one of the games we have forums for, it just shows them that we're an immature community that is dedicated to the art of profanity-laced tirades, not playing games. If you're bitching about a well-known issue, or harping on something that's just a personal preference - like not having "speed lines" blurring the screen so you can "feel the speed" on Forza - then you're not doing anybody any good.

If we sound off when we have issues with the game, that's great. But from then on, do we play the game, or move on? Or just sit here and bitch all year? I really think it should be one of the former, because you're just spinning your wheels with the third option.

I think the community has control over where we want to go. We can be the community of game-aholics that we could be, welcoming and enfusing new members with our knowledge and enthusiasm for this vast and epic galaxy of sports games now available to us... Or we can be a roiling sea of complaints that drives away those who actually have interest in playing the games. It's up to the collective.