New Echo Screen!!! YES!!!!

I have to agree with Boomer, I don't think you NEED a formal opposition. Die hard near sighted fanatacism is often also called fanboyism. The prime example that comes to mind for this is the Final Fantasy Series of games.

Countless people defend the franchise to its bitter end, despite how lame and cancer ridden it's corpse has become. While you don't need a formal versus or opposition, there needs to be a situation where a defensive position has to be taken. This would include things like Firefly. There were many fans who loved it and were pissed that it was canceled (like myself) but I wasn't moved to start up huge patitions and websites to revolt against the decision.

As for it being something one grows out of, or leaves behind. I feel fanboyism, once someone has it, will always remain, though it too will grow up. Maybe Fanman isn't such a horrible name for it. The best example I can give is with myself and the ps3 / 360 argument.

When it was ps2 / x box, I hated xbox because 'it's stupid'. Where as now, I'm still on the Sony side, but instead of saying "it's better just because." I say, "I would never own a 360 because, with a PS3 I have: built in BR vs HDDVD, a controller I prefer, backwards compatability to all my old games, standard usb ports for controllers, and more console  exclusive titles I want."

Is it still fanboyism that I'm so vehemently against 360? Some people would say yes, hell I'd still say yes even though I (in my opinion) reasonably back up my decision.

This video was very enjoyable to watch (and listen to as I browsed websites). Thank you.

I was going to contribute some to this topic, but I decided against because I ramble.

What I would like to know is when is the ETA for the next 16-bit gems episode? Is there a set date each month for each episode or is it put up as you get around to finishing it.

I don't really have anything to add to the topic but will comment on a couple things.

"Nintendo being a kiddie console." What is wrong with that? Having three consoles that all did the same thing what would be the point?

"Firefly" I tried to watch it and do not like it, and if I knew Serenity was them I wouldn't of watched the movie, which is a great movie.

I too thought of Final Fantasy.

I'm glad you guys enjoyed it.  I can totally empathize with having something playing in the background as I perform some other menial tasks.  For some reason, I feel like I'm wasting time if I don't have 3 things going on at once on my computer.  Eh, I blame current culture.

Anyway, the next 16-Bit Gem is currently in development, and I'm trying hard to get it out before PAX East (next weekend), though I don't know if that will work or not.  The most time-consuming part that I didn't plan for very well was capturing footage from the game.  It's an RPG, and it's a LONG RPG at that.  I'm working my way through a little at a time though.  I can promise this at least, the next 16BG after this one won't take nearly as long!

I like the new option to watch in HD.  It's just a nice little extra to have, even if it is just three guys talking at a table.  As far as fanboys go, I never understood the reasoning of "if I insult your point of view then you will have to see things my way"!

This was another great "round table" discussion as always; and I enjoy hearing all of your ideas and thoughts mesh together on these topics. 

My only criticism would have to be with Boomer.  It almost feels like he is sitting in on someone else's show.  It's a real shame too because, when he contributes, he has some very good observations and ideas to add to the discussion!  Be more confident or assertive, Sir!

I can't wait for more great content in the future.

If the next 16-Bit Gem isn't released before PAX, I'm sure Roo wouldn't mind spoiling it for me in person :)

gonna be as honest as I can be here...

I stopped watching when I realized a fist fight over Mac vs. PC wasn't going to break out.

Hey Guys, great episode! I've just recently discoverd The Clan of the Gray Wolf and I have to say I am really enjoying all of the different shows, especially 16-Bit Gems! Way to go Roo!

Now on to the discussion about Fanboyism... I have to say you guys seem really close to defining what it is to be a fanboy, but it seems like it is very much a moving target so you will never be dead on. One thing I noticed is the label gets  applied more by the people who are in oposition to the "Fanboys" view. For example if you said Mario was better than Sonic, and if I had a Genesis I would call you a Fanboy, but if I didn't have either, or didn't care,  you would just be a regular fan to me.

However I do think Boomer and Aestolia bring up and intersting point in that you don't always have an obvious competitor to go against. Although when Fanboyism occurs in these instances they usually compare their favourite game series, movie, tv show etc against all others in the same genre.For example Final Fantasy has been the dominant RPG for the consoles for forever (or long enough), so those Fanboys will go rabid defending FFXIII against any other rpg, or game, out there despite it's flaws.

Overall it was a really interesting subject for you guys to cover, and one that probably will intrigue future psychologists for years to come! I look forward to the next one.

Good episode, I think you guys got to a lot of core issues.

Believe it or not, somehow there ARE still Sonic fanboys. And yes, many of them even like the recent games.

When you guys started to talk about Star Wars vs. Star Trek, I had my reservations. I think that argument is a thing of the past and the fans of both series are really more understanding (if not unified) right now. I DEFINITELY used to argue Star Wars vs. Star Trek back in the day, in pretty much every way, even though even at the time I already liked them both. But now you don't see that, and yeah I do think it might be because both series have been shamed by less than impressive sequels/prequels.

Of course I used to argue in the "console/system wars." :-P I am a Nintendo fanboy, I guess. But to me, the only points of argument are not the quality of the hardware and software, but how much I agree with various companies' business practices. And I'd say that's why I don't really like Sony that much now and I didn't like Sega back in the day. I used to be a Dragon Quest fanboy, but now it's a series I look at objectively. Heck, I think at one point I was even a Pizza Hut fanboy!

I really don't feel enough passion to argue like I did on most things back in the day; no product or company is perfect. What really matters is how much enjoyment you can get out of it.

Really enjoyed your previous Echo Screens and I'm looking forward to this one. Only thing is, I don't suppose I could beg you to put upload an mp3 version like your previous episodes? I'm sure the video adds to the fun, it's just that I'm on a limit of 10GB a month (I know, I live in the stone age, the best thing is that it goes at a whopping 0.7 Mbps!) so I have to be careful with what I download, especially with videos and such.

Cheers guys :)

Hey Everyone,

    Thanks for tuning in to our show.  The Echo Screen is my personal favorite, and I look forward to doing more of them. As to how I come across in the show...well, believe me,  I don't lack confidence or assertiveness, quite the opposite in fact (just ask anyone who knows me). However, we have alot of behind-the-scenes discussions about what we need to do to improve the quality of the videos, so I expend alot of my attention trying to not cough, bang the table, remembering (or trying to) to talk into the microphone, tracking the running time...

      And in case you are still reading this, we're going to start doing a live Echo Screen in the near future. We'll broadcast on Ustream, and you be able to chat with us via our Ustream Chat client. Keep checking back on our website for details. 

Really enjoyed your previous Echo Screens and I'm looking forward to this one. Only thing is, I don't suppose I could beg you to put upload an mp3 version like your previous episodes? I'm sure the video adds to the fun, it's just that I'm on a limit of 10GB a month (I know, I live in the stone age, the best thing is that it goes at a whopping 0.7 Mbps!) so I have to be careful with what I download, especially with videos and such.

That's a good point.  Sorry, I forgot to post the mp3 (it's been awhile since I posted one of these!).  It's up now.

MP3? I could of been listening to an MP3 while playing Minecraft. I watched the video and couldn't play Minecraft because a flash video and Minecraft individually pushes my computers RAM to double/even single digit numbers of available RAM. (Yes I am aware that I need to add more RAM but I need to take my computer in to get the inside cleaned, and haven't got around to it yet, {icy sidewalks.})

Ooooh! Minecraft! I freaking love that game. I'm either listening to a podcast or on Skype with a friend when I play Minecraft.

Lot of time Fanboy doesn't care about isn't a fan because it's suck... Illogical this guy doesn't like a thing he never tried.Other time a kid will be fanboy because he's friends have x360 and he have x360 because friends have it...Lack of money and ignorance are the principale fanboyism i seen... Who's gonna said something is a shit if he cannot offer it.

Hi everyone! Long-time viewer, first-time commenter.

In my daily routine, the types of fanboys I'll encounter are territory-, brand-, or lifestyle-related, specifically to location/residence, Apple vs. anything, and, as a web developer, various things in "Internet culture," like social media and whatever that means. Anyone who doesn't want to join a social network is ridiculous by definition or just "slow" in the eyes of those fanboys, and on the other side, "social media lovers" are just a bunch of vain individuals with too much time on their hands to work.

One thing that, especially where I live, I see often is the "x city is better than y city" fanboys. Where I live, most either hate it or love it blindly where they won't acknowledge any flaws in the system. Those that hate it compare it to the nearest city, which is a big college party town with a large tech culture. It's the cool place because the crowd's younger, there are more hipsters and people with disposable income to live in urban cores, and the impression of higher sophistication. Where I live is more family-oriented, but if you look at the two, they both have flaws that fanboys of either city don't want to acknowledge. Rarely will someone who prefers one over the other accept some of the problems of either city (on a forum on a site called city-data.com, there are tons of threads about Austin vs. San Antonio, and it's always the same story every time), and when someone does, the fanboys will chew their heads off instantly, making the OP look like the bad guy for not praising the city. That's probably the most common illogical debate I see today, and it makes me wish I could go back to the Genesis v. Super Nintendo days, because at least then I was a child and it was acceptable to have those debates. Now it just feels silly.

Great discussion guys.  It's definitely a nice change coming from some of the boards that I frequent (GameFAQs member for almost 10 years... sigh).  While there's definitely some good minds on the GameFAQs boards, the site is also rampant (and I do mean rampant) with fanboys of every kind.  I agree that there are fanboys for most major games, including Final Fantasy (and even the games within the series, FFVII being the main one I can think of) and it hurts to see a series that I love being represented by such an idiotic fanbase.  It's not just that though, it's Sonic, Mario (like you said), Metroid, Zelda, and Call of Duty.  Even most of the smaller games or series have rabid fanboyism throughout, such as Suikoden, Fire Emblem, No More Heroes, Ys, and Vagrant Story.  I think there's probably one for every game that is even semi good, and even some that are absolute trash (Mimana Iyar).

However, there's one thing that I was hoping would get brought up, and as far as I can remember it didn't, although it may have been mentioned at some point, is this new trend or fad that is almost like the opposite of fanboyism. It's people who hate an entire genre, or an entire series, or even just a game, because either a)it has a lot of hype around it before it comes out, or b)it has a huge following of fanboys.  There are people who sit on the opposing end, without even playing the game (trust me, I know more than one person that I have gotten to confess to this or caught them in a lie about, just to feel like they're different (I guess, I can't really think of any other reason).  They're different than trolls in the sense that they do it to be what they think is cool (opposite to the norm), whereas trolls do it to incite nerd rage.  Call of Duty and Halo, among Final Fantasy, and other huge series, have been the target of this "anti-fanboyism" for at least a year or two now.  It makes me rather angry when someone doesn't even give something a chance.  When, for whatever reason, someone dismisses a game because it's "just another FPS", or "just another JRPG".  Even when the reviews for each game are staggering.  Now, I definitely don't decide which games I like based on reviews, but I generally do check review sites just to get an idea of whether or not I might like the game, and then I start checking the game out through friends or the store, etc, and then make a decision to purchase.  Take Halo for instance.  I am a huge fan of most genres, shooters included (I have been playing Counter-Strike for about 10 years now) so I am really quite open to almost any game as long as it seems good enough to try out.  Thus, I played a bunch of Halo and Halo 2 back in the day with my friends at LAN parties and also on Xbox Live, and it really is quite a good multiplayer game.  However, as soon as Halo 3 came out, all of a sudden, people were saying "Halo is trash, awful game, blah blah blah" and I was sincerely confused.  Where was all of this hate during the Halo 1 and 2 days?  Sure, Halo 3 wasn't quite as good of a game as Halo 2 in my eyes, but to call it terrible is far from what I would say about it.  And yes, I know that my opinion isn't the only one that matters, and I really do take that into account.  So I would start asking these people what they hated about the game, and what they liked (such as weapons, etc), and at least half of them, I could tell, did not even play the game.  There are definitely flaws to the game, and I'll be the first to accept that, but to flat out hate on it without trying it is just idiotic.  Oh well, their loss.

However, it continued on.  Now, every major series has its set of idiots like these.  "Herp derp another generic Call of Duty game" is how I hear it now.  Honestly, Call of Duty 4 is not generic.  It really innovated the genre, just as the earlier games in the series did.  Now, I don't think that Modern Warfare 2 or Black Ops are really that innovative of games, or perfect at all, but I do think that they are good games for those that liked Call of Duty 4, and that's exactly who these games were aimed at.  At least they have all new weapons, maps, etc, whereas most sports games (don't worry, I like sports games too) just have the rosters fixed for all the trades that happened that year.  There's also the people that call Halo generic, when honestly, it's not.  I am a HUGE shooter fan, and I can't think of another shooter that has multiplayer that plays like Halo's multiplayer.  Sure, there are slight similarities, but Halo has a rhythm that no other game has.  It's like Counter-Strike.  People say that there are games out there right now that feel like Counter-Strike, but any true Counter-Strike fan will tell you that there isn't.  Sure, again, there are games with similarities, but honesty, shooters are deeper than just their rules, or how you win.  There are game mechanics and maps to take into account, among other things.  Anyways, I just really wanted to point out this form of anti-fanboyism to a group of people intelligent enough to listen to it. 

Another thing that I really liked is how you pointed out that a lot of fanboyism starts, or even sometimes is purism.  It's like the people that hate Final Fantasy XII because it's different, even though it's a fantastic game.  One of the best in the series in my opinion.  Yet thousands of angry, butthurt Final Fantasy X fans can't get over the fact that they wanted to try something different with the series, so they automatically dismiss the game.  What they don't seem to realize is that Final Fantasy X is vastly different from the previous entries in the series.    Quite often, too, is that they'll even state that they don't mind change, yet they can't seem to come up with a decent argument as to what they didn't like about the game they're hating on.  It's frustrating, to say the least. 

Personally, I feel for boomer, as I don't really think that I currently have any sort of true fanboyism inside of me at the moment.  There are games that I like.  Hell, there are games that I love, that I've spent 200+ hours on, and I will tell people that I think that they are some of the greatest games ever made, but I'll listen to reason.  I know that they have flaws.  I don't have any games or series that I blindly defend no matter what.  I'll be the first to say that the game that I love has flaws.  I'll give an example.  I absolutely love Final Fantasy VI and VII, and personally, they're two of my favorite games (so are some of the other FF games, but I figured I'd single out those two) many people nowadays think that some of the newer FF games are better (namely FF X).  I will listen to every argument someone wants to make, and if it's a good point, I will concede.  But the simple fact remains that I enjoyed VI and VII more than I enjoyed X.  X may be the better game, I don't know, but I enjoyed those two more.  I feel like I'm rambling now so I'm going to stop.

Final words.  Great show, great discussion, keep it up.

Roo said that fanboyism is a devotion to a product and idea, and then he corrected himself and said devotion to a company, i still think its a devotion to a product or an idea, and if enough people devote themselves to it, THEN it becomes a company, right....?

CRAP! I misspelled my screenname

I wouldn't really consider myself an "anti-fanboy", but fanboys do tend to push me away from the products/company they are devoted to.  A prime example of this for me is Apple.  If Apple had no fanboys, I might have tried more of their products other than the iPhone.  However, if I discuss computers or programs with an Apple fanboy, instead of having a pro and con debate over the best parts or software for any given task, I just hear how i am a total mindless idiot for using something other than a MAC and that Bill Gates stole every single idea he ever had from Steve Jobs.  That doesn't really make me want to chuck-out the PC I built and get a MAC.  Personally, I like building my own computer!  I research and pick the best parts for what I can afford (or have the patience to wait for) and watch it all come together.  It's like a model kit that gives you porn!

As for the current generation of game systems, I have both an Xbox 360 and a PS3.  I like them both, however I find that I play my 360 much more than I do my PS3.  When I ask people I know about any differences between games that are for both systems, they all tell me that "the Ps3 version has better graphics, of course, that is because it is a more powerful system".  It may be a more powerful system, but it doesn't always have the superior version of the game.  They tell me the blinded fanboy version, I just want the unbiased truth!  If i didn't have both systems to start with, I would be missing out on some good gameplay experiences by listening to the PS3 fanboys.  I just want the version with the best controls and graphics.  It doesn't matter to me which system it's on.

That last paragraph had more to do with this topic before I wrote it.  I don't remember where I was going with it... Oh well!

"Personally, I like building my own computer!  I research and pick the best parts for what I can afford (or have the patience to wait for) and watch it all come together."

I build computers as well!  It's my favorite thing to do in the world.  I have built all of the computers I've ever owned.  I taught myself how when I really wanted to play Counter-Strike so long ago (not that it's difficult).

I agree with your sentiment that you just want the unbiased truth.  It's hard to get anymore.

god i hate tony romo

Tom Brady is a bloated, overrated, Meeeee-chigan douche. And he sucks on the field. If it weren't for his runningbacks and receivers, he'd just be another typical QB. And Peyton Manning I still cannot forgive for wearing garbage man orange. Eli, however, is the man.

Everyone here agrees with you guys on the fanboy thing, but I'm about to open a pile of hate on myself by saying I am, and always have been a Sony fanboy. Everything you said goes out the window. I'm ready for the hate. I get used to it.

No offense, but Brady isnt overrated because of his RBs and WRs. Besides Moss for like 2 years, hes had no huge name WR or RB on his team. Brady is overrated because hes had 3 franchise olinemen his whole career. With that said, hes still damn good.

Its all about the steel curtain though

I hate all the fanboyism that surrounds the gaming industry today. I am a user at GameSpot, and I prefer Nintendo to Sony and Microsoft, and everytime I say something about Nintendo on GameSpot I get called a fanboy from other users. And it's always for no apparant reason. Who cares if I prefer Nintendo - does that make me any less of a gamer? I wouldn't say it annoys me, because I know I'm not a fanboy, but after being called a fanboy 1000 times it does start to get on your nerves a little bit. And if I don't get called a fanboy I usually get branded a 'casual' gamer. All the casual and hardcore bullshit that flies around the net annoys me more then fanboys. Aparantly, on GameSpot, if you like Nintendo you're 'casual' because Super Mario games are 'kiddy'. Liking something that is deemed 'kiddy' doesn't make you casual. Heck, liking something like Gears of War or Halo doens't make you 'hardcore'. There's no such thing as a hardcore game, you only get hardcore gamers. Now, harcore gamers don't just play 'mature' or violent games, they can enjoy ALL varieties of video games. Also hardcore gamers have a devoted passion to gaming - they don't only play Call of Duty online because their mates do.

Anyway... back to the whole fanboy thing (sorry for going off topic). Fanboys are blind to anything that isn't in their beliefs. I really like Nintendo, and as I've said I prefer them to Sony and Microsoft, but I don't let this stop me enjoying games found on the other companies' consoles. The original PlayStation is one of my favourite consoles, and the original XBox was great too. I'll admit that I'm not a big fan of the XBox 360 as a console, but I've played some good games for the system; games such as Gears of War and Mass Effect 2. Fanboys only like the games for the consoles they enjoy and none more. I remember seeing two fanboys arguing one one forum. One of them said that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was better on the XBox 360 and one said it was better for the PlayStation 3. I was like ''what the fuck!'' How can the game be any better on a different console, it's the same fucking game! There's no differance what so ever between both versions. And I've seen the same argument for Fifa. One said Fifa was better for the 360, and the stubborn) fanboys can be.

Liking something more them something else doesn't make you a fanboy - only blantant blindness towards anything other then your beliefs does.