Videogames. Two words, video and game. That's the main point to discuss here if we want to dumb things down.
I have 'performed' dozens of games for the viewing pleasure of my fiancé. Meaning I play through a game she is interested in, but is intimidated by the gameplay. Often times the story is too good for her to miss, or maybe it's an oddity that she wants to gawk at. Plus, we get to spend some time together while doing so. It's great! I love doing it. I call the act 'performing' internally, because I feel like I'm part movie director while I play.
When We played Final Fantasy VII, I delegated voice roles to me and her to read aloud. When I played Death Stranding 1 and 2, I carefully moved the camera as much as possible to make every moment as beautifully cinematografied as possible (which isn't hard in that game, the camera is always considering the rule of thirds.) When she watched me replay Shenmue I and II when the PS4 versions dropped, the only decisions she made was what to do for the in-game day. I did all the driving, so to speak, and tried to pace each day like an episode of a TV show, checking in with her favorite side characters before the action began.
I point this out to say that any deep conversation about the massive Final Fantasy VII universe that we have can only go so far. She can never understand the way that the RPG systems work, or how much better the game would be if it had tank controls (yeah I said it.) Yet despite this, I still would consider her a fan, a fan of the story.
So when the conversation delves into the realm of people who's entire experience with a game is a Youtube Let's Play, and people react harshly, I can't help but kind of take a bit of an annoying centrist position. A real persnickety yes and no.
Can you be a fan of "The House in Fata Morgana" a visual novel, if you never actually played it yourself? I'd say yes 100%. The game is strictly a story, It has no decisions.
Can you be a fan of "Until Dawn" if you only watched a youtuber play it. Eh.. maybe like 70% yes? There's not any hardcore game mechanics you're missing, yet you made no decisions, which is at the crux of the design.
Can you be a fan of "Persona 5" when you've only seen a cutscene movie? Ok we're falling apart here... 40%? You're missing a LOT.
Can you be a fan of "Tetris" when youve only watched grand master gameplay? Definitely not, you just are a fan of the competition, which is fine.
Can you be a fan of "Ico" without playing it? Rock bottom 0%. Absolutely not.
So to make things extremely complicated, I think it depends of the game, and it also depends on the way the debated fan is discussing said game. To embellish on this, I'd like to speak on a old internet friend I used to know. We will call her Aydin.
Aydin was a MASSIVE shipper. You know the kind, endless flame wars with other women online debating fictional relationships. Mainly focused on the shipping wars in Final Fantasy VII, which are particularly toxic at times. (no really, they were and are brutal. i hope some bored youtuber makes a doc about it some day) Extreme personal attacks and flame wars over which bundle of pixels wanted to fornicate the other bundle of pixels. I was friends with this person mainly because we lived close to each other for a few years and met up once, they were quite pleasant. I always enjoyed spectating the conversations Aydin would get into, it was a window into a world I never knew, and she was seemingly an even bigger fan of one of my most beloved games than even me, so I would often learn things from her posts. We remained friends for years, starting around 2014.
This all kind of fell apart for me one day about a year after Final Fantasy VII Remake came out. We were discussing back and forth about mechanics in the new game compared to the original, when she dropped a bomb on my head.
"Oh yeah, I wouldn't know how it compares. I've never played the original."
I was flabbergasted. This person who I considered for the better half of a decade to be an expert on one of my favorite games had never even played it. I couldn't believe it... I myself had watched the occasional playthrough of a game I had never played, but to think that someone who had done the same could have such a strong attachment to said game, I couldn't get it. We went back and forth on this, and it took a while for us to settle on each others opinions, but eventually I had to concede. In some form or way, she was absolutely a fan of Final Fantasy VII, just a different one.
So there's my long winded, and ultimately inconclusive opinion. The truth is that subjectivity rules here, and there's plenty of people in fandom spaces that are secretly on a whole different level of engagement than you. Isn't that fun?
Personally, there isn't a single game that I consider myself a fan of that I haven't played. There used to be, but not anymore. That's a story for another thread I already made a while ago.
Below in a separate spoiler box are some screenshots of tweets about this that made me laugh. People on there are comically hostile in a way that I can't help but enjoy.
