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Have the trolls trolling for trolling's sake actually played the games they're trolling their makers about? It's unlikely. But that's not the point. The 60fps-or-bust campaign, such as it is, has become just another battleground for idiots to rally against… Oh, it's hard to keep up. Female characters. Product placement. Anything that isn't all bullets and blood, bombast and bikini armor; or every now and again the dropping of a single frame per second in a dramatic, level-ending explosion.Guys there's no need to keep emailing me with threats. We changed our store page description to say the game runs at 30 FPS. — Colm Larkin (@gambrinous)July 17, 2015
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Video games are a medium that has rarely explicitly cared what color, race, age or gender you are—and when it has, those games are best forgotten. It's an interactive and inclusive way to share stories and enjoy puzzles, to captivate and educate, and in recent times to get the best out of the internet's connecting of likeminded people, sharing common interests, based around the world. It has created great communities for people to share their loves and their lives in a constructive and positive way. Arguing about frame rates? Threatening people because of anything to do with it? What is that non-issue achieving, really, other than becoming just one more foundation for online harassment? Most of the time, video games are made to make their player feel good, for them to be fun. It's amazing how easy it is for the faceless, nameless, loudest users of the internet to forget that.If you're young, the media will tell you that you're impressionable. But don't be persuaded by people on the internet, people who you don't know, telling you that video games that don't perform to their own often impossible standards are in any way inferior to those that are locked at a very particular set of specifications. That kind of chatter does not matter—unless it does, and it breaks the game, but nine times out of ten that is not the case at all. Take a step back from the screen, and think about your own greatest gaming experiences—how many of those memories are running at a frame rate you can remember? There you go.Follow Sean Cleaver on Twitter.On Motherboard: Ellen Pao Quits, and Reddit Stays the Course