On this long Labor Day weekend in the US, we're bringing you a set of opinion pieces from various Ars writers—and we'd love to have you join the conversation in the comments.

We live in what may be the golden age of video games. There has never been a greater selection of games to play, there have never been more ways to buy the games we play, and prices for the games we play have declined. Classic and rare games are finding a second home, and a second chance, on digital distribution services on both the PC and consoles. Everything, on the whole, is getting better.

Of course, that means that no one is happy. With anything. Ever.

I once made a joke on Twitter that if you only paid attention to the comments on gaming news stories, you would think every pre-order has been cancelled, every game is a rip-off, and every major publisher is being boycotted by everyone. When a publisher makes a little bit of money, that's it for them; it's selfish to continue to turn a profit. If a company does anything to try to stem the flow of piracy, they are screamed at by people who will allow no form of DRM, not even Steam, to touch their systems. And legions of people seem to scour news stories for any excuse to justify their piracy.

(Don't worry, I'm sure everyone who comments on this story is an exception to the rule. I'm talking about everyone else, not you. You are one of the good ones.)

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a wonderful game and will be talked about for years. But right now, we must attack the game's boss battles, even though they make up less than a percent of a percent of the time we spend on the game. We need to blast the game because we have found a single character who speaks in a way that some are perceiving as racist. We must wring our hands over the game's tiny flaws and ask endlessly of ourselves what it all means.

Every game is too short, although we never finish the games we play. Every game is too expensive, although we demand ever-increasing levels of interaction, graphical fidelity, and length. The same people who claim every game was 80 hours and a masterpiece 10 years ago are 10 years away from saying that today was the golden time, once they have the distance needed to scrub the bad games from memory. We used to claim we wanted more people to game, but now we scoff at those who play "casual" games as if planting a garden strategically is somehow beneath those of us who pretend to be an elf... strategically. We are sitting around a Dungeons and Dragons table and complaining about people who read Twilight.

The press—and I'm including myself—is just as guilty of this as anyone. It's easy to find reasons to dislike a game, and creating outrage is an easy path to page views. Explaining why you love a game and the emotions it stirs in you often feels impossible. Besides, we're all corrupt. When we don't like a game, we are biased. When we like a game, we have been bought, and we are writing commercials. If we are lukewarm on a game, we are clearly the wrong person to be writing about it. Actual criticism is unacceptable; the audience will only accept verdicts of "sucks" or "perfect." Enjoy a game while still pointing out its flaws? People will get angry. Find flaws in a beloved game? They will call for your head.

The industry only creates sequels, everyone says, even as they refuse to buy games based on new worlds and characters. We are sick of these endless sequels, everyone repeats, while buying them by the millions.

We will not buy Battlefield 3 unless it comes out on Steam, even though Steam is an indefensible form of DRM that allows you to rent games and not buy them. The fact a company is forcing us to put our name into this box instead of that box is the worst thing that could be possibly happen, so of course we will boycott, and we will complain, and we will pirate. In two years, if we don't log in to our games, they may disappear.

Real problems exist, but we have gotten so much of what we wanted. We have built a grand tower of utterly optional gaming atop our hierarchy of needs, yet we are still distracted by the gnats in our teeth. Everything is amazing, but no one is happy.