Discussion Do you think the gaming community has become too toxic?

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Sabrina Stoakes

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Hello everyone, I trust you're all having a wonderful day/night!

Recently I've been thinking about how often there seems to be controversy in the gaming community. I'm not going to mention anything specific, but it honestly seems like game devs have to work around a lot of bigotry in the gaming community or else they'll end up being accused of making a Mary Sue or something like that.

It's really disheartening to see this outrage almost constantly, (I'm sure most of you know about the most recent one.) I actually am kind of afraid of creating any character outside of social norms without being labeled and mocked for it. :( on the bright side, I'll probably never make anything well known enough for people to be outraged about it. :cool:

Do any of you ever think about these kinds of things? Like, I know that you should definitely be careful about what characters you're creating because you can certainly make a character that is objectively offensive and wrong. There are tons of characters that are completely innocent and the gaming community will often go ape over it because that character helps represent a community.

Part of me also sort of thinks this is a passing trend, but who knows! It was less than 20 years ago that Courage The Cowardly Dog was canceled for representation, so maybe we've just got more work to do. ;)

Hopefully we can have a civil discussion about this, but if mods think this isn't an appropriate topic, or if it gets out of hand then please do your duty. <3
 
Creating characters "outside of social norms" is fine I think as long as you don't make a big deal about it. Sometimes what I see is people getting annoyed because they feel like whatever aspect of these characters are bashing them over the head. At the same time, there are always going to be jerks and they are always going to find a problem with everything. Some of them just like to rile others up, so it's best to just try and not take these things personally and just ignore them. Otherwise you are often just giving them what they want or "proving" you're just as "over-sensitive" as they claim you are.
The gaming community is still a baby(or at least acts like it), so we should maybe treat it as such and be patient, hopefully it will grow up if we stop giving it attention for bad behaviour.
 

Mert

Member
In normal life, I have big acnes all over my face and my classmates beat me and make me do their homeworld : But in fortnite/dota, oohhh boy I'm the ultimate alpha male :D
-Pretty much every rude kid that got into my team in dota
 
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Misty

Guest
Hello everyone, I trust you're all having a wonderful day/night!

Recently I've been thinking about how often there seems to be controversy in the gaming community. I'm not going to mention anything specific, but it honestly seems like game devs have to work around a lot of bigotry in the gaming community or else they'll end up being accused of making a Mary Sue or something like that.

It's really disheartening to see this outrage almost constantly, (I'm sure most of you know about the most recent one.)
Nope. I try not to watch the news because it brings me down. What is this most recent thing?
 
I think the key is to avoid painting your characters in broad strokes. Don't make your characters, whether inside or outside of social norms, into stereotypes. Make whatever controversial aspect of your character just a part of who they are. I think (or at least I'd like to hope) that people will be less hostile if your character is more complex than just one identifying trait. Oh, and don't add a character for the sake of going, "Hey, look! I'm being inclusive!" That can end up being offensive to people on both sides of the argument.
 
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Sabrina Stoakes

Guest
Creating characters "outside of social norms" is fine I think as long as you don't make a big deal about it. Sometimes what I see is people getting annoyed because they feel like whatever aspect of these characters are bashing them over the head. At the same time, there are always going to be jerks and they are always going to find a problem with everything. Some of them just like to rile others up, so it's best to just try and not take these things personally and just ignore them. Otherwise you are often just giving them what they want or "proving" you're just as "over-sensitive" as they claim you are.
The gaming community is still a baby(or at least acts like it), so we should maybe treat it as such and be patient, hopefully it will grow up if we stop giving it attention for bad behaviour.
Oh I 100% agree with you. Being part of the LGBT myself, I always hated it when people used the community for brownie points. I think it's just those people being insensitive. It's sort of like when a football team has a racially insensitive logo or mascot. It isn't always intended to be offensive, but it certainly can be. There's also good representation which is done respectively. I think if the gaming community wanted to to actually do something about insensitive representation that they would be telling these people that do it that what they're doing is insulting to whatever it's overly idolizing. Sadly that's not the reason why most of them are upset about it :eek:

I think the key is to avoid painting your characters in broad strokes. Don't make your characters, whether inside or outside of social norms, into stereotypes. Make whatever controversial aspect of your character just a part of who they are. I think (or at least I'd like to hope) that people will be less hostile if your character is more complex than just one identifying trait. Oh, and don't add a character for the sake of going, "Hey, look! I'm being inclusive!" That can end up being offensive to people on both sides of the argument.
Yeah I can see that. I really like how Samus was done honestly. It was unexpected and came at a time when women weren't in a whole lot of games. With that said, I like to make characters that are the same as any other. I also like having the option for the player to make the character express themselves any way they want when the occasion arises like in RPGs and stuff. I don't think I've ever written a LGBT character or racially diverse character that acted any different from any other character. I like to use MBTI to craft the personalities of my characters too because I find it helps keep the character's actions and dialogue more consistent and unique, PLUS it makes making the character more fun because if you give that character a set personality then you may be surprised at how their logical reaction might be to a story you wrote.
 
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Misty

Guest
Soldier 76 and also same
I never played as Soldier 76 I always thought he was a bland and boring character. Characters I play as are Diva, Mei, Ashe, Bastion, Pharah, and Widowmaker. None of the other characters seem to do enough damage.

Since Blizzard got bought out by Activision, people question if the decisions are really being made by Blizzard or Activision. Similar to the new star wars films. For instance, it is suspicious that 2 new gay films, "Moonlight" and "Call me by your name", got such high-scores on rotten tomatoes, as well as Star-Wars Last Jedi has a suspiciously high amount of perfect 5 star ratings. Moonlight has a 98% out of 100 and Call Me By Your Name has a score of 100%. Last Jedi is primarily a bunch of pages of 5 star ratings.

But yes, I think it it is unfair to the honest gay who just wants to make it in life without being stepped on by people. These corporations and their suspicious agendas have a negative impacts on honest gays who just want not to be hated by society, because the end result is just angry youtubers who go on campaigns about how corrupt these corporations are, and how these corporations rig it this way, and random gays who had nothing to do with it, are getting all the hate.
 
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Sabrina Stoakes

Guest
I never played as Soldier 76 I always thought he was a bland and boring character. Characters I play as are Diva, Mei, Ashe, Bastion, Pharah, and Widowmaker. None of the other characters seem to do enough damage.

Since Blizzard got bought out by Activision, people question if the decisions are really being made by Blizzard or Activision. Similar to the new star wars films. For instance, it is suspicious that 2 new gay films, "Moonlight" and "Call me by your name", got such high-scores on rotten tomatoes, as well as Star-Wars Last Jedi has a suspiciously high amount of perfect 5 star ratings. Moonlight has a 98% out of 100 and Call Me By Your Name has a score of 100%. Last Jedi is primarily a bunch of pages of 5 star ratings.

But yes, I think it it is unfair to the honest gay who just wants to make it in life without being stepped on by people. These corporations and their suspicious agendas have a negative impacts on honest gays who just want not to be hated by society, because the end result is just angry youtubers who go on campaigns about how corrupt these corporations are, and how these corporations rig it this way, and random gays who had nothing to do with it, are getting all the hate.
Honestly I think the thing with The Last Jedi was simply that it was white washed to hell and back. Disney didn't want it to fail so they likely paid off a bunch of people. Art has always been super expressive, open minded, and accepting. I believe that the reason we see more LGBT representation in films and video games now is simply because the mainstream crowd has made it possible for them to do so. Idk if you remember that episode of Spongebob where they took care of the clam, but that episode came out in 2002 and when it aired, parents were literally hitting the roof over it. So with that said, I think artists and stuff have just been terrified of expressing themselves and do it in such bulk now because they can finally do it in an outlet that isn't literature. I think the reason it has always been ok in literature is simply because the people who would complain about it likely don't read books haha
 
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Misu

Guest
For a minute, I thought this thread was about the forum community being toxic; if so, that would have been an easy (obvious) answer.
 
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Misty

Guest
Art has always been super expressive, open minded, and accepting.
Not when it comes to "AAA" games and movies. Artists have to obey whatever the corporate thinktank says.

Also this trend of rigged reviews concerns me, because if there are no honest critics then how can there be honest artists. Also, art was not always open-minded, in the olden days musicians were not allowed to compose a satanic note or else they were heretics.


Idk if you remember that episode of Spongebob where they took care of the clam, but that episode came out in 2002 and when it aired, parents were literally hitting the roof over it.
That is the same as pokemon, they had to ban a lot of pokemon because americans have no sense of humor and are overly sensitive.

I think that is what's the difference here. Japan has a mentality of "anything goes" and when they put in a gay in a show, nobody cares because its the Japan mindset of anything goes. But when a AAA corporation puts a gay in a show it almost seems inverted, like the outraged parents have been into a role reversal and it's the same story as before, but switched around. Like that americans haven't "evolved" at all, but still have no sense of humor and are overly sensitive.
 
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ethian

Guest
Finally a topic related to toxic people made by someone else besides me.

Toxic? what does it mean? Annoying because of vulgarity? Especially cursing?
 

chance

predictably random
Forum Staff
Moderator
None of this discussion addresses the question @Sabrina Stoakes asked: why such outrage and toxic behavior?

"Explanations" vary from poor character design, misuse of stereotypes, corporate bosses, etc. But none of this justifies the childish behavior of some fans.

It's fine to complain about game elements they don't like. And even criticize the developers. But that can't justify outrageous behavior from some fans -- such as name calling, shaming, and even death threats.

The gamer and fan community has the problem. Not developers and corporations.
 
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Sabrina Stoakes

Guest
None of this discussion addresses the question @Sabrina Stoakes asked: why such outrage and toxic behavior?

"Explanations" vary from poor character design, misuse of stereotypes, corporate bosses, etc. But none of this justifies the childish behavior of some fans.

It's fine to complain about game elements they don't like. And even criticize the developers. But that can't justify outrageous behavior from some fans -- such as name calling, shaming, and even death threats.

The gamer and fan community has the problem. Not developers and corporations.
This is pretty much exactly how I feel about it. Even in cases when their dislike is justified, it's usually so overboard that it turns into a huge mess of people making personal attacks on developers/community being represented instead of criticizing the product.

I sometimes think maybe the popularity of certain Youtubers had some sort of contribution to the way the gaming community acts. Like that whole ordeal with Yooka Laylee and JonTron. That was probably the first time I ever seen people defend someone making racist comments simply because he was removed from a game over it. That whole incident was pretty much the nails in the coffin for that game too, so them exercising their freedom of speech by saying, "We don't support this, and we don't want him to be a part of us." made the gaming community mad and ultimately made people not buy the game on release. It still did decent obviously, and I have seen many people defend it, but who knows how popular it could have been and how many old school platformers it could have spawned had the gaming community been a little less toxic.
 
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Sabrina Stoakes

Guest
Finally a topic related to toxic people made by someone else besides me.

Toxic? what does it mean? Annoying because of vulgarity? Especially cursing?
I think toxicity can come in dozens of forms, probably too many to list here. You can even be unintentionally toxic. Basically it's behavior that effects other people negatively, as if the behavior is, "poisonous." I used to see it a lot when I frequented metal music related forums. I've noticed recently that toxic behavior has become very common, especially in gaming. You really can't even get on Facebook anymore without seeing some kind of toxicity haha
 
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Misty

Guest
None of this discussion addresses the question @Sabrina Stoakes asked: why such outrage and toxic behavior?

"Explanations" vary from poor character design, misuse of stereotypes, corporate bosses, etc. But none of this justifies the childish behavior of some fans.

It's fine to complain about game elements they don't like. And even criticize the developers. But that can't justify outrageous behavior from some fans -- such as name calling, shaming, and even death threats.

The gamer and fan community has the problem. Not developers and corporations.
I explained it already. People are oversensitive and have no sense of humor. They do not have the Japan mindset.

Also, the other reason people are toxic is because society is becoming dystopic and increasingly polarized.
It still did decent obviously, and I have seen many people defend it, but who knows how popular it could have been and how many old school platformers it could have spawned had the gaming community been a little less toxic.
Yooka Laylee was rated one of the 10 worst games of the year. I played it myself and it was kind of mediocre. I actually thought the game was kind of dark and morbid and made me depressed, some of the scenes it were kind of nightmare-fuel. For a game that wanted to be politically correct, it shouldn't have been so morbid. Jon Tron was never actually going to talk in the game, just make those annoying blurp noises as everyone else. I doubt the game would have become popular regardless, it wasn't that well made. It didn't feel like a true old-school platformer, it felt more like a unity asset flip and didn't give me retro vibes. The game itself was inherently toxic, and when I played I hadn't the slightest idea of the JonTron controversy, I was judging the game just as it was.

This is pretty much exactly how I feel about it. Even in cases when their dislike is justified, it's usually so overboard that it turns into a huge mess of people making personal attacks on developers/community being represented instead of criticizing the product.
Mhm. People seem to care about trivial things too much, politics has infected itself into art. And as long as a dev grovels to the majority, it's like they can release mediocre games and still somehow get fans. For instance, the whole Fez thing, people tell me the guy who made Fez is a bad person. I don't know nor do I care, I review the Fez game objectively, Fez kind of got boring because the main player cannot attack, the levels all look similar and its hard to navigate. On the other hand, when companies like Konami fire developers like Hideo Kojima, they should be held accountable, and there should be outrage, because without Hideo Metal Gear will just not be the same.
 
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Dog Slobber

Member
No, there isn't more toxicity in the game industry.

The game industry is just a cross-section of society. The toxicity you're claiming exists in all of society, it just appears more prevalent in the gaming industry because the gaming industry has more online presence where the toxic behaviour is more visible and amplified.

As far as the toxic behaviour, as I said before with prevalence of online activity, especially social networks, toxic becahviour is more visible than it has ever been. Because of it's greater presence many have interpretted the greater visibility to mean a lot more of it.

In today's society: Never before has there been more diversity, but all we hear is we need more. Never before has there been less racism, but all we hear about is racism. Never before has there been less sexism, but all we hear about is misogyny. I'm not suggesting that none of the mentioned doesn't exist, but suggesting that as a society we have become more intolerent, more sensitive and sometimes even allege toxic behaviour where none exists.
 
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Sabrina Stoakes

Guest
No, there isn't more toxicity in the game industry.

The game industry is just a cross-section of society. The toxicity you're claiming exists in all of society, it just appears more prevalent in the gaming industry because the gaming industry has more online presence where the toxic behaviour is more visible and amplified.

As far as the toxic behaviour, as I said before with prevalence of online activity, especially social networks, toxic becahviour is more visible than it has ever been. Because of it's greater presence many have interpretted the greater visibility to mean a lot more of it.

In today's society: Never before has there been more diversity, but all we hear is we need more. Never before has there been less racism, but all we hear about is racism. Never before has there been less sexism, but all we hear about is misogyny. I'm not suggesting that none of the mentioned doesn't exist, but suggesting that as a society we have become more intolerent, more sensitive and sometimes even allege toxic behaviour where none exists.
I agree with some of this tbh, and maybe I just entered the internet at a good time, but up until about late 2016 people didn't act this way on the internet, and I was more involved with communities back then than I am now. I remember a time when you'd get absolutely blasted for being homophobic, now you get a pat on the back for it and told that you're a revolutionary or something.

Currently this is the only point in my life that I have ever been discriminated against for my sexuality, and it happens on an almost daily basis now. The crazy thing about it is that I have never made it a part of my life, I don't mention it, but because some people know, everyone knows, and those people are adamant about bringing it up and mocking me for it. There's also the added element that I get called a lot of derogatory terms against women :( it's not a very friendly community for people like me. I try not to let it get to me, and I know that you can just get off the internet haha but I shouldn't HAVE to do that, ya know? I also live in the American South and usually get a lot of dirty looks whenever I would take my gf places. So I'm not entirely convinced that things have gotten better, maybe they have and I just live in a horrible place, but I have a tendency to apply probability to issues like this, and if that's a good indication, then things have gotten worse.
 

Dog Slobber

Member
I also live in the American South and usually get a lot of dirty looks whenever I would take my gf places.
The fact that whenever you get out you get only1 a lot of dirty looks is petty compelling evidence about how much better things are.

It wasn't too long ago that one couldn't be open about a same sex partner. Being only gay brought on a lot more than dirty looks. Refusal of service, name calling, harassment, and assault were common and accepted by other.

1* Please don't interpret my use of word *only* as suggesting that the treatment you've experiences is OK or acceptable, It's not. I'm just using it to support my position that acceptance of diversity is much better than it used to be.

We still have a ways to go, as your experience suggests.
 
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ethian

Guest
toxic behaviour
It means "Annoying behaviour" after all?
(A single "yes" would be a very good answer)
Yooka Laylee was rated one of the 10 worst games of the year. I played it myself and it was kind of mediocre
What a shame if what went me nuts at my 1st encounter with it is rated of that way...
Why what makes me go nuts must be always bad?!?!?!?!?!
 
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Misty

Guest
I agree with some of this tbh, and maybe I just entered the internet at a good time, but up until about late 2016 people didn't act this way on the internet, and I was more involved with communities back then than I am now. I remember a time when you'd get absolutely blasted for being homophobic, now you get a pat on the back for it and told that you're a revolutionary or something.

Currently this is the only point in my life that I have ever been discriminated against for my sexuality, and it happens on an almost daily basis now. The crazy thing about it is that I have never made it a part of my life, I don't mention it, but because some people know, everyone knows, and those people are adamant about bringing it up and mocking me for it. There's also the added element that I get called a lot of derogatory terms against women :( it's not a very friendly community for people like me. I try not to let it get to me, and I know that you can just get off the internet haha but I shouldn't HAVE to do that, ya know? I also live in the American South and usually get a lot of dirty looks whenever I would take my gf places. So I'm not entirely convinced that things have gotten better, maybe they have and I just live in a horrible place, but I have a tendency to apply probability to issues like this, and if that's a good indication, then things have gotten worse.
And that is what I mean about increasing levels of polarization. Lack of humor, lack of the japan mindset, and oversensitive people all the time. What I mean is, when sjws try to regulate and control everyone else, there is a blowback, the haters get even more hateful and try to out-do the sjws at being tyrannical. Everyone ends up being tyrannical and unreasonable. When SJWs take over a franchise like Star Wars, it negatively affects people of the LGBT community because it just makes the haters more hateful. LGBTs get blamed for the tyrannical actions of SJWs. When SJWs go around trying to ban anyone who supports First and Second amendment rights, and preaching about microaggressions, bigots just go around blaming LGBTs for these people's actions, lgbts are the ones who get blamed for societal collapse. So essentially they are not helping lgbts at all but just making the lgbt community get all the hate and blame over the panopticon nanny state. It's similar to Nazi soldiers, maybe there were some Nazi soldiers who didn't agree with Hitler holocausting all the jews. But if they don't voice their opinion, then its like LGBTs who go with the sjw anti-constitutional, anti-freedom tyranny, so they are all just lumped in together with the people who are really fargone. Ultimately it is the result of all red vs. blue, us vs. them mindsets. Ultimately, people must become free-thinkers and lovers of freedom, and ultimately, non-partisan, if we are to be saved.

To answer your question about Soldier 76, it is a term called "dumbeldore" where they take a random character, with no buildup or leading up, and out of the blue say he is gay. Without having any geniune story or inspiration behind it, like just throwing it out there as virtue signaling to appeal to sjw mobs. I think it would be different if a gay person, made a geniune and heartfelt story about the struggle of being gay, I'm sure there would be a few haters but I don't think as much. Instead it amounts to a corporation saying: I made a guy gay, now buy my game. It doesn't feel sincere.

Another thing is, another reason batman fans don't get offended at the joker being gay to batman, is that joker is already presented as a deviant character. Whereas 76 is presented as "the average joe" and the default character in the tutorial, it is likely that many average joes use 76 as a role model for themselves, so if he is called gay in their subconscious it is registered as themselves being called gay.
 
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Rob

Member
I don't think about it at all. Sometimes I feel like people try and milk "Beat up the Dev" as much as possible, whether it's justified or not and I don't really have a lot of interest in watching/reading that kind of content.

Some people are drawn to negative content and they just watch show after show that beats down on other people, and they like to join in too. It might seem like the whole world is grinding somebody down but it's a minority most (all?) of the time.

If you worry about other people you won't always do what you want to do, nor be who you want to be. It's easy for me to say that without having been the target of a social-media storm. If it did happen, I'd probably take a break from social media like the smart people do because it would probably get to me.
 

RollyBug

Member
Another thing is, another reason batman fans don't get offended at the joker being gay to batman, is that joker is already presented as a deviant character. Whereas 76 is presented as "the average joe" and the default character in the tutorial, it is likely that many average joes use 76 as a role model for themselves, so if he is called gay in their subconscious it is registered as themselves being called gay.
I think that's a bit of a stretch. It may have happened sometime somewhere but it'd be an edge case where someone feels emasculated because a favorite character or role model came out as gay. What is more understandable, and has of course happened already with 76, is people feel mislead or mistreated. Personally I feel the way you do in that it is maybe just a way for the company to appeal to a group of people without being, as you put it, very sincere. I see it as contrived, extraneous, forced.
At the same time I wonder why anyone cares. I don't think we should, really. It doesn't carry a lot of depth in conversation.
 

Niels

Member
I think some forum/social-media groups and certain "rage" youtubers are blowing it way out of proportions, making it seem like there is a huge war fought between SJW people and whatever the anti-feminist/anti-npc crowd is called, while the actual majority of people don't care.
And as Gamedev I believe you shouldn't cater to any of those sides (at least don't promote your game by it), because it's only oil for the fire...
 
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Misty

Guest
I think some forum/social-media groups and certain "rage" youtubers are blowing it way out of proportions, making it seem like there is a huge war fought between SJW people and whatever the anti-feminist/anti-npc crowd is called, while the actual majority of people don't care.
And as Gamedev I believe you shouldn't cater to any of those sides (at least don't promote your game by it), because it's only oil for the fire...
Both sides are a severe threat to our freedoms and liberties and shouldn't be underestimated, imo. And yes the majority of people are sheep and don't care and will obey whatever a random government decrees as laws.
 

Roa

Member
I'm kinda surprised no one has made the obvious point that game's journalist have devs and publishers by the balls, and so devs will cater to their demand for social political đź’©đź’©đź’©đź’© being shoehorned into everything. The fact that devs make bonuses for reaching certain review scores, with sites continuously giving reviews based on their political message over the quality of the game, which leads to massive backlash and critic reviews being completely detached from the real world of user reviews.


This has been documented over and over and over and yet, there is still people who think we don't need transparency or ethics addressed in "game's journalism".

I mean, just look what happened with BF5
Sure there are toxic gamers out there, I mean, you are on the internet. But all these đź’©đź’©đź’©đź’© storms are caused by devs, journals, and publishers and their circle jerk relationship.
 

Roa

Member
….but it honestly seems like game devs have to work around a lot of bigotry in the gaming community or else they'll end up being accused of making a Mary Sue or something like that.
Making someone who isn't a marry sue is actually pretty easy. You just simply make your character actually seem like a real person and part of a story arc vs focusing so much on some social commentary that you forget to actually make anything they do relatable or believable. And as for bigotry, it really depends what you mean. It's hard to sell social commentary as interactive video entertainment...unless of course you are bashing stuff for comedic purpose like southpark.

It's really disheartening to see this outrage almost constantly, (I'm sure most of you know about the most recent one.) I actually am kind of afraid of creating any character outside of social norms without being labeled and mocked for it. :( on the bright side, I'll probably never make anything well known enough for people to be outraged about it. :cool:
Do any of you ever think about these kinds of things? Like, I know that you should definitely be careful about what characters you're creating because you can certainly make a character that is objectively offensive and wrong. There are tons of characters that are completely innocent and the gaming community will often go ape over it because that character helps represent a community.
if you are disheartened, it's probably because you are listening to the wrong people. Adding LGBT to a game isn't a problem with most people. In fact, people simply don't care either way. If you added someone gay or trans to a game, its what ever. What they do care about is being preached at and having things just slapped in your face for no other reason then to get people exposed to as much of this stuff as possible overtop the experience.

The soldier 76 thing is has people moaning because it's conveniently pushed to journos, really brazenly I might add, right off the heels of them being caught in a sexist scandal over one of their league players. They accepted and took massive praise from the press and public attention because a guy who originally didn't make the leagues, tricked them into believing he was a female, and then was immediately accepted into the league and got tons of praise. It came out that the player was a guy and the game journalist were forced to eat their bias and bigotry again... Soldier 76 was clearly a way to appeal to these reviewers after embarrassing them so they can keep their image for their dying game. It's just more and more dishonesty and prejudice between these 2.

I think if the gaming community wanted to to actually do something about insensitive representation that they would be telling these people that do it that what they're doing is insulting to whatever it's overly idolizing. Sadly that's not the reason why most of them are upset about it
You know this how? did you ask them? Or are you listening to people who have a personal vendetta against the average gamer crowd for calling them out?


There is a new website that is coming out called exclusivelygames.com https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/exclusively-games-protecting-escapism#/ (I'm a backer)
It's a place where people will be able to talk about games, write reviews, and view content about games without politics butting in, namely PC social commentary. Real game journalist, for all gamers, including LGBT. And hopefully we can finally have a control group that punishes these other "game journalist" sites for all the damage they do to the industry. People have another option now. You should check it out if you value the genuine opportunity and expression at representation vs contrived and forced activism.


It's fine to complain about game elements they don't like. And even criticize the developers. But that can't justify outrageous behavior from some fans -- such as name calling, shaming, and even death threats.
Is there someone justifying these things? I've never seen it. Seems like a pretty shut and closed case.

The gamer and fan community has the problem. Not developers and corporations.
whew lad, how so wrong one person can be...
 
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Sabrina Stoakes

Guest
I'm kinda surprised no one has made the obvious point that game's journalist have devs and publishers by the balls, and so devs will cater to their demand for social political **** being shoehorned into everything. The fact that devs make bonuses for reaching certain review scores, with sites continuously giving reviews based on their political message over the quality of the game, which leads to massive backlash and critic reviews being completely detached from the real world of user reviews.


This has been documented over and over and over and yet, there is still people who think we don't need transparency or ethics addressed in "game's journalism".

I mean, just look what happened with BF5
Sure there are toxic gamers out there, I mean, you are on the internet. But all these **** storms are caused by devs, journals, and publishers and their circle jerk relationship.
I kind of think that what happens really is that Game Journalists hear about a character in a game being diverse or something and the journalists are the ones who make posts specifically about it because they know that gamers will see the article, get mad, share it, read it, and ultimately make them TONS of money. Of course, gamers shouldn't be mad about characters like that in video games, but the journalists know they are, and know they'll make a lot of money off the outrage.

Kind of like how that article about, "people wanting a gender neutral Santa Claus." Turned out the article was made by some European group that literally comes up with fake article ideas to cause outrage. They ended up making like 4 million pounds off it, so that tells me that if they're doing it, chances are, a lot of other people are doing it too. The saddest part about that article was seeing how awful people's comments about gender neutral people were. I know several GN people and they're some of the most unfairly treated people I know of. Hardly anyone understands them, and they don't try to understand them, so they immediately go to bullying them, which I find very unreasonable.

So it's very clear that journalists and stuff know how toxic game communities are and just use that outrage to their advantage. The funny thing about it is that the gaming community isn't aware of this at all and you have tons of youtubers and stuff making videos concreting the idea that there is some sort of agenda to make every a minority or something when the reality is that they want people to think that's the case when it really is that getting them to be angry about something that isn't happening makes them more money off ads :eek:
 
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Misty

Guest
I kind of think that what happens really is that Game Journalists hear about a character in a game being diverse or something and the journalists are the ones who make posts specifically about it because they know that gamers will see the article, get mad, share it, read it, and ultimately make them TONS of money. Of course, gamers shouldn't be mad about characters like that in video games, but the journalists know they are, and know they'll make a lot of money off the outrage.

Kind of like how that article about, "people wanting a gender neutral Santa Claus." Turned out the article was made by some European group that literally comes up with fake article ideas to cause outrage. They ended up making like 4 million pounds off it, so that tells me that if they're doing it, chances are, a lot of other people are doing it too. The saddest part about that article was seeing how awful people's comments about gender neutral people were. I know several GN people and they're some of the most unfairly treated people I know of. Hardly anyone understands them, and they don't try to understand them, so they immediately go to bullying them, which I find very unreasonable.

So it's very clear that journalists and stuff know how toxic game communities are and just use that outrage to their advantage. The funny thing about it is that the gaming community isn't aware of this at all and you have tons of youtubers and stuff making videos concreting the idea that there is some sort of agenda to make every a minority or something when the reality is that they want people to think that's the case when it really is that getting them to be angry about something that isn't happening makes them more money off ads :eek:
People are unfair to anyone who's deviant from the norm, but I don't see the gaming community as that much more toxic than the rest of the internet.
 
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Sabrina Stoakes

Guest
People are unfair to anyone who's deviant from the norm, but I don't see the gaming community as that much more toxic than the rest of the internet.
I will admit that gamers tend to be a little more self aware than the, "meme" community is. People in that community are so generic that you can almost literally predict everything they're going to say and do at any given moment LOL Also I know it's not called the meme community anymore, I just feel the innocence leaving my body every time I say ****posting community.
 
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Misty

Guest
I will admit that gamers tend to be a little more self aware than the, "meme" community is. People in that community are so generic that you can almost literally predict everything they're going to say and do at any given moment LOL Also I know it's not called the meme community anymore, I just feel the innocence leaving my body every time I say ****posting community.
Mhm. The whole internet is toxic, if I had to say what is the most toxic I would say Facebook is the most toxic thing.
 

Roa

Member
I kind of think that what happens really is that Game Journalists hear about a character in a game being diverse or something and the journalists are the ones who make posts specifically about it because they know that gamers will see the article, get mad, share it, read it, and ultimately make them TONS of money. Of course, gamers shouldn't be mad about characters like that in video games, but the journalists know they are, and know they'll make a lot of money off the outrage.
That's a rather silly claim... cause right now, almost every game journalist site is at their all time low. They are literally killing themselves for this narrative. This isn't even just gaming journalist, this is left swing tabloids too, who literally beg for money because ads wont put food on the table, out classes by single persons on youtube daily. Not only that, but people critical of them are making videos on youtube, so millions of people are seeing the content without visiting the site. Even further still, this đź’©đź’©đź’©đź’© is literally sinking the triple A industry. Every game that tries to pander to these journalist whims gets review bombed to hell and back. They could simply make their money if people trusted them to be honest... and they just cant do it. This has coined the almost always true slogan, get woke, go broke. believe me, they are making no one money on this lol [correction] they are making their critics tons of money!

Kind of like how that article about, "people wanting a gender neutral Santa Claus." Turned out the article was made by some European group that literally comes up with fake article ideas to cause outrage. They ended up making like 4 million pounds off it, so that tells me that if they're doing it, chances are, a lot of other people are doing it too. The saddest part about that article was seeing how awful people's comments about gender neutral people were. I know several GN people and they're some of the most unfairly treated people I know of. Hardly anyone understands them, and they don't try to understand them, so they immediately go to bullying them, which I find very unreasonable.
Does it really matter if the person starting it faked the outrage? There was still a surge of people defending it too. How it came into being doesn't matter so much as, what do people do with the motive and narrative. We all know sensationalism exist.

So it's very clear that journalists and stuff know how toxic game communities are and just use that outrage to their advantage. The funny thing about it is that the gaming community isn't aware of this at all and you have tons of youtubers and stuff making videos concreting the idea that there is some sort of agenda to make every a minority or something when the reality is that they want people to think that's the case when it really is that getting them to be angry about something that isn't happening makes them more money off ads :eek:
Really?
It seems clear to me that they are so drenched and attached in the political ideology to the point they can't fathom a world where people don't agree with their world view or see it as normal, that they bring that attitude into work and abuse their power and reach to rant and preach, and berate others, because this toxic behavior is simply normal to them and the like minded peers they surround themselves in constantly. What seems more likely? A hand full of people who indulge in Radicalization of social politics so much so, that you can get a college degree in it; are flooding the market and cant resist the urge to tell everyone how what they think. Or almost everyone else alive is a sexist, racist, out of control maniac, but also too stupid to have agency and simply doesn't know it. Occam's razor.
 
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Misty

Guest
That's a rather silly claim... cause right now, almost every game journalist site is at their all time low. They are literally killing themselves for this narrative. This isn't even just gaming journalist, this is left swing tabloids too, who literally beg for money because ads wont put food on the table, out classes by single persons on youtube daily. Not only that, but people critical of them are making videos on youtube, so millions of people are seeing the content without visiting the site. Even further still, this **** is literally sinking the triple A industry.
Honestly, I think AAA games just suck, and that is why AAA games are stinking. For example in Battlefield 5 people whine about it not being historically accurate. Personally I could care less if it is historically accurate, if I want historically accurate I can read wikipedia or watch a documentary. The reason I never got hyped for Battlefield 5 is because it just seemed like it would be the same kind of lame game as the other battlefields and boring.

I don't think there are fair reviewers anymore. Nobody complains about the gameplay of Battlefield 5, instead just whine about the politics of it. I seen the same with Mario Kart 8. It's like people's brain has a gut instinct of bad gameplay, but its only in their subconscious, and their conscious mind has to rationalize why they don't enjoy the game, so they have to pick a reason. For instance people will complain about the character rosters in Mario Kart 8 being a letdown. Never mind the fact that Mario Kart 8 is just a report of Mario Kart 8 and being milked for money without them even making an effort at making a new mario kart game for the switch. That goes out the window. No...what's important is obviously the character roster, that is what matters. Browsing all of youtube I haven't seen one person even complain about the physics even though the physics are literally worse than prior Mario Kart games. What is the biggest complaint against Star Wars Battlefront? Microtransactions. I'm not fan of microtransactions but get real, the game sucks, the combat is boring, that is why the game is not fun, and it tries to wow you with shiny graphics so you won't notice. The main reason isn't the microtransactions. I think these reviewers are unable to articulate physical details as to why the gameplay is boring, it's just a feeling they get that they don't understand, so instead they focus on things that are easy to articulate, such as microtransactions.
 
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Roa

Member
Honestly, I think AAA games just suck, and that is why AAA games are stinking. For example in Battlefield 5 people whine about it not being historically accurate. Personally I could care less if it is historically accurate, if I want historically accurate I can read wikipedia or watch a documentary. The reason I never got hyped for Battlefield 5 is because it just seemed like it would be the same kind of lame game as the other battlefields and boring.

I don't think there are fair reviewers anymore. Nobody complains about the gameplay of Battlefield 5, instead just whine about the politics of it. I seen the same with Mario Kart 8. It's like people's brain has a gut instinct of bad gameplay, but its only in their subconscious, and their conscious mind has to rationalize why they don't enjoy the game, so they have to pick a reason. For instance people will complain about the character rosters in Mario Kart 8 being a letdown. Never mind the fact that Mario Kart 8 is just a report of Mario Kart 8 and being milked for money without them even making an effort at making a new mario kart game for the switch. That goes out the window. No...what's important is obviously the character roster, that is what matters. Browsing all of youtube I haven't seen one person even complain about the physics even though the physics are literally worse than prior Mario Kart games.
And no, people wearnt mad about anything other than: they said they would tell authentic untold stories to shed new light on under represented stories to honor them and give a new look into things. And then completely proceeded to butched said stories they said to honor for sake of appeasing to the PC crowd... namely journalist, who are yet again, people who won't even play the game. They toted them as fair representations of the tales, and then lied about so much stuff, stuff they changed that had nothing to do with keeping the gameplay interesting. It was all story and historical information.

Tons of people complained about the gameplay of battlefield 5. It's the quickest declining population in a battlefield game ever, even worse than BFonce and Hardline. They keep making such drastic changes to the TTK and TTH that it feels like a completely different game between patches, and is largely unplayable because of how unfair the game is too receiving players. Battle field has had constant problems since bf4 with balance issues, and the issues get bigger each release. I think its clear they don't actually know what makes their game fun, they're just đź’©đź’©đź’©đź’©ing guessing in the dark. And the campaign is just ass. Between starwars battlefront and battlefield, they keep leaning on blind-charge shooting galleries and set pieces way too much.

But we are getting off track now...
 
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Misty

Guest
And no, people wearnt mad about the anything other than: they said they would tell authentic untold stories to shed new light on under represented stories to honor them and give a new look into things. And then completely proceeded to butched said stories they said to honor for sake of appeasing to the PC crowd... namely journalist, who are yet again, people who won't even play the game. They toted them as fair representations of the tales, and then lied about so much stuff, stuff they changed that had nothing to do with keeping the gameplay interesting. It was all story and historical information.

Tons of people complained about the gameplay of battlefield 5. It's the quickest declining population in a battlefield game ever, even worse than BFonce and Hardline. They keep making such drastic changes to the TTK and TTH that it feels like a completely different game between patches, and is largely unplayable because of how unfair the game is too receiving players. Battle field has had constant problems since bf4 with balance issues, and the issues get bigger each release. I think its clear they don't actually know what makes their game fun, they're just ****ing guessing in the dark. And the campaign is just ass. Between starwars battlefront and battlefield, they keep leaning on blind-charge shooting galleries and set pieces way too much.

But we are getting off track now...
People use fake advertising all the time. I don't think people would care about the over-hyped advertising, as long as the game itself didn't suck. The game sucked so people are doubling down and really wanting to highlight every thing they hate about the game.
 

Roa

Member
People use fake advertising all the time. I don't think people would care about the over-hyped advertising, as long as the game itself didn't suck. The game sucked so people are doubling down and really wanting to highlight every thing they hate about the game.
Not so much false advertising...
To a lot of people, it came off as a really bad attempt to get people hopped up on accepting revisionism. I mean, they made a really big deal about paying attention to details and telling stories people don't normally hear, and this got people's curiosity. They then loaded it up with PC dogma. Too bad when you tell someone you are making them authenticity and they haven't heard of it, they are going to research đź’©đź’©đź’©đź’©. That was the whole point, was to spark curiosity in these stories and ignite new interest in them. Dice must think their player base is really đź’©đź’©đź’©đź’©ing dumb or something to use that as a selling point, lie about it, and then not expect people to learn more about this đź’©đź’©đź’©đź’© vs settling on just the game's "history" unquestioningly as a social talking point and propagated and praised by games journalist. People were mad when they found out what they did to these stories for the sake of an agenda.

but again, we are getting off track. make a battlefield topic if you want to talk about it.
 
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Niels

Member
Making someone who isn't a marry sue is actually pretty easy. You just simply make your character actually seem like a real person and part of a story arc vs focusing so much on some social commentary that you forget to actually make anything they do relatable or believable. And as for bigotry, it really depends what you mean. It's hard to sell social commentary as interactive video entertainment...unless of course you are bashing stuff for comedic purpose like southpark.

if you are disheartened, it's probably because you are listening to the wrong people. Adding LGBT to a game isn't a problem with most people. In fact, people simply don't care either way. If you added someone gay or trans to a game, its what ever. What they do care about is being preached at and having things just slapped in your face for no other reason then to get people exposed to as much of this stuff as possible overtop the experience.

The soldier 76 thing is has people moaning because it's conveniently pushed to journos, really brazenly I might add, right off the heels of them being caught in a sexist scandal over one of their league players. They accepted and took massive praise from the press and public attention because a guy who originally didn't make the leagues, tricked them into believing he was a female, and then was immediately accepted into the league and got tons of praise. It came out that the player was a guy and the game journalist were forced to eat their bias and bigotry again... Soldier 76 was clearly a way to appeal to these reviewers after embarrassing them so they can keep their image for their dying game. It's just more and more dishonesty and prejudice between these 2.

You know this how? did you ask them? Or are you listening to people who have a personal vendetta against the average gamer crowd for calling them out?


There is a new website that is coming out called exclusivelygames.com https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/exclusively-games-protecting-escapism#/ (I'm a backer)
It's a place where people will be able to talk about games, write reviews, and view content about games without politics butting in, namely PC social commentary. Real game journalist, for all gamers, including LGBT. And hopefully we can finally have a control group that punishes these other "game journalist" sites for all the damage they do to the industry. People have another option now. You should check it out if you value the genuine opportunity and expression at representation vs contrived and forced activism.


Is there someone justifying these things? I've never seen it. Seems like a pretty shut and closed case.


whew lad, how so wrong one person can be...
Well that exclusively gaming website is ran by that guy from the quartering, which is actually making a living by "OMG look at what the SJW/Feminazi's did this time..." video's, and his whole comments section is all about people yelling NPC/SOYBOi/beta's and other nonsense... So I wouldn't take him as a neutral party in this discussion.
 
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Sabrina Stoakes

Guest
Well that exclusively gaming website is ran by that guy from the quartering, which is actually making a living by "OMG look at what the SJW/Feminazi's did this time..." video's, and his whole comments section is all about people yelling NPC/SOYBOi/beta's and other nonsense... So I wouldn't take him as a neutral party in this discussion.
This is exactly what I was thinking haha. Every, "non-PC" website ends up turning into some Alex Jones type stuff, but gamers won't generally see anything wrong with it. Sort of like how most people still watch South Park and haven't realized that it has gotten super political whilst complaining about Family Guy being super political simply because they only see what's different from their own personal beliefs.

They talk about how they want an unbiased source for gaming, but gamers aren't capable of having that until they're unbiased themselves. All they're going to do with making these, "Unbiased" sites is create the same issue in the opposite direction. I tend to immediately disregard someone's opinion when they repeat political talking points, because you can't have a rational debate with someone who keeps repeatedly calling you an NPC or something for disagreeing with them. NPC is a very irrational and ironic word to use in debates because you can use it to establish fake superiority in nearly any circumstances, it can be used to completely disregard legitimate criticism too. It's ironic because the word has been used so much that people using it have become what the word means haha.
 

Niels

Member
On the other hand you have people like Anita sarkeesian and her following that love to paint a picture of all male gamers and Gamedevs hating females, and take every opportunity to put their hatred against females in games...
Or certain games journalist that bash games like the Witcher for not including people of color, or cater towards a "male power fantasy"...
 

JeffJ

Member
For me, as a consumer, the problem arises when it's clear that any sort of external political agenda or viewpoint directly interferes with the integrity of the art itself - as is the case with Battlefield 5, The Last Jedi and many other recent examples.

One that sticks a bit closer to home for me is Baldur's Gate: Dragonspear. As a longterm fan of the game (it being my favorite game of all time since it came out in 1998), I witnessed firsthand how this generation of extremist so called "SJW's" ruin art with their personal views - as in - external to the art itself. A few years ago, a company did a sequel to the original game from 1998, and they hired a new writer. This writer said in an interview how she was in fact a SJW, and proud of it (her own words), and then went on to criticize the original Baldur's Gate for elements of misogyny, and how she was going to "correct" it with this new game. At that point the alarm bells were already at full red alert.

Among one of the things she ended up doing in the game, was putting in a character who happened to be transgendered. Now, ignoring the fact that this literally makes no sense in this partiuclar Forgotten Realms setting, where magic items like gender-reversing girdles are a thing, the worst part was that there was literally no reason behind it, and how this writer basically boiled the character's entire personality down to "Hi, we've just met, so you should know: I AM TRANSGENDER! YOU GOT A F-CKING PROBLEM WITH THAT, MOTHERF-CKER!?" - it was so shoehorned and dumbed down to the point where actual transgender people came out and told how they actually did find this incredibly bluntly handled character offensive.
The problem here was not the attempt at diversity per say, but the fact that everyone could tell how it was simply just stuffed in there for diversity's sake - not because it fitted in the story or served any sort of purpose, or had any sort of meaning. It wasn't even handled slightly gracefully through dialogue, only managing to offend the people that this writer so ineptly tried to represent.

Now of course, the only thing I did was to vote with my wallet and that was that - obviously I do not condone in any of the aggressive behavior mentioned.

The point with this little anecdote, is that the problem is never diversity - it's diversity for diversity's sake. We're all nerds and consumers, and at the end of the day, what matters most is an enjoyable, honest piece of art with some level of integrity. The moment that external viewpoints that has nothing to do with the actual in game (or in-movie or whatever) universe shines through, it not only breaks all immersion, it also serves as a huge disrespect to the consumer.

When handled properly and with actual meaning, it can raise the medium to a whole new level, which is great.
That is more and more often just not the case, which is not so great.

Lastly, I think what we're seeing is simply a response from the consumer side, who are simply just fed up with this nonsense. It's very transparent, and frankly, it just sours the whole experience.
 
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Sabrina Stoakes

Guest
For me, as a consumer, the problem arises when it's clear that any sort of external political agenda or viewpoint directly interferes with the integrity of the art itself - as is the case with Battlefield 5, The Last Jedi and many other recent examples.

One that sticks a bit closer to home for me is Baldur's Gate: Dragonspear. As a longterm fan of the game (it being my favorite game of all time since it came out in 1998), I witnessed firsthand how this generation of extremist so called "SJW's" ruin art with their personal views - as in - external to the art itself. A few years ago, a company did a sequel to the original game from 1998, and they hired a new writer. This writer said in an interview how she was in fact a SJW, and proud of it (her own words), and then went on to criticize the original Baldur's Gate for elements of misogyny, and how she was going to "correct" it with this new game. At that point the alarm bells were already at full red alert.

Among one of the things she ended up doing in the game, was putting in a character who happened to be transgendered. Now, ignoring the fact that this literally makes no sense in this partiuclar Forgotten Realms setting, where magic items like gender-reversing girdles are a thing, the worst part was that there was literally no reason behind it, and how this writer basically boiled the character's entire personality down to "Hi, we've just met, so you should know: I AM TRANSGENDER! YOU GOT A F-CKING PROBLEM WITH THAT, MOTHERF-CKER!?" - it was so shoehorned and dumbed down to the point where actual transgender people came out and told how they actually did find this incredibly bluntly handled character offensive.
The problem here was not the attempt at diversity per say, but the fact that everyone could tell how it was simply just stuffed in there for diversity's sake - not because it fitted in the story or served any sort of purpose, or had any sort of meaning. It wasn't even handled slightly gracefully through dialogue, only managing to offend the people that this writer so ineptly tried to represent.

Now of course, the only thing I did was to vote with my wallet and that was that - obviously I do not condone in any of the aggressive behavior mentioned.

The point with this little anecdote, is that the problem is never diversity - it's diversity for diversity's sake. We're all nerds and consumers, and at the end of the day, what matters most is an enjoyable, honest piece of art with some level of integrity. The moment that external viewpoints that has nothing to do with the actual in game (or in-movie or whatever) universe shines through, it not only breaks all immersion, it also serves as a huge disrespect to the consumer.

When handled properly and with actual meaning, it can raise the medium to a whole new level, which is great.
That is more and more often just not the case, which is not so great.

Lastly, I think what we're seeing is simply a response from the consumer side, who are simply just fed up with this nonsense. It's very transparent, and frankly, it just sours the whole experience.
Honestly I'd like to believe that no one had an issue with diversity, but I've been in way too many gaming groups that have rampant homophobia, transphobia, and racism in them. It's usually very dependent on the game too. Typically more popular titles have worse communities like how the Smash Melee community is the literal gamer stereotype. It also has a bit to do with the content in the games too. Like, the Kirby community tends to be very open and accepting, while the Soulsborne community has a bad tendency to be toxic

With that said, I always found it kind of funny how a lot of gamers fight social justice warriors by being social justice warriors. Like, social justice is certainly a two-way street. We also have to remember how much propaganda is in older movies and stuff. Most old movies and TV shows have tons of homophobia and racism in them, but it's not socially accepted in the gaming community to not be okay with that. There's a lot of bias and double standards for gamers and journalists thinking that gamers simply hate these things isn't far fetched at all in the vast majority of cases especially considering diverse people are almost always bullied out of gaming communities. The only ones that aren't bullied out of it are the ones that give into the trends and sell themselves out by expressing self hatred.

One example is that a woman saying she supports feminism would be unacceptable to gamers, but a woman saying that she doesn't support feminism would be acceptable despite both being the same social justice statement. Women actually have a name for girks that tear other women down for brownie points, that's how often it happens haha.

I try to be as unbiased as I can and I am open to all ideas and debates, but I also try to make others see the other side and not disregard it because that's what causes division and Salem witch trials levels of cognitive dissonance. I just personally don't see much open mindedness in the gaming community, and it's very hard to have reasonable conversations with them outside of a moderated area like this.

The GM community seems to be fairly open minded, but I haven't been here very long so we'll see haha. Usually groups and forums that are properly moderated tend to be relatively wholesome places where you can have good discussions.
 

JeffJ

Member
I haven't frequented any of the communities you mention, but from a purely statistical angle, it makes sense that there's more aholes in the ones for more popular titles - the bigger the sample size, the bigger the risk of such people being present. That's pretty much a given with anything, so it might not really have much to do with the specific game as such. Just something to bear in mind.

I would like to know your definition of propaganda in older movies, though. There's a big difference between an agenda or propaganda, and then simply showing it like it is. For example, some people were highly offended by Django Unchained for its liberal use of the n-word, while the opposing crowd argued that it was simply an authentic portrayal of the attitude in the era and location, and that the overall underlying message was, in fact, aggressively anti racist. Schindler's List is another such example, but with focus on antisemitism instead. In games, a very recent example is Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which came under fire for being racist because it did not feature a single black character, while again, the studio explained that it had nothing to do with any racist agenda, and everything to do with a commitment to an authentic portrayal of medieval Bohemia (which, historically and quite objectively speaking, it is).
So I'm curious to know some more specific examples of your personal encounters with this phenomenon in games / movies / whatever, and how you came to interpret it that way.

Lastly, maybe we have frequented very different communities, but from my own personal experience, females have always been more than welcome in both online and local gaming communities (and the game jamming scene as well - where several of the key people are actually women). That goes for LAN parties too, the dozens of them I've participated in personally included.
However, whenever feminism is mentioned, it's important to remember that today's interpretation of what that means varies wildly. You may simply mean "equal rights", but unfortunately, many people today instantly associates it with extremists like the aforementioned Anita Sarkeesian. I'm not saying that that makes it right, but it's worth to keep in mind why and how the word "feminism" in itself is, unfortunately, very negatively associated for a lot of people these days - especially, I think, in the gaming community, because of experiences with these extreme personalities. Again, it seems to vary quite a lot what each person means with it, which in itself can be a problem.
 

Niels

Member
I think a Gamedev community is totally different from a gaming community. As Devs we are not competition in the first place.
 
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Sabrina Stoakes

Guest
I think a Gamedev community is totally different from a gaming community. As Devs we are not competition in the first place.
Yeah I think it's because game developers are artsy to some extent. Art requires an open mind, but there is still a mostly technical side to game development, so you occasionally get someone who's uhhhh unreasonable. Like that indie game about killing feminists LGBT zombies which I seen virtually no outrage over.

I remember how angry the gaming community got about that last Wolfenstein game having, "liberal propaganda" for being what the series has been ever since it came out, which is a super patriotic, anti-fascist shooter.
 
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Sabrina Stoakes

Guest
I haven't frequented any of the communities you mention, but from a purely statistical angle, it makes sense that there's more aholes in the ones for more popular titles - the bigger the sample size, the bigger the risk of such people being present. That's pretty much a given with anything, so it might not really have much to do with the specific game as such. Just something to bear in mind.

I would like to know your definition of propaganda in older movies, though. There's a big difference between an agenda or propaganda, and then simply showing it like it is. For example, some people were highly offended by Django Unchained for its liberal use of the n-word, while the opposing crowd argued that it was simply an authentic portrayal of the attitude in the era and location, and that the overall underlying message was, in fact, aggressively anti racist. Schindler's List is another such example, but with focus on antisemitism instead. In games, a very recent example is Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which came under fire for being racist because it did not feature a single black character, while again, the studio explained that it had nothing to do with any racist agenda, and everything to do with a commitment to an authentic portrayal of medieval Bohemia (which, historically and quite objectively speaking, it is).
So I'm curious to know some more specific examples of your personal encounters with this phenomenon in games / movies / whatever, and how you came to interpret it that way.

Lastly, maybe we have frequented very different communities, but from my own personal experience, females have always been more than welcome in both online and local gaming communities (and the game jamming scene as well - where several of the key people are actually women). That goes for LAN parties too, the dozens of them I've participated in personally included.
However, whenever feminism is mentioned, it's important to remember that today's interpretation of what that means varies wildly. You may simply mean "equal rights", but unfortunately, many people today instantly associates it with extremists like the aforementioned Anita Sarkeesian. I'm not saying that that makes it right, but it's worth to keep in mind why and how the word "feminism" in itself is, unfortunately, very negatively associated for a lot of people these days - especially, I think, in the gaming community, because of experiences with these extreme personalities. Again, it seems to vary quite a lot what each person means with it, which in itself can be a problem.
I'm not sure if propaganda was the right word or not, or if it was simply an agenda, or maybe just flat out ignorance at the time, but you can go back and watch a lot of looney tunes cartoons and see a fair amount of racism in them. One example specifically is at the end of the episode Fresh Hare which wasn't taken off air too long ago. The first step was blurring it out, but then they just stopped showing it cause it was absolutely absurd. I actually bought a DVD back in the early 2000s that has the episode on it, but it's blurred at the end.

Most of my exposure to gaming communities have been in Hell groups on Facebook so maybe that's why they've been absolutely horrendous haha if there are good gaming communities then I definitely wanna know about them.

As for feminism, there is a good bit of confusion surrounding it nowadays because there was a lot of anti feminist propaganda that really distorted the image of it. I remember Fox News specifically doing a lot of articles and stuff about feminism and using isolated incidents and saying that was how all feminists acted. See, the strategy to destroying a movement is pretty simple, you have to find the radicals in the group and show them to the public, then you tell them the buzzwords they're using mean things that they don't actually mean, then you get mass confusion and outrage and the whole movement is dead because the non-radicals also use those buzzwords and are roped in with them. I'm a feminist, but I don't use buzzwords, nor do I believe in inequality. Since we mentioned Soulsborne earlier, I think it's a good example of feminism because there are no differences between playing as a male or a female, and I like that a lot because it doesn't change the experience for who you want to play as. Another great game is Dragon's Dogma, you can make your character have any sexuality you want in that game LOL P.S if you haven't played Dragon's Dogma then you need to do it, I had to log like 250 hours into it just to finish everything in it.
 

Niels

Member
Yeah I think it's because game developers are artsy to some extent. Art requires an open mind, but there is still a mostly technical side to game development, so you occasionally get someone who's uhhhh unreasonable. Like that indie game about killing feminists LGBT zombies which I seen virtually no outrage over.
Games like that are created to piss people off...
The fact that no one gave that game any attention, was the best way to handle it.

Also wasn't dark Gwyndolin in the first dark souls a guy when you read the item descriptions?
As far as I know there wasn't any backlash over that... so can this be the right way to handle this?
 
S

Sabrina Stoakes

Guest
Games like that are created to piss people off...
The fact that no one gave that game any attention, was the best way to handle it.

Also wasn't dark Gwyndolin in the first dark souls a guy when you read the item descriptions?
As far as I know there wasn't any backlash over that... so can this be the right way to handle this?
True. Also there's actually a large amount of people in the Souls community that vehemently deny it. Like they acknowledge the canon story, but see, "him" as male still. It's hard to say for sure what the intentions were for the character and I've seen probably close to a thousand debates over it haha but there's definitely a divided group of people that think Gwyndolin is trans, and another group that think they're male. GENERALLY though, it's not something that people talk about constantly from what I've seen, and that may have something to do with it being a great game. There's also a lot of people that make Gwyndolin their waifu so LOL yeaaaaaah.
 
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