Why is casual racism/sexism more accepted in video games than other forms of media (these days)?

its sad it was an art

If our medium is designed for people to stay secluded for dozens of hours while having their egos stroked, then we reap what we sow in terms of the kinds of people who emerge from this pastime

this is interesting for sure

the ugliness of multiplayer gaming, the omnipresence of it, the rise of/mainstream acceptance of genres associated with it (that I gotta say, I personally dislike)... this is the stuff that really made me recede into a v specialized genre bubble. I'm skeptical that making games more 'social' is what's needed and that doesn't seem to be what wilson is getting at anyway... but like w/books, I actually really like the idea of enjoying games in isolation for long stretches of time and then thinking about what you got out of the experience or maybe discussing it w/ some friends. I don't necessarily think isolation is the problem here, but then again, I am an introvert...

Yeah, I agree that that's not what the piece is getting at - particularly, the "having their egos stroked" and maybe also the "dozens of hours" - my sense is that the daily time commitment for some of these games is really different in quantity and maybe in quality from the kind we might give a good book. If nothing else: it's okay to set the book down during some of that, shake off the cobwebs, remember that it's only a book, mentally argue back with the author, etc. The sense I get is that MMOs and multiplayer shooters are more demanding than that - look away for a minute and it's all over. But I could be totally wrong, I guess the players are also alt-tabbing to other windows to argue in forums and stuff. Maybe I'm just being crotchety and old - I really don't want this to just sound like some Concerned Parent Group worrying about what The Games are doing to The Kids. It's just, when I get hooked on a game, I totally get hooked - forget to eat, click again and again for one more round, the whole deal. And this is me playing brightly-colored solitaire puzzle games or whatever. If games that are primarily about ego-stroking, dominance and squawking sexual abuse to other players over a headset have that same power, I do think there's something to be said in wondering what kind of people will emerge from that.

The funny thing (as a fellow introvert, Alan) these MMOs actually appeal really strongly to introverts, I suspect! My MMO experience isn't that deep (spent a couple years on some stuff pre-WOW, enough to know it's dangerous for me) but as someone who's spent also spent a crazy amount of time - seriously, thousands of hours at a mininum - on competitive games (particularly FPS and fighting games), it's something that gives the barest semblance of social interaction wrapped up in an activity you already love compulsively solo, but with an infinite variation due to human opponents. Even games that aren't competitive, like Diablo or Borderlands, can be all-consuming as drilling up numbers is even more addictive when you have others to enable and encourage your habit, also buried in the same realm.

Having interviewed some pros, to be good at a competitive level is a fulltime job at least 6-8 intense hours a day everyday.... A friend of mine had spent one of the last 3 years logged into wow (back at the peak of that game)

these MMOs actually appeal really strongly to introverts

yeah, that follows. the 'infinite variation' thing does seem to be the emphasis, not anything truly social. good call.

particularly, the "having their egos stroked" and maybe also the "dozens of hours"

yep. and the endless un-critical consumption of things that are ultimately kind of hateful. and not even like nihilistic horror movies where you the viewer are being brutalized too and there's a weird catharsis there. it's more sanitized, you're in control, and you win.

This hobby & industry is a cesspool

― ra's al goole (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, August 31, 2014 1:58 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://quinnspiracy.com/godot.html

pffthehehe

I have an idea that so much video game discourse taking the form of Nintendo vs Sony vs Microsoft console wars sets gamers up for a combative approach too. It goes alongside the well-noted game aspects in that Devin Wilson post and fits in with his point seven on protecting value of investments. It might just be the communities I've happened to see, but I feel that mode gives a top down pervasive aggression that is in the interests of some of the most powerful companies in the business, in a way that you don't really get for any other media (it's more like sports, I guess? Comics which I know less about has two big mainstream companies, but less barrier to entry between the two of them?).

An interesting comparison would be to Mac vs. PC which also involves a big sunk investment where people really are unlikely to do both. There's definitely a rivalry there but I don't think it gets as aggressive. OTOH there are probably more gamers who have two or more current-generation systems than there are casual computer users who own both a Mac and a PC. Generally I think sports is probably about right, and similarly I think anybody challenged on this would say, hey, it's all in fun, we play up the ridiculousness of the rivalry just 'cause. But more generally the tendency to be in "camps" probably does things that we can't exactly chart out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NqU4_k4wrQ&feature=youtu.be

http://www.polygon.com/2014/9/2/6096163/developers-end-hate-open-letter

Cool, I guess, but from a developer's point of view it seems like the easiest possible letter to sign. How about a letter pledging to avoid racist and misogynistic tropes, or, in the case of reviewers, to dock points from games that use them?

That's already starting to happen in reviews from the more self-aware sites like Polygon, and naturally they always get blowback from the same idiots for "inserting politics" into their hobby

But you're right, it's super easy to sign a letter like that. I'm more interested in a developer of Saints Row coming out and saying he agreed with Sarkeesian. tbf the franchise has been getting better in that respect but it started off pretty terrible, as evidenced by plot points in SR1 and 2 used in her videos. (While at the same time, having possibly the the best non-hetero-normative gender slider that just about any game has had in SR2)

That video above is more sad to me than anything, that these nimrods exist

tbh i find all the #notallgamers "hey there's right and wrong on both sides here let's stop arguing about this stuff" clowns just as aggravating

yeah, pretty similar to the #notallmen thing, totally missing the point

if sarkeesian ends up achieving something I will feel bummed at being proven wrong /:

good attitude

johnny fiveaces ‏@brumbpo Aug 24

@Nicendeth @MichaelToole @Babylonian why do these turdmen always look like a Kane of Nod cosplay convention

irl lulz

http://whatculture.com/gaming/10-things-need-know-gamergate-scandal.php

lol wtf, every single one of these is like 180deg wrong

cant remember if gmart still reads here but v good article my man <3

uh that was an xpost referring to his p4ste piece

"Even the extremely controversial feminist, Christina Hoff Sommers posted a tweet in favour of #GamerGate"

Such diversity. Even quislings are in favour.

yeah, do not click on that whatculture article, it's super infuriating and awful, and it's broken u into a million ages so to read all of their bullshit you just give them even more clicks, fuck everybody

yeah.. when i got to #9 which was "everyone gets death threats, PSHAW" my eyes couldn't roll hard enough

it's broken u into a million ages

This is very true.

hahaha

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BwnH1q8IIAA_1Dk.png:large

good use of iso-cubes imo

took me FAR too long to realize that was a parody

how did you not realize the moment you got to "zoe quinn be arrested & tried to the full extent of the law for her duplicitous promiscuity and/or for really upsetting that developer guy"

seemed in character tbqh

"close down penny arcade as it is feminist" was the tell

i'm sympathetic to poe's law but c'mon

have those fucks weighed in on this at all? They seem to be forever discussing minutia of the most minor online gamer dustups in vicious form; i don't know whether not commenting or commenting stupidly would be more in character for them.
going in

she should be arrested and tried for duplicitous promiscuity??? "all games journalists to not be friends with other games journalists"?? the whole thing is obv absurd.

that's a parody yeah, but a quite subtle one.

have those fucks weighed in on this at all? They seem to be forever discussing minutia of the most minor online gamer dustups in vicious form; i don't know whether not commenting or commenting stupidly would be more in character for them.
going in

Them weighing in would accomplish nothing but drawing attention to themselves so I guess it's surprising they haven't shat a big mansplainy turd into this mess

http://social-justice-bullshit.tumblr.com/
http://irlsocialjustice.tumblr.com/
these are pretty funny too

or maybe serious. i don't know.

oh and penny arcade is doing PAX (which they're part of? Not part of? depends on if they said anything stupid lately) so i think they're low profiling it but the dog whistle inherent in
"PAX is a nice reminder of just how incredible games and gamers really are. I always come away from the show inspired by this community. "
is pretty clear

yeah, do not click on that whatculture article, it's super infuriating and awful, and it's broken u into a million ages so to read all of their bullshit you just give them even more clicks, fuck everybody

too late for me but aaargh yes

1. gamers are not a monolithic entity, it is dumb to say gamers are bad
2. people who disagree with me are clearly not gamers and are therefore not entitled to an opinion. i can tell this because because gamers are a monolithic entity and all think the same
3. in fact YOU are the real bigot for thinking that some games could deal with LGBT/women's/race issues/anything other than explosions and be appraised on different merits, did you ever think of that huh
4. x (which is y, and that is not made up it is a FACT) is in fact (did I mention FACT) y, namely here is a list of ways it is y, and in conclusion x is y

(OK pots'n'kettles here as I am ILX's most circularly tl;dr but holy shit tautologies)

i dont know why i noticed this first but "burpturds" is not a spelling error even though it does point out the username as a spelling mistake

there is a publisher called gamersgate, i bet they are not having a good time atm

"gamers" are not bad for the reasons you list but "gamer culture" is real and is historically pretty terrible in many ways

and i say that as a "gamer"

I went to QuakeCon twice in the very early 2000s

#notalllamerz

the problem w/ letting "gaming culture" mean white male asshole gamers that do misogynistic things is that it actually simplifies an always diverse gaming community and disenfranchises them from how they've historically seen themselves. all these articles keep positing this diverse gamership as being something new that is replacing "old gaming culture," but that's not true. gamers have always been a diverse crowd and only when focusing on a very particular niche of the gaming market (tho, in AAA FPS games the most profitable) does it make sense to talk about "gaming culture" imo. like, the first gamer i ever knew was my mom playing zelda on her NES and return to zork on her computer. i've played w/ card gamers and wargamers and board gamers and indie gamers and sim gamers and IF gamers and classic RPG gamers and tabletop gamers and they're all such diverse + robust communities. idk. this is nitpicking bc i assume when we talk here about "gamers" and "gaming culture" we all know who we're talking about (4channers), but this has been bothering me so i wanted to toss in my 2 cents.

one of the many issues here is that a very vocal minority (the one you call 4channers) is claiming that 'gamers' title as theirs and only theirs.