The sorry state of Gaming.

[Audley Strange]

First of all I'd like to point out that one of the ramifications of left liberal political correctness is that by making certain works concepts and ideas taboo, while liberating the use of traditional swearwords from being taboo, they have created a set of new swear words. Swear words are meant to shock, to be offensive. If you see and hear fuck like it was punctuation as most people over the age of about 3 are oft to hear, then the word loses it's notoriety and impact. Under political correctness, the words that have notoriety are things like faggot, nigger, jew, bitch, rape, holocaust, anything that offends the sensibilities of people who think we can protect people from words by making them bad words. These words are used in gaming all the time as swear words. I am not excusing their use, I am pointing out that is why they are used.

However there is a time where using such words "supposedly" to be subversive and confrontational stops being that and just becomes actual bigotry. That's what's happening in games. If any rad-fem looney out there ever wanted evidence of the inculcation of the patriarchy they would have to look no further that games. It's not just the players that are puerile in the extreme, it's the designers. Here is a bunch of people that want to be considered as legitimate artists yet revel in making games which seem to appeal directly to the mentality of the young boy who's supercharged on adrenaline and the thought of boobies. This would be fine except for one thing. The majority of people playing games are not 12 year old white boys any more. They may be acting like it, but that's because games can and do facilitate people to retard their socio-cultural development to an adolescent state permanently.

So that environment isn't ideal to start with for those outside that market. Then you add the gamers "trash talk" which is exactly what it is is btw. It is vocal rubbish, noise, waste. Such outpourings are easily analysed in real-time in much the same way that one can raid through a bin and see glimpses of the lifestyle of the person using it. We have created both a hostile and juvenile environment, from development to play. The gamers, who were always considered dysfuctional virginal outcasts with little social graces or talent have created an environment that is EXACTLY THAT.

All that Epeen trash talk to make themselves sound tough and hard is to be the alpha male, the king of the dysfunctional virginal outcasts. Not something I think they consider when they are doing it, but generally everyone who's not involved in that kind of horseshit doesn't see them as tough, they generally see them as pitiful or psychotic.

Speaking of, pitiful dysfunction virginal outcasts....



This guy is the problem. He's too fucking dumb to grasp he's being a prick. No one says anything and that poor woman tries as best she can to laugh it off and ignore it.

It seems to me that whether or not she is uncomfortable, the guy's verbal trash tells us quite a lot about him. It's common. Very common. There is even a website devoted to it.

I have female friends who have never been sexually assaulted, who have never felt threatened in male company. I do not have any female friends who are online gamers who have not been subject to some form of verbal abuse or post game harassment, not one of them. It's got to the stage than I don't personally know anyone who plays public games any more. I met most of these people in public games, but recently it has become a lot more hostile, a lot more pitiful and it's got to the stage I can't be fucked listening to it anymore.

Sure you can confront them, but they are pitiful dysfunctional virginal outcasts. They use the "oh I was joking" or "oh I was emotional" bullshit to excuse the behaviours that THEY THEMSELVES know are unacceptable, because they know that to say such things seriously can be actionable.

Gamers want games to be legitimate, but while they are creating games where "breast jiggle physics" are more important than content, while gamers look at women with terror, hatred or as an object to masturbate at, while they demean themselves and other cultures (a player was recently kicked off a starcraft tourney for calling a Korean opponent "a gook") , while they go out there way to be unwelcoming (fuckin n00b!) or collectively try to ruin people's entertainment for their own pleasure (The Goons, grievers, etc) online gaming is always going to be an increasingly exclusive activity of the worst of those dysfuctional virginal outcasts.

There are solutions, but until the games companies think it is hitting their bottom line they'll pander to it.

[PsychoSerenity]

Umm.. What!?

[Atheist-Lite]

I can't add much as I haven't really bothered with computer games since the eighties and my juvenile delinquincy. In those days it was not a major part of the coming of age rountine and didn't have massive special effects but made up for this in a 'wild-west' creative impetus long sinces vanished by todays standard forms, their repetitive forms of play and incredibly expensive builds for a mass market of dead&buried 'perpetual child-men' junkheads.

[normal]

What's your point, Audley?

[Audley Strange]

Umm.. What!?

Yeah, I pressed post bollocks before I had finished...

[Audley Strange]

What's your point, Audley?

My point is that were approaching a time where everyone is a gamer. Four years olds playing farmville or 86 year old grannies playing bejewelled blitz should not have to do it offline to avoid the onslaught of abuse. That gamers wrongly consider themselves an inclusive friendly group. They're not, from development of game to playing, the environment is needlessly hostile.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

There was an article on the BBC site about this a few days ago.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18280000

It is, in my onion, simply another manifestation of those that perceive themselves as beyond identification (or reproach) behaving without restraint.

There is no essential difference between overt sexism towards female gamers and forum trolling or road-rage; both of the latter are also a way of lashing out at, if not those that have genuinely hurt you, those that you feel some vague antipathy towards. The key element that these styles of attack have in common is the illusion of anonymity and invulnerability.

But it is an illusion. The more of an issue that this becomes, the greater the efforts to identify the dickheads that carry out such attacks will be. Your anonymity will be short-lived indeed!

Sadly, this kind of bullshit will also be used as an excuse for ever greater controls on how people use the interwebz and what sites people can visit. Sooner or later, teh webz will be as restricted as any other form of human expression - and you can thank the dickheads that have played directly into the forces of government and censorship for that.

[normal]

What's your point, Audley?

My point is that were approaching a time where everyone is a gamer. Four years olds playing farmville or 86 year old grannies playing bejewelled blitz should not have to do it offline to avoid the onslaught of abuse. That gamers wrongly consider themselves an inclusive friendly group. They're not, from development of game to playing, the environment is needlessly hostile.

Oh, ok. You edited the post to make more sense after I had replied =)

I think I agree with the first half of XC's post =)

[Audley Strange]

Well if you look at the above video you'll see that they were actually there in person. I wish I could say I think it is just the "Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory" in action. However I'm not sure it is just that though I accept part of it. There is the difference between shouting "You dirty fucking Jew!"" at someone over a speaker and spending time and effort harrassing them by mail or through chat.

If you listen to the guy above, his rambling is practically ceaseless and he doesn't seem to understand what he's saying. It's like listening to a young adolescent doing that thing where it's obvious they're attracted to someone by the amount of negative attention they give them. That's fine on the playground when your balls are still dropping, but at his age I'm going to suggest that he is emotionally and socially retarded.

I'm trying to bring it to people's attention because the last 18 months/2 years have been really really fucking bad. We've had a guy who is the public face of a game drunkenly suggesting his guild should harrass someone to suicide. We've had players banned from competitions for racism and various other "unsportsmanlike" behaviour. We've had EA's grope a female employee win a prize competition and even right up to last week we have the new Hitman trailer, have you seen it?

Is this the sort of industry it's becoming? Why? The majority of video games are played by and made by adults. Why are we all putting up with this shit?

[Atheist-Lite]

Well if you look at the above video you'll see that they were actually there in person. I wish I could say I think it is just the "Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory" in action. However I'm not sure it is just that though I accept part of it. There is the difference between shouting "You dirty fucking Jew!"" at someone over a speaker and spending time and effort harrassing them by mail or through chat.

If you listen to the guy above, his rambling is practically ceaseless and he doesn't seem to understand what he's saying. It's like listening to a young adolescent doing that thing where it's obvious they're attracted to someone by the amount of negative attention they give them. That's fine on the playground when your balls are still dropping, but at his age I'm going to suggest that he is emotionally and socially retarded.

I'm trying to bring it to people's attention because the last 18 months/2 years have been really really fucking bad. We've had a guy who is the public face of a game drunkenly suggesting his guild should harrass someone to suicide. We've had players banned from competitions for racism and various other "unsportsmanlike" behaviour. We've had EA's grope a female employee win a prize competition and even right up to last week we have the new Hitman trailer, have you seen it?

Is this the sort of industry it's becoming? Why? The majority of video games are played by and made by adults. Why are we all putting up with this shit?

Maybe it's the hyper-realistic bodycount disconnected with any hyper-realistic ambulances, hospitals and family grief?

[Audley Strange]

Maybe it's the hyper-realistic bodycount disconnected with any hyper-realistic ambulances, hospitals and family grief?

Perhaps, but not all games are like that and even outside the first and third person Murder Simulator community the hostility can often be just as bad.

[Mallardz]

I gave up video gaming shortly after the release of the xbox 360 a few years back. Primarily because all games are now made revolving around online play so the online content is where the program and design effort is focused. Unfortunately it's also where arseholes congregate.

[Drewish]

Just posting here to remind myself to come back to this topic later.

[Svartalf]

I gave up video gaming shortly after the release of the xbox 360 a few years back. Primarily because all games are now made revolving around online play so the online content is where the program and design effort is focused. Unfortunately it's also where arseholes congregate.

There's still stuff coming out that works decently in single player mode... not as much as one might like, but that helps save some money and get the most use out of your bought games.

[Azathoth]

I gave up video gaming shortly after the release of the xbox 360 a few years back. Primarily because all games are now made revolving around online play so the online content is where the program and design effort is focused. Unfortunately it's also where arseholes congregate.

Just get in on a private, well moderated server. There are loads about