Gamers should stand against hateful behaviour?

[Sledgstone 8,672]

I'm sure everyone has seen this by now:

 

 

Open letter to the gaming community

We believe that everyone, no matter what gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion or disability has the right to play games, criticize games and make games without getting harassed or threatened. It is the diversity of our community that allows games to flourish.

 

If you see threats of violence or harm in comments on Steam, YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, Facebook or reddit, please take a minute to report them on the respective sites.

 

If you see hateful, harassing speech, take a public stand against it and make the gaming community a more enjoyable space to be in.

 

https://medium.com/@andreaszecher/open-letter-to-the-gaming-community-df4511032e8a

 

I was reading about this the other day on vg247 and catching some info on twitter. From what I've seen on twitter and in the comments on many articles, quite a few people seem to be pissed off about this:

 

So far the letter has collected signatories from developers, publishers, critics and press. The contributors come from a wide variety of companies including but not limited to Harmonix, Riot, DICE, PopCap, Paradox, Splash Damage, Epic, Giant Sparrow, Sony, BioWare, Google, Nvidia, Bungie, Ubisoft, TellTale, Microsoft, Oculus, Intel, Rockstar, Double Fine, Bohemia, Blizzard, Rovio and EA – among many, many others.

 

http://www.vg247.com/2014/09/02/devs-pubs-critics-and-press-call-on-gamers-to-stand-against-hateful-behaviour/
 

I suppose people are annoyed because all the major companies are basically telling all the fans to moderate themselves on their behalf by signing this? Or maybe I'm missing the point of the argument? Maybe people are getting pissed off because "gamers" are being singled out in this? Youtube comments have been almost nothing but hate speech garbage for years now because nobody moderates anything and its not limited to just the gaming community.

 

This could also be a case of the Crans. Some gaming media sites employees might be moderating and banning commentators unfairly because of their one sided biases or inflated egos. A Cran can easily make a large group of people pissed off as we know all too well from past experiences.

 

Anyone know more about this that I'm missing?

[Sledgstone 8,672]

This seems like a decent explanation of the issue now:

 

http://techraptor.net/2014/09/03/response-open-letter-gaming-community/

 

It looks like non gaming sites are referencing this letter to the gaming community and have in turn, condemned all "gamers" as assholes? Twitter appears to have people bashing "gamers" because of "Gamer culture" which now seems to be directly related to everyone being an asshole, woman hating, scum of the earth. People are truly ignorant.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

Stop making Call of Duty and 50% of the problem is solved. SWTOR and GW2 are some of the most pleasant gaming communities I've ever been apart of. Perhaps a part of that is the complexity of these games... they can be too overwhelming for those of lesser intellect and children. Battlefield is a deeper game than COD. Its more challenging to master, therefore you have a a bit more mature user base. Do a Diablo 2 HD remake keeping every mechanic the same including the skill tree, and I bet you won't see many bad apples. Gaming that requires strategy, patience, and most of all: effort, tend to have better communities.

 

The real answer is, stop making shitty watered down games that are rated M. Otherwise you'll keep getting the same 12-17 year olds spewing out hate speech, blaming everyone else for their horrible skills where there are no skills required.

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

Didn't you know Sledge all gamers are asshats. I thought this was general knowledge.

 

All kidding aside they need to realize that the majority of the problem comes from the games being played as well as the general age of the community. Most of the hate crap comes from the younger generation of gamers who think it's hip and cool (god I can't believe I said that) to be a complete dick to everyone. Games like COD perpetuate this because kids seem to think that high kill counts in matches equal skill and bragging rights. Sadly this mentality also carries into other games as these kids can't get it through there head that other games are not like COD where you can brag about stuff like that. Honestly if the industry would do away with games like COD you'd probably see a massive switch over to more pleasant gaming with our peers. Sadly our generation suffers mildly from this problem as well but the majority of us have grown up and moved on (I know I used to be quite the asshat back in my Halo and COD4 days).

 

FFXIV's community has been one of the most awesome communities I've been apart of in my years of gaming. Don't get me wrong there are asshats in this game as there are with any MMO but the majority of the players are pretty awesome people as they're always willing to help out in any way they can. It also helps that the game is centered around group activities as there is a lot of stuff in this game that requires you to group up. Honestly its been a long time since I've played a game with this friendly atmosphere (I never ran into this in SWTOR, mostly because I stick to myself and generally ignore others).

Edited September 4, 2014 by Strider Hiryu

[Myk JL 1,731]

I've ignored the letter on the grounds that it wasn't aimed at the internet community. I remember back in my childhood & most of my teen years that online multiplayer wasn't a thing yet. Even in my early 20s all I did was play Quake 3 where there was no voice chat.

 

I don't think I've heard of anything bad about online multiplayer until Xbox Live had Halo Multiplayer with a lot of tea bagging. Or how Steel Battalion Line Of Contact's $250 price tag weeded out most offensive players. Then again those giant robots can't tea bag.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

Maybe esports is contributing to this issue? I haven't played DOTA 2 or League of Legends, but those two are the largest and most widely watched esports games. From what I've read, those two games have as many, if not more, vocal asshole gamers as the COD franchise.

 

Now Forbes has an article about this.. another non gaming site, reporting on 'gamer culture'

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2014/09/04/gamergate-a-closer-look-at-the-controversy-sweeping-video-games/

 

And here is a run down about the current hashtags being used on twitter:

 

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/gamergate

 

Whenever I read any video game news site, I take it all with a grain of salt and expect some personal bias from the person who wrote the article. Its the same with all news media. Regardless, this all seems a bit blown out of the water to me.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

The Gaming Culture... or any hobby with the word Culture placed after it is an automatic negative connotation for the media... Like "The Gun Culture" I own 5 guns, so I guess I'm going to go commit mass murder one day according to the drive by media. I'm just an all out horrible person because I am apart of the Gun and Gaming Culture. Its bad enough sites like Kotaku.. and now VG247 insert political garbage into their articles. Gaming is my escape from the real world. I don't want to think about real life issues when I am doing my hobby.

 

Esports has nothing to do with it IMO. I played COD well before esports became a thing and the issue has always been around. I remember the days on 360 before there was a party chat... You could only private chat with one other person, so if you had more than 1 friend playing you had to delve into the gaming public chat which was a nightmare. The people that act like animals during esports were like that before esports arrived on the scene. Its a toxic atmosphere that makes you hate people in general... I've told plenty of overly angry 14 year olds that I hope the die of AIDs after their temper tantrums. Not the most mature thing, but it was the only way I could convey my thoughts on their behavior in a language only they could understand.

 

 

I love this guy. XD

[Sledgstone 8,672]

That video is basically every kid / teen boy on cod. Now that they've grown up swearing at everyone they think it's normal "gamer culture" but in reality its just cod culture and ppl being swearing assholes.

Here's a great comic that explains teenage boy gamer culture:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/online_gaming

Hmm, maybe xbox party chat is the main cause of all the hate speech. Combined with cod it helped form all the assholes into the pricks they are today. Esports may not be contributing to this but the popularity of it might have helped push a lot more ppl into the mmoba games and their communities of hateful assholes. It's like a recruitment effect that breeds more asses.

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

Esports isn't helping the case any that's for sure but this problem has been around since it became a thing like DX said. I remember the days before Xbox Party Chat, good god I hated every minute of being in the normal game chat mode since I used to play COD4 with a group of classmates all the time. When Party Chat was implemented I thought it was one of the best things ever since I no longer had to listen to the 12 year old boys saying I was a 40 year old virgin living in my parents basement raping little boys (yes I actually did have a kid say this to me because I wiped the floor with him in a COD match. Not my problem he sucks at checking his corners in a match that it's quite obvious that I'm wiping his team out with a shotgun by camping corners (yea I was a camper, even had the pro-perk that gave me a fire and tent (inside joke)).

 

I quit going to GameSpot to read gaming news because of all the political crap they go into now and I'm getting quite sick of seeing it on VG247. All I want is news on games, coverage of game shows, and the occasional humor article that reminisces about the good old days of gaming. I don't want political crap saying our "culture" is hateful. Yes there are a lot of bad eggs in our community but sadly it's the same way with any hobby you get into now-a-days. There will always be elitists pricks who think they're better then you, their favorite sports team is the best, and so on and so forth but we're not all like that. A good 60% of gamers these days are in their 20's and 30's, we're all pretty mature people who want to play games as an escape from reality. Don't lump us in with the rest that use it as a status symbol (a very bad one at that).

 

Sadly it's just another way for the media to portray us as mean spirited people. The whole violent video games makes people kill others thing was enough, we really don't need this on top of it (even if we all know it's a load of bullshit).