rob_simple said:
it's just that a lot of gamers are really, really immature.
hmm... I wonder. Well why not use this as a springboard.
I guess the first thing is to define "a lot" in this case. Honestly, I often see and hear this notion and maybe it has merit, maybe not, but it is a stereotype jumped at and I am beginning to doubt it is a fair one. Oh, don't get me wrong, there are certainly immature piss-ants in gaming, but this sort of statement suggests 2 things. First, that it is gaming that brings them out or that pulls up the immature in people, and second that it is more restricted to gaming itself. This is a hobby that is loosely defined and has no restrictions or limitations on entry. As such, it is represented by anyone who picks up a controller or turns on a game of bejeweled. The problem with this though is the loudest ones are often scapegoated as examples of the whole.
Think for a moment, we all know as an inherent nature of the popularity of the medium, that of the plethora of people who watch movies, you WILL have a good number of assholes within. Yet no one says a lot of moviegoers are assholes in the same way they would dismiss video gamers. Both are easy entry hobbies, no restrictions and no defined "true Scotsman" sort of gamer/movie goer. Yet the one is often demonized by the vocal minority, while the other is not. Hell, I know some people who will say most people in general are assholes but still not make the connection about most people also going to movies and wont say that most who watch movies are as well. Gaming is big too, not quite as large as movies but hey, that industry had a couple decades of head start. Still, roughly 70% of all americans play games. That is a huge demographic, filled with people of every ilk. You WILL get assholes in that group, the same way you have many an asshole who likes to watch movies. So, what is the difference?
Well I think in part is that they use the medium to be assholes. It is interactive and with online capacity, they can use games to express themselves as assholes to the rest of the word, helping further create the terrible stereotype. But is this something with games? I don't think so. Look at the number of people online and the general attitudes of them. There is a matching theme there about how people online are asshats. Hell there is explanations why, about anonymity lets them. Games just make use of the internet and as a result have the same reasonings for much of the asshats within. I don't think it is the games that make people assholes or that pull assholes in, just that the medium is so broad and that since it is online, the assholes shine through more clearly then they do in other media.
Now to tie it back to the topic of the thread. Are their misogonists? Yes. Same as there are racists and every other bigot type. Do they represent the majority of gaming though? I have to disagree. I certainly don't deny, and would actively help fix, issues with how some people behave in cons and competitions and the like. Hell I would encourage the industry to grow from the lowest common denomination mentality too many triple-A publishers have. But I don't think game makers have to change. Much like how I don't think authors have to change their books for their audience, I don't think makers have to either. Let them make the product they want to. if they are smart and listen to consumers, good for them. If not, let them fade into obscurity. The market will often determine the longevity of the games in the medium and as much as I hate it, we can't force the industry to grow and mature as an art form, we can only do our part to encourage and reward those we feel do represent that.
I have argued that a lot of the issues pertaining to race and sexism is more storyline based. Tropes relied on and lack of developers willingness to put depth in them and in the characters resulting in shallow stories and some would dare say sexist representations of characters. We will see that a lot as those stories are simplier and easier to make. I am aware that such stories though resonant in people playing them and that as a result they may seem like encouraging sexist behavior, but I have to disagree there. Circling back to my first point, the demographic being so large, perhaps it is just that these stories are appealing to people who already have the bias. While I do not like the idea of publishers pandering to them, it i their choice and again, we have to rely on the market to show the limit to the success in such tactics, as well as trying to get our voice out there and heard by game makers. It is sad in a time like this where technology grows so rapidly, but honestly, people are slower to change, and habits harder to break. The amount of change we have had is, in relation to similar changes in the past, very quick. Still I know that is little consolation to those who have to deal with the brunt of the assholes in the crowd. The best bet is to try to see them as bad people who share a hobby rather then as hobbyist who became bad people. Remember every assht out there is probably a movie goer too, and that the correlation between those two is not causation of one to the other. There are a lot of us who just like to play fun games and get fun stories. We can ignore artistic oddities like chainmail bikinis and cliche characters if we enjoy the rest.
