Why do gamers lash out against gamers so much?

[Erttheking]

I was just poking through that recent thread talking about an industry crash, and you know something I noticed? There is a massive amount of hatred from gamers, towards gamers. And to be perfectly honest it kinda disturbs me a little. If you ever bought a key in TF2 ever, and if you ever didn't wait for a massive Steam sale to buy a game, according to some of the people in that thread, you are an idiot. If you like Steam despite it being DRM, you're a mindless sheep.

...Can I just ask a question? Why are gamers so eager to tear each other apart the second someone says or does something that disagrees with how they see the world no matter how small or minor it is? Really, I think shrekfan246 put it best.

All right, I get how silly and fun it is to demean people who dare to enjoy games you don't like, but can we please stop referring to human beings as livestock now?

I seriously have a hard time believing anyone on the internet has any semblance of empathy anymore. Our own content creators from LoadingReadyRun have even stated that they get angry, frothing e-mails from people, respond to them rationally, and then get a subsequent response from the person saying "Oh, sorry, I didn't realize someone was actually going to read this!"

So, next time you feel like openly mocking another person over some incredibly petty thing like enjoying a sports video game, stop and remind yourself "Hey, that's a real human being on the receiving end of my post."

And you want to know the really sad part? I just know that this post is going to get at least a dozen replies saying "Well yeah it's the internet, you must be new here" or "Well what did you expect?" And that depresses me. It depresses me that we so causally lash out at people for having the audacity to buy a game we didn't like or enjoying a service we don't like, and we've accepted it as just being a part of the way that the world works. How did it come to this? How did we ever become so freaking vicious, short tempered and, I'm not gonna lie, petty?

 

[tippy2k2]

Yah! shrekfan, you're internet famous now!

They do the same thing that I'm about to do; they assume and therefore they make stupid statements.

My comment is what sparked Shrek's mini-rant (or I'd like to think it did so that I can hang in his shadow ) because I lashed out against someone who called sport gamers sheep. There are many games I love that many just insult me for because of their stereotype (Call of Duty and Fifa/Madden specifically). People don't like playing a certain game and because they don't enjoy it, they assume that something is wrong with the people that do enjoy them.

Either that or the gaming white knight; the guy who shouts how Call of Duty and Madden/Fifa are destroying the industry and that if we JUST got the sheeple to stop buying those games, the industry would become a powerhouse factory of butterflies and unicorn farts of happiness. Nevermind the thousands of jobs that would be lost, the BILLIONS that would be lost to the industry, and the thousands of consumers that wouldn't even have a console if not for these big games...

Ultimately:

 

[Pink Gregory]

Becuase it's easy to be solipsistic.

It's easy to believe that everyone else is a fool and the self is 'true', and all sorts of other positive buzz words.

Far too easy.

 

[shrekfan246]

Yah! shrekfan, you're internet famous now!

Woohoo! Now I can retire and live off of all that sweet internet money!

Wait, I think I need a job before I can retire...

How did it come to this? How did we ever become so freaking vicious, short tempered and, I'm not gonna lie, petty?

There's a number of factors I could think of as reasons, personally.

There are the people who resent the fact that gaming has "become mainstream" and diluted what used to be their hobby.

There are the people who think their way is the only way to correctly do things.

There are the people who generalize everything about 'modern' gaming and use a few select objects, such as Call of Duty or Madden, to point out how everything was so much better in the days of yore.

There are combinations of the above, obviously, and likely many more I couldn't care to come up with at the moment.

As for why people act like that in the first place, I think it still would just come down to the relative anonymity of the internet and the lack of direct consequence for the things you say. Even getting moderated on a forum for telling someone "you're a stupid sheep because you like FIFA" isn't nearly as bad as the reaction you'd potentially incite by saying that directly to their face. And I think that subtle difference grows and grows over time until eventually people forget that they're actually directly responding to other humans. When all you're seeing is text, an avatar, and occasionally a few images, it's entirely plausible that you would disassociate someone from reality.

There are, of course, completely tactless people who would act the same way to someone's face regardless, but I'd like to think the number is far smaller than any test sample you'd get by reading an average forum thread.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Don't forget buying a console at launch.

You dare to do that and you might as well have a swastika tattooed on your forehead.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Eh, any large group is made of subgroups, often hostile to each other.

Why do people fight over whether Trek or Wars is better? Why is crap wish fulfillment fantasy aimed at girls regarded as crap by hardcore fans of crap wish fulfillment fantasy aimed at boys?

 

[Bravo Company]

Don't forget buying a console at launch.

You dare to do that and you might as well have a swastika tattooed on your forehead.

Funny how you mentioned this because I had a friend buy a PS4 at launch and all we do is razz him for it constantly. He doesn't take it very well but when his PS4 breaks, I'll be telling him "I told you so"


Also, OTeople will say whatever they want when its across the internet. In person, it would probably be a completely different story.

 

[IllumInaTIma]

Yay Shrekfan!

Well, it's not just gamers actually. Being an admin of online group (around 8k people) I've started noticing it more and more. People just love being angry and pessimistic online! They just do! I don't know why, I don't know what they get from it, but I can't help but notice it every single day!

 

[Racecarlock]

I like all of the responses to this thread so far, but being someone who does lash out occasionally, I will add something from the other side of that coin.

Anger is fun. Anger gives you that big adrenaline rush. Combined with passion, it makes you feel like you have a reason to exist, or even just that your actions or choices in game systems and games in general actually mean something and actually do something to forward humanity.

In other words, it's basically cheap achievement points.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Ultimately:

I've always felt an instant kinship with subway commuters, for some reason.

 

[Phasmal]

People are grumpy, and gamers can be really petty.
I think the problem tends to be that certain types of people liked being `outsiders` by playing games, and now that's not really true anymore, they feel the need to draw arbitrary lines in the sand about who is and isn't `in the group`.
But there are so many lines now you can't do anything right.

You like JRPGS? Fuck you, you're what's wrong with gaming with your lame ass girly looking men.
Like shooters? Fuck you, you're what's wrong with gaming with your steriod-driven grunt-fests.
Like Puzzle Games? Fuck you, you're what's wrong with gaming with your casual hands dirtying up my hobby.

I could do this all day.
And then everyone else gets annoyed at each other because the community is so hateful that everyone hates it.

 

[Pikey Mikey]

Gamers hate gamers because there are always people who will never accept that not all people think the same. Or that they just don't like a certain type of people for whatever reason.

I'm guilty of that, to some extent, I hate people who can't take the time to type 3-5 additional letters in a message (on a keyboard) to write an understandable message instead of some slaughtered remains of what reminds of one but only if read phonetically(the skype-chat I'm in (with some friends) is almost depressing. 90% of that text is so fucking hideous to look at. And what bothers me is that they (at least SHOULD) know how to write properly but they don't for whatever reason, it's either because they are so damn lazy or because they think it's fun to be/pretend to be stupid).

I also get confused when people get "their" and "they're" mixed up (at to how they make that mistake), but I don't have anything against it, it's just that it seems so easy to me (I'm also Swedish, so English is not my first language (but I DID grow up with video/computer games))

 

[conmag9]

1. Lots of gamers are passionate people on the subjects of their interest. Passionate people require a release for all that energy.

2. It creates groups to facilitate a "us vs. them" mentality. It's instinctively desirable to be part of a group of like minded individuals against some external threat, even if it's patently ridiculous when we think about it logically.

3. Those newer to gaming communities adapt to fit in with the vitriol, so it's self perpetuating after a while.

4. Most people have an instinctive need to be right. They see something that doesn't fit their preconceived notion of correctness in games and set out to "correct" it. I'm certainly gilty of this; I can't for the life of me think of any reason to play sports games or racing games. It's not even that I'm bad at them (I'm bad at FPS's but don't mind their existence), I just don't like the fact that they exist. Logically I see no reason why I should care, let others play what they like and I'll be over here with my various RPGs. Anyway, we have a "right" answer and then we go back to 1. with the passion. Flamewars are easy to spark with that sort of setup.

 

[2HF]

The reason people do this is the same reason people watch reality TV, read gossip magazines, gossip behind each others back at the water cooler.

It's easier to make someone else look bad and yourself better by comparison than it is to actually improve one's self.

 

[kailus13]

People like being right about things. This is also why internet arguments never end. When people enjoy things, they generally don't see a need to post about it, hence you see more negativity than positivity.

I've always felt an instant kinship with subway commuters, for some reason.

You sit or stand in the same space, breathing in the same stale air and doing the same things. For what little time you spend on the subway, you are all equal.

 

[Hero of Lime]

A lot of our (gamers) interaction is done online, a place where people act far differently than usual i.e. angry, mean spirited, and ready to fight with other anonymous strangers. I certainly avoid fights on the internet, because I want my blood pressure to stay nice and low. Plus, when it comes to gamers, we are competitive not only while playing games, but about the games/systems we play on.

It sucks, but that is why I like to stay positive and friendly. Even on the internet, if you treat people nicely, they will have a really hard time trying to pick fights with you.

 

[anthony87]

I've always figured it's because we're like the Scottish.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Because whatever their stated reason (schadenfreude, intellectual superiority, esteem, etc), it seems the "vocal" folk on the internet are just looking for a fight whether to watch or wade into.

This oversimplification brought to you by...a random nobody on the internet.