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the death of the gaming culture
cowboyhugbees
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
i realize how IGN has whored itself out to hit-generating op-ed articles, but check this article out:
http://xboxlive.ign.com/articles/106/1060720p1.html
don't actually read the article, though - read the comments.
i know PA has tackled this issue before with the "Think B4 You Speak" campaign, but honestly. when did the gaming culture become overwhelmed by such disrespectful (EDIT: sorry) jackasses bent on pissing people off just for the sake of pissing them off? i thought the article raises a good point, but apparently you can't raise these issues without being assaulted by the so-called "gaming community".
i'm so tired of people equating "gamers" with homophobia and hate, but lately i can't really disagree with them. personally, i was attracted to video games initially because i wasn't much of a social butterfly. i enjoyed playing games at home with some of my best friends rather than going out and partying with people i didn't know or like. it provided me a refuge from the world that really didn't speak to me. and more often than not, other gamers could sympathize with my situation.
but now, with the advent of XBL etc., that refuge is being infested with people who use the cover of obscurity and the audience that online gaming provides them to spread bonafide hate and insensitivity. my issue with this is that many members of that audience may be like i was at one point - insecure about myself, using games as a refuge and seeking a culture of like-minded individuals.
what happens to those insecure people when barraged with homophobic slurs and hate-speech, defended by some bullshit "competitive nature" excuse?
i'm afraid that the culture that once nurtured me is now excluding the people who need that ideal culture the most, and is in turn destroying itself entirely.
do you agree? did you ever find the gaming culture embracing? do you find it repelling now? are you concerned by the ever-increasing hate-filled atmosphere?
am i wrong?
http://xboxlive.ign.com/articles/106/1060720p1.html
don't actually read the article, though - read the comments.
i know PA has tackled this issue before with the "Think B4 You Speak" campaign, but honestly. when did the gaming culture become overwhelmed by such disrespectful (EDIT: sorry) jackasses bent on pissing people off just for the sake of pissing them off? i thought the article raises a good point, but apparently you can't raise these issues without being assaulted by the so-called "gaming community".
i'm so tired of people equating "gamers" with homophobia and hate, but lately i can't really disagree with them. personally, i was attracted to video games initially because i wasn't much of a social butterfly. i enjoyed playing games at home with some of my best friends rather than going out and partying with people i didn't know or like. it provided me a refuge from the world that really didn't speak to me. and more often than not, other gamers could sympathize with my situation.
but now, with the advent of XBL etc., that refuge is being infested with people who use the cover of obscurity and the audience that online gaming provides them to spread bonafide hate and insensitivity. my issue with this is that many members of that audience may be like i was at one point - insecure about myself, using games as a refuge and seeking a culture of like-minded individuals.
what happens to those insecure people when barraged with homophobic slurs and hate-speech, defended by some bullshit "competitive nature" excuse?
i'm afraid that the culture that once nurtured me is now excluding the people who need that ideal culture the most, and is in turn destroying itself entirely.
do you agree? did you ever find the gaming culture embracing? do you find it repelling now? are you concerned by the ever-increasing hate-filled atmosphere?
am i wrong?
cowboyhugbees on
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Jackasses on message boards is just jackasses on message boards. It's the same thing for video games, football teams, whatever else.
perhaps in the literal sense, yes, but i'm referring to something a bit more esoteric than that
That's an insult.
Why? Because Gamers are everyone.
The idea that there is a gamer culture is offensive to gamers. The idea that there are gamers as a separate class is offensive to everyone. The majority of the population plays games. We aren't a fad. We aren't a culture. Sure, the PA posters are strange people. But "people who play games" is just the majority.
What do you mean by that? How are you defining "culture" if not in the sense that it is ordinarily understood?
I'm assuming he's referring to the fact that the 14-y/o "gamers" are all "GAY FAG BITCH MARTYRDOM SPAM BITCH LESBIAN GAY" exists as "THE GAMER CULTURE IS HOMOPHOBIC AND HATEFUL"
It's dangerous to go alone. Take this.
A winner is you!
Somebody set us up the bomb.
Hey! Listen! Hey! Listen! Hey! Listen!
Red warrior shot the food!
Your princess is in another castle.
Snake! SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!
Up up down down left right left right B A start
Noob.
Real-time weapons change! Hit its weak point for massive damage!
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
So he's saying they're homophobic and hateful?
Usually when people are talking about 14 year olds using profane language, they generalize them as being idiots. These kids would be using the same language on the football field or skate park though. They say that shit because, at that age, it makes you hardcore in life.
And then they grow up as we all did.
There was/is. It's stupid. Just like any other baseless clique.
i think everyone's being a bit too literal when i say "gaming culture". first off, if you really think about it, is ANY culture a "real" thing?
secondly, i do believe that people who play games as a hobby regularly and enthusiastically may be more inclined to have different social expectations than others. those are the people i am referring to specifically
What this guy said.
There's no 'music' culture. There's country culture, rap culture, indie culture, jazz culture, etc., etc. And those are just as much marketing as anything else.
Likewise there's no 'movie' culture, because everyone goes to see movies.
With gaming you might get things like 'madden/halo fratboy' culture, jrpg weeaboo culture, mmo addiction culture, casual soccer mom culture - but there's so much overlap between these groups as to be pointless.
Is there no movie culture? I have a friend who eats breathes and sleeps movies. He reads movie blogs, follows all the news, and participates regularly in industry discussion with other movie nerds.
i think that's fair. maybe the issue i am concerned about is the forcible marrying of the introverted crowd with the "not-thinking-before-you-shit-all-over-someone" super-competitive crowd ?
Yep. And what we're seeing here is the collision of one such subculture with another subculture. It's like the rivalry between trance fans and jungle fans at a rave, or between Star Wars geeks and Star Trek geeks.
This was supposed to be my secret safe place where everybody felt like family! How dare you encroach on it with your alien ways!
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Nowadays "gamers" are anyone who can spend an hour or two a week playing games. Consoles are in as many American homes as cable boxes. Every PC sold in the last five years is capable of playing, at bare minimum, Flash browser games that cost nothing. Almost every American has one of these game-capable computers.
The label has grown to encompass a much greater spectrum of individuals, and this is going to include some people who disgree with each other. It used to be a homogenized sort of group, now it's much more varied. Yiou're not going to find the same kind of cohesive groupthink as you did ten years ago.
This is a very good thing for the medium as a whole. John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory will never vanish, and taking the comments of a few trolls on a public comments section as indicative of the whole is fucking retarded.
I was going to say "Look at Ahbed in Community," but then I realized it's more of pop-culture fascination.
A general movie culture isn't really a culture though, it's more of a hobby that many take and in that sense they become historians more than anything.
There really isn't a "movie" culture though. Does your friend go to see Transformers2 and talk about how it was a bitching display of Boobs/robot fighting? Knowledge of an art =/= "culture" of the art. There will always be afficianados/academics, but that's not really "culture"
Well, that would be "the movie nerd culture", possibly, but not "the movie culture".
Then what is culture defined as to you? And I don't want examples, I want a definition.
You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
>_
Well yeah. Like when someone shoots up their school and they find a video game in his room and the media shits about it. We all recognize the wrong portrayal. But our (USA) media and the Australian government are drawn to stereotyping people to make it easy on themselves.
Thankfully we have Child's Play, the gamer's charity, to make people consider otherwise! (donate today, click the link in my sig!)
There are isolated nerds about everything, but I wouldn't say that makes it a culture. I've got a friend who does the same thing for transformers, but I think saying that there's a 'transformers' culture would be silly.
Besides which, I'm guessing he doesn't do this for all movies, just a subset of action/mega blockbuster/maybe nerdy comic movies. Does he go to nearby film festivals? Follow news about the latest romantic comedies and documentaries?
To the op: The reason why I think this is important is that if you don't think there was a 'gamer culture' to begin with, then there's nothing really going on here, just teenagers being douchebags on the net, which isn't really indicative of anything.
Just so everyone knows, major Final Fantasy 7 spoiler up there.
first, dude, i don't know what games you're buying, but new SMB is still $60 bucks.
second, i think the problem is a bit more widespread than "a few trolls on a public comments section". no?
As soon as I hit submit on that post I realized I didn't buy what I was saying. So I can't really answer that.
> PLAY DDR WITH PYRAMID HEAD
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Okay, so there is no movie subculture or gaming subculture. In that case we may as well relegate punk subculture or rave subculture to punk nerds and rave nerds.
Or you could just open up the idea that just because it's a little broader, that doesn't mean there isn't a subculture associated with it.
C'mon guys, this is high school Sociology stuff.
Okay, I'll ask SageinaRage then. Sage, what is culture defined as to you?
I think when something has a culture tied to it, there's a sort of group mentality or get-togetherness about that thing. It's not a perfect definition but maybe someone can elaborate on it.
Wait no
This shit is retarded
Stop with this gamer culture shit. Why the fuck do we do this elitist bullshit you don't hear about a music lover's culture or tv watcher's culture or movie watcher's culture
People fucking suck sometimes, end of story
You mother fucker
No, I don't mean how you decide whether something has culture or not, I mean what is a culture.
This is what happens when you get a group of essentially anonymous adolescent males playing competitive action games desperately trying to impress each other. No it's not cool. Yes we've all experienced it.
Actually we were talking about music culture and movie culture just a few posts before you. I didn't hear about it, though, since I'm reading this on a computer screen, so I suppose your point stands.
Um... how outsiders view people who partake in a hobby?
Edit - 'Outsiders' is a strong word but it doesn't reflect my sentiment.
Personally? Not really, no.
The average age of 'gamers' is mid-30's and the overall population is huge. After the Boomers die off/in a decade or so we're going to be the primary political power thanks to demographics and so all the stupid bullshit will tone down. Same as it did for novels, radio, movies, television, Rock n' Roll, &c. Douchebags will still be douchebags, though.