Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[EnigmaticHat]

Interactivity is the advantage of video games.  I think a lot of games provide experiences rather than stories.

So for example the Chivalry arena map.  Where you for the first time walk out from that dark tunnel and into the sunlight.  And there's cheering crowds and deathtraps everywhere and people shouting at each other throwing things and the guy next to you takes a crossbow bolt to the throat.  There isn't a conventional story, but there's an experience.  And TBH I don't think anyone unambiguously loved the stock team gameplay in Chivalry, most of the people that put 500 hours into the game did so mostly on 1v1 servers or at least custom servers with informal house rules and no archers.  Yet a large audience of casual gamers loved that game to the tune of 10-50 hours, and I think it was because of the experience it sold.  So in a way for most of its community Chivalry was a narrative based game rather than a mechanics based game, its just that the narrative was told non-verbally and emotionally.

I would agree that its been about a year since I played a game for its conventional story.  And that was honestly a thumbs down, as I was playing Injustice with a comics fan and they

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

quit playing the story mode forever because Regime Superman killing Regime Shazam onscreen was too dark

Without that its been, shit, like years.  I think the fact of the matter is its hard for a western developer to sell a game with a detailed linear story any more, it doesn't help them advertise the game or build a franchise.  The closest would have to be the Arkham and Assassin's Creed franchises, but even those are heavily based in the experience of "you are ___".  So are the Witcher games now that I think of it.  So I guess my modern example would have to be the ME series for its large number of detailed characters and its worldbuilding for a setting that is not from other media.

[Parsely]

Jesus crapping frick in a couple weeks I'll have been goofing on this forum for FIVE YEARS.

[Neonivek]

And I am still the #4 contributor to the forum!

[Avis-Mergulus]

Cucumber Sprite.

[Descan]

Where I did get riled up was all those "gamers suck" editorials in places like gamasutra. Sure, go after people who did harass people, but it's ridiculous to attack an entire class of people who are in actuality more diverse than the mainstream (nearly 50% of gamers are female, and minorities make up a disproportionate share of the gamer community) and label them all cis white male scum. At that point you're just offending people who hadn't had any involvement in the whole shitstorm.

So yeah, both sides did actual fuel the flames here. "gamers" however were not a side, they were one of the targets.

I mean there's a difference between gamers, and Gamers™.

the former is just anyone who plays games

the latter makes it like... An identity or something. It's fucking weird. And are usually the people being railed against in those editorials (or at least, the ones I read.) The kinda people who are like "a lesbian?! In MY video game?! SJEWS!" when it's like a one-off character in the background. God forbid you make it a main or co-main character or something, their heads explode or something. Anything even hinting of non-straight non-white non-cis non-male in their game as anything more than a joke, or that is forcing them to actually emphasize with someone different becomes a "BETRAYAL of REAL GAMERS EVERYWHERE!" "Forcing POLITICS into muh vidja games!"

[Neonivek]

A "Gamer" is anyone who plays videogames as a hobby...

I don't know what version of that you are referring to Descan... I'd say far more "casuals" complain about SJW content in videogames than the core audience.

If your buying into that derogatory version than congratulations you ate the "Gamer's suck" editorials hook line and sinker.

You know, the same editorial where President Obama blamed EVERYONE WHO USES THE INTERNET for internet trolls.

---

To be honestly I am not sure where this shift in videogames came from exactly.

I mean I know that game critics decried Bully for having homosexual content and wanted it to be rated M... but they weren't part of the Gamer population.

If I HAD to get an exact source it would be linked to the new Tomb Raider

New Tomb Raider: "The New Lara Croft is clearly superior to the old one, the old one was so sexist because she had boobs and shorts" *said without awareness of irony*

It is probably around the time when videogames were considered good for being quasi-progressive that it started to be put into people's radar. EITHER that or it is based on the shift from Core audience to being overwhelmingly general audience.

[Descan]

If you haven't met the exact kind of people I'm talking about, who fulfil all the old stereotypes about Gamers™ and Nerds™, with an added dosage of bigotry, prejudice, and "I'm not political I'm a RATIONALIST now get all that new stuff that doesn't cater entirely to me away from me, it's scary!" then I'm not entirely sure where you've been hanging out but it's definitely not the places I've been.

Like, I'm a gamer? I play games. But I'm not a Gamer™. I don't hang my entire identity upon a hobby that most people engage in now; it'd be like identifying as Movie Watcher; sure some people do, they're called cinema snobs :V and they're assholes

[Neonivek]

If you haven't met the exact kind of people I'm talking about, who fulfil all the old stereotypes about Gamers™ and Nerds™, with an added dosage of bigotry, prejudice, and "I'm not political I'm a RATIONALIST now get all that new stuff that doesn't cater entirely to me away from me, it's scary!" then I'm not entirely sure where you've been hanging out but it's definitely not the places I've been.

I've met these people.

I am only saying that the majority of these people are not primarily in the gamer community but the "General audience" community. It helps that the General Audience community is far FAR larger and includes most of Reddit and 4Chan.

Like, I'm a gamer? I play games. But I'm not a Gamer™. I don't hang my entire identity upon a hobby that most people engage in now; it'd be like identifying as Movie Watcher

I feel like you put WAAAAY too much importance on "Gamer"

It is the difference between "Yeah I read Harry Potter" and "Yeah I read"

Not "Yeah I read Harry Potter" and "I base my entire identity around books"

Your referring to an extreme niche of gamers. It comes off as a defense mechanism to avoid criticism to be honest. "I am a good gamer, bad gamers are old and ugly"

[Descan]

... Yes, congratulations, you have accomplished the task of Reading Comprehension.

That is what I was talking about from the beginning. These editorials were just being sloppy with terminology, they (usually)* weren't referring to the whole group of people who play games, but the people who make it their entire identity. E: Defense mechanism? What the fuck? I only threw that in to try and clarify what I was talking about, tho I should have realized who I was talking to and figured it to be a lost cause, that.

*I haven't read every single one so maybe someone was being a fuckwit.

[Rolan7]

Man, those immature misogynists *want* to represent the gaming community.  Why would you give them that satisfaction?  They're loud, immature assholes, and they're a minority.

Yeah it seems like there's more of them in gaming than in other communities, but a lot of that's probably how loud and outlandish they are.  Or normal gamers getting radicalized by the supposed media conspiracy against gaming.  Calling "Gamers" bad names, or labelling the bad ones "Gamers", just plays into their persecution complex and proves their conspiracies right.  Even if you didn't mean it that way ("Gamers" vs "gamers" is pretty ambiguous just saiyan).

Gaming does seem like a weird thing to be proud of, sometimes, but there are certainly worse things to socialize about.  Chatting about vidya is fun!  It's how I found one of my favorite boards

[Descan]

I was probably letting my own prejudice against Gamers™ (the ™ is important :V) colour my posts; from the start, I was trying to illustrate the divide that these editorials were glossing over and was being missed by the OP who was angry about them painting "anyone who plays games" with the brush that was (sloppily, again) intended only for the people who make it like, the core of their identity and who get angry about anything that dares transgress it.

I mean the ones I've read used "gamers" in the title but clarified in the first or second paragraph of exactly who they meant. Some writers are shit tho and just assume that's obvious. :v

I'm not saying the represent the "gaming community," I'm saying they're the type who think they're the only ones IN the community, anyone who doesn't fit their image is a fake/casual, and they're the type who the "gaming community" is the ONLY community they have. Calling them Gamers™ was my attempt to clarify that they're absurd; should I have gone with Gamerz™ instead?

[Tack]

As someone who probably makes it the core of my identity and gets angry about anything that dares trangress it, I'm rather offended.
How dare you lump Gamers™ in with GAMERS™.
I have relatively moderate views and strive not to act with either white-knightdom nor fear and revulsion when a female enters my gameosphere.
Your vile hate-speech against my kind has me saddened, I tell you. It's frankly uncool.

Misogynists don't represent gamers. Misogynists represent Misogynists.

[Neonivek]

Yeah it seems like there's more of them in gaming than in other communities, but a lot of that's probably how loud and outlandish they are.  Or normal gamers getting radicalized by the supposed media conspiracy against gaming.  Calling "Gamers" bad names, or labelling the bad ones "Gamers", just plays into their persecution complex and proves their conspiracies right.  Even if you didn't mean it that way ("Gamers" vs "gamers" is pretty ambiguous just saiyan).

It is probably because Videogames have the advantage of computer Literacy and immediately available communities.

Not to mention movies hit "progressive" controversies as much because they are rather regressive overall. The last movie to be controversial because it was "feminist" was the new Ghostbusters.

[ChairmanPoo]

As someone who probably makes it the core of my identity and gets angry about anything that dares trangress it, I'm rather offended.
How dare you lump Gamers™ in with GAMERS™.

What about GaMeRs™. GaMeRs™ feel illegitimately lumped together with the other larger two subcultures, when they have their own identity and traditions.

Stop cultural genocide!

[Neonivek]

Mind you another reason, I guess, why Videogames has more "controversies" more than television and movies...

Is because a room full of old white guys don't dictate what can and cannot be seen in videogames.

So videogames never had a ban on homosexuality.