Honestly, I feel like minorities just don't play PC games online, and for good reason.

[ReginaldXIV]

Depends on the kind of game. You hear a lot of shit in even Overwatch, but there's such a variety of players that it's not unheard of being the only male on the team.

I've also never heard that kind of stuff in Squad, but that could be on the moderation of the servers.

 

[JahIthBer]

I know era is console biased, but if you act like Xbox Live wasn't bad, cmon. That said, yeah, even in WoW's trade chat it's pretty bad & there is almost never any bans for some shit said. Valve is especially bad with their approach on steam as a whole, which is to say, they just ignore any alt right shit.

 

[ngower]

I haven't played a game with voice chat (besides with friends) in probably a decade. Back in the early days of XBox Live, the amount of times I got called some variation of f*g (I'm gay) was pretty fun. And having to out-homophobe those folks so my friends didn't think I was gay. Cool times.

I can only imagine what BIPOC folks living in the era of an emboldened alt-right are going through. Or women. Or honestly anyone who isn't cis-het, white and male.

 

[Dec]

I am generalizing, but I feel like I've seen the most racism in military games. Games that fetishize guns.

 

[TaySan]

I know era is console biased, but if you act like Xbox Live wasn't bad, cmon.

Click to shrink...

For real. I remember back in Halo 2 and Gears of War 1 days how bad it was. Thank god for group chat nowadays.

 

[Jonathan Lanza]

While not the entire reason, this is why I stick to 1on1 games (or 2v2 in the case of Gundam). At least then any slur I get is confirmation that I'm doing pretty well.

 

[Mesoian]

It's REAL interesting watching my friend admin a Squad server that has active rules of conduct.

It's like the old xbox live ban appeals board. "I never said that. I never said the n-word". Two minutes later, screen cap of them not only saying it, but putting it in text chat and going off on a little diatribe about "those people".

 

[Zera Bloodwinter]

As a black man who is 40 and has been online gaming since 16, I have dealt with my fair share of racism. I just learned to either ignore the bs as long as it's not directed towards me. Sad but i am over trying to fix peoples ignorance.

 

[ShaqtinFools]

OP I am not a minority but when I see this shit happen in online games it makes me upset too. I have had good success finding groups that aren't toxic in Discord LFG servers, forums and message boards, and even steam community's. I hope you don't let this shitty thing ruin something you enjoy. Not everyone who plays mil-sim games does this shit. May I ask what game it was?

 

[Deleted member 8118]

OP I am not a minority but when I see this shit happen in online games it makes me upset too. I have had good success finding groups that aren't toxic in Discord LFG servers, forums and message boards, and even steam community's. I hope you don't let this shitty thing ruin something you enjoy. Not everyone who plays mil-sim games does this shit. May I ask what game it was?

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As some people mentioned it, it was Squad. I'm not even deep into the game. I just thought I'd turn it on since I haven't played online games in a bit.

 

[super-famicom]

I'm a minority and I play on PC. But I never use voice chat unless it's Discord with people I know. Also, I don't play MP much anymore. Nowadays I stick to single player games. Public voice chat can be toxic as fuck so I avoid that at all costs.

 

[radiotoxic]

Ehhh... League of Legends is absurdly big in Latin America. So I don't know. The culture regarding these kind of things is just different, for good or worse. I agree with your point, though.

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You realize there's racism in Latin America too, right?

This reasoning makes no sense when PC is much much bigger than consoles in developing countries.

Click to shrink...

I assure you that's not the case here in Argentina. You have to be rich to build or buy a somehow decent gaming PC. And guess what, A LOT of these rich kids and adults are racists and basically hate the working class and everything that's not fucking right-wing.

 

[Azai]

The genres that are more prominent on PC like military sim tend to attract the worst people on top of that. It's not like liking historical/medieval European tactics games makes someone racist, but racists sure seem to like those settings!

Click to shrink...

Idk what games you guys are playing but eg in Squad I probably met the nicest guys in any game. And for a reason. You habe to talk to each other and communicate to actually succeed in a mil-sim.
In my 200 hours I never met someone racist. Even as a german there were no "nazi" comments like in CoD or CS.

 

[eraFROMAN]

I play online plenty on PC and Switch (and previously 360 and PS3,) but I simply mute myself and everyone else instantly.

 

[kikuchiyo]

I'd assume if you're playing a Mil-sim like ARMA that might be mainly based in European servers and players, those are regions with much less minorities than the US

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Backwater Europe maybe but European countries have plenty minorities, even if it's an ethnic or linguistic group from near by (and not minorities as we think of them in the US)- to say nothing of countries like the UK, France, and Spain.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

Thankfully I mainly play fighting games when it comes to online gaming so there's no voice chat required.

 

[Abhor]

I think I'm the only non-white person in my FFXIV static. In general though I completely disable ingame VOIP and only use discord with people I know. Conversing with randoms isn't worthwhile most of the time.

 

[Shoichi]

I'm a minority (Asian) and so are all my close friends coincidentally (Asian). We all play online games together (LoL, WoW, Among Us, etc.)

We mostly just use discord voice between us only. Haven't used an in-game chat feature in years because there isn't really a reason when it usually has less features. If someone is toxic we just report them using the in-game feature and let that be done with

 

[TheRulingRing]

An obvious guess is that consoles are much more price-accessible to people, allowing for a more diverse group of ownership rather than dedicated desktops with lots of equipment.

Click to shrink...

It's probably the opposite actually. Worldwide PC almost certainly has a more diverse population.

PC is much, much more price-accessible than console gaming in the developing world due to PC games being playable on whatever crappy computer people have available, as well as much greater sales on digital games on PC, and of course the ease of piracy since in such places it's less regulated/people aren't as well off.

I guess if you're talking specifically about NA servers and hardware intensive games like ARMA which require expensive enthusiast PCs then yeah, you're right. I don't know what it is about these hardcore PC types that makes them more like this (though I can take some guesses lol), but it is definitely a noticeable brand of intense, virulent racism that goes far above the usual thoughtless racial slurs you heard in CoD lobbies on console (not that those should be acceptable either, of course).

 

[Loxley]

PC Mil-Sim games like Arma, Squad, or Insurgency and HEMA games (historical European martial arts) like Chivalry, Mordhau, and Mount & Blade tend to attract *a lot* of straight-up white nationalists/neo-Nazis.

 

[elyetis]

That definitely sounds like Squad, don't think I've played a match yet that hasn't had a racist dropping the nword. Meanwhile I play CoD, Gears, Halo, and all other mp games (granted they all have crossplay) pretty much every night, and I never hear racist stuff like I do on Squad. I hardly even hear homophobic stuff either, and that's pretty remarkable considering how vocal CoD lobbies are again, and the text chat in Gears is usually ringing off after matches

Click to shrink...

It's the exact opposite of my experience with Squad compared to other games, but squad is also the only game where I only play on french speaking server so that might be the reason.

 

[Katarn343]

You realize there's racism in Latin America too, right?

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Obviously. What I'm saying is that the notion that minorities do not play online PC games as much is silly.

 

[Ra]

You probably haven't gamed on PC for long enough to generalize the entire platform like this.

 

[Rygar 8Bit]

Mil sims and historical games are usually a bastion for racists.

 

[Deleted member 2840]

That seems mostly an American thing honestly.

 

[Deleted member 9306]

Black woman here. I've been pc gaming for at least 7, 10ish years now? When I was young I remember someone calling me the N word in a random Warcraft III game, and ever since then I've avoided playing online games entirely. Period. To this day I only play online with friends, and I mostly play single player games.

 

[BasedKiliK]

I'm black and I've been on PC nearly all my life, but I purely stick to private voice chat through apps like Discord and TeamSpeak.

 

[CobaltBlu]

Mil sim games tend to attract that type unfortunately.

 

[BradC00]

That seems mostly an American thing honestly.

Click to shrink...

Bullshit

 

[Karateka]

I only play online on Xbox but I think it depends on the game, I feel like gears has a 75% hispanic audience and other pocs while halo seems more white I guess when anyone does bother to turn on their mic. Call of duty always seemed a bit worse but I haven't played it in going on a decade. Rainbow six nobody talks.

 

[Mugen X]

This is why I don't interact with ppl online unless it's a friend or I have to. And if I have to they will be muted.

 

[RedSwirl]

As a black dude with hundreds of hours logged on Arma, I haven't played one second of that game online.

 

[rpm]

I don't think I've used public VoIP in-game since the PS3/360 era. I mute voice chat first thing when I start up a new game, I do not want to hear randos talk

 

[Spish!]

PCMR was supposed to be satire but then some people just kinda went with it un-ironically. I find that whole subculture sus.

 

[DynamicSushy]

"Minority" means there's not a lot of us, right? So imagine how many you would find playing video games much less in the real physical world in general. What were you expecting to find

 

[RM8]

Thankfully I mainly play fighting games when it comes to online gaming so there's no voice chat required.

Click to shrink...

IIRC Street Fighter IV had voice chat, and it was impossible to hide your country's flag. Playing from Mexico against screechy American racists was... quite the experience.

- "Go back to Mexico!"
- "I'm literally in Mexico City"

Of course not everyone was like this :P But I still remember the times it happened.

 

[Deleted member 2840]

Bullshit

Click to shrink...

I'm not saying that the racism itself is mostly an American thing, as I know hard ingrained it is in Brazil as well. I'm saying that this idea that PC gaming is most "for white and rich people" isn't much of a reality most of Latin America.

Of course poor people in Latin America won't have the 3080 and play Cyberpunk on it, but lan houses, F2P games, cheaper games and justifying a PC as a family and work machine is way easier than an expensive machine solely for videogames, makes it só in general PC gaming is quite more "diverse" than it is in the US for example. Sadly racism still exists there, as I can't open my mouth in an online game without being insulted to oblivion because of my accent.

 

[JuniperAndSage]

I avoid playing anything multiplayer where I have to deal with people I don't know.

 

[ArcticDonkey]

The genres that are more prominent on PC like military sim tend to attract the worst people on top of that. It's not like liking historical/medieval European tactics games makes someone racist, but racists sure seem to like those settings!

Click to shrink...

I do wonder what's up with that.

 

[turbobrick]

Depends on the kind of game. You hear a lot of shit in even Overwatch, but there's such a variety of players that it's not unheard of being the only male on the team.

I've also never heard that kind of stuff in Squad, but that could be on the moderation of the servers.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, Overwatch is generally one of the better games in relation to toxicity. I rarely hear racist stuff. The worst is just salty people calling others trash and that's it. A game like CSGO is much worse from what I've seen.

Backwater Europe maybe but European countries have plenty minorities, even if it's an ethnic or linguistic group from near by (and not minorities as we think of them in the US)- to say nothing of countries like the UK, France, and Spain.

Click to shrink...

Depending on how popular the game is, you might all be on the same server anyway.

 

[VariantX]

I don't think I've used public VoIP in-game since the PS3/360 era. I mute voice chat first thing when I start up a new game, I do not want to hear randos talk

Click to shrink...

This. I've heard plenty of it and read plenty of it in the chat boxes an I've been playing on both off an on since 2001-2 ish. I had more than enough of my share of that shit around 2008-9 and just started playing the game online with no voice chat whatsoever outside of parties and friends lists.

 

[RelaxItsJustMe]

What are we defining as minorities here? The NA definion of minorities meaning basically everyone that's not white? In which case no it's quite the opposite. PC gaming is quite big in LATAM and naturally it is huge in Korea and China too with China supposedly having almost as many PC gamers as the entire population of the USA.

That being said they wouldn't exactly be considered a minority in their own home country, so odds are they probably didn't exactly experience too much racism online if they stuck to their own servers.

 

[demosthenes]

Sorry you go through that OP. I'm a white guy and even I don't like having to talk to random people in online games and stick to playing with people I know.

 

[LebGuns]

My girlfriend (white, to be clear) plays online with me a lot, and she never wants to use voice chat with random people because they'll instantly start saying stupid shit just because she's a woman. She only uses text chat or she tells me via discord to say stuff on the ingame voice chat on her behalf. It's sad

Click to shrink...

Same with my gf and I, and also I'm a minority so, fuck voice chat.

 

[Thera]

Because of my pseudo, sometimes, people thinks I am a woman. It's always awful. Sometimes it ends up well but only if I play well (the fact they doesn't play well is not important here, it is always my fault if we lose).
So it's not surprising.

 

[Just Great]

I've played pc games online for like 25 years, but I definitely don't talk in public voice chat or even have it enabled 99% of the time.

 

[Buff DrinkLots]

This is rediculous. Some games for sure will have less desirable communities than others, but to just say PC games in general with no stats to back this up is a terrible generalisation.

 

[i hate cheaters]

bizarre thread

most online pc gaming is completely anonymous. and voicechat with strangers is more of a console thing because they don't use keyboards

 

[SlyShinobi]

I see swastikas in For Honor. Racist tags in CoD, Halo, etc.

It's not a welcoming place for me. At least with party chat I have people I know. I know not everyone is like that. But it's not worth the risk of being in their crosshairs for me. I'm not comfy at all online.

 

[Prototype Viktor]

Everyone is a white male in online gaming *shakes fist*