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[WaPo] Racism, misogyny, death threats: Why can’t the booming video-game industry curb toxicity?
- Thread starter Deleted member 18944
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It exists because people don't care. Devs want as much people to play their games as possible for moneys' sake, so they aren't going to turn away literal nazis as long as they give up that dollar. And a lot of the gaming community either thinks that this behaviour is okay/normal, or does the entire "Don't feed the trolls" bs.
I'm sort of upset about this, as a black woman who grew up in the gaming "community", but at this point I don't care because I don't foresee this changing unless more 'minorities' and women aggressively make their space into gaming. Because I feel that even a lot of well-meaning White dudes don't get the full picture of how bad shit still is. I mostly avoid multiplayer games. Every now and then when I pop in I still hear bullshit. I've been gaming for at least twelve years at this point and this shit is still happening.
And the gag is, my wish for marginalized gamers to "Make their own space and aggressively push the assholes out" isn't even realistic because while gaming is becoming more 'accepting', it's still seen as a "toxic/loser white dude's thing". And while I feel lonely that some of my girlfriends/bros wont play certain video games with me, should I really blame them for not wanting to be exposed to all that bullshit when we're just looking for a good time (even in team-based multiplayer games you can still somehow come across it)? No, I shouldn't and I wont.
And God this shit is still everywhere too. Can't read a gaming article and scroll down too much or I'll get into a fucked up comments section. I've basically stopped watching popular "gAmER YuTUBERZ" because most of their most vocal fans are psychotic. Ah well, at least I can play Dark Souls alone.
I'm sort of upset about this, as a black woman who grew up in the gaming "community", but at this point I don't care because I don't foresee this changing unless more 'minorities' and women aggressively make their space into gaming. Because I feel that even a lot of well-meaning White dudes don't get the full picture of how bad shit still is. I mostly avoid multiplayer games. Every now and then when I pop in I still hear bullshit. I've been gaming for at least twelve years at this point and this shit is still happening.
And the gag is, my wish for marginalized gamers to "Make their own space and aggressively push the assholes out" isn't even realistic because while gaming is becoming more 'accepting', it's still seen as a "toxic/loser white dude's thing". And while I feel lonely that some of my girlfriends/bros wont play certain video games with me, should I really blame them for not wanting to be exposed to all that bullshit when we're just looking for a good time (even in team-based multiplayer games you can still somehow come across it)? No, I shouldn't and I wont.
And God this shit is still everywhere too. Can't read a gaming article and scroll down too much or I'll get into a fucked up comments section. I've basically stopped watching popular "gAmER YuTUBERZ" because most of their most vocal fans are psychotic. Ah well, at least I can play Dark Souls alone.
It's part of the reason why I only play single player games and don't really engage with the wider fan base of any games series I enjoy unless it's in an environment which isn't so anonymous - not that that stops this kind of behaviour.
People who play video games, especially self-identifying gamers, being terrible isn't news, but that doesn't make their discriminatory behaviour okay, and people need to stop excusing them or trying to normalise their behaviour by saying "it's people that are the problem" and so forth. It's an unfortunate reality of being a person who plays video games, but that, by no means, means we should be allowing or dismissive of it.
I participate in a lot of FB groups dedicated to video game series and, unfortunately, even the moderators in those communities act like this, so I frequently find myself looking for new places to discuss my hobby. I find it most frustrating when you try to call out this kind of behaviour and you get piled upon; calling out white kids or non-black POC for using the n-word and having the rest of the group pile on you because they 'aren't using the word to be discriminatory,' or having someone use fag or gay in a 'late '90s/early '00s way' to be told they're not being homophobic is just horse shit. Sadly the reaction you get probably causes people to not call out this kind of stuff more often than not, so I tend to call it out and, depending on the reaction, move on.
People who play video games, especially self-identifying gamers, being terrible isn't news, but that doesn't make their discriminatory behaviour okay, and people need to stop excusing them or trying to normalise their behaviour by saying "it's people that are the problem" and so forth. It's an unfortunate reality of being a person who plays video games, but that, by no means, means we should be allowing or dismissive of it.
I participate in a lot of FB groups dedicated to video game series and, unfortunately, even the moderators in those communities act like this, so I frequently find myself looking for new places to discuss my hobby. I find it most frustrating when you try to call out this kind of behaviour and you get piled upon; calling out white kids or non-black POC for using the n-word and having the rest of the group pile on you because they 'aren't using the word to be discriminatory,' or having someone use fag or gay in a 'late '90s/early '00s way' to be told they're not being homophobic is just horse shit. Sadly the reaction you get probably causes people to not call out this kind of stuff more often than not, so I tend to call it out and, depending on the reaction, move on.
Yeah it has become a huge problem hell I remember when xbox live first became a thing and all the shit that happened there.
I had a guy send me death threats repeatedely for losing in a street fighter match, but today you have swatting and doxxing like that guy who was just send to prison for 20 years for swatting.
And it's mainly why I prefer a single player experience
I had a guy send me death threats repeatedely for losing in a street fighter match, but today you have swatting and doxxing like that guy who was just send to prison for 20 years for swatting.
And it's mainly why I prefer a single player experience
I think it has a lot of roots in that early shitty online culture, starting with "the internet isn't real" started by all the "don't believe anything and never use your real name" mindset of the early days. That seems to have warped into the edgier, shittier 4chan era of "ironic" racism/nazism/anything you could possibly do to offend people.
And a lot of those people, as it turns out, were not at all being ironic. Now one of those people is the most popular YouTuber who gets infinite passes for fucking up and people post "subscribe to (dude)" like it's a fucking religion.
For some reason the gaming sector (along with of course 4chan etc and lots of right wing bullshit in general) has latched onto that and never given up as most of the rest of the internet has grown up as peopled have realized this just IS the public space now. Now even stuff like SWATing is a thing (which should be persecuted as attempted murder imo--it can and HAS gotten people killed. Cops are bastards)
I run a gaming Discord server and I'm really proud of our mods, and maintaining a chill place to start with helps really reduce the toxicity, but every once in a while some dumbass pops in and thinks being a shit person will have no consequences and is just shocked when there's pushback and surely even more shocked when they get banned. (or unfortunately, maybe they're just proud of it).
Putting a harsh eye on bullshit instead of excusing it is definitely crucial though. I heavily moderate the comments on my YouTube because when people see shitty posts they start thinking it's okay to leave their own. I'm sure online voice chat has suffered from that same attitude.
Saddest thing is that's what it takes to get this shit noticed: going viral, which is largely pure luck. Probably happened 100s/1000s of times for every post like this. Most people don't want to stand out.
And a lot of those people, as it turns out, were not at all being ironic. Now one of those people is the most popular YouTuber who gets infinite passes for fucking up and people post "subscribe to (dude)" like it's a fucking religion.
For some reason the gaming sector (along with of course 4chan etc and lots of right wing bullshit in general) has latched onto that and never given up as most of the rest of the internet has grown up as peopled have realized this just IS the public space now. Now even stuff like SWATing is a thing (which should be persecuted as attempted murder imo--it can and HAS gotten people killed. Cops are bastards)
I run a gaming Discord server and I'm really proud of our mods, and maintaining a chill place to start with helps really reduce the toxicity, but every once in a while some dumbass pops in and thinks being a shit person will have no consequences and is just shocked when there's pushback and surely even more shocked when they get banned. (or unfortunately, maybe they're just proud of it).
Putting a harsh eye on bullshit instead of excusing it is definitely crucial though. I heavily moderate the comments on my YouTube because when people see shitty posts they start thinking it's okay to leave their own. I'm sure online voice chat has suffered from that same attitude.
Saddest thing is that's what it takes to get this shit noticed: going viral, which is largely pure luck. Probably happened 100s/1000s of times for every post like this. Most people don't want to stand out.
If nothing else, mainstream press is good in the long run. You can't solve a problem until you admit it exists - and frankly a lot of people within gaming, including developers and publishers, don't want to admit there's a problem.
It seems one of the ways to fight this culture is to quarantine and outnumber it. A reason for gamergate was a kind of panic among toxic gamers. They know they are a minority (it's why the culture attracts angry males who feel like outcasts). If "other kinds" of people become interested in gaming by virtue of more content being made for a wider audience, the angry gamer dude would quickly be drowned out.
It seems one of the ways to fight this culture is to quarantine and outnumber it. A reason for gamergate was a kind of panic among toxic gamers. They know they are a minority (it's why the culture attracts angry males who feel like outcasts). If "other kinds" of people become interested in gaming by virtue of more content being made for a wider audience, the angry gamer dude would quickly be drowned out.
Because the people in charge engage in and encourage toxic fanboy behaviour.
Start at the top and work down.
Start at the top and work down.
This, silence and "neutrality " is choosing a side as much as people want to act like it ain't. The whole Ubisoft and the division 2 and keeping "politics" out of gaming. It's not political to treat people like humans.
Publicly traded companies number one concern is profit. They only care about people as far as it enhances their brand image or mitigates bad PR. Marginalized groups contribute to overall sales but so do the racist / sexist people. These companies tip-toe the fine line of "neutrality" to try avoid offending either group and maximize profit. Expecting the executives of large gaming developers / publishers to appeal to social goodness at the cost of revenue is naive. Your recourse is to not support these organizations because the only thing they will understand is financial pressure (or other issues that can bring financial pressure, such as bad PR).
Thats story is something straight out of a horror movie, and im pretty sure the 1st thing i would do was contact the authorities.
Im glad that in more that 30 years of gaming my experiences are most positive. Only grief i used to get was salty tears from players that i beated, most just made me laught. But once i blocked all private message to ppl that are not in my friendlist, that never happened anymore.
Im glad that in more that 30 years of gaming my experiences are most positive. Only grief i used to get was salty tears from players that i beated, most just made me laught. But once i blocked all private message to ppl that are not in my friendlist, that never happened anymore.
I can definitely say that in my experience the reality is (and has always been) a lot less black-and-white and simple than that.
Yes, there are certainly voices and people in the industry that strongly err towards either side (and that really sucks), but so are there thousands of people who are actually trying to do something, yet the issue is so complex, difficult to tackle and requires extremely expensive tools and work that is realistically out of the question if you want to actually try to make profit. I have definitely seen people and still see people who work on these things, but if you are working on affecting the world views of millions of different people (who interact in multiple different ways, produce billions of events of data every day which you can't afford to fully utilize necessarily to the point you wish you could) without any personal face-to-face contact etc. you are really fighting an enourmous battle with some pretty harsh realities that are simply the artefact of how humans work.
There's actually an immense amount of will (as well as ton of resources) being put to the matter across multiple different studios I know (and people are puting an unhealthy amount of effort), yet visible results are scarce, which should be telling of the difficulty and complexity of the problem.
Yet, people assume that those with some responsibility (developers and publishers alike) are either bad people, or care more about money, or don't simply care. Which is disappointing, frustrating and disheartening.
But I do believe and hope that we can keep on hammering and making a change for the better, we just must never stop, never take these comments to heart and push there despite, we must always keep reminding ourselves of the pain we could be removing, and the joy we could be creating.
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From my experience, you know a toxic player because they'll let you know within the opening seconds of being matched with them. They're not afraid of showing who they are because there's no repercussions other than being racist/sexist/homophobic/etc in a vacuum. But the idea of the vacuum seems to be a holdover of the "don't feed the trolls" mentality some have mentioned as helped lead us to this point in the first place. I don't doubt that they find others to be terrible with but they crave the adrenaline of engagement whether it comes from a twisted comraderie or reveling in their "triggering" of others. Devs need to be able to cut that adrenaline off to be able to discourage the behavior.
The quickest way to do that is to respond to reports as soon as they get them. But the infrastructure to verify and react to reports in a meaningful and efficient way is simply not there and won't be built in until publishers see it as a priority.
The quickest way to do that is to respond to reports as soon as they get them. But the infrastructure to verify and react to reports in a meaningful and efficient way is simply not there and won't be built in until publishers see it as a priority.
the solution is always easy and painless for people that don't actually have to do anything and are not involved directly.
Obviously it's not, as can be shown by the reaction to diversity in comics, and Star Wars, and even Star Trek. But gaming is a breeding ground for toxicity, and it's genuinely appalling that the ESA and individual companies are so unwilling to step up to combat it. Where are the anti-bullying initiatives? Where are the games companies working hand-in-hand with the authorities to report suspected hate crimes? Where are the community liaisons who should be carrot-and-stick'ing gamers within their communities to ferret out unwanted behaviour? Nearly 5 years on from GG, and what does the industry have to show for it? Repeated clumsy attempts by various companies to cater to the right-wing and conservative gamers (see: various companies social media outreach) and more than a little lip-service to the progressives who know that the shit that, say, some Twitch streamers say whilst streaming wouldn't fly in a fucking school corridor.
To say it's not exclusive to gaming is disingenuous - we should all want this industry to improve, at every level, at every point, at every interaction. Anything less is simply a shrug emoji at someone who says: