I LOVE being a gamer, but the community...

[A Fhaol Bhig]

Is honestly disappointing, and reinforces every negative stereotype that the general public imagines.

 

 

 

I find that the majority on any gaming related are nothing but a bunch of contradicting, hypocritical whiners.

 

 

 

Before anyone cries foul, I am not pointing fingers at you, i am pointing a finger at the general attitude on sites such as Gamespot and other "famous" sites such as Kotaku and IGN. I could point out websites on books or movies tend to do the same, but I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about games.

 

 

 

Take the Nintendo Exhibition at E3. They could have done better sure, but they still gave games to every kind of player out there. There are still the vocal crowd who cry foul and say "well they are making games 6 year old consoles can do", which really isn't fair considering the NEW games they HAVE announced insofar as the release date. I've heard people whine for years for Pikman 3 and when its shown...oh it's not enough. Sure we wanted it, but now I want more more more!

 

 

 

 

 

Add to the fact that the gaming community wants to be taken seriously...the BBC recently had an article dedicated solely to female harassment online...like really people it's bad enough that one of the worlds most respected News organizations makes an article related to gaming all about how badly gamers treat one another?

 

 

 

 

("Anonymity enforces acting out behaviorally. When you remove consequence and repercussion, it's the beast of human nature to act out. 95% of what people say in "hate mail" towards each other wouldn't even be UTTERED in a live arcade while standing next to someone, I assure you. Now, translate that to the internet, and our interactions on this site.")

 

 

I love gaming, otherwise i wouldn't play them, but the amount of crap i see on here that is so counterproductive of our hobby just astounds me. I for instance, know a ton of people who are girls and play games. For this example I'll pick two of them, one always plays in Party Chat, the other doesn't. The one who doesn't (my sister) has a 3.00+ K/D in COD MW3. The amount of hate she gets is unbelievable, it doesn't bother her most of the time, but the fact that it happens at all makes me want to curb stomp them. My other friend doesn't even play when not in party chat, she doesn't want to hear all the dumb comments directed towards her.

 

 

 

Between the "fanboyism", the trolling and the general attitude of the gaming community as a whole, I sometimes feel ashamed to call myself a gamer when some people can't have an enjoyable experience without some jerk going "lol make me a sandwich"

 

 

 

 

 

And god forbid you change anything about a game, or you change too little.

 

 

 

If the developers change too much gamer's cry foul, if they change too little gamer's cry foul. If they don't give enough then they get roasted, if the graphics aren't run by NASA's supercomputers, PC gamers cry foul.

 

 

I've seen people complain that good graphics are making games terrible and casual.

 

 

I don't think anybody played Pac-Man or Pitfall back in the day & said, "Man, I hope things don't look any better than this. Otherwise it'll ruin the depth & complexity of hardcore games like Frogger."

 

 

I don't think you get much more casual than Pan-man or much shorter than Kung Fu, and Duck Hunt is about as simple as it gets. Some of the greatest and/or most well-known games of all time fall under a combination of casual, simple, or short.

 

 

Now every game has to come with 12 ways to pull the trigger, includes a graphing calculator so you can level up, and needs to be 40 hours long (Or much longer as an RPG) otherwise it's a part of the downfall of gaming and is nothing more than pretty graphics (And if it's not on PC at 1920x1080 or higher at 60+fps, then it doesn't even have good graphics).

 

 

When I heard and saw Celes sing in the Opera House years ago in Final Fantasy VI, I teared up. I still do. Doesn't matter that it's not very good looking to me. Graphics are as essential to a game as sound, or good music. But it doesn't make or break a game just because it looks good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I said earlier though, people still complain about everything anyways.

 

You can see this with such games as DMC, Tomb Raider, Halo, Gears of War, Splinter cell, etc etc. And it seems no matter how hard the developers try to be new and fresh, but still similar to the core game, gamer's will always complain and petition and whine to get their way or prove to everyone that they are right.

 

 

Final Fantasy XIII for example, I see a lot of "I hate it because it's so different its not Final Fantasy" which isn't fair at all. Final Fantasy has no definition, it can be whatever the creators want. People Refuse to judge the game on its own merits half the time they have to compare to (insert older FF game here) if you don't like it, that's fine, if you don't like it because they didn't copy and paste FFVII then you have problems.

 

 

Heck, look at Halo 4. How many topics and arguments have been posted on this site or on youtube with people complaining about every single aspect of the game saying over and over "It's not halo" when Halo has always been about war, aliens, and mystery. Something Halo 4 has in droves. If they copy and pasted Halo 3, guess what? People would complain that it's becoming exactly like COD because they didn't do anything to innovate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

...and yes I do know that I am "whining" people, but mine isn't mindless, and I'm perfectly open to having a debate or civil argument. That is a rather large difference. And no, as I said before, I am in no way generalizing beyond saying "gaming community" I am perfectly aware of the multitude of open, fun, caring, and perfectly nice people gaming does have. But those people don't get the spotlight like we do (how many articles and are their of gamers being nice to gamers in comparision to gamers being rude? Google says the difference is pretty large)

 

Anyways, tell me what you think people, agree, disagree, toss me in a pit. It's been a long day, and it's way to late for me to not be sleeping.

[SatanicBagels]

I have never harassed (and never will) a girl on xbox live for any reason. The people that do likely don't get any...

 

Best to just ignore them. Their opinions aren't worth anything anyway.

[Mr Biggles]

The media don't like gaming at all, for some reason, and they hate on it.

 

I agree, the gaming community in general need to recover and act a lot more mature, we ourselves let each other down all the time and this gives the media an open gate essentially to slam us as much as they like, if we act more mature, we will be taken more seriously.

[SatanicBagels]

The media don't like gaming at all, for some reason, and they hate on it.

 

I agree, the gaming community in general need to recover and act a lot more mature, we ourselves let each other down all the time and this gives the media an open gate essentially to slam us as much as they like, if we act more mature, we will be taken more seriously.

 

Well the media doesn't dislike the gaming community per say. They are going to post whatever stories will help them out the most. Attributing video games to acts of heinous violence is journalist gold for them.

 

But, I agree that the gaming community has gotten ridiculous recently and it's almost shameful to include myself as one of them. (Shakes heads) It's also why I have been moving to casual games like Minecraft recently. Those games have great communities.

[Sikslik7]

The media doesn't like gaming, and I havenever insulted a girl (for being a girl) on Xbox Live, at least to my knowledge.

[A Fhaol Bhig]

I have never harassed (and never will) a girl on xbox live for any reason. The people that do likely don't get any...

 

Best to just ignore them. Their opinions aren't worth anything anyway.

I agree, however it's a bad reprsentation of a activity that wants to be taken seriously, while demonstrating that perhaps in some cases isn't ready to be taken seriously.

 

 

The media don't like gaming at all, for some reason, and they hate on it.

 

I agree, the gaming community in general need to recover and act a lot more mature, we ourselves let each other down all the time and this gives the media an open gate essentially to slam us as much as they like, if we act more mature, we will be taken more seriously.

FOX News hasn't jumped all over it for some reason...however things like with the ME3 ending furor, people were donating money to Child's Play Charity, and then asked for a refund when they realized the money wasn't going to a new ending, it was going to needy kids. Things like that just poorly represent us as a whole.

 

 

The media doesn't like gaming, and I havenever insulted a girl (for being a girl) on Xbox Live, at least to my knowledge.

Their are more negative opinion articles, or articles that spout pure nonsense then articles that are positive or at least well thought out by a large margin. Also I'm glad you haven't been insulted, it's not something that you need to experience as I'm sure you know =P

[Sikslik7]

Their are more negative opinion articles, or articles that spout pure nonsense then articles that are positive or at least well thought out by a large margin. Also I'm glad you haven't been insulted, it's not something that you need to experience as I'm sure you know =P

I'm a guy, that's why I have never insulted a girl.

[A Fhaol Bhig]

Ah, I mis-read that last bit of your post.

[Real Talk]

I have insulted girls on xbox before but that is due to them picking a fight with me for no reason. Its a general rule for me in game chat I wont talk smack to other people unless they start with me. And if I may ask Bhig what inspired you to write out all this

[A Fhaol Bhig]

Well, I'd post the over 200 insults I've received over Xbox live that I record so me and my friends can laugh at. Or the experience of whenever I play with my sister she gets attacked by butt hurt people who got their butts handed to them. I'd point you to virtually any "platform exclusive" title that brings out the fanboys, virtually any YouTube video on games that has flame wars everywhere, and nearly every single game website that has basically every single article where someone has to start a fight.

 

I just wanted to know if anyone else felt the same way I did about the gaming community and its often times contradictory and hypocritical members.

[Baby Boo]

The media really does dislike the gaming community in general... Big sites like the ones you listed really need to straighten their act. So much immaturity is shown on sites like that.

 

In my opinion, this site is basically a shining spec of light in the dark abyss of the gaming community. We can really set an example here.

[The Director]

-snip-

Unfortunately, this behavior isn't limited to gaming at all. As a matter of fact, most of the behaviors you see over Multiplayer Matchmaking these days originally started on the internet, and spread into gaming like a virus. The "Women don't belong on the internet" trend started on websites like 4chan, and eventually made it's way into gaming.

 

The only way to stop behavior such as this is to report those who partake, unfortunately. Hatemail, countertrolling, etc is very ineffective. A ban, on the other hand, is sort of the "critical hit" that's needed to help stop things such as this.

 

That's one of the reasons this forum is great. The moderators are constantly scouring pages, status updates, the shoutbox, and every part of the site (besides PM's) that allow members to communicate with each other to make sure everyone is playing nice. Sometimes things are missed, which is why we have a report feature.

[A Fhaol Bhig]

Unfortunately, this behavior isn't limited to gaming at all. As a matter of fact, most of the behaviors you see over Multiplayer Matchmaking these days originally started on the internet, and spread into gaming like a virus. The "Women don't belong on the internet" trend started on websites like 4chan, and eventually made it's way into gaming.

 

Oh I know that. Doom, Quake, And Counter-Strike were my first encounters with internet tryhards/tough guys. It's not just gaming, I said as much in my OP, but nobody who reads books goes "Books are a misunderstood form of art" whereas people do go "games are a misunderstood form of art" the difference being books are accepted, while gaming still struggles. The hate I see doesn't help our case for gaming being a good thing.

[The Director]

The hate I see doesn't help our case for gaming being a good thing.

Which is exactly why we all have to do our part to make gaming good again. This includes watching what we say to others, and reporting those who don't.

[Victory Element]

at first when you said the community, i thought you were talking about these forums and i got all upset. lol

 

but this is a very relevant topic. When i end up with girls in the same lobby as me, i have a lot of respect for them. I have witnessed a lot of the harassment that goes on and it annoys me. But the way you girls just keep on gaming is very cool. You do it because you love it, and no one is going to stop you

 

and about the reputation of the gaming community....

 

i think a lot of these problems come from careless parents. Not all of them, but a lot. When 5 year olds are on xbox live, they hear so much stuff that they shouldnt hear and it sticks with them for the rest of theirs lives. Their parents just give them whatever they want and they dont care what kind of media their kids are exposed to. Then as they get older, they pick up more stereotypes and bad language to put in their arsenal. Then the media finds out about some of these kids and whole community gets pummeled for it. A lot of gamers are mature and are very decent people, but when the immature minority of the community screws up, all gamers get the hate

 

my parents are not fond of me gaming at all. From some of the gamer stereotypes, they think i have no friends or social life, And they think gaming will make me into a violent person.(i have plenty of friends that i hang out with in person, and i am more calm than anyone else in my family. Pretty much the opposite of violent). My parents think the whole gaming community is like this becuase of a few people who screwed up in life. A lot of the people in our world over the age of 30 or so think technology is ruining the world. They were raised in a time peroid when they didnt have access to the technology we do and it is more foreign to them. They don't like all of these new changes, so they try to put it down every chance they get. The media finds a violent kid who has been plaing cod since he was 5, and then it suddenly appears that video games turn all gamers into violent people(sarcasm).

 

Point is, when the lesser amount of people in the gaming community screw up, everyone is stereotyped from it. The best comparisson i can come up with is terrorism. a few Islamic extremists set of a bomb, and then their whole religion gets put down and stereotyped because of it. I do not mean to insult anyone from this comparrison, but it is just a a real life thing that i have witnessed

 

but the problem is....this immature minority in the gaming community is growing very rapidly

 

 

 

i dont know if that was easy to follow along with, but it sounded a lot better in my head

 

 

also, with the matter of gamers complaining, i hate it as well. Certain gamers seem to have problem with every game that comes out, and they go and play it anyways. The complain say its going suck and they'll never play it, but they can't even walk their talk

 

 

 

this is a very good topic, and i'm glad to see that someone is speaking up about these things. It looks like this topic took up quite a bit of time, but the results came out great

 

i hope to see you around here more Fhaol Bhig

[Ryu♥Hayabusa]

If I were given three minutes to speak aloud in front of the world...

[Natalie.]

I agree with you in relation to the stupid insults. I have had a ridiculous amount of insults on xbox. It doesn't bother me much, but I would appreciate being left alone sometimes!

 

Also, I think people complain a lot because they don't like change.

[Victory Element]

I agree with you in relation to the stupid insults. I have had a ridiculous amount of insults on xbox. It doesn't bother me much, but I would appreciate being left alone sometimes!

 

Also, I think people complain a lot because they don't like change.

 

the problem is, certain people complain even if a game doesn't change

[A Fhaol Bhig]

The best ones are the ones who complain a game is to much like another game. Halo 4 has "specializations" so it copied COD.

 

In that case, Halo has guns, clearly COD copied that.

[A Fhaol Bhig]

If I were given three minutes to speak aloud in front of the world...

I'd make toast. What would you do?

[Natalie.]

the problem is, certain people complain even if a game doesn't change

 

People just like complaining I guess.

[iTz Vplus2]

I think this community problem is mostly present on CoD. At least that's how i experienced it.

On Halo the community has always been fun, even with the trash talk.

[Victory Element]

The best ones are the ones who complain a game is to much like another game. Halo 4 has "specializations" so it copied COD.

 

In that case, Halo has guns, clearly COD copied that.

 

haha soo true......

 

but we cant let this conversation become too hypocritical.......we are complaining about other people complaining......lets not make ourselves look bad

 

 

I think this community problem is mostly present on CoD. At least that's how i experienced it.

On Halo the community has always been fun, even with the trash talk.

 

and i will say that cod is responsible for a lot of the hate that the gaming community gets. I know a lot of kids play cod just because they think it makes them cool, they dont even like gaming that much. Then they think they're super cool when they're playing cod, so they try to show some dominance and start trying to intimidate others with trash talk. The language that i have heard on cod is definately worse than anything i have heard playing halo. I am not talking about the words being used, i mean the amount that the words are used. They are two completely different environments to me

[skummgummigubbe]

i love girls that play games i think it's hot

and i never personally hate neither gamer girls or boys

if some one write to me "you damn noob, you damn camper" i only reply to that because i love to provoke that person to se what that person want to get out of it and many times i get back "i'm sorry"

 

and i know it is too much harassment online

an the only thing i can do to prevent other people harass someone is to say, don't care wat they say or do

[A Fhaol Bhig]

I think this community problem is mostly present on CoD. At least that's how i experienced it.

On Halo the community has always been fun, even with the trash talk.

Don't know, I think they are equally bad at times. COD just happens to be worse because more people play it.

 

 

i love girls that play games i think it's hot

Amen brother

(Don't hit me!)

 

haha soo true......

 

but we cant let this conversation become too hypocritical.......we are complaining about other people complaining......lets not make ourselves look bad

 

As long as we keep civil about it, we won't be hypocritical at all. It's like the USA saying "stop fighting" they aren't hypocrites because they've fought in the past. It's a valid statement to make, and someone has to say it. Gaming can be a hostile place, only by discussing its problems can we start making it better bit by bit in our own way.