What I think video games are about

I'm sure that almost everyone in this community is aware of what happened today on (I think) reddit and all the crazy things surrounding that. Between the people calling everyone on GiantBomb a bigot or pig and the people spewing hate back at them, I'm really confused why this is happening when the topic this surrounds is about sitting on your couch slapping buttons on a controller. I have noticed over the past year a really odd wave of militant anything-but-white-guyism that has me really confused as a white male what I have done wrong. Because of this recent explosion I figured it would be best for me to try and figure out what maybe I just don't understand from people who aren't me, and beyond what some of the internet is saying today I still think this is the best community to have a sensible conversation.

So I'm just going to lay out a few boiled down ideas I have about what is going on and I would love to hear feedback and criticism on it:

1. I actually got pretty offended and upset at what Samantha Allen said about GiantBomb hiring a "White guy". First off, that is racist. Had she said the same thing about "another black guy" or any other race or gender, people would go bat shit. Second, People always talk about how it's great to get different perspectives and I totally agree with that, but all white guys don't come from whiteguyville. We don't all share the same opinions, someone from Russia and someone from Great Britain might seem to have a similar skin color but they certainly will have different views and opinions and life experiences. This is the main issue I have with people like Samantha, Dan and Jason are from different parts of the country, come from different cultures and will surely have some different viewpoints. It all seems a little bit silly to actively go out and hire certain people to hit a check list and as anyone who even slightly knows anything about Jeff, Brad, Patrick and the others knows that they are not hiring people just to spite the other gender.

2. I am also a little confused about what certain people thing video game journalism is. When we talk about needing other genders for new viewpoints, I'm a little concerned about how many different viewpoints you can get from someone about video games just because they are of the opposite gender than you. I believe in a way people are putting journalist before video games and getting too political about entertainment. I come to GiantBomb to get blow off steam from the shit fest that is real life, I play video games for the same reason, please stop making it stressful to participate in something I do to relax. When it comes to listening to people talk about video games I am not really to concerned whether it is a man or woman, but rather that they know what they are talking about. I know that video games are getting bigger and maybe they will impact people's lives more but fucking candy crush makes millions so it's still a time killer/ entertainment for most.

3. I am concerned about the idea of being "represented" in video games odd and confusing. I have never once played a game where I felt satisfied that I was represented, probably because I don't think people play games for that reason. The fact is, at this moment white dudes make up a lot of the computer science/ software engineer/ other video game related graduates. As a computer science major I can tell you that my wife (another cs major) is the only female in most of my courses. I would assume white guys with these degrees are going to think of white guy stories, but as with anything that starts to get popular we see different types of people other than the core demographic jump in. As these people naturally get interested we will get more and more games that become more and more diverse and that is awesome. If it doesn't naturally happen it just seems forced and stupid, like serious dialog in a stupid action movie I cringe a little. I love opening my eyes to different cultures and backgrounds, when it's a great story that takes me to a world I never knew about it's almost like the same feeling I got when I found out about GiantBomb and wanted to know everything about it and be a part of it. Sleeping dogs is a great example of this, I literally wanted to move to Hong Kong after playing that game and doing tons of research and reading about that part of the world and it's culture. This is what is slowly happening and will continue to slowly happen and everyone needs to be okay with that, freaking the hell out because every avatar in every game isn't able to be both genders will not solve anything or open anyone's eyes to a new world or culture, it's putting lipstick on a pig.

I am sorry this is wicked long and probably a bunch of nonsense but I figured I would let some of my thoughts that have been hanging around in my head out. Feel free to call me out if I am being a bigot or insensitive as I swear I am not attempting to, thanks for listening to my thoughts as well.

I got no idea what happened, but for me video games is all about having fun. I enjoyed to play games because it's enjoyable. People nowadays seems to take video games too seriously. Bitching back and forth about topics regarding women, graphics, violence etc, can get really out of hand. In reality all it's doing is adding more money to other websites. Websites that are adding more fuel to the external black flame to make more profit.

Video games are about having fun but people are being rude to each other =(

I want to chime in re: sleeping dogs, I don't know where you're from but it's such an awesome game for someone who lived in a similar culture and consumed that sort of entertainment while growing uo. It feels so good to play a game that understands where you came from. I had the same feeling when seeing the open-world section of DreadOut, a game from my home country. I think it's not unreasonable for others to want to have that sort of representation in games, because it is super awesome. It does feel a bit like US/Japan/Europe is so well-represented in games that white dudes/Japanese people probably don't understand what that rare moments of recognition feels like. It's a bit tiring to feel like a tourist in almost every game.

There really isn't much "we" can do about that other than vent on the Internet. It sucks that some people would feel like that's party-pooping... But I hope we could try to empathize a bit better when this is brought up by whatever minority in games discussions.

You said it , white guy does not mean 1 view point , heck Im a white guy from Mexico and my perpective on things would be very different from one in the US etc. But yes there needs to be more diversity and was happening as you said naturally , but come "extremists" and name calling and it all breaks down and at the end yeah we are putting too much enfasis on the "journalistic" side of videogames rather than on the games themselves etc. But still the shit that went down today wasnt cool at all (from either side I might add) But ... heck I think that this had to happen at one point or another , GB is mysoginistic and sexist etc. , can we now enjoy videogames? With more diverstiy in them so all this crap goes away?

For your first point, I don't agree with how Samantha Allen reacted, but you can't really compare it complaining about "another black guy". Video game journalism isn't an industry full of black men. I know that it's important for Giant Bomb to hire someone they're friendly with, since personal interaction is such a big part of the site. I'm glad they hired Dan Ryckert. I'm not that familiar with his work, but he fit in well on the Bombcast. Still, the GB crew can get along well with basically anyone, and I can't help but be a little disappointed that they didn't take the opportunity to add some diversity. The entire core staff is white men, and it really sticks out especially now that other gaming sites have staffs that aren't just a bunch of white guys.

@audioBusting I can relate a bit with you regarding sleeping dogs. I'm from northern Ny and the only part of NY that is ever talked about is NYC even though it's a massive state. Every time my part of the state gets mentioned in a tv show or movie I get a really weird feeling of excitement about being noticed lol. I am very interested in playing games outside the bubble of us/eu stuff.

I think all this shit is taken way to fucking seriously. No offense OP.

@jasonr86 said:

Normally I'd argue that passion is good. To be passionate about something - anything - is a wonderful thing but. Yeah. You're right.

This is all news to me but everything I've read by Samantha Allen suggests to me she's just a reactionary hack. I'm not surprised a certain site gives her a soapbox. That's all fine for generating clicks but the reality is I have always had the utmost respect for the Giantbomb team for being pragmatic and diplomatic in what they do or say. Not everyone on the team engages directly with the hot topics of the day but Patrick especially always brings something far more measured and insightful to the conversation. Looking at Samantha Allen's twitter feed it seems she's only capable of saying something obnoxiously detached from the actual situation then playing the victim when people call her out for expecting things to fall in line with her views of how things should be run. It's easy to hide behind a shield of 'progressive and inclusive' opinions but like her attack of Ubisoft for the female avatar debacle, it lacks any rationality, empathy or context and instead undermines the greater value of addressing these topics by turning everything into a witch hunt.

The worst thing about this is how much attention is now diverted to her, rather than the new hires, or hell, the actual topic of diversity in games journalism (like it's any of her business how this site is run anyway) but of course that's just oh so convenient for some people. Some people are just pure tabloid and they know it. She has her platform and she knows it. Perhaps she'd do more good encouraging people she deems appropriate to get into games journalism rather than cooking up a flame war.

PS: Turns out reddit's full of shits as well. Go figure.

When I played Guacamelee it was like having a representation orgasm for me. I love video games and I am Mexican. Drinkbox managed to merge both these things in an excelent game. I enjoyed it more for these reasons. Oh yeah the gameplay kicks all sorts of ass as well.

@jasonr86: No offence taken, I literally think the same thing and I am pretty upset I have to hear about this stuff when all I want to do is talk about video games on this site.

Videogames are the Epitome of Human Achievement. Encompassing all artforms and sciences. All of which is quite optional to existence. All in service of escapism. Humanity might one day escape the cruelty of life into a realm of their own making. Nirvana man-made. Videogames are a precursor to that future.

@jazz_bcaz: I'm actually confused anyone cares and/or is surprised by the fact that terrible people are on reddit and terrible things often come out of that dark place

@physicalscience: Well quite, but what's happened is Samantha Allen has been vocal and obnoxious about a topic that easily provokes those people (which she's entitled to do, but it still makes her a hack unless she can actually say anything else about it) and then she's wafted the flames further. The awful people on Reddit want to be pandered to in a provocational way and some sites and 'game journalists' don't recognise the difference between doing that and actually addressing said issues.

I certainly agree with your second point, Giant Bomb is usually a reasonably calm, relaxed place where we can all have some dumb fun with video games, and sometimes there's unavoidable stuff that goes against it, but people are just creating stupid things to get upset about and bringing the mood of the the whole community, even the staff, who usually manage to avoid shit like this, down.

(I feel like that sentence has way too many commas...)

Edit: Also, Reddit kinda sucks, it's like a system that's built to create a positive feedback loop of hatred within any interest group imaginable.

Oh god do we really need more of these threads?

@mjk0104: If there's one thing we can all agree on, it's that reddit kinda sucks.

I feel the same as well. Most of the conversations that go on nowadays are in no way helpful to anyone. More diversity is great and welcome, but reactionary dialogue and hateful back and forths will only inspire misery and hate. It all ends up turning into a playground fight.

I feel that it's somewhat inherent to the internet nowadays though. When a person says something, anything at all, it can immediately become a jumping off point for a prolonged team based fight between group a and group b. Things spiral out of control fast and things get murky, difficult to understand and really hard to control. I'm not looking to bring up anything specific, as to not ignite the goings on of the past day, but I saw some things said by a certain person (Who in no way deserved the horrible things thrown their way) that made me just as disappointed in them as the people who were attacking them. So it more or less can come from both sides of the media/audience spectrum.

In that person's defense though, it's incredibly easy for a single entity to react in a less than desirable way when they're being drowned in internet vitriol and negativity. That's just called being human. Sometimes I wonder though if the Internet will be humanity's downfall, as it just seems to magnify our worst aspects and seemingly drown out all the good ones.

@themanwithnoplan said:

There are ups and downs for sure, but I feel less pessimistic. I mean, just the weekend before the new hires announcement, Summer Games Done Quick raised more than $700,000 for Doctors Without Borders. Video games!

And that's fantastic! I guess it just comes from what is elevated to the surface for each individual. One person could be exposed to the best stuff on the inter webs for a week and feel wonderful, while another could just see the most heinous depressing shit and feel like society is going to implode. It all really depends on perspective at the end of the day.

That's like saying that the really loud yappy dogs will be the downfall of canines. It's just a bunch of noise.

I wish I had more to say than this, but that was spot on. Well done.

But aren't the one's who are the loudest the one's who manipulate the overall dialogue? Change can't happen from the silent majority.

If you think change is going to happen in the bowels of video game forums and replies to posts on Twitter, I've got good news for you pal. Change happens through action. And it usually happens in real life, where people aren't calling other people names so much.

I completely agree to both points duder.

Aren't most of the people involved in all the Twitter and Reddit BS called armchair activist? I'm pretty sure someone with all that free time to fight for either side of the other days debate is in no way actually contributing to anything useful and everyone will forget by Friday anything that was said.