It happens in waves, by nature these talking points come up for some of the most petty reasons, like a photoshoot with Geoff Keighley and a bag or doritos, or a horrible mass shooting. Whatever the case, the audience, the medium and the journalists get blamed a lot of the time, whether it's the entire videogame medium being too violent, sexist or shallow, or specific developers being sucked into the void of controversy. So what topic are you just done with arguing about, one that just feels either baseless, or one that is so beaten that you don't have the energy talking to a wall? Mine, as well as many of yours probably would be violence in videogames leading to violence in the real world, it's been brought up so many times, I don't even want to start on how dumb that accusation is. So what's yours, it can span from violence in games to 'videogame boycotts' or the Japanese gaming decline argument.
I'm honestly sick of FaceBook in general, I'm about ready to delete it and move on, but I'm especially sick of this gun control shit, if I see one more of these pictures I'm going to lose my god damn mind.
People not wanting to man up when it comes to talking about their hobby. If its something that may not show videogames in the best light or is a difficult subject to discuss it comes down to "Hey, its just videogames. Lighten up."
But when someone disses the form it becomes "Hey! Videogames are a deep and respectable form of art and I am mature for playing them!"
Its cool if you just want it to play video games and blow some shit up. Same here, its just a hobby and something I partake in for fun and to blow off some steam. But don't be hypocritical as soon as someone calls you on it. You have to admit its as much of a waste of time as any other media. Same with watching a dumb movie or reading a crappy book or listening to garbage music. Its fun, but don't make it out to be a pedestal you use to make yourself look better than other nerds.
I'm honestly sick of FaceBook in general, I'm about ready to delete it and move on, but I'm especially sick of this gun control shit, if I see one more of these pictures I'm going to lose my god damn mind.
LIKE IF U THINK HAMMERS SHOULD BE BANNED CUZ 10 MILLION PPL DIED BY THEM LAST YEAR derp
Mostly, I could do without more "sexism, durp!" as well as "misogyny durp!" which clearly goes along with the same discussion (usually incorrectly). Doing away with "games are art durp!" would be nice, too. Not because they aren't, but because it seems like a stupid discussion to keep having that produces absolutely nothing (and we don't discuss if other creative fields produce art - it's assumed). Also, I could do away with all the pretentious shit where people try so desperately to justify gaming, as if it needs justification. This goes for "journalists" and amateur wankers, alike. That isn't to say there aren't meaningful conversations about gaming to be had. It's just that Ira Glass is pretentious enough of a wanker as it is, without a bunch of wannabe Ira Glass mimics in gaming (usually covering the same topic as everyone else for the 500th time, because they're not creative enough to come up with a unique "serious" subject).
In other words, it seems like we swing to great extremes of both "ERMAGHERD IT'S A 12 SECOND TRAILER FOR A TRAILER FROM EA STOP THE INTARWEBS AND POST THIS!" on one end and "Let me tell you why gamers are blights on humanity and we should all be ashamed of ourselves, in my twelve part opinion-piece backed by soft jazz, spoken with my sleep-inducing whisper-voice so you know I am totally serious and intellectual!".
It's like there's this massive valley in-between that lots of fun, interesting, compelling stuff could happen if we weren't clinging for life to the walls on either edge of that chasm.
I think that racism and sexism are issues that are basically dealt with as far "awareness" campaigns are concerned. Yeah, there's some issues still to be dealt with, but not the sorts of things that are going to be dealt with by discourse in the public sphere.
Here is sort of what gets to me: It's really hard to tell who actually believes things and who is just saying what they think is the socially appropriate thing to say. You know what? At least I'm pretty sure that overt racists are actually racist. I have to respect their willingness to be what they are, even if I think that their position is flawed. But maybe that's just one of MY convictions. I hold being genuine above a a lot of other qualities and I'm not sure that we do that as a species. We should.
You know what? I'm set off now. You've set off the philosophy major good work.
Within the social sphere, power actually does == responsibility. Freedom of speech is a pretty serious power. It isn't as powerful as the freedom to be heard, but these days it's not hard to get an audience for a few minutes (fuck, your listening to me right now aren't you?). If you are free to say whatever you want, the onus is on YOU to make sure that what you are saying makes sense. If you say "I agree with Steve", that is meaningful and useful because it adds to the statistic "people who agree with Steve". Maybe your reasons for agreeing are suspect, but that's a seperate issue. More importantly, if you just reiterate what Steve said (even worse if you don't actually understand the subtleties) all you are doing is adding a bunch of noise to the signal and preventing the people listening to you from hearing a new viewpoint...or just wasting their time. The point is, you are misusing your freedom of speech. Yes, it is a freedom that you have so I can't make you shut up...but that doesn't mean that you are using it responsibly.
OK, that's basically the internet in a nutshell and there is nothing I can do about it. Great. I may as well go stick my head in a fucking barrel for all the good it will do. But no, I keep fucking trying. Keep trying to convince the individuals in our society to think about the broader ramifications of the actions they are considering before they actually do them. No, that is never going to happen. You know that, I know that. But I keep trying anyway. And do you know what? THAT'S WHAT A FUCKING CONVICTION IS. Fighting a winning battle isn't brave, even if you are on the ethically justified side of things. in most cases, the best you can say is that you are allowing yourself to be taken advantage of by somebody who DOES genuinely believe in the battle that you are fighting. I guess that I prefer that to the alternative of being taken advantage of by the bad guys, but there is one fight in which picking a side without understanding what's going on is definitely bad: the "getting along as fellow humans who understand eachother at least well enough to not kill eachother fight". At least if we are all honest about what we know, believe and think, we are only going to come to blows over things about which there is no rational alternative.
Aside: Curiously, the post forms a circle. I wrote all that because I'm slightly drunk, and the contents of this post are a fairly major reason for my slight drunkenness. I'm not entirely sure if this is noble or sad. Probably both.
I felt like that was long enough to deserve an image. This seemed like the most relevant one that I had in my pictures folder. It's from Black Books, a show that I suspect you would enjoy.
Though, all things being equal, they're like white rice when you could have a rack of ribs, I guess.
@Giantstalker said:
There are no issues in gaming, just bandwagons with varying levels of seasonal popularity.
Well put.
@ck1nd said:
The ones that have turned into a massive band-wagon that no longer actively tries to achieve the goal it was founded for. These include:
Homosexuality in video-games
Sexism/Misogyny
Video games & gun-control (violence)
That's not everything, but those are the most annoying.
I usually cite homophobia and depictions of gay characters in games (or the lack of it) as an example of why its so ridiculous that we only seem to focus on the "sexism durp!" thing. I can barely recall any meaningful or lengthy serious discussions that have even been *attempted* about that (homophobia, etc). It is an example of what makes me feel the discussions about the other one is so disingenuous (along with the lack of discussions of racism and so on -- except incredibly shallow ones like the Far Cry 3 discussion).
I guess, in general, a lot of us are just tired of gaming being perverted as some sort of platform (not just in game content, but community discussion) for weird social justice that simply isn't applied anywhere else. That the ills of society are not the ills of society. Instead, that they're in some fucked up way merely the ills of the sick male-dominated juvenile gaming community. As if people who play games are someone set apart from the rest of society. The rest of society is cast off from the discussion and we navel-gaze for five hundred pages and twelve hundred podcasts about how filled with shame we should be. And, the worst part of it, is they always feel like having a conversation with a ditzy college student on-campus who just attended his first philosophy class and won't shut up about constantly bringing up half-assed conversations every time you sit down with him about "what if we're all dreams and someone else is the dreamer, man!". Only seeming deep and contemplative to himself.
Violence and video games, no thank you. It's been the same shit coming from the same uninformed people since the dawn of games.
As for this sexism stuff, I think it's worth talking about. A lot of the reaction to it has only confirmed to me that it's a problem. And if that problem can be fixed? Maybe more women will be drawn to video games. Maybe that lingering stereotype about video games being made for kids and awkward man-children can die out. Maybe games can become more respected and understood. Maybe that "violence and video games" shit can finally be put down for good. Could happen.
Violence and video games, no thank you. It's been the same shit coming from the same uninformed people since the dawn of games.
As for this sexism stuff, I think it's worth talking about. A lot of the reaction to it has only confirmed to me that it's a problem. And if that problem can be fixed? Maybe more women will be drawn to video games. Maybe that lingering stereotype about video games being made for kids and awkward man-children can die out. Maybe games can become more respected and understood. Maybe that "violence and video games" shit can finally be put down for good. Could happen.
I wish I had your optimism. I probably wouldn't think so little about gamer culture then, especially when it comes to the internet presence.
Violence and video games, no thank you. It's been the same shit coming from the same uninformed people since the dawn of games.
As for this sexism stuff, I think it's worth talking about. A lot of the reaction to it has only confirmed to me that it's a problem. And if that problem can be fixed? Maybe more women will be drawn to video games. Maybe that lingering stereotype about video games being made for kids and awkward man-children can die out. Maybe games can become more respected and understood. Maybe that "violence and video games" shit can finally be put down for good. Could happen.
Violence and video games, no thank you. It's been the same shit coming from the same uninformed people since the dawn of games.
As for this sexism stuff, I think it's worth talking about. A lot of the reaction to it has only confirmed to me that it's a problem. And if that problem can be fixed? Maybe more women will be drawn to video games. Maybe that lingering stereotype about video games being made for kids and awkward man-children can die out. Maybe games can become more respected and understood. Maybe that "violence and video games" shit can finally be put down for good. Could happen.
My first post represented you as a poster.
Hard to tell if you're insulting me or not. If so, could you help me out by calling me a "moron" or "white knight" or something?
Self-conscious gamers always fretting about what society at large thinks about our hobby. Stop with that "games will never be respected as a medium because of such and such" bullshit. That ended in the 90's, and folks should get over it.
Every time I hear someone bring up that nebulous "shame" we all supposedly share, it's only to further their argument or political agenda.
I don't need CNN to respect my hobby in order to enjoy it. Neither do you.
I'm really sick of "gamers" being unable to recognize that the industry that they enjoy has problems. Just because you love something doesn't mean that you can't look at parts of it and go "yeah, well this isn't right" or "this is an outdated idea that should probably change." Being passionate about something means wanting it to be better and in order for it to get better, the industry needs to be held at a higher standard then "eh, let's just have fun!"
All of them, but that's not going to happen. GTA and CoD get news stories because of how popular they are. Nobody ever talked about Bonetown, or that JFK assassination game, or any of the other actually offensive games. If we want the issues to go away, we need games to be less popular. Lesser of two evils situation.
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