Metal heads and punks are also really inclusive despite society viewing them otherwise.
Punks yes, Metal heads not until somewhat recentlyish… ;)
Yeah, they are thinking of 2000s xbox live chat. It’s been a while since then.
yah you don’t find a lot of lobbys like ‘good old’ xbox cod lobbys like that anymore. league of legends i believe currently still holds the crown for current day toxic lobbys
It was a choir of angels compared to comment sections on ifunny or 4chan.
In almost 50 years of playing D&D I’ve found that gamers tend to be more accepting of just about anybody than the general public is. I think it’s partly because the gamer population itself gets more than its share of being spurned by that public.
From my quick read through of their methods it seems like they didn’t account very well for the types of games, platforms and demographics. The decade in question saw a massive explosion of gaming as a hobby into the mainstream and, importantly, a strong growth of women in the gaming population.
So as a whole you have games becoming more mainstream to younger (“woke”) audiences and more accessible while the inclusive-biased demographics also blew up. It’s not at all shocking that you’d find more inclusivity there.
A much more interesting study would be separating the gamers from the Gamers. Show me how people playing Splatoon and Animal Crossing compare to the neckbeards living in LoL and HoI4…
A much more interesting study would be separating the gamers from the Gamers.
That would require you to define a Real Gamer, which would be divisive by design.
It’s an exercise in nutpicking.
It’s hard to give an exact definition, but someone playing candy crush on their phone is meaningfully different than a LoL player. Not in elitism or whatever, but for example one is a game any person might play for a bit while bored, and one is a demanding competitive immersive game. I would say a good separation is the cozy / not competitive games with competitive games, since the competitive ones are the places most people think of Gamers not being accepting.
Exactly. A “gamer” is too broad of a definition to really mean anything if it just means “people who play games”. I watch TV/films, but that could mean anything. Reality? Horror? Non-fiction? They’re all different. I read books, but that could mean anything. Sci-fi? Fantasy? Biography? Poetry? They’re all different.
I do think competitive versus non-competitive is a good dividing point. I hesitate to use the word “cozy” because I don’t think Dark Souls players are playing a “cozy” game.
But even within competitive there are distinctions to make. Children playing the lastest FPS and screaming into their headsets, probably less inclusive. The speed running community, generally very inclusive.
Normally I would agree… But there is a seriously real difference between someone who plays csgo dota and hoi4 vs someone who plays animal crossing splatoon and peak.
Its fundamentally two entirely different demographics which no over lap. Both are gamers but only one set are “gamers”.
Anyone who’s been around long enough knows how fast the gap between the groups are.
Yeah I have no idea why you lumped first person shooter players, moba players, and 4x players in the same category. Talk about fundamentally different demographics.
Edit: by the way, I love the Endless series (Legends, Space 2) and love Animal Crossing. I also have 5000 hours in Tarkov. Peak is also fun.
there is a seriously real difference between someone who plays csgo dota and hoi4 vs someone who plays animal crossing splatoon and peak.
About ten years of age range, for the most part.
Its fundamentally two entirely different demographics which no over lap
Yeah, famously, people never get older
Or mobile games, which is the bulk of gamers now.
Tbf there is a certain overlap between gaming circles (e.g. hard core tryhard games and chill mellow games).
But besides that: Yeah, some game communities can get very toxic. Even more so if you open up to a weakness they can exploit easily while one is vulnerable…
Maybe - hear me out here - engaging in stories tends to make you more empathetic? Movies, books, games, they all give you stories about other people. If you’re shown how to imagine what it’s like to be another person, you will probably end up being a better person.
Just don’t hang out with Madden or COD players and you’re probably fine :D
I play a lot of multiplayer games and I find that gaming constantly teaches me that no matter what, it always comes down to the quality of the community.
Every other aspect of design is a comparatively merely a detail.
A well designed game plants the seeds for that. E.g. trying to avoid toxicity by removing chat vs supporting community hosted/moderated servers.
I agree, for multiplayer video game design I think this is where the most difficult kind of artistry comes in.
Removing chat is IMO one of the worst moces you can make.
It was bad for GTA 5 (coordination/deescalation)
It was less entertaining in Clash of Clans.Rocket League is a good example with the template chat but also allowing you to type individual words.
Voicechat on the other hand should be available but be able to
A: Mute completely
B: Easily able to mute (also silence the chat part) a specific individual.I still hold voip is the worse thing you can add to a game if your goal is to have a good community.
Its exclusively used to harass basically.
Mhh…there can be good aspects. But thats entirely on the game environment and the crowd.
It depends, all of the multiplayer games I play voice chat is great, but I don’t play popular games that attract asshats.
Unless that game is csgo
Source: I play csgo
Don’t for get dota 2!
Source: I play valve games.
makes sense,maybe the less inclusive/racism thing comes from your view not the video games you play.
This guy skewed the data, pretty sure:
I mean, I’m an old gamer.
I feel like we are one of the worst groups for inclusive language but actually pretty damn good at inclusive behavior.
This is much more obviously true in the table-top space, but I suspect the obvious expansion of diversity in gaming culture was exactly what all the awful reactionary gatekeeping crap was about, and why they continue to peddle the myth. I’ve seen similar arguments made that comic books are only for young white cishet men and that publishers are deluding themselves by not only catering to that market, despite the fact that the comics market in the US has pretty much collapsed while the more inclusive Euro and Japanese markets are doing very well thank-you-very-much.
If someone calls you a slur, or whatever, in a game, chances are they don’t care about the aspect of you they’re badmouthing - they don’t know you enough to care. To me, it’s usually either saying shit just for the sake of it, or it’s like a subconscious test of whether you have a stick up your ass, and if you actually get mad or offended, you’ve failed the test.
or you are playing a game that has a large and toxic playerbase, and not 100% gamers are great people, thus, you are talking to someone who is more of a normie than other gamers.
From what I’ve seen, a lot of the pushback against “woke” games revolves around whether they’re good or not. Almost no one cares about a good game being woke, stuff like BG3 was widely enjoyed by a lot of people despite having gay characters/etc.
However when a game is bad or mediocre, people are quick to blame any “woke” content in the game. There’s a mentality of “they were putting effort in pushing a political/social agenda I don’t agree with, while not putting in enough effort on the stuff that actually matters”.
Of course, now you have a lot of people assuming whether a game will be good or not based on how the perceive it. But if it comes out, and is actually a good game, that’s enough to quiet most all of the complaints it seems.
People were absolutely calling BG3 woke, it’s just that that narrative has died out because of how successful the game was. Can’t say “go woke go broke” when the game actually earns millions.
People don’t hesitate to criticize things just because they’re popular, usually people are quicker to hate on something because it’s popular.
I think it was just a good game, that legitimately appealed to a lot of people, and so any criticisms about woke content died out as people realized they liked it or respected it.
Depends on the games they play. MMORPGs probably have more inclusive players than toxic kids in Overwatch.
Yeah man … I stopped playing Marvel Rivals due to the toxicity. League was a shit show of course.
I just recently stopped playing Rivals too, after playing since its launch. Its as toxic as Overwatch, maybe even more so… Never played League, but from what I heard its one of the worst too. Generally popular games with teammates has tendency of toxicity. To me they ruin the game as much as cheaters do.
