Great editorial. Also props for doing some actual journalism in that write-up last week.
It looked like something out of Reuters (that's a compliment).
It looked like something out of Reuters (that's a compliment).
Editor's Note: Why I Still Call Myself a Gamer
- Thread starter Greg Tito
- Start date
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Thank you. And thank you especially for keeping already mentioned thread open. The issues being discussed are important to the future of games as a medium, even though the diversity of gamers themselves virtually ensures that there will be conflicts of some nature.
I agree completely that gaming doesn't have any more problems with bigotry and vileness than any other mainstream hobby. It brings together people from different walks of life and different backgrounds, and they sometimes bring extra baggage with them from the offline world. It's a wider problem of online harassment, brought by lack of accountability, that somehow gets attributed to gaming itself.
I agree completely that gaming doesn't have any more problems with bigotry and vileness than any other mainstream hobby. It brings together people from different walks of life and different backgrounds, and they sometimes bring extra baggage with them from the offline world. It's a wider problem of online harassment, brought by lack of accountability, that somehow gets attributed to gaming itself.
Greg, Thank you. Sometimes it's hard for the little guys trapped in the middle to stand up. We sometimes get attacked from both sides. Thanks for standing up for and with us. You and Mr. Macris have shown what it means to have integrity in the industry and we salute you.
Good piece.
I've never understood "Don't Read The Comments" as a positive statement for authors on something like the Escapist. Practically by definition, everyone in the forums is a fan of gaming in general and the site in particular. I've seen far nastier things said on Twitter, Facebook, or other integrated sites where people can leave a comment with no effort and move on than I have even seen on the Escapist or another dedicated site where people are getting together to celebrate and talk about a specific thing. I know Tito and various editors and contributors do read the forums, and it's gratifying to see they don't paint all their fans as such awful stains on humanity that even the potential comments on ANY article would be too horrific.
We may not always like everything you do, and we may get angry about some stuff, but we wouldn't be here if we didn't want to be happy, and we wouldn't pour literally hundreds of hours into maintaining an account if we didn't care about you and this site.
I've never understood "Don't Read The Comments" as a positive statement for authors on something like the Escapist. Practically by definition, everyone in the forums is a fan of gaming in general and the site in particular. I've seen far nastier things said on Twitter, Facebook, or other integrated sites where people can leave a comment with no effort and move on than I have even seen on the Escapist or another dedicated site where people are getting together to celebrate and talk about a specific thing. I know Tito and various editors and contributors do read the forums, and it's gratifying to see they don't paint all their fans as such awful stains on humanity that even the potential comments on ANY article would be too horrific.
We may not always like everything you do, and we may get angry about some stuff, but we wouldn't be here if we didn't want to be happy, and we wouldn't pour literally hundreds of hours into maintaining an account if we didn't care about you and this site.
great job rising above all this, I consider myself a much more moderate person amid this controversy but any website that proclaims me or my hobby to be "dead" doesn't deserve my business anymore and I don't plan to frequent any of those sites going forward. I really have to respect the escapist for being much more fair about this than any other site I've seen and in allowing as free a discussion as possible while still policing the more extreme members on both sides. I've always been of the mind that threats and harassment are wrong but what I saw was equal if not more coming from members of the press as random internet dwellers. so i'm in favor of stamping it out equally on both sides.
Well said, Greg.
I believe people calling for the end of the 'gamer' identity are missing the point. There's nothing inherently toxic about gamer culture; the problem is, as always, internet culture. Get gamers out of an online setting and they can all be generally lovely people (if a bit socially awkward sometimes); it's just that so much gamer culture exists primarily online, where the Penny Arcade GIFT applies.
Also, nice reference to the Dragon Age 2 review response. I know I'd be fed up of that after three frigging years.
I believe people calling for the end of the 'gamer' identity are missing the point. There's nothing inherently toxic about gamer culture; the problem is, as always, internet culture. Get gamers out of an online setting and they can all be generally lovely people (if a bit socially awkward sometimes); it's just that so much gamer culture exists primarily online, where the Penny Arcade GIFT applies.
Also, nice reference to the Dragon Age 2 review response. I know I'd be fed up of that after three frigging years.
I know ive been naught but a cheerleader for the escapist but, I feel that you guys really deserve the gratitude for being awesome. You guys have been, the best out of all the websites about the issue and I applaud you for it and hope that others do as well. Also the jimquisition this week was awesome.
Kudos
Kudos
Picture aside, great article. The Escapist has been the only site where this topic could be discussed without mods taking the banhammer to half the debate. And I'm very pleased Greg can see through the BS on both sides and realize there are actually legitimate complaints to be made against the canoodling between bloggers and developers.
Keep up the great work Greg! Don't let the debate die!
#Standing!
It's one thing to earn back the respect one has lost. It's quite another to earn back the trust.
With this display of genuine emotion and rationality, I think that you, Greg, and indeed this site, have started winning back that trust within whom it was lost. At least, I would hope as much.
Kudos to you and your staff. Not since signing up back in 2007 have I ever been more proud to be an Escapist member.
Thank you.
With this display of genuine emotion and rationality, I think that you, Greg, and indeed this site, have started winning back that trust within whom it was lost. At least, I would hope as much.
Kudos to you and your staff. Not since signing up back in 2007 have I ever been more proud to be an Escapist member.
Thank you.
I've always chosen to come to The Escapist for my gaming news because I saw the crew here as people of integrity, as people I could trust to give me the straight facts and no bullshit. So thank you Tito, for this editorial and for the Ethics Policy. In a time where journalists and entire news sites have tried to make this into nothing but anger and hate, something to blow over and be forgotten except by the most bitter of individuals you have gone the opposite direction. You listened and accepted the honest pleas for integrity and acted on them, and in doing so, made gaming journalism a little bit better.
I salute you sir. Well done.
I salute you sir. Well done.
Thank you for taking the time to put up this post. I will continue to wade in to the comments now and again and enjoy your content.
As for calling myself a gamer, that ship has sailed. The term is too generic and reductive for me but feel free to continue to use it.
As for calling myself a gamer, that ship has sailed. The term is too generic and reductive for me but feel free to continue to use it.
Thanks for posting this Greg. Sometimes people, including myself, get so caught up in an argument that we forget why we're arguing about it in the first place. We're all here because we like games, and all of our expressions of disagreement are rooted in the desire to see things get better, or a fear of things getting worse. I hope that articles like this help lead to better conduct from all parties, and ultimately a rise in the quality of games/game culture in general.
Remember when games used to be about playing them and having fun? Yeah, I'd like that to come back.
I do not agree with a lot of people that suffer abuse, Anita in particular, but I don't agree with the abuse that she gets as a result of her work. I personally do not agree with it, and I take issue with some things that she says, but the crap she has to go through paints all of us in a bad light.
Criticism is the beauty of discussion. Abuse is the lowest level of scum. I do wish some thickheads of the Internet would get that through their... um... head.
I do not agree with a lot of people that suffer abuse, Anita in particular, but I don't agree with the abuse that she gets as a result of her work. I personally do not agree with it, and I take issue with some things that she says, but the crap she has to go through paints all of us in a bad light.
Criticism is the beauty of discussion. Abuse is the lowest level of scum. I do wish some thickheads of the Internet would get that through their... um... head.
Well said. I'm glad to see some good come out of this whole controversy. Extremists on every side have made this whole thing toxic and disgusting but honestly if this is what we get out of it, I will be happy.
Keep up the good work Greg and team.
Keep up the good work Greg and team.
PREAMBLE: Apologies for the rambling wall-of-text crit to the eyeballs.
On the issue of all gamers being lumped together, that is an unfortunate consequence of human psychology and perception. The good gets mixed in with the bad, and the entire bundle gets perceived as bad. We know that the rational truth is that it's only a handful of bad apples, but, because they are the most vocal apples in the bunch, rationality often gets lost and truth distorted. We can't hide from the fact these deviant individuals exist within the community; we can't pretend there is not a negative side to our community and that it is not included as a part of us. We're all together in this, like it or not.
To this end, and I definitely agree with you quite strongly that the onus is on the community, in my opinion, it is critically important for the community, as a whole, to take strict, decisive, and stringent measures to make it clear and unambiguous that hateful, harassing, and personally threatening behavior can not and will not be tolerated to any degree. Further, the community, in my opinion, needs to find a way to levy some tangible punishment upon the perpetrators to drive this point home. Essentially, the community needs to have a means of enforcing the more positive, mature, and sociable behaviors that we would prefer to see and deterring the toxic, abusive behaviors we don't want to see.
The gaming community, in my opinion, should be an environment for fun, quality social interaction with games as the platform over which that interaction occurs. Our community is extremely diverse, perhaps the most diverse of all social circles. But further, it is a community full of people who have known abuse, bullying, and threatening harassment directly and personally. Thus, it is galling that there would be those who seek to bring exactly such behavior into the community and poison the entirety of the community, inflicting on others the very trauma which they themselves may be suffering (yes, I do understand how those who are hurting will often seek to hurt others; however, in my opinion, that does not at all excuse the behavior). Because of our diversity and personal histories, in my opinion, it is critical that we be more tolerant of the voices, opinions, and preferences of others without the need for toxicity and personal threats. (All these X vs. Y and "my electronic device beats-up your electronic device" tech-religious wars within the community need to stop; yeah, many hate Call of Duty, but a lot of people clearly love playing the game. Let them enjoy it without the crap. If you don't like it, you don't have to play it. Play what you enjoy, let them play what they enjoy, and just move on.) It is critical that we be able to interact with one another in a manner that fosters enlightenment, enjoyment, and edification, rather than trying to tear each other down at every possible moment for every possible little imperfection. And should disagreement occur, which it will because we are different human beings, we need to be able to disagree without being disagreeable.
In any group, conflict is inevitable. This is simply a truth of human beings. The proper path is not the avoiding of conflict; the proper path is knowing how to resolve conflict in a mature , calm, rational, and mutually respectful manner. Often conflict arises as a result of simple miscommunication or a simple mistake. We have to be able to recognize the miscommunication and take measures to clarify the matter without having to resort to personal attacks (such as calling someone an idiot) or threats. Mistakes happen, because we are only human; so, we need to be more tolerant when someone makes a mistake and not sear them with a barrage of personal attacks and threats for their mistake.
I agree, whole-heartedly, that we need to constantly keep in mind that there is another person on the other side of that screen. The rules of human social interaction and etiquette are still 100% applicable online for that very reason. Our words and actions affect them every bit as much as their words and actions affect us. Slow down and take the time to think before you post. Think about your words: how would you feel if someone said to you what you're about to say to someone else? Take the time, especially in a forum because you're not conversing in real-time, to read over your words and give some thought to them. If the words you're about to post were directed at you, how would it make you feel? How would you react? What would pass through your mind? Would you still be having fun in the game if you had to deal with people treating you the way you're about to treat someone else?
I know I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but, we're gamers too. That means we need to take the ideal of creating a better gaming community with us wherever we go and be willing to stand up against the terrible toxic behaviors wherever we might find it. The movement starts small with but a handful of individuals. But, in time, it has the ability to grow and become so much bigger. The ideal can spread as others learn of it and seek it. What starts with but 1 person eventually becomes 2, and 2 becomes 3. In time, 3 becomes 5, then 5 becomes 8, and so on.
It is my belief that much of the toxic behavior we have seen on the Internet in general is because we have let the Internet remain that way for too long. It originated at some point in the past, and those who come into it become immersed within that pool of toxicity and become poisoned to think that this is just the normal course. That being toxic and harassing is just the way you're supposed to be. There is insufficient counter to demonstrate that the behavior is, in fact, not normal and not tolerable. But, that's where 1 must become 2 and 2 must become 3, and so on, to reverse the general toxicity of the Internet, to let others know that this is not the way things are to be. It starts with one voice, but if others are willing to take up the mantle of that voice, it can spread. Eventually, the game community, and one would hope the Internet, in general, can become more the wonderful community that we would like for it to be, without all the toxicity.
On the issue of all gamers being lumped together, that is an unfortunate consequence of human psychology and perception. The good gets mixed in with the bad, and the entire bundle gets perceived as bad. We know that the rational truth is that it's only a handful of bad apples, but, because they are the most vocal apples in the bunch, rationality often gets lost and truth distorted. We can't hide from the fact these deviant individuals exist within the community; we can't pretend there is not a negative side to our community and that it is not included as a part of us. We're all together in this, like it or not.
To this end, and I definitely agree with you quite strongly that the onus is on the community, in my opinion, it is critically important for the community, as a whole, to take strict, decisive, and stringent measures to make it clear and unambiguous that hateful, harassing, and personally threatening behavior can not and will not be tolerated to any degree. Further, the community, in my opinion, needs to find a way to levy some tangible punishment upon the perpetrators to drive this point home. Essentially, the community needs to have a means of enforcing the more positive, mature, and sociable behaviors that we would prefer to see and deterring the toxic, abusive behaviors we don't want to see.
The gaming community, in my opinion, should be an environment for fun, quality social interaction with games as the platform over which that interaction occurs. Our community is extremely diverse, perhaps the most diverse of all social circles. But further, it is a community full of people who have known abuse, bullying, and threatening harassment directly and personally. Thus, it is galling that there would be those who seek to bring exactly such behavior into the community and poison the entirety of the community, inflicting on others the very trauma which they themselves may be suffering (yes, I do understand how those who are hurting will often seek to hurt others; however, in my opinion, that does not at all excuse the behavior). Because of our diversity and personal histories, in my opinion, it is critical that we be more tolerant of the voices, opinions, and preferences of others without the need for toxicity and personal threats. (All these X vs. Y and "my electronic device beats-up your electronic device" tech-religious wars within the community need to stop; yeah, many hate Call of Duty, but a lot of people clearly love playing the game. Let them enjoy it without the crap. If you don't like it, you don't have to play it. Play what you enjoy, let them play what they enjoy, and just move on.) It is critical that we be able to interact with one another in a manner that fosters enlightenment, enjoyment, and edification, rather than trying to tear each other down at every possible moment for every possible little imperfection. And should disagreement occur, which it will because we are different human beings, we need to be able to disagree without being disagreeable.
In any group, conflict is inevitable. This is simply a truth of human beings. The proper path is not the avoiding of conflict; the proper path is knowing how to resolve conflict in a mature , calm, rational, and mutually respectful manner. Often conflict arises as a result of simple miscommunication or a simple mistake. We have to be able to recognize the miscommunication and take measures to clarify the matter without having to resort to personal attacks (such as calling someone an idiot) or threats. Mistakes happen, because we are only human; so, we need to be more tolerant when someone makes a mistake and not sear them with a barrage of personal attacks and threats for their mistake.
I agree, whole-heartedly, that we need to constantly keep in mind that there is another person on the other side of that screen. The rules of human social interaction and etiquette are still 100% applicable online for that very reason. Our words and actions affect them every bit as much as their words and actions affect us. Slow down and take the time to think before you post. Think about your words: how would you feel if someone said to you what you're about to say to someone else? Take the time, especially in a forum because you're not conversing in real-time, to read over your words and give some thought to them. If the words you're about to post were directed at you, how would it make you feel? How would you react? What would pass through your mind? Would you still be having fun in the game if you had to deal with people treating you the way you're about to treat someone else?
I know I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but, we're gamers too. That means we need to take the ideal of creating a better gaming community with us wherever we go and be willing to stand up against the terrible toxic behaviors wherever we might find it. The movement starts small with but a handful of individuals. But, in time, it has the ability to grow and become so much bigger. The ideal can spread as others learn of it and seek it. What starts with but 1 person eventually becomes 2, and 2 becomes 3. In time, 3 becomes 5, then 5 becomes 8, and so on.
It is my belief that much of the toxic behavior we have seen on the Internet in general is because we have let the Internet remain that way for too long. It originated at some point in the past, and those who come into it become immersed within that pool of toxicity and become poisoned to think that this is just the normal course. That being toxic and harassing is just the way you're supposed to be. There is insufficient counter to demonstrate that the behavior is, in fact, not normal and not tolerable. But, that's where 1 must become 2 and 2 must become 3, and so on, to reverse the general toxicity of the Internet, to let others know that this is not the way things are to be. It starts with one voice, but if others are willing to take up the mantle of that voice, it can spread. Eventually, the game community, and one would hope the Internet, in general, can become more the wonderful community that we would like for it to be, without all the toxicity.
The actions throughout "Gamergate" have only hardened the belief I've held ever since internet multiplayer became viable: that the overall community of "gamers" and the journalism industry around it is a toxic, childish place. A game developer and journalists act like petulant children when people criticize them. The gaming community is full of equally childish people. Neither treat women or racial minorities with much respect. Hell, the ED article on this is full of references to Zoe that many people claimed no one was making about her (i.e. she's a slut, talentless, slept her way to the "top", that her "white knights" are covering for her). Hell I'm willing to bet most of the deleted threads from Reddit and whatnot are because they devolve into exactly the kind of vitriol you see whenever gamers hate a woman *cough*Anita Sarkeesian*cough*. And you know, I think it's because of what I see at the heart of it: the identity of "gamer".
In no other hobby do I see this level of outrage at EVERYTHING, and I don't know how Greg doesn't see it, since I got it from these forums. Colonial Marines, EA, Bioware (Dragon Age AND Mass Effect), Always Online, DRM, DLC, game prices, Steam Greenlight, AAA games, indie games, the type of games that are popular, the type of games OTHER people want to be popular, framerates, definitions, games being too short, games being too long, games being too easy, games being too hard, free-to-play, pay-to-win, when a game isn't well-reviewed, when a game IS well-reviewed, there's literally nothing that gamers don't complain about and complain about with force (how many times a day do we see "Death of the industry?") Honestly, I'd rather the term "gamer" does die.
This is a hobby, entertainment, maybe even an art in some cases. This is not and shouldn't be "life" for anyone who's income doesn't depend on it. Why? When it's a hobby, when I'm discussing this hobby with like-minded friends, we don't care what Kotaku rated it. We don't care what score it got on metacritic. Those become just numbers. Review articles are read because we enjoy the writer's voice, not because we're looking for validation or vindication. Criticism is evaluated with an objective eye, or at worst, indifference. It's not an identity anymore, so an attack on it isn't an attack on the self. If Greg here wants to still call himself a gamer, that's fine. But I've seen what happens when people treat this as an identity. I don't want any part of that.
TL;DR: Changing a belief is tricky. People die for it; people kill for it. Keep gaming an idea. Changing an idea is easier.
In no other hobby do I see this level of outrage at EVERYTHING, and I don't know how Greg doesn't see it, since I got it from these forums. Colonial Marines, EA, Bioware (Dragon Age AND Mass Effect), Always Online, DRM, DLC, game prices, Steam Greenlight, AAA games, indie games, the type of games that are popular, the type of games OTHER people want to be popular, framerates, definitions, games being too short, games being too long, games being too easy, games being too hard, free-to-play, pay-to-win, when a game isn't well-reviewed, when a game IS well-reviewed, there's literally nothing that gamers don't complain about and complain about with force (how many times a day do we see "Death of the industry?") Honestly, I'd rather the term "gamer" does die.
This is a hobby, entertainment, maybe even an art in some cases. This is not and shouldn't be "life" for anyone who's income doesn't depend on it. Why? When it's a hobby, when I'm discussing this hobby with like-minded friends, we don't care what Kotaku rated it. We don't care what score it got on metacritic. Those become just numbers. Review articles are read because we enjoy the writer's voice, not because we're looking for validation or vindication. Criticism is evaluated with an objective eye, or at worst, indifference. It's not an identity anymore, so an attack on it isn't an attack on the self. If Greg here wants to still call himself a gamer, that's fine. But I've seen what happens when people treat this as an identity. I don't want any part of that.
TL;DR: Changing a belief is tricky. People die for it; people kill for it. Keep gaming an idea. Changing an idea is easier.