Giving away Insurgency and Risk of Rain Steam Codes

[AlexanderPeregrine]

I have three extra Steam keys each for Insurgency and Risk of Rain that have expiration dates, so I'd like to see them get used. I figure I can make this a small contest of sorts.

Please write no more than 150 words or so about your stance/thoughts on the past couple months of video game culture. You can be as broad or as specific as you'd like and I'll consider up to four submissions from each person (make separate posts). I will not click any links, watch any videos, or look at any images; if you want to include them for other readers, put them in spoilers after the text or as footnotes. Please do not respond to others in this thread. If you're concerned about public response to your opinion, private message me instead. At the top, specify which game you'd like and if both, the order of preference (depending on the number of submissions, I may give both to some people).

My keys for Risk of Rain expire November 25 and Insurgency on December 8, but I'm going with the 22nd as my personal deadline. I'll send the messages on that day. Winners, please do not publicly say that you won.

Thank you and good luck.

 

[Tatsuki]

Hmm video game culture in the past couple of months, you really picked a time for this one.

Well its hard to tell really how many people share my views, but in my opinion were at a very strange juncture for that. On the one side we have the actual gaming. We're finally weaning off the AAA teat and getting a wide breadth of games coming out of all budgets which is a huge step in the right direction, its not hard to see a lot of happy faces on this forum alone from this turn of events. This wasn't so much culture but a general trend.

You know what I typed up a fair bit more, but its a bit sad having to think about my personal feelings on this. Gamergate. The gaming community is sadly a perfect breeding ground for trolls, you have a lot of people in that very impressionable age bracket who make rash decisions they will later regret, and they are pulled into issues like sexism. People have heated opinions and others take sides and it just turns into wars. Subject matter kind of took me away from wanting to do this seriously but I may as well post what I started typing.

Not after a shot at being in the running for a game, just 1:30am here and can't sleep.

(for the record after re reading, and not wanting any misunderstandings, I am not blaming young people here but more thinking on the shame that young kids are being dragged into debates like sexism without getting the chance to be informed on the subject)

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

We have reached a boiling point. Gaming has changed along with the mainstream acceptance of it. Change will always make some people happy and some people angry. Some people want to go back to the good old days and silence modern critics, but we can't go back or our culture will stagnate.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I'll take Risk of Rain if I win.

It's temporary and fake internet drama involving vocal minority on both sides, exaggerated by the gaming media to generate clickbait articles, and I have no interest in it.

 

[Pete Oddly]

Sure, I'll play. If I win, I'd like Risk of Rain, please and thank you.

Over the past few months, gaming culture has had light shone on some of its uglier bits. These bits have always been underlying issues, but the extremely public way certain events blew up shone a spotlight on two major issues: ethics in gaming journalism, and misogyny in gaming culture. Regardless of how things started or played out, these issues' existence and prominence are undeniable. Luckily, even though the most vitriolic of us might shout otherwise, things are slowly changing for the better in both of these problem areas, and the garish light beamed onto them helped that progress, even if it also made a good number of us look like dicks.

Still, neither of these issues are what's really plaguing gaming today, and the vast amount of attention paid to them took our eyes away from more pressing issues: Publishers releasing broken games just to patch them later; developers taking advantage of early access to trick people into buying games which will never be finished properly; games getting half of their content being delivered via DLC; publishers pimping pre-orders precisely to pick our pockets prior to providing proof a game is playable; etc. As much as it helps us to make progress in any problem area of gaming, we can't let ourselves get bogged down in useless rhetoric while we're getting fleeced by the very people we pay for the pleasure of taking part in this wonderful art form.

I think this may be longer than 150 words. Sorry about that.