Harassment and Hostility in Fighting Games

[The Apple BOOM]

So Alex Strife, the head of Apex, left Project M out of his tournament this year, and receieved death and rape threats from it.
http://www.dailydot.com/esports/apex-lugo-smash-bros/

This is something we've been dealing with in games for a while now, but there's something different about this one. It stems from the hostility competitive gamers have towards other games. I have to ask, where did this even come from? When this article was posted on the Philly FGC group on Facebook it erupted with "I say fuck project M never liked that shit in the first place." and "Na screw project M shit needs to die." How do we deal with this? Why do people feel the need to antagonize fans of other games that don't even affect them. It's one thing if you're vying for stream time on the big stage, and it's another thing to not want anyone to play the game at all.

 

[Mezahmay]

Hate in the fighting video game community? Is it 2012 again? [http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/02/is-pervasive-sexism-holding-the-professional-fighting-game-community-back/]

How do we deal with this?

Remove anonymity from the internet, unanimously agree on and perform proper internet etiquette across almost all platforms to severely marginalize outliers, or heavily moderate all platforms to remove enough of the uncontextualized hate as to be negligible. Since the only other alternative I can find is altering human nature, the others will have to suffice.

 

[Username Redacted]

How do we deal with this?

This sort of thing gets dealt with by giving the instigators the bare minimum of publicity and attention while giving them the maximum legal ass whopping possible. It's probably (sadly) going to take someone actually following through on these sorts of threats with the threats having been reported to and ignored by police for there to be real, consistent action taken with regards to this sort of situation. When that happens things will change in a hurry. When making death or rape threats or swatting someone consistently results in your ass going to jail this sort of behavior will drop off or effectively stop entirely.

Why do people feel the need to antagonize fans of other games that don't even affect them? It's one thing if you're vying for stream time on the big stage, and it's another thing to not want anyone to play the game at all.

I feel like you've largely answered your own question. People tend to hate on other games because they feel like its drawing attention away from the game(s) that they like. I would actually say that this has gotten a bit better over the last couple of years as most tournaments have expanded their stream offerings such that if you don't like whatever game is on the 'A' stream you can switch over to the 'B' stream. I'll even admit to being guilty of this sort of thing a bit. I've told Tekken players that I'm friends with something to the effect of respecting them as players while simultaneously finding their choice of game to be boring as fuck and a killer of schedules (Tekken Tag Tournament 2 has very nasty habit of running long). However because I'm actually more or less sane I'm not about to make death threats against a TO for deigning to have a TTT2 tournament at his event. The people causing the situation in your article seem to be missing the 'more or less sane' part.

 

[Zannah]

So rape-threats are the internet's basement's go-to response for everything now?

Oh dear.

 

[Sleepy Sol]

Clearly grounds for determining Smash Bros. players as the worst parts of the fighting game community.

I wear my bias on my sleeve.

But yeah, all that crap would be better served with "That's fucking terrible that he was threatened," not "That game sucks lol, good riddance."

The FGC just has some horribly backwards people at times.

 

[The Apple BOOM]

I would actually say that this has gotten a bit better over the last couple of years

I do feel like it has gotten better in the core FGC, but not in Smash. An argument over Brawl and Project M broke out when I was waiting in line for registration at Apex 2014. You couldn't go much of anywhere in the main part of the hotel without hearing someone complaining about another game.

 

[Username Redacted]

I would actually say that this has gotten a bit better over the last couple of years

I do feel like it has gotten better in the core FGC, but not in Smash. An argument over Brawl and Project M broke out when I was waiting in line for registration at Apex 2014. You couldn't go much of anywhere in the main part of the hotel without hearing someone complaining about another game.

Arguing and complaining are a far cry from making threats. I'm also sorry to say but it's probably going to get a hell of a lot worse within the Smash community before it gets better. The reason for this being that IMO the upcoming new Smash Bros. game is likely to create an influx of new players similar to if not in excess of what the Street Fighter community experienced in 2009 with the release of Street Fighter IV. To say that the integration of new players was a bit rocky would be a bit of an understatement. When a forum has to institute a policy banning users for calling someone else an 09er you know that there be some hostility there. Smash, an already as you mention polarized community, is probably going to be somewhat worse than that. I also wouldn't be surprised if, as evidenced by their ham-handed handling of Evolution 2013, Nintendo in their infinite wisdom somehow manages to pour some gasoline on the fire. Something like forcing people to only stream the new Smash Bros. wouldn't surprise me in the least.