Increasing Gamer Hate

[Ragsnstitches]

I wonder if part of it is down to age. In the sonic generation is was considered still to be mainly for children and youths, and now gamers are getting older and angrier. Also the internet lets people be dicks a lot easier.

No, I'm pretty sure thirteen year olds still exist. Your argument for age is therefore invalid.

The internet thing is true though. AS mentioned above it's more noticeable now. OP complains about YouTube comments. Well, setting aside the fact that those are YouTube comments, I don't recall being able to tap into YouTube for opinions on games back in Diablo 2. Not only to the fact that YouTube didn't exist but because a whole lot less people went to the Internet to share their opinions and catch up on everybody else's. Me included. And OP includes, as he pretty much said that the opinions were confined to his circle of friends and acquaintances - the Internet wasn't a factor in his past retrospective. Well, for me too - I had a limited pool of knowledge about games to use - my friends and other people I knew who were into gaming. We were not a lot, less than a hundred in total in my town. With time, the gamers grew, we got easier and more reliable access to the Internet, and thus access to more and more voices on the matter. And tell you what - the voices weren't really that different than before. There was some rampant hate from even before then. The things that changed was the quantity - instead of 2 out of 20 people calling something shit, it was not 200 out of 2000. And depending on where you go, you'd come across either on those 200, the rest 1800 or a mixture of them.

The hate hasn't increased. You're just able to experience a greater amount of it while ignoring the rest. We call that confirmation bias.

True, the Internet tends to exaggerate things but so do most other gamers I remember talking with in person. There is nothing new. I've seen fights started (well, just started, not going full blown...most of the time) because of a similar gamer hate you're describing. On the Internet it's just a few more angry comments.

This is especially true when you consider the "vocal minority" effect. We only hear the loud and antagonistic people, but we forget the hundreds of people who don't stir the shit or leave things unsaid altogether. Look at this site... I have no idea what the figure is for number of active members, but I can confidently guess that for every member there are at least 10 lurkers.

For every angry, vitriolic overreaction we have hundreds of complacent people not bothered by it.

The HATE in the gaming community is smaller then people would like to think, because we do have a nasty habit of playing ourselves up as victims in general. We create these forces in our head that are out there acting against us. Rather then a mess of individuals of a wide variety of tastes and preferences, we imagine an Army of hate filled morons actively trying to make us feel bad or spread dissent within a community. (there is a reversed affect where we surround ourselves with people who share our opinions, narrowing our outlook even more with self affirmations of how right we are.)

What's particularly frustrating is that if you have an opinion against something, you get lumped together with everyone who shares that opinion... and for the convenience of your opposition, they will judge you based on the stupid and shallow minority that argue in your corner, which you likely don't even agree with or associate with. This happens in all discussions pertaining to personal preference (See pretty much every second article on this site).

When getting into a discussion about DRM, I made the point once that I'm against its further development in principle, but I can tolerate it's earlier iterations. Someone then told me that I'm a pro-piracy sympathiser or something of the sort, which is something I wasn't aware myself. No matter what I said from that point on, I was a pirate and my point was invalid (despite not endorsing or indulging in piracy myself).

What this means to the opposition of an argument (like the one above) is that there is nothing with integrity worth listening to from the other end of the discussion... and the cycle of hate and ignorance continues.

Always relevant in conversations like these:

Note that there is also a propensity for unchecked hyperbole. Often people will say "flaming sack of pustules" when what they feel is "meh". How many times have you, whilst completely calm, written up a post that makes you sound completely batshit? My guess is many times.

The internet is extraordinarily marvelous, but it's also a bit of a shite medium for meaningful communication.

Ah, PA... so tuned in.

It's like a kind of environmentally induced tourettes when you think about.

 

[DoPo]

This is especially true when you consider the "vocal minority" effect. We only hear the loud and antagonistic people and we forget the hundreds of people who leave things unsaid. Look at this site... I have no idea what the figure is for number of active members, but I can confidently guess that for every member there at least 10 lurkers.

For every angry, vitriolic overreaction we have hundreds of complacent people not bothered by it.

Yes, that too. Which especially bothers me in the "am I the only one" threads which point to too much hate (or love, for that matter) - I constantly find myself not bothered by the subject at all. "Why does everybody hate X?" Well I don't. I don't like it either but I definitely don't hate it.

The HATE in the gaming community is smaller then people would like to think, because we do have a nasty habit of playing ourselves up as victims in general. We create these forces in our head that are out there acting against us. Rather then a mess of individuals of a wide variety of tastes and preferences, we imagine an Army of hate filled morons actively trying to make us feel bad or spread dissent within a community.

What's particularly frustrating is that if you have an opinion against something, you get lumped together with everyone who shares that opinion... and for the convenience of your opposition, they will judge you based on the stupid and shallow minority that argue in your corner and you likely don't even agree with or associate with. This happens in all discussions pertaining to personal preference (See pretty much every second article on this site).

And this is especially true. For fun (and profit?) try jumping into any discussion even here on the Escapist that is split between two major opinions but don't support either of them. You'll quickly get stuck with one label or another.

I once spoke against the always online scheme and apparently I was a Blizzard and/or Diablo 3 hater. Me not getting the game has nothing to do with either the game itself (even though, that was before it was released) or the company. In fact, the always online isn't really a key factor to why I'm not getting D3. For the record, I'm not getting it because I'm not interested in it - a decision I've come to quite a while back - around when it was announced first, not that the game itself is bad or anything to that effect. But try to say that in a D3 discussion and there would be at least a dozen people who'd immediately mentally place into the "haters" pool.

Another time I was apparently an Activision hater because I didn't want to buy Bloodlines from Steam when it was massively reduced. And I said that pretty much that. I was almost immediately called out as a hater. And again, for the record, my opinion of Activision is not high, however, I don't exactly go and troll random people with it.

However, I don't think that's a gaming issue, it's just the Internet. And (yet another) anecdotal example - there was big shitstorm between a few users on a forum and a decision of one of the mods. I called out a couple of users on some of the dumber things they wrote and I was "in league with the mods", "sucking up to them", and "trying to secure my place with them" along with some hateful PMs. When the truth is that the mods didn't really post as much, or they might have been tempted to write dumb things, too.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Your circle of "friends" was much smaller when you were young and didn't have internet access. You can't conclude anything based on the perception that none of the people you knew back then were haters. People don't only do this sort of thing based on video games but music, clothes, what beer you drink or how often you blink. They always have.

In many circumstances people behave the same way online as they always did offline. It's just that sometimes everyone is shouting over each other to be heard and the loudest voice wins. There is an inverse relationship between how good someone is at getting their message across and how much it is worth listening to. Which just about sums up youtube.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

What's particularly frustrating is that if you have an opinion against something, you get lumped together with everyone who shares that opinion... and for the convenience of your opposition, they will judge you based on the stupid and shallow minority that argue in your corner, which you likely don't even agree with or associate with. This happens in all discussions pertaining to personal preference (See pretty much every second article on this site).

When getting into a discussion about DRM, I made the point once that I'm against its further development in principle, but I can tolerate it's earlier iterations. Someone then told me that I'm a pro-piracy sympathiser or something of the sort, which is something I wasn't aware myself. No matter what I said from that point on, I was a pirate and my point was invalid (despite not endorsing or indulging in piracy myself).

You goddam pirate! Burn in a fire, pirate!

This phenomenon you're describing was never more evident than during the ME3 ending debacle, and it's reaching those dimensions again with always online DRM. I made the point that I was apathetic about being always online and didn't consider it an issue worth taking to the streets with flaming brands over, and was accused of being a morally contemptible human being who was paving the way for the Holocaust of our times.

Opinion polarization. It's not just for politics!

 

[Ragsnstitches]

However, I don't think that's a gaming issue, it's just the Internet. And (yet another) anecdotal example - there was big shitstorm between a few users on a forum and a decision of one of the mods. I called out a couple of users on some of the dumber things they wrote and I was "in league with the mods", "sucking up to them", and "trying to secure my place with them" along with some hateful PMs. When the truth is that the mods didn't really post as much, or they might have been tempted to write dumb things, too.

You're right, it isn't a gaming issue. But I would go further then it being an internet issue as well. We do these things on a day to day basis. In school, from a young age, we mingle with a wide variety of people, but as the years pass we narrow down our associations to like minded people. This leads to the self-affirmation affect I mentioned in a late edit of my post. We end up surrounding ourselves with an opinion we're comfortable with and when an alien opinion enters into the fray we turn vicious and feral, warding off this interloping notion.

This manifests into generally bitchyness and bullying at its extremes (and at its worst it can lead to things like hate filled racial/gender prejudice), but even a perfectly level headed person is subject to it. You don't hang around with people with diametrically opposite opinions to you? No? Neither do I. This becomes more and more relevant the heavier the topic being discussed is. I try to be open minded, but I've been conditioned in such a way to reject certain influences (not always a bad thing mind you) and sometimes its done in an aggressive Knee-Jerk reaction...

I won't give the internet any more credit then its due. This is a human phenomenon, not a technological one. The Internet just concentrates it.

 

[370999]

Your circle of "friends" was much smaller when you were young and didn't have internet access. You can't conclude anything based on the perception that none of the people you knew back then were haters. People don't only do this sort of thing based on video games but music, clothes, what beer you drink or how often you blink. They always have.

In many circumstances people behave the same way online as they always did offline. It's just that sometimes everyone is shouting over each other to be heard and the loudest voice wins. There is an inverse relationship between how good someone is at getting their message across and how much it is worth listening to. Which just about sums up youtube.

I dunno, I disagree with you in that I think there is a unique dimension to the internet age which facilitates dramatic temper tantrums by grown men.

IMHO, the internet by ignoring nonverbal communication increases the necessity to employ hyperbole. There is also the fact that gaming does hold an allure for individuals who are lacking in social skills (not all gamers are like this but quite a few individuals who aren't blessed with social graces do game) which can result in there being a lack of mediation in speech and a corresponding high tolerance for a environment with which shouting, slurs and general ignorance is the norm.


So I think part of it can be said to be inherent but I do think there is a slight exceptional element.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

What's particularly frustrating is that if you have an opinion against something, you get lumped together with everyone who shares that opinion... and for the convenience of your opposition, they will judge you based on the stupid and shallow minority that argue in your corner, which you likely don't even agree with or associate with. This happens in all discussions pertaining to personal preference (See pretty much every second article on this site).

When getting into a discussion about DRM, I made the point once that I'm against its further development in principle, but I can tolerate it's earlier iterations. Someone then told me that I'm a pro-piracy sympathiser or something of the sort, which is something I wasn't aware myself. No matter what I said from that point on, I was a pirate and my point was invalid (despite not endorsing or indulging in piracy myself).

You goddam pirate! Burn in a fire, pirate!

This phenomenon you're describing was never more evident than during the ME3 ending debacle, and it's reaching those dimensions again with always online DRM. I made the point that I was apathetic about being always online and didn't consider it an issue worth taking to the streets with flaming brands over, and was accused of being a morally contemptible human being who was paving the way for the Holocaust of our times.

Opinion polarization. It's not just for politics!

Now, I'll be honest, I'm against always online DRM (for single player use), strongly too, but I won't, as you say, "Take to the streets with flaming brands". I will be at the very least civil about it... and my objection only goes as far as consciously not purchasing products/services that promote it and giving my opinion when asked (I know I wasn't here... oops). I'm a consumer in a capitalist economy, getting angry and rabid over it just makes me look rabidly angry (or angrily rabid?).

But yeah, this is just how things are, opinions will always have opposites and these opposites will clash frequently.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

I dunno, I disagree with you in that I think there is a unique dimension to the internet age which facilitates dramatic temper tantrums by grown men.

IMHO, the internet by ignoring nonverbal communication increases the necessity to employ hyperbole. There is also the fact that gaming does hold an allure for individuals who are lacking in social skills (not all gamers are like this but quite a few individuals who aren't blessed with social graces do game) which can result in there being a lack of mediation in speech and a corresponding high tolerance for a environment with which shouting, slurs and general ignorance is the norm.


So I think part of it can be said to be inherent but I do think there is a slight exceptional element.

O tempora o mores!

Grown men have always been perfectly capable of throwing inappropriate temper tantrums. The situation comedy would never have been created if they didn't.

But I guess that it's nice to want better more intelligent behaviour from people and for everyone to agree about trivia and entertainment preferences. It's nice to want things.

 

[370999]

I dunno, I disagree with you in that I think there is a unique dimension to the internet age which facilitates dramatic temper tantrums by grown men.

IMHO, the internet by ignoring nonverbal communication increases the necessity to employ hyperbole. There is also the fact that gaming does hold an allure for individuals who are lacking in social skills (not all gamers are like this but quite a few individuals who aren't blessed with social graces do game) which can result in there being a lack of mediation in speech and a corresponding high tolerance for a environment with which shouting, slurs and general ignorance is the norm.


So I think part of it can be said to be inherent but I do think there is a slight exceptional element.

O tempora o mores!

Grown men have always been perfectly capable of throwing inappropriate temper tantrums. The situation comedy would never have been created if they didn't.

But I guess that it's nice to want better more intelligent behaviour from people and for everyone to agree about trivia and entertainment preferences. It's nice to want things.

Well yeah, human nature doesn't fundamentally change at any time, being roughly constant.

I do think the internet does help make it even easier for us to see emotional outbursts.

Whole heartily agree with regards to the aspiration to see civil discourse, mudslinging being not just unsightly but rather detrimental to the development of intellectual discourse.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Well yeah, human nature doesn't fundamentally change at any time, being roughly constant.

I do think the internet does help make it even easier for us to see emotional outbursts.

Whole heartily agree with regards to the aspiration to see civil discourse, mudslinging being not just unsightly but rather detrimental to the development of intellectual discourse.

It's more detrimental to civil discourse than intellectual discourse I think. Intellectual debate is about as brutal and mudslingy as it gets.

 

[Eamar]

If those are the most inflammatory comments you could find (on Youtube, no less), I really don't think you can complain about having "gamer hate" directed at you. Seriously, it seems you see criticism of the game as personal hatred :/

As everyone else has said, the internet is what happened. People have most likely always thought these things, they just didn't have an anonymous forum in which to air their views before.

O tempora o mores!

This is pretty appropriate. People have been complaining about the decline of societal standards since forever (in this case in the first century BC). Nothing new under the sun, etc.

Although really I'm only quoting because I was stupidly excited to see a Cicero quote here

 

[Aurora Firestorm]

This has been happening since forever. The Internet just gives it an outlet, because Gabriel's Greater Internet Dickwad Theory applies in spades when it comes to fanboys. People will defend their positions on their beloved media until the cows come home, but it's even worse when the Internet allows them to swear and spew vitriol with no punishment whatsoever. In reasonable face-to-face interaction, you wouldn't be seeing that gamer hate as much because people who do that kind of crap to their friends get ostracized quickly and punted out of the social arena. If you want friends, you'll be a reasonable human being. On the Internet, it's just like someone gave you a megaphone and let you scream whatever at the world -- no caring as to what any of them think, because you can just come back later under another name.

 

[Cranky]

Ermm... haytahs gunna hayt.

Other than that, yes the fanboyishness is really crazy now. But people are still going to judge others on their tastes. It's a way of life.

 

[370999]

Well yeah, human nature doesn't fundamentally change at any time, being roughly constant.

I do think the internet does help make it even easier for us to see emotional outbursts.

Whole heartily agree with regards to the aspiration to see civil discourse, mudslinging being not just unsightly but rather detrimental to the development of intellectual discourse.

It's more detrimental to civil discourse than intellectual discourse I think. Intellectual debate is about as brutal and mudslingy as it gets.

I dunno most of the academic texts I've read can be through disparaging on a different viewpoint but as always quite polite about it, an iron hand beneath a silk glove approach.

Perhaps I am woefully ignorant about it

PS: My apologies for misreading your earlier post, where I misinterpreted your viewpoint as bieng in accordance in mine, when it was actually neutral.

 

[black_knight1337]

Yeah, like has already been stated this stuff has been always present. Although lately I've been noticing a lot more "Everyone's hating on game X so I'm gonna join in" kind of stuff which is really starting to piss me off. Whether it's just the fact that in recent times I've been a part of the target group that I've noticed it more, idk, that's probably the case.