When was the last time you were swatted for reducing a weapon's damage by .1? The truth is, many game developers are jumping ship over serious threats to themselves and their families, and they aren't being replaced. Unless people really want a market fully of flappy bird and air control, they better start acting like civilized human beings instead of roid raging lunatics. Seriously, not many game devs are going to stick around when deranged fans look up where their kids go to school and openly threaten to kidnap and kill them. Being upset over a bad product is fine - don't buy from the company again. It doesn't give you the right to mercilessly abuse people. Then again, if you like flappy bird...
When you think about it, the gaming community is probably one of the most toxic in existence. We've done some bad things.
That I know, but press' crazy foolish behavior against the consumer is not going end well for them and despite their "fevour", the con artists at Gawker are not going to come down to save them when its over.
We've never rioted, which at the very least puts both Soccer and Hockey ahead of the gaming community. And even then, when someone tells me they're a hockey fan, I don't automatically associate them with one of the hooligans from the 2011 Stanley Cup riot. Can't let a few bad apples spoil the bunch.
The thing is, why do a few hundred people represent the tens of millions of people that play games all around the world? if a real journalist writes an article about how bad is an entire race or religion because he had a problem with one of them he will loose his job, but those so called "gaming journalist" are reciving praise and support...
People in the gaming community have harassed people so much, and so aggressively, they've had their careers ruined. Jennifer Hepler. People in the gaming community are willing to threaten the lives and well-being of those who disagree with them. The Grand Theft Auto 5 fiasco. People in the gaming community are extremely misogynistic, apparently as a rule rather than an exception. And will not hesistate to show that fact to everyone. See Twitter. This isn't just an issue with a few people in the community, this is a sustained trend of harassment, vitriol, toxicity, and aggression against the people who comment on the games we play, who review them, and those who make them as well. If these were all a minority in the community, then it falls to the majority of us to admit that this is an ongoing issue and agree that things need to change. It sickens me that I don't even need to look that hard to find examples of the gaming community being really really shitty to someone. When people put their jobs at risk just to say "I don't like how the gaming community treats x", because they expect a massive backlash of hate on twitter or facebook or reddit or whatever other social media, you don't think that's deserving of praise?
So because there is not just a hundred, let's say tens of thousands of fucktards harassing and threatening people on the internet and I share a hobby with them (video games) it's ok if they call every single gamer a psycho? no, no and no, change gamer psycho for murderer and gamer for black because of the massacres on Africa or for jew for the recent war on Palestine and think if you are ok with that comparisson.
You're creating a straw man by comparing the perception of the gaming community to a racist/nationalistic perception of an oppressed group. Gamers aren't oppressed. In fact, part of the issue is that the vocal, dickish portion of the gaming community is usually white male, which is probably the least oppressed of any group in the world, bar none. No one is saying all gamers are psychos either, what is happening is that people are coming out and saying they're against the community's tendency to respond to criticism with hate. There's a difference between saying "gamers are psychos" and "the gaming community is pretty hateful."
I would ask, what could be done about it that hasn't already been tried? The people who spew such vitriol certainly don't care that their actions are condemned by the larger community because they thrive off of negative emotions. I'd be the last one to say that it's something we should just accept, but at the same time what can actually be done? I'm just saying, I've tried this "calling out bad behavior when you see it" thing and it has never produced a successful outcome, at worst it just gives the troll(s) more attention that they desperately crave.
