Rant: Video Game "discussion" has become way too divisive

[inpurpleshadows]

If there's one piece of media I love experiencing and talking about, it's video games. With so many genres to experience, so many worlds to explore and so much amazing music, video games are a diverse medium, one that I consider an art form. I really like hearing others opinions on the games I played, even if they were to disagree with me because it's really cool to hear about an experience on a game that was different from mine. However, I feel like certain video games and the discussions that surround them have become overwhelmingly polarizing. I can understand why some games, especially story-heavy games like The Last of Us Part II have become divisive, particularly in the way they treat previous games in the same series. But in todays age, discourse of said games is polarizing, and at times, toxic. I am of the belief that subjectivity is implied 99.9 percent of the time, but the more I browse threads on Steam, Reddit or *shudder* Twitter, the more that belief fades. My biggest problem with these threads is how polarizing they are because there is no middle ground or agreement to disagree. The creatures who inhabit these forums will be at each others throats, all because of... opinions... on a fictional piece of media. I get that many have the tendency to get emotionally attached to the stuff we play, including me, but there's no need to get overly defensive over something you like or be extremely harsh over something you dislike. My solution to this kind of polarizing discussion is to agree to disagree if you can't come to a general consensus or make a more balanced analysis by taking both good and bad qualities of a specific game.

Unfortunately, many would probably ignore this post or even be completely unaware of its existence. I briefly mentioned TLOU Part II and how it divided the gaming community into factions, because COVID and the Internet took away the ability to have a friendly discussion (somehow). When I say this game was divisive, I don't just mean it was a love or hate situation, I mean that people got harassed over it. I never played the game myself so I can't really say anything about it. But from what I heard on the battlefield formerly known as Twitter, the developers and others who worked on the game received lots of harassment which knowing how the developers were forced to spend multiple hours a day to work on a game in time for its deadline, is probably, definitely a terrible thing to do. At the same time, anyone who offered genuine criticism to TLOU Part II were labelled as bigots. No matter what you said on the game, there was no winning, even if you were genuine in the way you expressed your thoughts on it.

It's not just TLOU II that is divisive, but pretty much every major game release in the past decade has been met with this kind of reception. I'm not saying divisive games didn't exist back then as there were a few games that were polarizing among their respective fanbases like Mario Sunshine and Zelda Wind Waker. The difference is that I've barely seen anyone get into a fight over those games. This kind of mentality has extended into reviews, where reviewers will sort games into two categories. One category is for games labelled as "flawless masterpieces" and the other is for "iredeemable disapointments". Many of these reviewers "critiquing" these games are very melodramatic and throw hissy fits under the geist of "comedic" "satire". The worst part is the reviews comment section. If you were to browse the comment section of a review, you would notice that a large majority of the comments agree with the reviewer's opinion. And that's another thing. So many people on the Internet are so used to being in their little isolated echo chamber that any opinion that opposes their own is the "wrong" opinion. It's a shame this is the case because if one were to actually listen to a differing perspective on a game they played, they would be able to get a different view on how one reviews or analyzes games. I know this post got a bit ranty, but I needed to get it off my chest. If you're reading this and made it this far, please be more balanced in your view of games, don't harass othet people, and for the love of Gabe don't turn the replies into a Twitter thread.

[crunchyfrog]

Psychlapse님이 먼저 게시:

We needed a tl:dr there.

I've pretty much retired from all forms of social media now, mainly because of the drama and facepalm that seem to have exploded over the last few years.

Simple fact is that as a species, we're just not that smart or nice. We like to create divides and poo fling at each other while screeching.

We've been on this earth for thousands of years, and yet here in 2023 we still can't get over skin colour, or whether something is dangling between our legs or not, or what we do with it and to who.

Picking sides in video games and screeching about it in an arena where consequences are few and far between is easy and reasonably risk free, hence why you see a lot of it.

I'd go a little further than that.

You shouldn't have to retire entirely.

You can pick diligently.

Sure, if you've been around people for any time you'll realise that there's arseholes, and they have a horrible ability to be few and cause a lot of trouble. You realise this at school.

But here's the kicker - you should never just go "hang it all I'm ignoring everybody" because you are hurting yourself a lot of the time.

What you should do is learn how to pick and choose.

As I said earlier, I've worked in selling to the public (fruit and veg trader), DJed, worked in insurance and law, worked in certain disabled charities, and worked in local politics.

In those you get to meet all sorts. Politics being the obvious potential for the worst, and music festivals being where you have to corral a lot of drunk people.

It's not difficult to learn to spot the rseholes, either ignore them or learn to divert them, and find the good people. Because there are loads out there, and those are the diamonds who you will make lifelong friends with.


Two of my best friends are punks in a band that has been around since the first days of punk. They still tour and do their own things. They're smart, they do their own thing and I love them to bits. If I'd taken the route of ignoring everyone I'd never have met them.

[Psychlapse]

crunchyfrog님이 먼저 게시:

Psychlapse님이 먼저 게시:

We needed a tl:dr there.

I've pretty much retired from all forms of social media now, mainly because of the drama and facepalm that seem to have exploded over the last few years.

Simple fact is that as a species, we're just not that smart or nice. We like to create divides and poo fling at each other while screeching.

We've been on this earth for thousands of years, and yet here in 2023 we still can't get over skin colour, or whether something is dangling between our legs or not, or what we do with it and to who.

Picking sides in video games and screeching about it in an arena where consequences are few and far between is easy and reasonably risk free, hence why you see a lot of it.

I'd go a little further than that.

You shouldn't have to retire entirely.

You can pick diligently.

Sure, if you've been around people for any time you'll realise that there's arseholes, and they have a horrible ability to be few and cause a lot of trouble. You realise this at school.

But here's the kicker - you should never just go "hang it all I'm ignoring everybody" because you are hurting yourself a lot of the time.

What you should do is learn how to pick and choose.

As I said earlier, I've worked in selling to the public (fruit and veg trader), DJed, worked in insurance and law, worked in certain disabled charities, and worked in local politics.

In those you get to meet all sorts. Politics being the obvious potential for the worst, and music festivals being where you have to corral a lot of drunk people.

It's not difficult to learn to spot the rseholes, either ignore them or learn to divert them, and find the good people. Because there are loads out there, and those are the diamonds who you will make lifelong friends with.


Two of my best friends are punks in a band that has been around since the first days of punk. They still tour and do their own things. They're smart, they do their own thing and I love them to bits. If I'd taken the route of ignoring everyone I'd never have met them.

Yeah I get where you're coming from. Irl I'm a middle aged hard-core introvert- I can function just fine in society, but I don't want people near me unless they need to be. I don't have friends at all irl - and that's a conscious choice. I tended to do most of my socialising online as I have more control over it. When I'm done I just hit the off button.

I just have very low tolerance for BS, and in that respect I felt I knew where OP was coming from too. I just find it drains me after a while, which just gets worse the older I get.

It's absolutely a me problem, I understand I'm not the rule.

[SLG]

There is a simple solution for this. Just play your games. Do not interact by going to game forums, sites, blogs, Youtube channels, etc. Yes, I know that in certain games there are online interactions for games. I just do not play those games. If a game has that option, I just play the non-online option.

If you are trying to make friends through games, do not do it online. Interact outside of the online communities. Send letters, talki on the phone, email, etc.