Is it just me, or have things gotten a little uncomfortable around here lately? No, I am not making yet another website redesign joke. I mean our gamer culture, and I think itâs time we had a talk.
Video gamers have had a weird past month or two. Fans who follow the culture closely online, whether thatâs through the Twitter feeds of their favorite personalities, the comments sections on their daily blogs or in the threads of the forums they haunt, mightâve noticed a certain degree of cultural friction happening.
Is Bulletstorm too offensive? Is Duke Nukem sexist? And just what the hell is this Dickwolves thing about? If youâre late to the party, just Google some words from that string and youâll catch up. Or just read on. Because everyoneâs talking about stuff like this, and it seems weâve all got something to say.
Plenty of gamers would rather not be part of a culture where the products celebrate toilet humor; the idea itâs tasteless as all hell to have âGang Bangâ as a skill in Bulletstorm is certainly a valid perspective. Plenty of businesspeople think itâs sexist or exclusionary to have a press event in a strip club, as Duke Nukem did. I mean, why do we really need the old Duke anyway â havenât âweâ grown out of games that act as hyperbolic fantasies for boys who want to kill things and look at boobs?
https://lastchance.cc/duke-nukem-forever-is-a-tawdry-sometimes-gratifying-s-5755039%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Plenty of gamers would rather not be part of a community where a person, concerned about rape victims, can say she thought a rape joke in a video game webcomic wasnât funny â and then other gamers react by going to her blog and saying they wish her rapist had killed her. This is a thing that really happened, people. An ugly-ugly disgusting thing. Whatâs with âourâ culture, you might ask, where people just want to play violent âbro-shootersâ and bathe in blood sport, sex jokes and cruel language? Where are âweâ going wrong? Whatâs happening to the video game community?
Well, for one thing, we also live in a world where somebody can go on Fox Newsâ website and say that some vague amorphous collective of hypersexed and overviolent video games is leading todayâs youth to commit rape â and there is still an entire legion of Americans to whom this seems like a valid argument
We also are part of a world where some people would like to see games as art â original, spiritual creations the product of an artistic mind, that test the boundaries of the familiar â and where some people donât. Some people are having fun with their video games, thank you very much, and they donât see why Jason Rohrerâs Passage, a low-res, minute-long game where you basically walk from one end of the screen to the other and die, holds any kind of entertainment value.
The thing is, almost everybody is right, here. Me, Iâm on the side of art games, for example. I believe that interactive entertainment as a medium has only begun to be explored, and I like to see games that try to represent the human condition in a broad range of colors. But I also like to shoot things. I aim for the head. As a woman in a field long-dominated by men, I really hate seeing games that realize female characters as shallow constructs equipped with breast physics, there to be objectified. But I also love Bayonetta, absurd naked hair wolves and all. I didnât think she was sexist, I thought she was stylish and fun.
Most of us have met someone whoâs tried to make us feel like the fact we play games makes us some kind of weirdo.
Thatâs just me, though. Bulletstormâs not for me, but maybe itâs for you. It can be very tempting to look at all the culture clash weâve been having in our community, hold up a game like Bulletstorm, and say âhey, stuff like this is the problem.â Itâs easy to look at Cliff Blezsinskiâs devil-may-care attitude and big personality and say âyouâre making it worseâ.
At the same time, it can also be easy to feel very tired of having to defend your hobby regularly, to feel like people think youâre a sicko or a potential serial killer just because you want to blow up a virtual warzone for a couple of hours at the end of your day or because you and your close Xbox Live buddies love rude inside jokes.
It might be annoying when you really just want to play â it is called a game, after all â and people are standing in the background urging you to consider art. Or to be a role model, when all you want to do is make a webcomic. People are calling you a bro-jock-douchebag or assuming youâre immature or stupid just because youâre excited about Duke Nukem after a decade of waiting? That sucks.
The one thing of which all of us participating in this cultural friction are guilty is a failure of perspective.
How many articles have you read about how âgames are for everyone now?â And yet we still expect that âeveryoneâ means weâre all the same. We make fun of people who enjoy FarmVille like theyâve betrayed us somehow; we get upset about the rise of social gaming like itâs corrupting something that belongs to us, instead of helping it grow. When someoneâs enjoying something that weâre not, we lay the mantle of obligation down on them and we expect them to change their mind. We expect them to agree with us, else fail to be a real gamer. I donât even like the word âgamerâ anymore, because inherent in it is that obligation.
I donât even like the word âgamerâ anymore.
If you say a game is too violent for you, you become somehow an enemy of âgamersâ, even if you like to play other things with near-religious fervor. If you speak up to criticize an issue happening in the gaming community, youâre flooded with troll attacks for betraying âgamers.â
Donât you get it?
We all play video games. Weâre just all different. Weâre each a gamer in our own individual way.
Just because something offends your taste doesnât mean it lacks the right to exist for people who think itâs fun or important. There are caveats to this, of course â no one should ever, ever have to endure slurs, discrimination, threats or hate-speech because of gaming. It should never cross your mind to verbally assault or harass a stranger on the internet because they said something you donât like about video games or because they approach them differently than you do. Thatâs just complete madness. Like, stop it. Seriously.
No one should feel thereâs no place for them. No one should have to swallow media or culture that they disapprove of or else feel like they donât deserve to participate. If you donât feel like you belong among Bulletstorm players, for example, there should be somewhere else for you.
Letâs allow and encourage the art and business of game development to make places for all kinds of people. Letâs stop feeling obligated to present a united front; we are not all one single audience. One game is not responsible for representing all games. Your fellow players do not owe you anything â except for basic respect and human decency. There is nothing to attack, and you have nothing to defend yourself against. Donât take sides; enjoy what you love and let other people do the same. Just play. And be kind to each other, if you can. Thatâd be really nice.
Leigh Alexander is news director for Gamasutra, author of the Sexy Videogameland blog, and freelances reviews and criticism to a variety of outlets. Her monthly column at Kotaku deals with cultural issues surrounding games and gamers. She can be reached at leighalexander1 AT gmail DOT com.
