A Call to Arms for Decent Men

edited in General
Source == Make me a Sammich

Author == Ernest Adams

Extra Credits video on the same topic, and is mentioned in the article.

Normally I write for everybody, but this month’s column is a call to arms, addressed to the reasonable, decent, but much too silent majority of male gamers and developers.

Guys, we have a problem. We are letting way too many boys get into adulthood without actually becoming men. We’re seeing more and more adult males around who are not men.They’re as old as men, but they have the mentality of nine-year-old boys. They’re causing a lot of trouble, both in general and for the game industry specifically. We need to deal with this.

Comments

  • edited
    Eh, I'll be honest... I'm really not sure what this guy is on about. If anything, I've been annoyed by female gamers because some (not all) of them have over-inflated egos from all the male attention they get.

    I mean, go and create a female character in an MMO and tell people you're a woman. You'll certainly get more gold. And quite a few times in TF2 over voice chat, you'll hear a soft voice to which a male player will ask "Hey are you a chick?" ... and interest is lost as the response "No, I'm a boy" arrives. Unless it really is a girl, in which case the voice chat becomes far more vibrant. Hmm. That might be a kind of sexism, but it's not at all what the article preaches against.

    I do agree that a majority of chat rooms, forums and online communities are frighteningly immature. Sure, some of it has to do with immature man-children but I believe that a huge part of it is also the lack of face-to-face interaction. Because then people behave as though they live in their own little world and as though their opinions are paramount, just because their inhibitions aren't as fired up as they would be. Because you don't have to deal with people face to face, you can say whatever you want without consequence. On that note, I agree that many gamers need to grow up.

    Though I'm not sure I feel any responsibility towards "bringing up" anybody via forums or games. Bleh.





  • Jdog said:
    Eh, I'll be honest... I'm really not sure what this guy is on about.
    Jdog said:
    I do agree that a majority of chat rooms, forums and online communities are frighteningly immature. . .
    Contradicting yourself there ;)

    You said it yourself quite clearly that these 'gamers' need to grow up. As a developer, and a player, it should be your responsibility to enforce a social normal of good behaviour.

    I play quite a bit of ARTS games (DotA, and LoL) and the behaviour of the players is completely reprehensible. Before either the article or video (which I highly recommend you watch as well) I was dealing justice to the 12 year old of the internet.

    It is actually rather amusing to see what happens when you grammar nazi a troll. But there is a view that the gaming community, at large, are trolls. Such a view is not good for anyone it means less people will join in the community.

    I have a really simplistic view when it comes to a player code.

    Have fun, and treat people fairly.

    ---

    As an aside I hope no one takes your view of women playing video games seriously. It is rather idiotic.
  • @jdog: Wait, you mean that the idea of suddenly interacting completely differently with someone because people found out she has a vagina, despite that having no gameplay impact at all, might just be sexism? ;) Plus the idea that it's "male attention" that boosts "female egos" is also a teensy bit telling. No worries though, this sort of thing is how we learn to go "Oh. Oh I see." And yes, some immature women do use the attention that comes from sexualising themselves in a mostly male-dominated setting, but they're doing that because they're immature and craving attention, just like most trolls. Help them by treating them normally :)

    In general, games tend to inflate people's senses of self worth and empowerment. This is totally a good thing most of the time, it's a needed interaction and can really improve people's quality of life. I agree with the Extra Credits view that it's also the thing that, coupled with a lack of consequences, produces completely crap behavior. I make a point of using any and all reporting systems that I have available when someone is a total asshole for no reason.

    I have a bit of a theory that the dilution of personal responsibility and power if MOBA games (LoL, DotA) is one of the factors that creates horrible behavior: Because the game relies on a team dynamic and there's an inherent trust offered to people that "agree" to participate in the next 40 minutes of gameplay together, players feel doubly slighted when that trust is "broken" through leaving or not meeting the skill requirements that they expect of the people they trust to play with them. Often all you have to do to turn an abusive situation around is say "Hey, people are always going to be learning, give tips instead of insults and they'll get better faster".

    In 1-on-1 games the bad behavior is usually just butt-hurt ;)
  • On a related note, it disturbs me how often I say something that I didn't think was sexist, and didn't intend to be sexist, but actually was in retrospect. In the game industry, and outside of it. So I'm all for a good, hard fight for gender equality.

    I just don't think we go about it the right way necessarily. I'm not saying this is the right way, but one of the social theories I studied back in school was 'queer theory', where they attempted to kill off these prejudices by blurring the lines to such a great extent that you couldn't clearly define what the prejudice was any longer.

    The example they use is how sex isn't really as simple as male or female; that there are people who are in between; that it isn't a boolean/binary thing, but rather a spectrum. And then to exaggerate this by dressing to be so ambiguous that you're really not sure what their sex is. Which... kind of resonated with me, having had an article written in SACM before, about my having a feminine online presence while being very much male and heterosexual IRL. :P

    An example I wrote about (though I'd be surprised if someone hadn't tried that before): instead of having checkboxes for White, Black, Coloured, Asian, we have an HSV colour picker, or use hex codes. I think it'd be a lot more difficult to have prejudice against people who have #ca9a90 colour skin (under 5,500K white light).

    I mean, in a way, jumping in to defend women, while honourable, seems a bit self-defeating sometimes, because it really seems to further emphasise the differences between men and women, instead of blurring the lines to the point that these differences become more and more imperceivable.

    Again, not saying this is necessarily the way to go or anything, but it was a really interesting approach when I studied it. :)
  • I agree that the general idea is to try and push people (all people) to behave better towards all other people. Sure, sometimes you have to engage on the axis of discrimination, but there are always things that everyone could do better. Including me ;)

    We used to play TF2 with "gay." prefixed to our nicknames because so many people were using the word as a bad thing to call people. It was pretty awesome seeing half the scoreboard sporting gay tags. We'd win a lot too, which made people start asking if they could join the "clan". We welcomed them to the gay with open arms ;)

    And wow, some of the stuff people said. And some of the ways we'd turn their anger into humor. Miktar is one gifted fag...
  • ^ I lol'd.

    --
    Actually, the folks in the queer theory movement did a very similar thing with the word "queer", in an attempt to nullify any/all of its negative connotations. They'd use it in many different contexts, all of them positive. I don't know if it worked completely, but I do think it helped a lot. :)
  • Oh wow I remember the gay days. Those were good times.

    And I totally thought Elyaradine was a girl. Ha trip down memory lane this!

    ---

    I have to wonder this social behaviour by 'gamers' a reverse victim-hood that because they were bullied in person. Now that they are given a realm where they are powerful, and can assert, a dominance over people that they simply do.

    It's always perplexes me why people yell 'n00b' (my current most hated word) at a player instead of helping them since helping them will benefit your team.

    Screaming noob at a new player is about as useful as keying your car when you get a flat tire.
  • @Karuji said:
    Screaming noob at a new player is about as useful as keying your car when you get a flat tire.
    Yeah, but it shows that fucking car who's boss.
    Thanked by 2Karuji skinklizzard
  • ^^ :-D

    There are two occasions that I can think of that I tried to educate people on how to act in online games. In both these cases it wasn't about gender/sex issues it was just general abuse that I couldn't ignore. I one of the cases the person started to apologize and said that he/she was sorry. And in the other the abuse just shifted towards me.

    In both these cases I came to the conclusion that what I said had absolutely no long term effect. I'm pretty sure that the people just went on their merry way and insulted/abused other players as soon as I wasn't in their game anymore.

    My personal opinion is that there is no way that an anonymous player can teach another anonymous player respect and how to behave towards other people. That has to come from another source like friends/family. You can be sure that my children/friends will get a smack upside the head(verbal or physical) if they act this way towards other people.

    Also, this:
    On a related note, it disturbs me how often I say something that I didn't think was sexist, and didn't intend to be sexist, but actually was in retrospect. In the game industry, and outside of it.
  • @Rigormortis that is why Mr. Adams says that he uses his real name and picture. Since then he is not an anonymous source but an actual person.

    I cannot know what long term affect of my actions on the perpetrators of these actions are, but I know that I have influenced silent players to speak out against this behaviour, and that is the more important issue. If the community at large does not condone these actions then the developers will be forced into monitoring the levels at which a player has been muted, and bring punitive measures against such a player.

    I do not simply person these action to punish troll, but to show other's that they should not sit idly by while trolls spout vehement nonsense.
    All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing
    ---

    As an aside you can use they instead of he/she. They serves as a gender neutral second person singular reference :)
  • @Karuji said:
    As an aside you can use they instead of he/she. They serves as a gender neutral second person singular reference
    Noted :)
  • My personal opinion is that there is no way that an anonymous player can teach another anonymous player respect and how to behave towards other people. That has to come from another source like friends/family. You can be sure that my children/friends will get a smack upside the head(verbal or physical) if they act this way towards other people.
    I disagree with that. My friend, Miktar, has this really awesome way of playing games with people that really just makes them lighten up and treat people better. All he does is honestly praise someone for doing well. And he's usually good - better than me at least - at most games, so hearing this dude that wipes the floor with you saying "Hah! Great shot!" when you rail him? That's amazing. And totally raises the respect of everyone playing. It wasn't until I pointed it out to him that he even realised he was doing it, that's just kinda how he is.

    This sort of positive vibe making everyone more awesome sort of thing is something I've also found in skating (disclaimer, I'm an aggressive rollerblader, we call it skating, sorry for any confusion). When I first started, I was afraid to skate around while the bigger kids were doing amazing tricks that I couldn't do in a million years. One day I didn't see this one "pro" guy and I kept trying this spin (literally just a 180 over a little jump) and falling, but when I eventually didn't fall, this pro guy suddenly started cheering for me! It was amazing. After that I started seeing how that's what all the skaters did for each other - they kept track of each other's skills and difficulties, so they'd go completely ape when you landed a trick that was hard FOR YOU, irrespective if they could do it with their eyes closed or not.

    It's that kind of positive reinforcement that I've tried to transplant to this community. And I've also used it to change the mood of an entire server. Sure, it takes effort and the mood will quickly revert back to asshole-mode if you don't go there regularly before it's self-sustaining, but it does work.
  • @dislekcia, I hope to one day meet Miktar. He sounds very likable :) I try to do what he does, but it is still conscious exercise for me most of the time.

    It's good to disagree with me(I seldom find that I'm correct :P) but you described situations where you either knew the person, or you were part of a community. In which case the anonymity decreases significantly. Which was what I was trying to get at. The less anonymous a person is to you, the more likely you are to listen to their opinions.

    The examples which I used were both cases of text in a chat box with screen names. That was the sort of anonymity I was talking about. Maybe I should have explained it better?

    Also, I followed most of your posts from SAGD as well, and respect the way you respond to people. It was because of this consistent posting that you broke some of the anonymity with me, and why your posts will have a bigger impact on me than a non-active member.

    It is also why I am trying to be active on this site, so that people will get to know me and hold me accountable for stupid things I say or do, and so that I can hold people accountable.
  • Oh no, this has worked really well in totally anonymous situations too :) Especially in games... But you're right, reputation and repetition are your best friends when doing this sort of thing. And you can't help building up good rep if you keep encouraging people to be awesome and then congratulating them when they do!
  • edited
    You guys are all awesome by just being here :) (as in participating and *being* here)

    Even when you troll (not particularly talking about anyone or anything really, but we all troll :P)

    Group hug :)
  • @Karuji don't really think I was contradicting myself so much, maybe to paraphrase: I agree with parts of the article, but not the general gist of it.

    @dislekcia well yes, that is sexism... but then, I never said it was a bad thing. Frankly, I think gender distinctions are a good thing to a degree. Social norms may be one thing, but nobody can deny their own biology. It's not abnormal to treat the people we want to sleep with a little bit different... thinking about it, that's probably a good thing.

    I remember Miktar from TF2 ,and recall him as a nice guy. But then, I recall 95% of players there fondly. However, I think something like DOTA is another story... it's partly the nature of the game as you mentioned, but the community is far more "rotten".

    So, of course... being nice to people usually pays itself back, I agree with that. But some people are just cunts of the worst order online (a few names even from TF2 spring to mind) and you won't change that.

    Anyway, what I disagree with on the whole here is the whole sense of social responsibility. I don't have that... at least, not in games. I do try to be nice and friendly, and generally not take things too seriously or personally.

    Because I think the bottom line is that most people are playing to have fun. And if somebody cannot lighten up or stop trolling... well, that's what bans and mute functions are there for. And if a community is just too awful, I have no issue with ditching the said game and moving elsewhere.
  • @JDog then I would implore you to use better phrasing in your posts. "I'm really not sure what this guy is on about." implies a lack of understand the point of the argument, as opposed to a lack of agreement with the article, which you stated in your clarification.
    but nobody can deny their own biology.
    Transgendered people do.

    Enforcing good behaviour is something we, as responsible gamers, must do. And if you are wondering why we must watch this video (it's not gaming but it's a great message about social responsibility.)


  • I think we need to clarify some terms.(All are google define searches)

    Sex : Either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and many other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions

    Gender : The state of being male or female (typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones)

    Sexism : Prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex

    So, @Jdog sexism is always bad. Being of a different sex is not bad, it is indeed neccesary for people of different sex for the species to procreate. Treating someone negatively because of their sex, is sexism.

    @Karuji, I'm not really sure how this video relates to the discussion. I'm not talking about the health vs gaming. I just don't know what you are trying to say with it.
  • edited
    @Rigormortis it's about social responsibility. If you would actively discourage a child from taking an action it would be to encourage a social norm since children are more impressionable.

    So by inference if one were to tell a child to behave in a certain way that should be a, hypothetical, social norm. By extension one should try and uphold such a social norm in a community where one is a member. If we are judged, as gamers, by the foul mouthed degenerates of our community than by inductive reasoning people may see gamers, at large, as a bunch foul mouth miscreants.

    And if gamers are seen as loud mouthed miscreants how do we convince non-gamers to be gamers? How do we share our medium with these people?

    And given that this is forum of people who make games. The social view of our medium is definitely most relevant to us!

    To paraphrase the Extra Credits episode. Games have been the place where people were accepted irrelevant of who you are.

    Wouldn't that be a lovely social norm to have? And if we would tell children to strive to such a thing we should we not tell other people.
  • Right, makes more sense now. Thanks.
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