[Rant] Why should we tolerate abuse in virtual environments?

I really don't feel like you can be victimized in online games unless you're running around pretty clueless and opening yourself up to being taken advantage of. Of course, the only game that I've played extensively in the last 5 years is World of Warcraft -- and there really isn't much about WoW that leave you open to abuse. You can ignore players so that verbal harassment isn't an issue, and you can play on servers where PvP isn't allowed. If you choose to play on a PvP server, you really have no right to complain about enemy players attacking you.

Naturally in any type of game where the intent is, ultimately, competition for the best gear and the most prestige, you're going to have conflict between players in some form, whether it simply be smack talking and epeen contests to actual player versus player fighting (assuming the game mechanics allow it).

It sounds like the ideal game for the author of this article would be something more along the lines of The Sims Online or Second Life, where people can interact online without the purpose of competing with one another.

But it's hard to say what exactly this person is talking about, because everything is just vague reference with very little information to back up claims. MUDs, while still played by many people, are very archaic in terms of programming and are therefore easily exploitable. Multi-million dollar online MMOs tend to have a little more security in place, and people who manage to find hacks for these games are usually reprimanded with bans, any damage they cause to other players being reversed. So I don't really see an issue there.

I understand that there are people who enjoy the social aspect of games more than the competitive aspects, and that's fine. But the ultimate underlying truth is that, no matter how relaxed and casual the playerbase might be, what they're ultimately playing is a game. And I, personally, am hard pressed to think of a game where there aren't winners and losers, whether or not the game has a true "ending." In MMOs, the winners are the players that have managed to climb the social strata and have earned the respect of the community at-large. The "winners" are the people that come away in the end, having fun playing the game however they like. The "losers" are the people who let their guard down, and take the game so seriously as to let it ruin their fun or negatively affect their life. If someone is "raped" in Second Life, they really are taking the game far too seriously, and I would suspect that they need some sort of help in real life. It's not like you hear about rape cases running rampant in that game.

All this really seems like the bellyaching of a pseudo-gamer who has yet to realize that, yes, unfortunately the core audience of computer games are teenage to mid-twenties males, who have big egos. Everything is a competition. Your enjoyment of games depends on how you can adapt to the playing environment.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Dev: I think that's because XBOX owners tend to be douchebags.

oh yes i did go there.

To address Skexis' point (if I'm reading him right):

While it would be ideal for many to move away from the sophomoric humor in the gaming community, it's just a really hard thing to do when the core demographic for video games is males from age 14-30 or whatever it is. It's no different than going to a frat party and hearing nothing but guys talk about big tits, bong hits and the latest Dane Cook movie.

Unfortunately, it should be so easy to just remove these types of people from a gaming community, but there are always going to be spoilers that go against the conventional norm. I've met some very immature people who are 20+ years older than me while playing online games. So there really is nothing realistic that people can do to eliminate this persona from gaming. It simply is not realistic to constantly police players and watch every single thing they say or do on the offchance that they might offend someone.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Devoxycontin

You're really contributing to the thread there mister. And Xbox live isn't the only medium I've experienced sexism and harassment on. Far from it.

You're just a victim of the demographic. And until there's a realistic way to make everyone shut up and play nice, there's unfortunately nothing you can do. I'm contributing because, unfortunately, what I said is true. If you're not a douchebag you shouldn't be offended by what I said.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Skexis

I'm not advocating complete fluffiness or constant policing. The question remains why many of these things are given the header "boys will be boys" and then turned a blind eye to.

Eliminating the person isn't realistic, but I think redressing their behavior is.

Well, like I said...when these "boys" are your core demographic...you can't just change them all. That's going to require change on a much larger societal level...and I don't think that there's anything that gaming companies can do to address that.

If you take issue with the way people act in video game environments, you'd also likewise be offended by the way people act many highschool/college aged parties.

Gaming is a huge business. If companies start banning people from their games because of any possible thing they might say or do that could offend someone else, they stand to lose lots of money. As unfortunate as that may seem...companies are not going to shoot themselves in the foot. It's far easier and much more profitable to provide means for the potentially offended player to protect themselves, usually done by adding text filters, ignore functions, or simply telling these offended players not to use voicechat or not play at all. Because they're not the core audience, and the company doesn't mind brushing them off to keep the cashflow coming in.

But saying that we as gamers shouldn't accept this type of attitude is silly. Until there's a significant demographic shift in who plays video games, it's all going to fall on deaf ears. You can't tell boys to play nice when they're just playing with a bunch of other boys that do the same thing.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Devoxycontin

Guru: I think you're ignoring the other demographic that's growing in number, girls. Most of us stay silent and take gender neutral names because of the bullshit we receive if we don't, but we're out there. Most I've had the pleasure in playing with don't partake in swearing the other team out, teabagging or cheating. And many of us don't play fucking Barbie games, we like FPS's, racing and fighting games.

It's true, gaming companies care more about profits at the moment then general customer service. But more and more I've noticed live cracking down on real assholes, all you have to do is capture it.

Dev, I never said there weren't a fair number of girl gamers. But it's still nothing compared to the number of males. I was just saying that it's going to take a while before the numbers even remotely even out to the point where you can expect to see any sort of noticeable change. That's why nice guys are the "rare occasion" right now. But you never know in the future, if girls keep cropping up in gaming communities.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I guess you weren't around for all the Tetris Attack ZSNES smack talk back in the day, Malahk.

People do enjoy being assholes. And the assholery is overexemplified when you're playing a game that has you killing each other in various ways. If shooting rocket launchers at each others' heads hoping for a "M-M-M-MONSTER KILL KILL KILL" isn't a testosterone pumping circle jerk, then I don't know what is. BEEFSTEAK BEEFSTEAK!

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

But people I know abuse the AIM warning system all the time. How would something similar not be abused in the same fashion?

(I never really understood the AIM warning thing anyway. AIM is a terrible program).

How ya doing, buddy?

You can likewise speculate all you want about ways to supposedly place some sort of rule and structure in video games that punishes people for the type of people that they are.

But the point of contention is that that type of person is the majority of the gamers in our current society, and until this majority either has a swift and all-encompassing change of heart (highly unlikely) or they're no longer the majority...there's not going to be a single way to remove the competitive and assholic attitude that they represent.

A way to warn people in the style of AIM, even with single-use-per-day restrictions would just result in these same, immature gamers forming clans and collectively warn-bombing the same person just to get them banned. And all for what? To get a laugh at the expense of said person, and ruin their day.

It's unfortunate that you have to suck it up and grin and bear it...but if you're going to join public games with people that you don't know, that's the risk (and it's mighty risky) that you have to take...at least with the current state of the gamer population climate. But that's not to say that these people aren't unavoidable. Private games, private servers, ignore features and many other options are available to people that either can't handle or don't want to subject themselves to immaturity.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

You are a man of faith, I assume?

I'm skeptical of anything until it has been done successfully. Seeing is believing, and theories of utopia are a dime a dozen.

Which is not to say that I don't understand the point in trying. But it's just so highly unlikely that anything would successfully curtail what I consider to be a byproduct of competitive environments such as online video games -- what I call the epeen effect.

Jam it back in, in the dark.