I have only recently started playing console games again, after several decades of mostly ignoring them. And when right wing religious fundy types try to place primary blame on video games for the stuff they don’t like, I’m right there with everyone else I know, in saying they’re dead wrong.
But for all of that, Im a little bewildered at how videogaming has become an identity. When I was playing missile command on my home deck, there was never any question that this was make believe, that the high score didnt really mean all that much. That it was only a game.
Swatting and Doxxing are behaviors that don’t show up in other communities, and it bothers me that this isnt taken more seriously by the industry.
There is a particularly obnoxious kind of entitlement emanating from certain videogame cultures, that -imho- arise when players forget that their accomplishments in-game do not translate into real world accomplishements. The “high score” feature does not lend gravity to one’s arguments.
And as Ive been playing games like Halo and Far Cry and Bioshock, it really hits me how the writing in these games deals with some pretty fucking heavy, grownup shit… in a very casual, offhanded way… in a way that seems designed to make the player feel like a tough, cynical, hardened soul -in game- and it doesnt surprise me at all when immature, unformed teenaged boys start to take themselves as seriously as one of these characters in one of these games.
There are lots of choices to make in deciding what to do about these problems, I dont expect people to agree with what I want to do about it… but hell yes, there most certainly is a problem here. The video game industry is profiting from cultivating a destructive worldview, and I want to see more pushback.
