Reddit is full of hate like this, but this is all from Reddit’s gaming subreddit.
Gamergate. The word elicits cringes from anyone who knows it. It all started with a guy posting a story about how his girlfriend cheated on him with a Kotaku writer. She, herself was a game developer, one who had already faced harassment online for having the audacity of being a girl who made games that weren’t about violence or quick reactions. Her game was reviewed very well by someone else at Kotaku, not the person she cheated on her boyfriend with. But it didn’t matter. Girl bad. Boy good. Gamergate was born. They claimed they were about ethics in gaming journalism. They were really about harassing women. It grew to be about harassing any “social justice warrior.” Any person who wasn’t a straight, white, man making games or starring in games faced harassment from the “movement.”
That attitude, the one proclaiming that games that don’t involve violent, white, men as primary characters are automatically bad or “social justice,” spread. It found a home on Reddit, a site already rife with hate speech.There, they flourished under a subreddit dedicated to gaming, r/Games.
The mods had enough.
On April Fools, instead of a joke, they shut down r/Games. The goal, they said, was to bring awareness to the subreddit’s toxicity, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, “or a host of other discriminatory practices.”
The sub reacted, predictably, with toxicity, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and hate. For a day of silence.
Will it Change Anything?
Probably not. The worst people have been banned from r/Games before. They just make new accounts and come back. They’re immature and lack a self esteem, and want nothing more than to spread misery and hate. Though they make up a minority of gamers, they are vocal. They harass and assault people, call in bomb threats, and put people’s lives in actual danger over minor things they consider transgressions.
By shutting down r/Games, the moderators sent a message to the subreddit. This behavior won’t be tolerated. It could, over time, lead to a change in the culture of gamers online. No more large fights over minor things, or hate for a game including women, people of color, or LGBTQ people. We could see a shift in gaming back towards socially healthy people.
But it’s going to take a long time, and a lot more effort from Reddit and other cultural centers to change anything. Reddit, as they’ve displayed before, does little to remove hateful comments and hate speech across the platform.
“Gamers”
Some of these are legitimate concerns. Many aren’t. The review has nothing to do with Borderlands 2 though.
It’s been a running joke online that these are the kind of people gamers are. There’s even a subreddit dedicated to mocking the hateful “gamers” from r/Games. They’ve earned the stereotype. My friend sent me a link last night about gamers, upset that Borderlands 3 will be an Epic Store exclusive for 6 months, are already bombing the reviews for the game—which hasn’t come out yet—on Steam. They also hit previous Borderlands games, including the original, sequel, and pre-sequel.
They’re this angry about needing to buy a game through a particular store. A game that’s been in development for years, many years, and they can’t even wait 6 more months for the store of their choosing. As someone who prefers to just play games in macOS, the same platform I use for everything else, I find their lack of patience laughable.
These are the same gamers who complain about the monopoly Valve and Steam have over gaming, but then get mad when a company does something about that monopoly. It’s ridiculous. The Epic Store, by the way, is the only place to get the incredibly popular Fortnite as well. They also give developers a larger cut of the sales of their own games, especially if they used Epic’s Unreal Engine to make the game.
Screenshot from the Borderlands 3 trailer.
I myself am a huge Borderlands fan and was actually playing Borderlands 2 last night when my friend messaged me about Borderlands “fans” tanking the game on Steam. I responded “Gamers are the worst people.”
These are the people I’m talking about. They bomb reviews for a game that isn’t out yet, or bomb reviews of Captain Marvel because the movie is, through subtext, about female empowerment. It dares show a strong woman. They harass black women online for speaking up about racism and sexism. This sort of “angry about everything” behavior, even for things that don’t affect them, followed up by racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia? It’s terrible. It ruins gaming for decent people. It’s on every public social network and those in charge, usually straight white men who never face this harassment, do little to end it.
I was right. “Gamers” are the worst people. I hope that one day, the people who enjoy the same hobby I do will learn that gamers come in all shapes and sizes. The world doesn’t have to fit their incredibly narrow, sexist, racist, hateful view of what is good. Games are wonderful things. Why do they attract such awful people?
Sources:
- Nathan Grayson, Kotaku
- Patricia Hernandez, Polygon
- rGamesMods, Reddit
- Adi Robertson, The Verge
- Collage above is from this Imgur Album by the r/Games mods