It’s easy to get lost in all the bad things in the gaming community. It seems like everywhere you look there are sexual assaults, exploitations, racism, and so on. We critique a lot on this site, but we do it for one reason: we love gaming. We love the community, we love the games, we love being part of the discourse. We give a shit about the future of gaming and we want to make it better. We get questions all the time asking us either 1. How can you stand to be part of such a sexist, racist, awful environment or from the other side 2. Why do you hate games so much. The answers to these questions are complex. 1. It’s hard. And 2. We don’t. With that in mind, I wanted to talk a little about the positive side of gaming, specifically the gaming community. Here are some of the reasons I have chosen to spend most of my free time (and work time!) playing and thinking about and reading about and talking about games.
3. The Support
While it’s true that there may be 2 trolls to every 1 decent human being, there are still a lot of supportive voices in the gaming community. Recently, a blogger wrote a story highlighting some of these people. In the blog, she talks about how an embarrassing picture of her dressed as Lara Croft went viral. The negative comments almost destroyed her, but in the end, the supportive voices became the most impactful. Strangers were standing up for her and banding together against the trolls. Of course, it’s easy to lose faith in the community (just look at any YouTube comments), but there are also so many supportive people.
Anita Sarkeesian is a good example of this. She was able to raised tens of thousands of dollars for her feminist project, in no small part because people were moved by just how much trolling she got. Because her project went against the primary discourse (by pointing out sexist tropes in games), she attracted a lot of negative feedback. But in the end, her project got made because people rallied around her.
2. Cross-Integration
Ok, so I don’t know what cross-integration is. It just sounded like a cool phrase to use. What I mean is when the industry integrates with the community to make games better. It can be really cool when companies decide to take positive feedback from the gaming community and integrate it into their games (goodbye static, one-way models of communication). Riot Games are notorious for taking fan feedback and using it in this way. They read the forums for what players want and often implement it into LoL. They don’t, however, respond to comments like “make her boobs bigger.” But instead, they respond to “make her nose more beak-like because her familiar is a bird” [cite: Cody Reimer for this info]. When the companies listen to the community and communication is constantly circulating, it makes for betters games and a better environment.
1. The Charity
There are always charity things going on in gaming. Whether it’s something like Humble Bundle, where devs donate their games to be sold entirely for charity, or if it’s like kickstarter, where people can help out projects they believe in. People believe in games so much, and genuinely have such a charitable spirit that there is almost always someone willing to invest in another’s dream or cause.
Right now there is a big event going on called the Extra Life Gaming Marathon. This event works in connection with the Children’s Miracle Network as a way to raise money for children’s hospitals. Sam and I, along with many others from Purdue, have participated in this for the past 3 years. We have raised thousands of dollars for Riley’s Children’s hospital (in Indiana) and played a lot of games. This year is shaping up to be the best ever. The event takes place on November 2, which is daylight savings. So instead of it being a 24-hour marathon, it will be a 25-hour marathon. Painful right? The cool thing is, groups from all over the world get together to do this and stream their videos. It’s a moment (or rather, a day) where people who love games connect via the web to do what they love for a good cause. It’s pretty damn cool. If you want to donate to our team, you can here.
To revisit the questions at the beginning (1. How can you stand to be part of such a sexist, racist, awful environment or from the other side 2. Why do you hate games so much), I hope both are cleared up a little more by this post. It doesn’t mean that my next posts won’t be about the sexism in the industry, because as long as it’s happening, I’m going to talk about it. We will continue to fight for better representation of women and minorities in games. And we will critique lazy development that relies on stereotypes and played out storylines. Sorry if you like the damsel in distress, but we will push for inventive stories that are more equitable and interesting to everyone.
