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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net to c/games@hexbear.net

Hardcore gamer = someone who plays only cinematic grizzed white dude games and/or military fetishizing FPS

Casual gamer = anyone that is not a 15-25 yo male, and/or plays anything outside of the previously mentioned games, especially if those games are colorful.

So basically the gaming community is full of gatekeeping, misogyny, toxic masculinity and general chuddery. They make sure they're the loudest voice heard when anything about games is talked about, and won't be happy until all games a homogenous stream of bland, hyper-realistic but with a grey filter slog of mindless action with no heart or soul. And don't you dare force them to read any dialogue or story.

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[-] AssortedBiscuits@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

G*mers never had a chance.

The 70s saw the development of really old games like Dnd, essentially some STEMlord's pet project. Many of these ancient games were tied to Dnd, where the reactionary Gary Gygax's influence in Dnd was completely dominant.

The 80s continued that tradition with games like Rogue and Nethack. This was also when Nintendo exclusively marketed the NES as a "boy toy." Both of what could be retroactively labeled as indie and AAA gaming were firmly men only. Arcades tended to be dominated by men as well.

The 90s further perpetuated this trend with the console wars between Nintendo and Sega, with Sega pushing really hard as the cool and definitely being played by dudes with 'tude console. If you looked at Sega ads during that time, they were all hyper-trying-too-hard-masculine.

The 00s, while carrying the misogynist torch, reflected a qualitative shift in its misogyny. The 00s, or more specifically, 2001 was when Halo 1 was released on the Xbox. This game, more than any other, was what pushed gaming from some nerdy shit into the mainstream. With the mainstreamification of gaming came the dudebros. The previously misogynist nerds were transformed into misogynist dudebros, and the dudebros carried their toxic competitiveness into gaming.

The 10s was when esports, or more specifically L*ague of L*gends, became commercially viable. The esportification of games began and along with it, the toxic competitiveness seeped even in games that weren't designed to be competitive. And it pains me to say this, but speedrunning contributed to this as well. Suddenly, you started hearing about the "meta" and "optimal strats" in some indie platformer. And of course, G*merg*te sealed the deal by politicizing gaming, making g*mers consciously reactionary.

I have checked out of gaming so I can't give you a rundown of the 20s, but it's more of the same shit honestly. The seeds were sown during the 70s, with each subsequent decade nurturing the seedling, until it blossomed into some hideous plant with G*merg*te.

[-] Goblinmancer@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

I hate esports i hate how Riot took all the actually fun modes in league like OFA and nexus clash and the pve game modes and decides to only make them appear in rotations (or not even appear for pve modes) because apparently Riot only cares about competitive and ranked play.

Also hate how certain characters like Azir is effectively neutered because its too good for the highly coordinated esport teams, whose gameplay barely resembles even the highest ranked play.

Billion dollar game cant even afford to support other game modes.

[-] NephewAlphaBravo@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

LoL says "here's a game and some pieces tailor-made to play it" while DotA says "here's some toys and a sandbox, it's out of my hands now" and I think about that every day

[-] bigboopballs@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

LoL says "here's a game and some pieces tailor-made to play it" while DotA says "here's some toys and a sandbox, it's out of my hands now" and I think about that every day

hell yeah, same

honestly I think dota's way should be the way for fun+challenging games in general

[-] Frogmanfromlake@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

I remember gaming always being seen as a "boys club" for as long as I can remember. They were thankfully pretty welcoming of me (being a brown guy and all) but girls playing games were either given the m'lady treatment or chastised for making a mistake that would get them seen as being bad at the game. Often both.

[-] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The sad part is that there have been girls and women playing and developing games since the beginning but they were mostly pushed into the background, so now they get accused of invading a so-called male space. Can't win shrug-outta-hecks

[-] ssjmarx@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

AFAIK the arcade boom was pretty popular with both men and women, since at that time it was a social hobby and kids were doing a lot of hanging out and hooking up at arcades. It wasn't until the turn to console gaming, which was primarily an anti-social activity, that video game advertisements started really focusing in on young boys. Nintendo bears a lot of the blame here, since they defined the western market following the big crash, and they saw the NES as exclusively a boys' toy - but it wasn't just them of course, in particular I remember the OG XBox's marketing doing a lot to create a "bro culture", along with stuff like the channel G4, which I think was created intentionally as a reaction to the previously existing perception of gamers being nerdy.

[-] Retrosound@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

Children (overwhelmingly boys) who played vidya games were nerdy. There was a brief period during the Pac-Man era when vidya games were for everyone, and soon it went into hardcore weirdness. Games got hard and unless you had the patience to play again, and again, and again, and again...you can forget being a part of the crowd. Games with 45 levels when nobody ever got past level 4.

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[-] FlakesBongler@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

In 1980 something, Nintendo of America made the decision to sell the Nintendo Entertainment System as a gendered toy

This would later be considered a bad idea and roundly mocked

[-] EmmaGoldman@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

They shoulda just called it the Game Child smh.

[-] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

Me playing a gameboy color at age 7 kitty-cri-potato

My friend at the time: "Why do you have that, it's not called a Game GIRL" very-intelligent

[-] Iraglassceiling@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

CORE MEMORY

Also being called a lesbian for playing Nintendo with the boys in grade school. The nineties, man.

[-] FlakesBongler@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

Your friend was a spoothead

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[-] Frogmanfromlake@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

Was it? I remember it being praised for yeas and "saving the game industry"

[-] Poogona@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Lots of good points being made but I don't like when it veers toward hatred of demanding games on a conceptual level. Ultrakill has lots of heart and soul and also challenges the player in order to evoke a certain experience, and that is part of the art of games.

"Hardcore" games without much story, games with leaderboards and bragging rights, aren't always being made to exclude and insult players. That stuff is fun sometimes, like Hyper Demon, a beautiful minimalist game in both concept and execution that many players will not necessarily excel at.

Petty, pedantic point perhaps but I do like a game that expects me to learn a bit to win.

[-] Outdoor_Catgirl@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah the mentality that every game should be beatable by a 90 year old who has never touched a computer before otherwise it's not "accessible" is so fucking dumb. When I play my hardcore difficulty pokemon romhack because I want a harder game, I don't expect Nintendo to make the actual game that way. When people who want easy games play challenging games, they demand that the developers make them easy(see dark souls easy mode discourse). It's this mentality that liking challenge makes you "toxic" which just idiotic.

[-] AssortedBiscuits@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

We already solved this problem in the 90s. The solution is to design a hard game but also have cheat codes to make the game easier (or even harder). But most modern game developers are completely allergic towards adding a simple god mode or infinite ammo code into their shitty game, so we're stuck with arguing over whether story mode is good or not (it's good if you insist on not having cheat codes).

[-] WoofWoof91@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

that would cut into their microtransaction profits
people won't want to buy the "time-savers" (in enormous quotes) if they can just put in the konami code

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[-] Goblinmancer@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Tbf ultrakill literally has the option to enable aimbot and you dont need any crazy techs to beat the main story.

[-] wombat@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

gamergate was unironically the mainstream debut of the alt-right and I will stand by that assertion

[-] Sinister@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

Yes I agree coupled with the refugee crisis of 2014-15, fash talking points became mainstream.

[-] supermangoman@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

It became more and more intertwined with the right wing as the 2016 election drew closer. Gamer Gate and adjacent communities turned into a pipeline for the alt right, with YouTubers like Sargon of Akkad radicalizing libs into fascists.

I watched it unfold on r/KotakuInAction at the time. It was a weird crossroads for me.

[-] Iraglassceiling@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

I watched it unfold on r/KotakuInAction

You just brought up icky memories

[-] ssjmarx@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

It was a weird crossroads

Same. I was all for severing the ties between gaming journalists and publishers and ending the status quo of paid high review scores, but luckily past-me saw and rejected the misogyny that was also heavily present in those spaces and I didn't end up turning into a nazi.

[-] CannotSleep420@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

The way you phrased your comment makes it sound like your take is controversial. Are there really a lot of people who think otherwise?

[-] Retrosound@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

I had never heard of them until Milo Yannopolous got popular in 2016. Back then, it meant "alternative right" as an opposition to GOP establishment and RINOs. Boy, they sure got a lesson in entryism as every piece of shit in America jumped on the train. michael-laugh

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[-] aaaaaaadjsf@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think the early 2000s PS2 era was the peak of modern gaming. Colourful games, decent 3d graphics. The FPS era hadn't fully began on consoles yet.

The less said about the late 2000s, the better. That's when all the "gatekeeping, misogyny, toxic masculinity and general chuddery" really got kicked into overdrive. Every game got a sepia piss filter as well. And after that we got the blue filters which were somehow even worse.

[-] Sinister@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

Oh god I am in an eternal struggle against the „creatives“ and their constant use of disgusting filters which destroy the natural colors. Tho I must confess I loved the golden filter of deus ex human revolution and the grain filter of ME1 and yes even the brownish tints of dragon age, I know I am bad haha.

[-] Shinji_Ikari@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

Filters have their place tbh. Sometimes it makes a lot of sense aesthetically.

The issue is falling back on it to the point it becomes a meme.

[-] Moss@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

Honestly some games benefitted from the piss filter, like Fallout New Vegas. If it were made with modern graphics I would want them to keep the piss filter instead of being vibrant like Fallou4 76

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this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
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