The extruding internet assholes of the gaming community.
 

First, a Jimquisition about how terrible the gaming consumer base is.

So after making the Phil Fish thread, I began to think over this whole problem, and in retrospect I set up a thread of unnecessary bashing and hatred without really being informed about the other side of the situation, as good or bad that side is. Yes, Phil handled the PR side of being a game dev horribly, but that became a lot of him being overwhelmed in a shit-slinging fest between him and the negative aspect of the gaming community (which may as well BE the gaming community for that's the loudest part of it by far) and we all cheered for his defeat while trying to ignore the other side or our participation in it.

The fact is that the difference between deserved and undeserved wrath toward content creators is not very different is sad. People get told to quit their jobs, to kill themselves or other unpleasant fates for making a choice that people didn't like. Does changing the function of a Call of Duty gun by a scale as small as milliseconds deserve death/rape threats, DOES ANY CHANGE TO A GAME YOU MAKE OR HAVE A HAND IN MAKING DESERVE THAT? How about if people disagreed with a game's aspect that you had a major hand in?

Threats for the aspects of a product that people choose to buy and are free to not participate in if they choose so.

Quit being terrible people, and if you happen to not be a terrible person then maybe have a voice. I mean realistically the internet will never stop being a terrible place, but we can make it be less terrible by doing something to drown out the raspy demonic moan of the bigoted entitled shits that currently have a stupidly loud voice.

It is the internet in general not just the gaming community. The gaming community should not be singled out when really the problem lies with the vast "complexities" that is internet "discussion".

The reason we hear more about this stuff with gaming is mainly because gaming journalism is sensationalist as fuck.

Speak for yourself, yo. I thought it was disgusting how people celebrated successfully bullying Fish into submission then, and I still think it's disgusting. It doesn't matter if you think in his case it was deserved; it's not something grown-ups do, and it's just the sort of thing you should watch out for if you're worried that our culture thinks videogames is an immature business.

This.

The internets ability to readily communicate + anonymity + vast hordes of people = vast hordes of arseholes who will say whatever they want, because they can get away with it.

As if this was ever not relevant
 

I dont know, its still better than more mainstream sports where rapists, murderers, drug addicts and animal torturers are celebrated.

Fandoms are more tame too. We dont riot because the ending of ME3 sucked.

If anything I think gamers over all are better than average. Atleast we care that crap like this goes on and is tolerated. See a movie star or football player do this crap and at worst they deal with a year of bad press before being in everyones good graces again

We should single out the gaming community because they have a lot of mainstream visibility and economic power they can wield through their pockets to determine what games get made and how that game's audience is represented to the mainstream. Nobody cares if there are assholes in the knitting community because the knitting industry is not as public or expansive as the games community (though assholes in any great quantity anywhere should be considered a problem).

The pandering of the games industry to this community has created a self-reinforcing situation where gamers feel free to act like complete dickweeds without censure in large part because the game makers are too reliant on their dollar support to stay in business.

That's a mighty high horse there. Gamers HAVE committed crimes when they feel they aren't being catered to; recall when Minecraft's multiplayer servers were DDOS'd because they felt the game wasn't updating regularly enough for them. Give gaming enough time to penetrate as far into the mainstream as professional sports has, and perhaps we will see violence of a similar sort (even remembering that sports riots are publicized largely because they are so rare themselves). Also, do you know what happens to most sports stars when they're caught committing crimes? They're arrested and subject to due process like anyone else. Granted, there are forces at work that combine and often result in a lesser sentence, but it has not occurred (to my knowledge) yet that a court has flat out refused to prosecute a celebrity just because they happen to be a celebrity.

its less me saying gamers are good and more me saying others are bad. Its more perspective than anything to show this isn't a gamer thing its a societal thing. A lack of accountability and double standards. If anything we are just more aware of the vitriol behaviors that occur within our own subculture and less willing to make excuses for those responsible.