From my quick read through of their methods it seems like they didn’t account very well for the types of games, platforms and demographics. The decade in question saw a massive explosion of gaming as a hobby into the mainstream and, importantly, a strong growth of women in the gaming population.
So as a whole you have games becoming more mainstream to younger (“woke”) audiences and more accessible while the inclusive-biased demographics also blew up. It’s not at all shocking that you’d find more inclusivity there.
A much more interesting study would be separating the gamers from the Gamers. Show me how people playing Splatoon and Animal Crossing compare to the neckbeards living in LoL and HoI4…
This is obviously just my experience but the younger generation is not inclusive at all, kind of the opposite. At least around the north east US where I have lived.
I work in a kitchen. I often have food runners, hosts and dishwashers who are under 18. They’re extremely uncool sometimes.
Not universally for sure, Gen-Z men are especially problematic. But the sweaty dudes have become a minority of gamers, and I would expect broad-stroke “gamer” world views to reflect the influx of other demographics.
That’s what I’d like to see more of in this research. Cut it by age cohort, gender, income, genres of game, years in the hobby, etc…
Yeah.
Kids are jerks. They’re naive. I certainly was; I think that’s always been a thing, though I can’t comment on how much worse or better it’s gotten.
That’s true I was a shithead
Or mobile games, which is the bulk of gamers now.
What stereotypes? I have never heard someone say that
A couple years ago there was a meme of calling the n word the gamer word. I think this was caused by some streamers at the time saying the word on stream. Connotations of it being the gamer word.
G unit?
Gamergate?
Isn’t it much more than a stretch to call those dickbags a stereotype of gamers? It was like 4 people. Unless I misunderstood the term “playa” or something…
If someone calls you a slur, or whatever, in a game, chances are they don’t care about the aspect of you they’re badmouthing - they don’t know you enough to care. To me, it’s usually either saying shit just for the sake of it, or it’s like a subconscious test of whether you have a stick up your ass, and if you actually get mad or offended, you’ve failed the test.
They do care a lot and that is why they are making their baby assault.
I just don’t understand what it has to do with inclusivity? They will whine on anyone. Its extremely inclusive
or you are playing a game that has a large and toxic playerbase, and not 100% gamers are great people, thus, you are talking to someone who is more of a normie than other gamers.
In almost 50 years of playing D&D I’ve found that gamers tend to be more accepting of just about anybody than the general public is. I think it’s partly because the gamer population itself gets more than its share of being spurned by that public.
I play a lot of multiplayer games and I find that gaming constantly teaches me that no matter what, it always comes down to the quality of the community.
Every other aspect of design is a comparatively merely a detail.
A well designed game plants the seeds for that. E.g. trying to avoid toxicity by removing chat vs supporting community hosted/moderated servers.
let me point you all in the right direction: people in general are more inclusive than the general public is led to believe
Just don’t hang out with Madden or COD players and you’re probably fine :D
Also LoL players.
For such a dull community they sure bitch about toxicity the most.
All the people who complain about games being woke don’t play any games.
they probably play call of duty or similar…
Chasing that diamond in league.
Who am I kidding, they’re chasing silver.
Nah they couldn’t get to silver so now they play TFT.
Direct link to the study: https://www.psycnet.org/doi/10.1037/ppm0000672
Unfortunately, its paywalled, but I’d be curious about the methodology and population.
If anyone ends up getting access, I would also be interested in the study.
If you ping me tomorrow, I’ll be happy to send it to you when I’m at my computer.
That’s super nice of you! Greatly appreciate it. Will do!
Metal heads and punks are also really inclusive despite society viewing them otherwise.
and despite a tiny but vocal minority of them being bigoted assholes (for metalheads at least, don’t know enough about punks)
Punks are always having to run off Nazis who want to come to their shows.
Might be just mu anecdotal experience but taht seems to be the case for basically any group of people.
Agreed. Most people, generally, tend to be good individually. We recognize we’re all humans. We all get hungry, we all love, we all struggle.
It’s the vocal minority that are bigoted and utilize DARVO just like rapists and billionaires 🤷♂️. They very well may be on a sociopathic spectrum and/or have devolved by losing empathy, which humans evolved to build society and community and thrive together.
Punks yes, Metal heads not until somewhat recentlyish… ;)
From what I’ve seen, a lot of the pushback against “woke” games revolves around whether they’re good or not. Almost no one cares about a good game being woke, stuff like BG3 was widely enjoyed by a lot of people despite having gay characters/etc.
However when a game is bad or mediocre, people are quick to blame any “woke” content in the game. There’s a mentality of “they were putting effort in pushing a political/social agenda I don’t agree with, while not putting in enough effort on the stuff that actually matters”.
Of course, now you have a lot of people assuming whether a game will be good or not based on how the perceive it. But if it comes out, and is actually a good game, that’s enough to quiet most all of the complaints it seems.
People were absolutely calling BG3 woke, it’s just that that narrative has died out because of how successful the game was. Can’t say “go woke go broke” when the game actually earns millions.
People don’t hesitate to criticism things just because they’re popular, usually people are quicker to hate on something because it’s popular.
I think it was just a good game, that legitimately appealed to a lot of people, and so any criticisms about woke content died out as people realized they liked it or respected it.
Maybe - hear me out here - engaging in stories tends to make you more empathetic? Movies, books, games, they all give you stories about other people. If you’re shown how to imagine what it’s like to be another person, you will probably end up being a better person.
Or whoa dude hear me out what if play and games has been around forever and is exactly an inclusive thing people do?
You literally cannot play a game without including someone
Yeah, they are thinking of 2000s xbox live chat. It’s been a while since then.
Not really, I’m thinking of literal unapologetic nazis on Steam, gamergate chuds on Twitter, incels on Reddit, mykittens on Discord and so on and so forth. Competitive games suffer from bigotry the most, but there’s still plenty of casual “you aren’t a real gamer if all you play is Sims/Stardew/Animal Crossing” aimed primarily at women, too. And of course it’s currently the wave of nick fuentes type stains that freak out over anything even remotely “woke” that keeps the shitshow going, the GoW situation literally just took place.
However I do think that all of the above is strongly amplified by the outrage content farms, so I can believe when “The authors suggest that hostility might be driven by a vocal minority of players rather than the general gaming population. It is also possible that certain specific online communities reinforce exclusionary behavior, even if the average gamer holds progressive views.”
Also the trash tends to stink the most.
yah you don’t find a lot of lobbys like ‘good old’ xbox cod lobbys like that anymore. league of legends i believe currently still holds the crown for current day toxic lobbys
Maybe in ranked queues, but I play a ton of the more casual game modes (ARAM mayhem and Arena) and the toxicity isn’t super common to see. Like, it does happen but it’s much rarer than it was a decade ago now that Riot actually moderates things.
I still see calls for eliminating minorities in Steam forums, and not very subtle ones at that.
That’s one place normal people know to avoid and is not representative of the whole.
I haven’t used Steam Community Forums for a few years, but when I did, it really depended on the game (and I’m not the type to be playing the games where there those behaviours would become prominent). As someone who mostly plays indie games, I found the odd racist post where it was clear they were trying to find like-minded people and nobody would bite. Also, if I reported something for any reason, they typically took care of it within 24 hours at the most and I never had a case where I reported something get rejected.
It was a choir of angels compared to comment sections on ifunny or 4chan.
Because gamers are younger and tend to be part of a naturally more inclusive generation?
It’s just Asmeinkampf and his filth that give most of us a bad name being a loud minority.
Most gamers who play more than CoD and League tend to engage more with the medium and stories that are told, able to empathize with the characters and introspect upon our own lives, similar to any other form of art/media. Arguably, sometimes even on a deeper level given the interactive nature of the medium.
We couldn’t be further from someone like Marc Andreessan who believes he’s a genius and proudly states he has no introspection. Yet we’re the ones that take the brunt of criticism. Thanks Epstein for your fucking psyop in the gaming alt right sphere.
