As a gamer, writer, e-sports enthusiast, and general all around nerd, I don’t like seeing my passions strung about in mainstream media like the scapegoat for all things wrong with “the youth of today.” Yet for as long as I have had a vested interest in keeping up to date with the goings on of the world, games and the people who play them have always been tarnished with the brush of being violent, overly sexualized, sexist, brain melting, time-wasting, and a general poor influence on our society.
Yes, there has been progress made in the media, with many newspaper and websites having specialized games writers and coverage, but not nearly enough.
Why is this you ask?
I know you didn’t actually ask your computer, but I’m going to say anyway; it’s because most of the people writing for non-gaming sections of news organizations don’t have an actual clue what they are talking about. I have worked in a newspaper, and if someone handed me a piece to write about the social aspects of UFC and the fans who surround it, I would tell them I couldn’t do it because I don’t know enough on the subject. I’ve watched Connor McGregor go beast mode when it was on, but I’m not a sports journalist. So why is it that regular news journalists feel that games are open targets for anyone with a keyboard, and a license to publish what they wish? Below is probably the best example of how some senior mainstream news reporters actively seeks to demonize games.
On Thursday, August 14th this article cropped up on TheJournal.ie, which discussed videos on Youtube of modders going into open GTA V Online lobbies, and taking control of other players’ avatars, forcing them into actions they cannot control, up to the point of sexual acts being performed on them. This is ‘griefing’ and trolling on a pretty dark level I will admit, but how a lot of media outlets are dealing with it is all wrong. For starters, blaming the games developers is targeting the wrong people, and then to call into question the moral standing of ‘gaming’ as a whole is equally misleading. This was a small group of modders, who performed illegal actions, that broke the terms of use of the game, in order to create trouble. If you have not read TheJournal.ie article, please do so now so my upcoming points make a little more sense.
The two major gripes the media seem to have with gaming is that A) Games are sexist; and B) Games are too violent. Combining these arguments is even worse.
Right, so listen, ‘gaming’ is not sexist as a whole. That stereotype and the blanket term of ‘gaming’ as a whole needs to be dropped. The scope is far too wide now to discuss all games being developed and released under the same name. You can’t put Pokemon, Street Fighter and The Sims under the same umbrella term. I will give you that there are corners where sexism is alive and unfortunately well in game’s development, ‘Girl Fight‘ developers Kung Fu Factory, I’m looking at you. But to label gaming as a whole as being sexist is unfair and painfully narrow-minded. There have been a rake of strong female characters showing up in games over the last while and the industry has shown signs of making progress. To now label Lara Croft as a symbol of sexism in gaming is out of date and misleading as they have rebooted her character design and given her a character focused story arc; and even when she was a physics defying clump of pixels in 1996, she was still a badass. A dual wielding, gun-kata, acrobatic, ninja badass. And as the games developed she was never a helpless damsel either. Yes, there are far more vapid and sexualized women in gaming history than strong female leads, and the industry could do with a few more steps in the right direction but I believe we’re getting there. The market has and is opening and while at times it is a struggle, the fact isn’t changed; there are more and more women openly playing, building and talking about games, but like with all transitions in media, it takes time.
Look for the improvements, not the mistakes of the past.
As per ‘The Journal’ article, “To fight these atrocities online, our game creators must stop catering to the narrow stereotype that insists only violent guys play games.” There is NO stereotype that suggests violent guys play games. There are a lot of action games on the market these days, sure. Because they are easy to make. Puzzle platformers, adventure games, RPG’s, MMORPG’s, and the plethora of other games genres require more in-depth looks at character development, story line, puzzle composition, music, and server support. When they are made, they hit a smaller target audience, so the mainstream news outlets don’t get much wind of their successes. Just because the biggest selling triple-A games series at the moment are a yearly First Person Shooter instalment and an assassination adventure game, does not mean that we as gamers are violent.
Grand Theft Auto knows exactly how bad it is for violence, and that’s what makes it sell, but it’s also an 18’s rated game intended only to be played by those mature enough to handle the content in the game, below that it falls on the parents of the child, or the underage person who played the game to deal with the problems they have with it. I have seen far more horrific violent acts committed in 18’s movies than I have ever seen in a video game, and those were happening to actual people, not virtual avatars.
One of the most widely played games around the world is Minecraft, which is being used as a teaching tool in some parts of the world. If the mainstream media outlets want gaming to pull up its socks and get on their level, I feel an amount of mutual respect is required. They need journalists with an understanding of the culture and the games industry behind the articles, otherwise they are simply feeding the flames of misunderstanding between gaming and the mainstream.
