The State of Games

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The State of Games

iuvian: Dec 27, 2003; darwin'd

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

Trying to make threads that treat games as a serious form of media is hopeless, because nerds are threatened by everything that kind of treatment suggests. I don't just mean feminism or anti-racism either (although those are obviously hot-button issues because they translate most directly into THEY BE TAKIN OUR GAMES AWAY paranoia), I mean any topic that would be perfectly at home in a book or film forum is doomed here. It has nothing to do with the validity of those subjects, and everything with the kind of people who post in Games.

That said if it's even possible to fix something like that and it isn't just a natural result of the demographics that play videogames, it's certainly beyond the means of a handful of volunteer mods.

So, setting that aside as an impossible goal, the kind of self-policing Kewpuh describes is a good thing, being allowed to be more critical of games is a good thing, and re-opening YCS 2: YCS Harder indirectly contributes to and tacitly approves of both of those. So things are looking pretty good, considering it's a forum full of loving gamers.

Azathoth posted:

The problem with discussing social issues in gaming is that even if both sides of the argument are being civil, there's nearly no chance that anyone participating will alter their viewpoints on the topic in question. Thus, after both sides make their main points, it becomes more of a performance for the people reading the thread than about actually engaging with the other people posting in the thread. Because of this, the threads quickly become incredibly circular with each side talking past the other.

At that point, the thread will either devolve into a pointless flame war as each side gives up on even the pretext of engagement, or one side will get run out of the thread and it'll become a circlejerk for the side that "won" the argument. At best, both sides will remain civil with each other and the conversation will sputter out as all sides essentially agree to disagree, but even with that, what's been accomplished?

Coolguye posted:

The larger thing that I think people miss is that threads like this actually have absolutely nothing to do with 99% of the content on Games. We talk about individual games and playing games, we don't talk about how other people play games or the theoretical ramifications of that. Furthermore there's approximately zero people who are actually qualified enough to make their opinion matter in a thread like that, so the threads inevitably devolve into mental masturbation of one form or another. I'm not talking about qualified in the sense that they have a Bachelor's in Women's Studies or whatever, I'm talking about in the sense that the posters involved have enough of an opinion base published that others can where they are coming from when they say something. In D&D you might know that poster X has been really balanced and grounded on another, tangentially related subject, like economic disadvantage, so if they say something that sounds a little weird in a Feminism in Gaming thread you can generally assume that it just came out weird, and not that poster X is a cisgendered Rand-worshiper that thinks women to realize How Good They Have It or whatever other wild loving accusation rolls out of gamers.txt recently.

Games is way bigger than D&D, but similar stuff still happens. If you only ever post in MMO HMO and then write a big post critiquing Indie Darling Game Of The Month, yeah you're gonna come off as weird and people are going to make fun of you for it. If you've spent time chatting with people in other indie game threads you're probably going to get cut a little slack.

The reality of the situation is that people often shitpost in response to shitposting, so yeah your civil rights thread is going to get a lot of shitposting in Games, because to these people it's off topic and therefore a shitpost. If you want to talk civil rights, D&D is right there and filled with people who are both well qualified and there to discuss issues, not just post in a Civil Rights in Gaming thread to make themselves feel like My Opinion Matters.

LOL

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 14:19

iuvian: Dec 27, 2003; darwin'd

Hog Inspector posted:

the minority thread being gone is good because now you can actually talk about games without hair-trigger weirdos yelling to take it the designated thread if you mention not liking shooting black people

You shouldn't "like" shooting anyone you sick gently caress *ughh*

# ¿ Aug 13, 2014 06:14

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The State of Games