eSports Chaebol posted:

There have been times and places where "book readers" were shunned or much worse. I think a lot of the argument about who is a gamer stems from the fact that "gamers" used to be shunned to a certain extent, and many embraced this ostracism. But now that gaming is as mainstream as books or movies, that identity is gone.

Imagine if for some reason a huge number of cycling enthusiasts moved to the Netherlands and were dismayed that their identity wasn't a thing any more, and started a movement about how they're the real cyclists.

OwlFancier posted:

There's a whole kind of weird and lame "gamer culture" thing which is hilariously and transparently commercial, and also full of amazingly toxic chauvinism.

Basically you don't want to call yourself a gamer because people might think you spend your time buying anime bodypillows and writing 20k words about how feminists are worse than hitler.

Wales Grey posted:

Anyone who thinks Doom can't be art is a mental midget and a philistine with no appreciation for aesthetics, design esoterie, performance, or sport.

OwlFancier posted:

I feel similarly. I play a lot of games but, I don't build my identity around it because that seems weird. I just like them and think they're fun. Also even if I did want to define my identity through it I really wouldn't want to be lumped in with a lot of the other people who do.

Wales Grey posted:

Exactly! But I'm not sure if there's ever been a critique of "explicit violence and gore in video games" that's been done for its own sake. "Does pretend violence in stories music theatre radio television video games have a negative impact on our culture?" is a good question to ask, I think, but I'm not really sure if there's a good way to evaluate something so broadly phrased.

And that question is less interesting to me than its cousin, "What role does the violence of Doom 4 serve in establishing the narrative, atmosphere, design, gameplay, and spectacle of that game?".

E: I'd also like to say that as far as I know, games explicitly about and dedicated to explicit, bloody violence and gore tend to be either tongue-in-cheek (Carmageddon), horror stories (Manhunt), or critcal failures by all measures (Hatred). There's a fine line between satirical entertainment, and edgelordey trash in every medium. Video games are no different.

OwlFancier posted:

I haven't played the new doom but from what I've seen it's... pretty heavily satire. Like, it looks like satire of classic videogames almost while at the same time sort of being one. You're a nameless dude who appears and murders demons in hilariously ridiculous ways and the game actually has some kind of backstory to justify that, but it's so patently after-the-fact that I don't see how else to take it.

Nosfereefer posted:

To actually add something, the reaction against the new DOOM specifically stems from missing the wider context of that particular franchise. As people have said, id themselves released that absurd Doom Comic 20 years ago, which makes fun of the inherent stupidity of their games. In a way, ridiculously enough, I guess DOOM is closer to what I would define as art precisely because it successfully makes a statement about its own empty ultra violence while still remaining a very competent title within the genre. It's also why Doom 3, or that godawful Doom movie, was forgettable.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

We all hang out in Book Barn

Please come visit

CasualTR posted:

A person who considers their video game habit a hobby.

bloodysabbath posted:

You're a gamer if playing games is a substantial, core hobby for you. If your exposure to the hobby is limited to a sports game once a year or a phone game on the bus, you likely don't qualify (that is, if we accept that words have meaning, which one side of the debate shitshow doesn't appear to).

I have a plant in the window but I'm not about to call myself a botanist, or a gardener. I read a book now and again but I'm not a bookworm. I go to the movies like 6-10 times a year, but I'm no film buff. And I've played dodgeball a few times, but I'm not an athlete.

Few people would take issue with this kind of distinction between enthusiasts and dabblers, except the term has become a football for two opposing teams of broken people on the Internet.

One side largely consists of people who feel marginalized by society to begin with, so the term has been used to in turn attack (I stop well short of saying you can "marginalize" a consumer hobby) "soft targets" they appear to view as even lower than themselves on society's totem pole. Hence why most "conversation" on the issue among these types invariably turns to Gawker level snark about grooming habits, headwear choices, and virginity.

On the other side, you have a jet-engine loud minority who believe a Warhammer 40k style military blood crusade wouldn't be an unreasonable response to some terrible article on boob plate a women's studies major wrote for her blog read by 10 people.

In short, cut the underwater master Internet cables, burn the Earth, and salt the ground to be sure.

Edit: The casual vs. hardcore bit is another thing where two enormously different product classes competing for very different markets (with some overlap) became politicized for a whole host of reasons. Tumblr types want their web browser CYOAs about gender identity and mental illness to be held up as equal to massive, critically acclaimed masterworks that take years for 100 plus talented people to produce. The industry wants money, as industry does, so the ESA lumps 99 cent phone games and $60 open world poo poo together in the same data set in hopes of boosting the mainstream appeal of the hobby. The Jet Engine group sees both these things and voices their displeasure, which is fine and maybe even understandable, except they express it in a note attached to a brick, thrown through a window, and signed gently caress YOU I KILL YOU BITCH.

lynch_69 posted:

See, and just by shining a light on poo poo like this gets the author labelled as a liberal activist clickbait yellow journalist. It's like you're not even allowed to report on the objective reality of what's going in gaming communities without being called "the enemy".

It's very much a case gamers saying: "Write about video games strictly as consumer items like refrigerators or LED light bulbs and let's collectively pretend it's 1992 where this is a niche hobby that exists in its own plane of reality completely separate from politics or culture."

rkajdi posted:

You don't need to, but then you don't get to complain when people criticize you for standing next to them. The people you associate with reflect on you. Note that I play games a good bit (though I doubt I qualify as a gamer since I haven't bothered with AAA games in two generations) and I understand I need to help keep my side of the street clean. It also helps me too, since sunshine has helped get some of the more disgusting parts of Japanese games (sexualization of children, weird levels of misogyny and racism) out of the American releases. Nothing annoyed me more than when I bought Star Ocean: The Last Hope looking for an actionish RPG like the rest of the series, and instead got all the hallmarks of some pedo dating sim (Thousand year olds stuck in children's bodies, crazy levels of fanservice, ect) I get that Japanese culture is different, but I honestly don't care and would prefer to never have to ask around if games had that kind of garbage in them again. As a positive example, Bravely Second making less skimpy outfits for the underage girls in the game while also dumping the Native American minstrel show costumes showed that someone at NoA was actually paying attention for once.

Cicero posted:

Reveilled posted:

Did you call yourself a gamer before the recent splits and controversies? I'm of a similar mind as you, but ten years ago I'd have comfortably called myself a gamer, and even though I've stopped like you have, I've never felt comfortable surrendering that term to those people, and I'm sure as poo poo not going to do something like start calling myself a ludophile or whatever term people might come up with in future. It bothers me that just as gaming has started to move into the mainstream, the term we used to us to describe ourselves as hobbyists has been wrenched backward into a niche of social malcontents. When I was younger I looked forward to the day when describing myself as a "gamer" would have connotations no different than describing myself as a "film buff". But that day looks as distant as ever, even as games have become mainstream.