Poll of the Day > Why are social issues such a big deal in gaming?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I don't have to read about them in my piano or literature. I mean I guess literature is progressive, but if it's good then people usually recognize it as good and if it's bad nobody hears about it.

In board games it's somewhat about despo guys getting more girls to share their hobby, if anything.

If science it's slightly about getting more girls in the field, because culturally it's been harder to get them in so a little extra encouragement is given.

But in video gaming it's about trans-homo-obesity-race-etc everywhere. They even get to classic games.

Like I don't want a topic about if it "should" or "should not" be in there, but I just want to know why it's so much bigger in this hobby of mine than other hobbies.

I have no answer for this.
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These social issues are not just limited to gaming. Gaming is just a popular medium that has expanded it's audience in the last decade. More diverse audiences want diverse representation.

People play video games because they have nothing better to do. People with nothing to do have a lot of time to complain.

Volke44 posted...

People play video games because they have nothing better to do. People with nothing to do have a lot of time to complain.

I can't disagree with this
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In my opinion(strong emphasis on my opinion) it emerges from the simple fact that gamers are naturally more inclined to be active on the internet.

Since anyone can play a videogame, it is inevitable that overtly sensitive people will end up playing a game that offends them for one reason or another. They share their complaints online, which attracts the attention of social issue advocates who don't game regularly. Since the bar for entry in gaming is very low, even people lacking skill or imagination can easily access the games themselves, or even simply watch game clips that highlight the "offensive" parts.
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It's too big, people are too entrenched in what they believe, on both sides.
The industry moves towards the largest market, and there are plenty of people who can still be tapped, and the market moving towards those people means something t o the people who are already entrenched.

Counter that with a product that's almost always a solitary event, one that doesn't require any social skills that are learned or taught, plus a culture where the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and things turn nasty.

It's always been a thing, people are just talking about it more now. But gamers are a really diverse crowd and consumer tastes can be difficult to pin down.
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Why are social issues a big deal in general? They always seem like such arbitrary problems that have been blown out of proportion.
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SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

Why are social issues a big deal in general? They always seem like such arbitrary problems that have been blown out of proportion.

I should put that in my sig, holy crap man.

Because Anita Sarkesian made some videos about it.
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I think the reasons have been stated so far.

1 Gaming is actually very big so you have a very big audience that is probably quite diverse as more people and places have access to the money, leisure time and technology to participate.

2 While gaming is large, it probably skews from middle age downward. So you have more comparatively young people, and young people are more likely to be finding their way and looking closely at their world and forming opinions about it that are new to themselves.

3 The audience of the internet, while broader, would also tend to skew younger as well, in my opinion, and is exactly the audience that would be most interested in gaming.

4 Gaming, as a form of art, both reflects the world and influences it. So it can be much more highly political than things that are not art.

One more thing
The internet is a vastly different form of mass media to TV, Radio, and Movies because it means that the viewer is able to be part of the content. People would have had problems with movies and tv and radio in the past, but there was a huge access barrier that prevented normal people having access to it. If a person or group wanted to be on mass media, like the news, they would have to organise a protest and have it picked up by the news. And that protest would be heavily controlled and organised to present a clear and simple message that could easily reach a large audience in less than the minute they would be given on the news. And a protest on the news is still a one way interaction because the people at home just see it; they cannot talk back.

The news was also a gatekeeper, in that it got to choose who was relevant and who was ignored. So if enough news outlets thought something was unimportant, nobody would ever find out about the protest.

So there aren't more arguments about things, in my opinion, there is just more opportunity for people to present those arguments to a wide audience and for that audience to talk back.

Elekta posted...

I don't have to read about them in my piano or literature.

You're arguably not actually reading literature then

My guess as to why social issues and gaming have becoming interwoven? Entitled crybabies are largely interested in the hobby, and they either have a warped world-view from a coddled upbringing or are gross to look at and think it'll get them a date by doubling down on "the issues." I would say these descriptions do not apply to the majority of gamers, but rather an extremely vocal minority that has managed to successfully lobby an agenda via threats or by infiltrating the development and journalistic sides of the industry. It's sort of like those busy-body PTA moms that have nothing better to do but be catty and dedicate themselves to stupid things most people aren't interested in. Somehow, they manage to turn it into a moral issue where "join us or look bad" comes into play...
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Because some people are ass hats and insist on crapping on other peoples fun. I got into a discussion on something similar on a Warhammer 40k site.
The jist was the person I was talking to said we war gamers need to talk about feminism in war gaming because it's an important issue. I said no its not important in terms of the game in the same way politics or opioid addiction isn't relevant.
And blah blah blah for about an hour before I realized the person I was talking to was just complaining for the sake of complaining and not worth the time or trouble.
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Elekta posted...

I don't have to read about them in my piano or literature. I mean I guess literature is progressive, but if it's good then people usually recognize it as good and if it's bad nobody hears about it.

In board games it's somewhat about despo guys getting more girls to share their hobby, if anything.

If science it's slightly about getting more girls in the field, because culturally it's been harder to get them in so a little extra encouragement is given.

But in video gaming it's about trans-homo-obesity-race-etc everywhere. They even get to classic games.

Like I don't want a topic about if it "should" or "should not" be in there, but I just want to know why it's so much bigger in this hobby of mine than other hobbies.

What?

wwinterj25 posted...

I have no answer for this.

Well, I'm not sure there was a cohesive thought in that long ramble which makes any kind of answer tough.

Volke44 posted...

People play video games because they have nothing better to do. People with nothing to do have a lot of time to complain.

Except the status quo is what's being complained about, something that has nothing to do with gamers but instead outside forces who dislike the current state of gaming.

TheCyborgNinja posted...

My guess as to why social issues and gaming have becoming interwoven? Entitled crybabies are largely interested in the hobby, and they either have a warped world-view from a coddled upbringing or are gross to look at and think it'll get them a date by doubling down on "the issues." I would say these descriptions do not apply to the majority of gamers, but rather an extremely vocal minority that has managed to successfully lobby an agenda via threats or by infiltrating the development and journalistic sides of the industry. It's sort of like those busy-body PTA moms that have nothing better to do but be catty and dedicate themselves to stupid things most people aren't interested in. Somehow, they manage to turn it into a moral issue where "join us or look bad" comes into play...

What?

Sensual_T_Rex posted...

Because some people are ass hats and insist on crapping on other peoples fun. I got into a discussion on something similar on a Warhammer 40k site.
The jist was the person I was talking to said we war gamers need to talk about feminism in war gaming because it's an important issue. I said no its not important in terms of the game in the same way politics or opioid addiction isn't relevant.
And blah blah blah for about an hour before I realized the person I was talking to was just complaining for the sake of complaining and not worth the time or trouble.

Yeah, that's the kind of nonsense that seeps into stuff thanks to well-intentioned idiocy by clueless wannabe allies. (Not that the actual allies' stuff looks any better half the time.)
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Cause most gamers never fucked a girl in the ass.

That's actually why- and its cryptic but true.
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Probably because kids play games and most kids are stupid.
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games have historically been targetted predomnantly at adolescent straight males typically white (though of course the Japanese games industry mostly targetted Japanese).

Now there are calls for diversifcation to add to the appeal to other audiences to bring games in line with movies, books, tv series.

Some people oppose this and, as a backlash movement, are, while accepting anyone may play the games, insisting games should continue to target (predominantly) white, straight males and developers should disregard the tastes of anyone else.

This leads to a clash of people trying to impose conflicting agendas on the game industry.

American comics are in a similar position
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GetMagnaCarter posted...

Now there are calls for diversifcation to add to the appeal to other audiences to bring games in line with movies, books, tv series.

Which annoys me, because they're sometimes by people who don't even play games, and frequently by people who have never made a game in their life.
So it comes off as "hey what you're doing looks fun, but it'd be better if it were about meeeee" when nongamers demand we represent them.

No problem with devs who do reach out to other cultures or come from unfamiliar cultures. More power to 'em, show us what we're missing by not knowing as much about e.g. Slavic stories as we'd like.
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BIGTOM_basic posted...

1 Gaming is actually very big so you have a very big audience that is probably quite diverse as more people and places have access to the money, leisure time and technology to participate. So with more people comes more discussion.

In addition to that, gaming as a medium has absolutely exploded. It's gone from being pretty niche to being thoroughly mainstream within 30 years. It started out as a fairly machocentric sausage-fest of an industry, which was fine when there were like five people in it (by their nature, niche industries are inevitably going to have some degree of disproportionate representation), but those demographics haven't been able to change quickly enough to keep up with how fast the industry has grown, so, you've got an industry that's appealing to the masses while also neglecting large chunks of those masses. it's understandable that people would want to push back against that, in an effort to make sure that mass appeal is actually mass appeal, and not just disproportionately represented niche appeal on a larger scale.

Lightning Bolt posted...

Which annoys me, because they're sometimes by people who don't even play games, and frequently by people who have never made a game in their life.
So it comes off as "hey what you're doing looks fun, but it'd be better if it were about meeeee" when nongamers demand we represent them.

I mean, that's not actually that unreasonable. You could very easily say the same thing about people who wanted books that starred women back in the days when reading was largely a man's hobby. It's a problem when it becomes "stop catering to people who already enjoy this stuff and make it all completely different so I'll like it," because that is taking away from the existing market, but it's pretty reasonable for people to want more games to be produced that appeal to them so they can join in on the fun that gamers seem to be having.
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