This may be old news to gamers, but a reader just brought it to my attention:
Capcom and IGN recently put on a little online gaming “reality” show called Capcom’s Cross Assault, based on the game Street Fighter x Tekken. The show, like the game, pits a team of Street Fighter players against a Tekken team.
During a live stream of the ongoing battle on day five of the tournament, Twitch.tv community manager Jared Rea made a few remarks criticizing the assholish, and often misogynistic, comments of some of the fighters.
Here’s how the Penny Arcade Report summarized what followed. (I’ve taken the liberty of highlighting several particularly egregious comments in bold.)
“This is Aris,” a voice said on the feed. “If you don’t like onions, you get your sandwich without onions on it, man. This is the fighting game community.” He then stated that sexual harassment and the fighting game community are “one and the same thing.”
The voice belonged to Aris Bakhtanians, the coach of the Tekken team.
“The sexual harassment is part of the culture. If you remove that from the fighting game community, it’s not the fighting game community… it doesn’t make sense to have that attitude. These things have been established for years,” Aris stated. He then noted that making sexual jokes at StarCraft players would be inappropriate, so it’s unfair for anyone to tell fighting game fans they can’t viciously mock women. …
“That’s what you’re trying to do to the fighting game community and it’s not right,” Aris continued. “It’s ethically wrong.” This may be the first time in the history of video games that someone had said that removing sexual harassment is ethically unjust.
Later in the, er, discussion, after someone brought up the harassment of a guy playing a female character (“someone yelling the world “bitch” over and over … and then scream[ing] for her rape when she lost”) Aris responded with this:
“What is unacceptable about that?” Aris asked. “There is nothing unacceptable about that. We’re in America! This isn’t North Korea! We can say what we want.”
You can listen to the whole discussion on this video; it starts, with Rea’s comments, at about one hour forty-five minutes in. (Aris starts commenting about two minutes later.)
Many more appalling details in the PA report post.
Oh, gaming community! Get it the fuck together.
ithiliana
“…So, you’re ok with white players using racist slurs against black players, straight players using homophobic slurs against GLBT players? It’s just all good, competitive fun, and the marginalized groups who have the audacity to show MERIT and SKILL deserve to be treated like shit because the white boyz are afraid of the competition?”
I have nothing against good natured trash talk. I should clarify that I am not for threatening someone was rape. But, I’d rather live in a society and community that does not mandate the “big sister” rule book on proper gaming edicate, where people habitually use being “offended” as a social tactic to shut people up who they dislike.
Urgh. You know, if “being yourself,” means “acting like a whiney cockbite,” then don’t be surprised that I want nothing to do with you. Because shock of all shocks, when I “am myself,” I somehow DON’T threaten rape to people and call them racial slurs.
*goes back to reading Incognegro and not gaming*
Trash talk that relies on marginalized status isn’t ‘good-natured’, you twit.
‘Habitually’, huh. You don’t game, do you?
This. Video games are a legitimate form of entertainment with a variety of great storylines and beautiful artwork. But the dudebro stereotype that hangs around because of the assholes who insist on being assholes lends a bad name to the whole gaming culture. These same dudes probably whine about how women hate videogames or nag at them for gaming while ignoring the concerns of women gamers and pushing them away with their sexist bullshit.
RE: Mags
You… DO realize those guys are equating being told to stop threatening rape as the “big sister” rulebook right?
Also, I swear CONSTANTLY when playing Smash. To the point that college boys told me to cool it, just because they found me so annoying. That’s not them being whiney rulebook etiquette people. It’s very reasonable for them to ask me to stop being annoying and bellowing, “FUCK SHIT FUCK FUCK DIE” constantly.
This is precisely the sort of thing that keeps me from playing any sort of game that involves interaction with other players, unless those players are actual friends of mine in real life.
Which is sad, because, y’know, I like gaming a lot, and I like competition, and I like teamwork. I don’t doubt that I would enjoy a lot of the games that I avoid, if only the people playing them would stop acting like colossal fucking douchebags. I just don’t understand why that’s so damn hard. I mean, if “fun” for them really is yelling about raping people, then maybe they could go yell about raping people at their wall, and then sit down and play a game like a normal human being without threatening to rape anyone, so the rest of us could actually enjoy it, too?
“…‘Habitually’, huh. You don’t game, do you?”
No. No, I don’t.
I managed to get banned from NeoGAF (a massive gaming forum) a couple months back for yelling at the dumb kids there about how profoundly oblivious they were to the rampant misogyny in gaming “culture.” Granted, I was a bit of an asshole about the whole thing and probably deserved the time-out, but it was like shouting at a brick wall for three days.
They couldn’t comprehend the difference between the superficial, tongue-in-cheek trash-talk that pops up in many competitive venues and mean-spirited, persistent bullying based on gender. It was incomprehensible to them that the woman didn’t stand up for herself and scold king shit of turd mountain while he sat on his greasy throne. They couldn’t fathom the idea that someone might be punished (read: banned from hosting one of these streams) for this kind of repugnant behavior.
Gamers desperately seek out validation of–and mainstream respect for–their hobby, but fly into a defensive panic the moment anyone holds video games to the same level of scrutiny to which other media are subjected.
A false dichotomy irrelevant to the OP, unless you think sexist insults are good-natured.
Most of the people who I hang with who are gamers, and far more hardcore than I, are pretty much the exact opposite types as portrayed here; they’re down to earth good people, very much anti-sexism, homophobia, misogyny, etc., etc. I wish that was more representative of gaming culture as a whole, and that this report was a vast exaggeration.
So Mags if I played me some Guilty Gear one day and lost to Sol would you be fine with me screaming “what a fucking creep I hope you get falsely accused of rape and get raped in prison!!!”
or would you think that was just a little fucked up?
“…A false dichotomy irrelevant to the OP, unless you think sexist insults are good-natured…”
That definately can be.
Hey Mags, you know what’s a “…social tactic to shut people up who they dislike.”? Harassment.
@ LBT —
would that be Super Smash Bros.? Some friends of mine in my early college days introduced me to that game, and it was fun, but they were so much better, if I swore, it was because I was constantly loosing — half the time I didn’t even know where on the screen my character was!!
And yes, these idiots annoy the hell out of me. I love games too much to let them stop me, but jesus fuck. It’s rare to not have to deal with altogether too much bullshit. My favorite are the ones who want to ramble on about why women don’t game.
Is that so? So how often do you think that actually happens? How often do you think it would, if there were ‘big sister etiquette rules’? I dislike plenty of people. They don’t all offend me.
I mean, that’s kind of besides the point; at the end of the day, you’re calling for a form of etiquette that is far more oppressive than the one in your head, you’re just okay with that because it’s misogynist, racist, heterosexist, etc, instead of half-decent to the marginalized.
I wish that was more representative of gaming culture as a whole, and that this report was a vast exaggeration.
Yeah, so do I.
good natured trash talk? haahahaha
Plus there is no one saying oh limit freedom of speech you idiot. I swear whenever someone gets annoyed at someone saying racist sexist stuff or whatever and then criticizing them there is always some freedom of speech worshiper who crawls out of the woodworks and claims they are trying to limit freedom of speech. Guess what part of freedom of speech is freedom to criticize as well.
Yeah we all know you are perfectly ok with being called slurs and insulted based on your gender but I mean whatever gets the men to like you right?
RE: Morgan
Well, admittedly, I DO lose a lot of Super Smash Bros., because I never had an N64 and was always playing against people a lot better than me who actually knew what all the buttons did, but that’s not why I curse constantly while playing it. It’s just… a very bad habit.
And my boyfriend wonders why I have no interest in gaming.
Just because something isn’t technically illegal doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be called out for it. Why is this so hard to understand?
I’d like people who use sexist and racist language to stop being offended when they’re called on their behavior. I’d like conservative politicians to stop being offended by the fact that gay people exist. I’d especially like the Catholic Church to stop being offended by the fact that it can’t actually force anyone to follow church doctrine.
And the trolls here, who are offended to encounter disagreement? They can take their delicate feelings and go cry in a corner.
Mags: I have nothing against good natured trash talk. I should clarify that I am not for threatening someone was rape. But, I’d rather live in a society and community that does not mandate the “big sister” rule book on proper gaming edicate, where people habitually use being “offended” as a social tactic to shut people up who they dislike.
No, you’d rather live in a world where they use racist, and sexist, abuse as the tactic they use to shut people up.
As an FYI, this post is an example of you being passive aggressive. You are implying that this is a “tactic” being used to shut people up, rather than people taking legitimate offense.
If you want to say that, say it. If you don’t mean to say it, don’t say it. Either way, burying the accusation is passive aggressive, and a little cowardly.
And just because you’re called out for something doesn’t mean you’re being ordered to stop doing it.
You’re being informed that your speech causes anger and pain to others. What you do with that knowledge is still up to you.
This isn’t North Korea! We can say what we want!
Right: because the big problem in North Korea is that the government is overly sensitive about rape. [TW]
I should clarify that I’m not for threatening someone was rape
Bully for you. So your whole point is…