Ever since the bizarre social backlash now known as #GamerGate first erupted in August, we’ve heard a lot of alarmist, entitled nonsense from self-described gamers who are pig-biting mad that so-called Social Justice Warriors and, you know, girls, are invading what is inevitably described as “our hobby.”
Thing is, guys, it’s not your hobby. At least it’s not only yours.
I don’t call myself a “gamer” – largely because so many of those who do embrace the label are such immature assholes – but, guess what, I play games too.
Indeed, as you can see from the picture above, I own more than 100 console games, some of which I’ve devoted hundreds of hours to. Over the years I’ve owned five different consoles – seven, if you count replacement consoles bought because I wore out the originals.
I first encountered video games in high school, playing Space Invaders in the basement of the University of Illinois student union. I wasn’t very good, and gravitated more to air hockey and pinball and other purely analog games instead. Still, by the end of the 80s I’d been bitten by the electronic game bug – starting with the bootleg version of Tetris I installed on my Mac in grad school to distract me from the tedium of actually working on my dissertation.
In other words, I’ve been playing games, off and on, for longer than many #GamerGaters have been alive.
But I’m sure many of these people wouldn’t consider me a “real” gamer at all. I’m not what you’d call hardcore. I’m basically a console gamer – I don’t even have Steam installed on my laptop. And I’m always little behind the time. I haven’t shelled out for an Xbox One or a Playstation 4. I didn’t beat Destiny ten hours after it was first released; hell, I probably won’t even pick it up for at least another six months or so when the price drops a bit. And I’m not a full-time gamer either. While I regularly get obsessed with certain games and play them to death, I also take breaks from gaming for months on end.
I also play a lot of the “casual” games that hardcore “gamer” types dismiss as not “real” games – addictive little timewasters like Bejeweled and Peggle and Candy Crush – as well as decidely un-hardcore games like Super Monkey Ball (which I played mostly for its billiards minigame) and Sega Bass Fishing. (That odd device in the picture of my game collection? A Dreamcast fishing controller.)
And while I play a lot of shooters – as you’ll see if you look closely at the picture of my collection – I often play on the easy setting, and I never play multiplayer at all. My favorite games tend to be those that give me the option to goof off for hours on end. I don’t even want to imagine how much time I’ve spent in the various Grand Theft Auto game universes, driving off cliffs on “taxi missions” gone wrong and generally causing trouble. (It would be nice if these games were less blatantly sexist, but Rockstar sure as hell knows how to design compellingly immersive open worlds.)
So, yeah, I’m pretty far from hardcore. But, you know what, angry gamebros? This is my hobby as much as it is yours. I may not fit your gamer stereotype, but I play games too, and the money I spend on gaming is as green as yours.
And there are a lot of us out here – game players who look a lot different from the angry gamers now ranting about evil Social Justice Warriors trying to destroy their supposedly male preserve. Hell, the comments section of this blog if full of them, many of them aficionados of RPGs and obscure interesting indie titles I’ve never heard of.
As Misha wrote in the comments to a recent post here, addressing one of the many gamebros out there incensed that non-dudes are invading a gaming world he sees as rightfully his,
Newsflash: It is not YOUR hobby, OR the hobby of your hapless diversity-hating gamebros. The individuals who want to see games evolve beyond depictions of harmful cultural stereotypes and tired sexist tropes also, wait for it, Play. Games. I play games. I am so excited by the recent footage released for FFXV that I could puke. You do not own them, and you do not speak for me.
Me neither.
Another commenter in the same thread noted that women have been playing video games from the beginning:
What I find so ridiculous is the fact that these guys act as though women playing/creating games is a new thing. I’m 3-freaking-6 years old. I’ve been gaming since the Atari 2600. I OWNED a copy of the ET game – yeah, that same one that most of those putzes only got to read about being discovered in a landfill in whereverthehell.
I’ve been a part of gaming allllll this time. Just because they didn’t want to recognize that or acknowledge my existence or the fact that I was right there, the entire time, playing in the WoW beta, playing in the Guild Wars beta, playing in the City of Heroes beta — that’s not my damn problem. They were the ones living in their own happy little penis-centric, he-man girl-gamer-haters club while I was over here, doing my own thing and having fun.
Their obliviousness is nobody’s fault but their own.
Buttercup Q. Skullpants added:
I’ve been gaming since the days of Pong, ELIZA, Merlin, Space Invaders, and Pac Man. Back then it was something both boys and girls did after school. It wasn’t seen as nerdy – in fact, the arcades were where the delinquent kids hung out.
It seems like today’s crop of misogynist gamers have their core identity way too wrapped up in being the coveted marketing demographic. They want to be pandered to and flattered with hypermasculine characters and alpha storylines.
It’s kind of hilarious that they’re treating this whole thing like it’s a RL video game, complete with black ops, sockpuppeting “missions”, evil shadowy enemies, rallying cries of threats to individual liberty, and an anything-goes mentality of inflicting maximum damage on opponents. Except the consequences of stalking and harassment are real, and permanent. In their imaginations they’re a group of beleaguered rebels taking a brave stand for freedom, but they’re actually the bad guys. They’re fighting against social justice and ruining a lot of people’s lives in the process.
It’s just a hobby, fercrissakes. I can’t imagine, say, model railroad enthusiasts getting all bent out of shape about more people taking up their hobby, and embarking on a hate campaign to define it as for old people ONLY. These guys really need to grow up and get some perspective.
Amen.
Elsewhere in the thread, M. the Social Justice Ranger described her experience,
I haven’t been gaming for quite as long as some of the other women here, but I first picked up a keyboard in 1989 and a controller in 1990, so it’s certainly been a while. Sure, I prefer single-player to multiplayer, Nintendo to PlayStation or Xbox and platformers, RPGs, pet sims and puzzle games to shooters, but I do consider my hobby to be a large part of my identity, so other gamers are usually (not always, but usually) willing to count me as one of their own…
… Until they discover that not only have I committed the cardinal sin of being born with a vagina, but I’m only interested in others who’ve committed the same sin. Then all of that flies out the window for rape threat after rape threat after rape threat.
Sigh.
I don’t want to destroy their hobby, I just want to enjoy our shared hobby…
#GamerGaters, is this really that hard to understand?
@LBT
Yaoi has some…some crazy stuff. And sparkles. And BL games, the most random/violent of which get translated. IDK.
Then again the other day my boyfriend was like ‘I have found a manga full of a loser peeping tom who is banging a serial killer who sells the bodies to a transgender woman who makes furniture out of dead people! I don’t know why I’m reading it because it deeply disturbs me!’
So…yeah, I still hold to my ‘manga can be wonderful yet bizarre and terrible and DO NOT WANT’ mindset. *still wants the old Sailor Moon Star Locket, but that thing is like 400 DOLLARS on Ebay, so not so much*
Man, I just sprayed my anime/manga nerd all over this thread.
Also, I was my Tamagotchi’s slave. Good on your original girl returning it, because that thing made me so damn anxious when it ran out of batteries my mom took it away. (My boyfriend stole his younger sister’s and buried it underground because it was taking over.)
This thread has made me want to dive back into my old video games and get new games and…I’m supposed to be working on a paper and reading for class. You guys are distracting! *goes to most likely not work on the paper*
RE: J.J
I enjoy manga well enough, I just have yet to get my Sturgeon’s Filter in order for it. (I.e., how to find the good stuff versus the bad.) Pretty much everything I’ve read by Tezuka, I like. I really liked Pluto, which was inspired by Tezuka! Wandering Son was all right, and I adored Yokohama Kaikashi Kikou. Nausicaa is great of course. Other than that… yeah, I’m better at US comics than Japanese.
Yeah, Tamagotchis were obviously not for her. WAY too stress-inducing.
I believe you’re thinking of this?
And yeah, everyone’s played SOME kind of electronic game if they grew up after 1975 or thereabouts. I know I had a handheld electronic baseball game, and also played a Pac-Man knockoff on my brother’s TRS-80 in high school. Damn near addictive, that thing was…
Bina, I started gaming on a TRS-80! We also had the Pac-Man knockoff! *airfist* I mainly played text-based adventure games though. Had to draw my own maps, for chrissakes. Played Atari games at my best friend’s place, and arcade games at… well, the arcade, which was full of guys and gals, all playing video games. And yep, female and 39 and still gaming – pretty much all console, since my husband hogs the gaming PC (that I set up for him *ahem*)
Am VERY excited about the new Silent Hill! Currently enjoying The Novelist on my iMac, thanks to someone here (sorry, I forget who recommended it, but thank you!). Always looking for indie games that have Mac versions, seems to be more common now.
Pluto is awesome. It helps that I love the sci-fi theme of AI/human relationships. My favorite video game series (Megaman) also has the same overarching theme.
RE: vaiyt
“Created beings finding their place in the world” is the easy trope to my heart, for obvious reasons.
If you like that and Megaman, might I recommend the Protomen? They make a rock opera out of the old megaman games!
The thing is, you(we) people do not even have to prove your(our)selves to anyone. Less even to some basement dwellers. And not even mentioning about a freaking hobby such as gaming. [This concerning the cis, male gamming community (including myself), and whatever names they can come up to to call themselves]
Despite this fact, we cannot overlook that the patriarchic society we live in, has to be fought in every ways/fronts possible. And its our job to do it, more even if you meet the requirements above 🙂 .
Joe:
Of course nummins. Now take your bottle and have a nap. Someone is grumpy about being made to share. Bless your little heart.
I am always torn about whether or not to defend my gamer cred. I self identify as a gamer because I have been playing games since my dad got me Atari 2600 and then he moved me to a computer. I lost years of my life in the King’s Quest series and Quest for Glory. Also, Zork and the Ultima series. My gaming childhood required lots of notepaper and graph paper for dungeons. I didn’t make the leap to consoles until the N64 generation. I fell in love with Zelda OoT and Majora’s Mask. I didn’t have the platforming skills though so I made my husband play through them for me to watch.
I don’t know what I would have done without gaming. I came down with a chronic disease which keeps me mostly house bound. Gaming is my outlet for boredom and a great way to bond with my husband.
I don’t really understand the whole “it’s mine!” aspect of GamerGate. My gaming cred is not enhanced or diminished by the fact that my mother at 68 has found gaming and LOVES Candy Crush. I have been really lucky in my life. I have found so much community in gaming. I belonged to a great guild when I played Ultima Online for three years. I had another great guild in Final Fantasy XI. However, WoW broke me of my desire to play online. Too many self centered asshats.
@Joe with a banjo:
Oh, sure, drop a link to a random discussion forum with an opening post dated at 16th september that seems to mainly link to editorials and opinion pieces on the subject to prove bad research on David’s part. Or to prove that #GamerGate is a valid movement. Either way, it’s not very convincing.
I’m also happy that one of the links they give show that #GamerGate has inspired a suicide prevention charity fundraiser. Here’s a thought: Maybe it didn’t come about through the bravery of outspoken #GamerGaters (since #GamerGate is not about suicide prevention at all) as much as through them constantly trying to inspire other people into killing themselves. So yeah, claiming credit for people combating the effects of your abusive behavior is really fucking disgusting.
Considering that even one of the more ‘reasonable’ responses with any meat to it I saw in that thread (to be fair, I didn’t go through all the 274 pages of comments) were about taking down Anita Sarkeesian (seriously, why is she the biggest boogeywoman you guys can think of?) and bringing back the “Jim Sterling we used to know and love” (by which I suppose they mean the sexist jerk he used to be before understanding that being a sexist jerk is kind of shitty), I don’t think you should feel pride in associating with them even now.
#GamerGate didn’t start out as an admirable movement out to expose corruption that got sidetracked by trolls, it pretty much began with entitled men harassing a woman who wasn’t even a journalist. How about you learn how to not make an ass of yourself.
#GamerGate is over. Done. Kaputt. There’s nothing to be redeemed about it, and only a petulant child who’s desperately trying to prove they weren’t bullying the other child in the first place would try to latch onto that particular hashtag anymore. Let it go and grow up. If you want to address journalistic corruption, start a new movement that doesn’t allow for that shit to happen in the first place.
Oh wait, who am I kidding. Misogynistic gamerdudes will lack the motivation to fight for anything unless it involves harassing and threatening women.
——————
And I suppose I’m a gamer too, although I play very infrequently these days. Started out with the classic Commodore 64. Oh wait, no, before that, my dad brough us a personal computer with a fun, primitive city bombing game. And I adored Dark Castle on Macintosh, despite it being hard as fuck. We still own a working Sega Mega Drive (Genesis to Americans) with all the Sonic games. Good times.
My sister loved to play as well, and it never even occured to us that she couldn’t join us because cooties or something. You’d have to be a seriously sad fucker to think a certain gender identity is required in order to enjoy an interactive medium. And you should feel bad.
@LBT: I know The Protomen! My favorite song is The Hounds.
The conflict that sparks, and then develops though, the entire series is between two different visions of the future. Light sees the potential for robots to become sentient and reach ever greater heights alongside humans, while Wily sees them strictly as tools to serve humanity’s (or rather, his) greed and desire for control.
Joe: Still haven’t learned to do some basic research??
“That feminist bitch Emma is going to show the world she is as much of a whore as any woman.”
“even GQ, despite having an audience of single men, cannot avoid advancing the feminist agenda by hiring the mouth of the fat slut movement. ”
“Everything about [sic] your neck is gonna be a fine red paste.”
Maybe it sounds mean, but I really don’t think so
You asked for the truth and I told you
Through their own words, they will be exposed
They’ve got a severe case of the emperor’s new clothes.
Heh, just stumbled on this on Wikipedia. Wonder if it’s a coincidence that it made the front page’s “did you know?” section:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate
Apparently it’s a type of ant. Who knew?
Maybe we need to start a twitter hashtag for #TheREALGamergate with pictures of ants.
Also, as brain bleach, here’s a very nice man rescuing a cygnet:
I love the way he talks to the adult swan that’s attacking him.
@Misha: Yeah, a lot of this hostility is based in an unwarranted sense of ownership. Of course you can buy and own a game – but that doesn’t mean you own how it is perceived and treated by others. That’s no one’s job nor should it be.
The weird part is some of these clowns wanted others to indulge in their artistic medium of choice and be taken seriously…only to then get really protective when it did happen. Me? I’m happy about it, because the love I have for those things can be shared amongst others as Art in the form of entertainment should be. I find the reversal from others who wanted the same absolutely shameful when not downright pathetic.
Are you honestly saying that an opinion-laden thread on an internet forum is “basic research”? You obviously lack much in the way of critical faculties.
Actually, you need to learn to read as well – David wasn’t stating anything as fact as much as emphasizing, rightfully, how many self-proclaimed “gamers” are dismissive of others who enjoy videogaming for the most petty and ass-backwards reasons imaginable. Mostly based on arbitrary and often impossible standards that only those “gamers” seem to conveniently fit…because they’re the ones who made them up out of nowhere.
Y’know, because having to share their toys with otherwise is their rather absurd view of “oppression” rather than just something a decent, open-minded human being would do?
First game I played… prolly Pong, but it might have been Zork! First machine we owned… Vic20. First Machine I programmed on, Apple ][ (which is when I discovered programming ain’t my thing).
In HS we had a C64, and an IBM (where I tried programming again, this time in Pascal… again, not my thing) and my stepfather was programming a text game based on Niven and Pournelle’s, Inferno.
I spent a lot of money in the arcade. Defender, Qix, Galaga, Tetris, Asteroids Space War. Space War was probably my favorite, because it was head to head. but Dig-Dug, Donkey Kong, Buger Time, Joust, Kung Fu, Gauntlet, Space Invader, Q-Bert, Paperboy, Star Castle (also really good), Zaxxon, Tapper, Pitfall, Time Pilot, Arkanoid, Centipede, Tempest (which a friend of mine wrote, probably the prettiest vector graphic game ever made) Missle Command, BattleZone, Star Trek…
Man, I forgot how many really good games there used to be. Those were the one’s that didn’t suck (though some weren’t quite my cup of tea).
I even got to play some of the pre-Pong games, like Computer Space (boring, even when it was the only thing going, but it was oddly compelling). There were the stero 3d games, like Subroc, which were fun to play, but hard to watch (because of the ghosting), which made them less popular, because part of the fun was playing with other people around.
And I remember a lot of girls playing those games.
One of the most fun was a first person shooter. It was video of bad guys. You strapped a six-shooter on, and when the screen flashed you had to draw, and shoot. If you pulled to soon, you lost. If you were off target, you lost.
It was a single action pistol, so had to cock it before you could fire it, so a second shot required being really quick.
Of course, when I was a kid, “gamers” played hex games. Tables, and six-sided dice and little square cardboard counters. Every issue of Strategy&Tactics came with a stand-alone game, and rules; with an article about the battle it represented.
Serious gamers used lead figures, and tape measures, to play those battles on board the size of tables meant for Thanksgiving suppers. They sneered at RPGs, and disdained computer games altogether.
I played so much M.U.L.E., and Spaceward Ho! and… shit I forgot the D&D sort of maze game on the Mac (and the tank based programming game, which was strike three for that line of interest).
I recall (fondly) the 5 1/4 drive spinning to find the right sectors for 50 Mission Crush and still recall the frustrations of Impossible Mission and the joy of Rampage, and Winter Games (I loved the ski-jump), and my personal favorite Roadwar 2000.
But for all that, I’m not a gamer.
@cloudiah: That’s a brave guy. Swans (and geese as well) are vicious territorial bastards.
I had a bootlegged copy of Tetris on my Mac, too. Only, that was in high school. Copied it off the school computers onto a floppy disk. That’s all it took, back in the day. But I started playing games about a decade earlier.
My first console was an NES, but I had a Pacman mini-arcade game before that. I still remember turning it on for the first time at 5am on Christmas morning and panicking over how ridiculously loud it was and not being able to figure out how to turn it off in the dark. I also had the D&D Computer Labyrinth Game, but I think I was a little too young for it and never played it properly.
Also, Candy Crush is a fucking terrible game. It should barely even count as a game. Not because women play it, but because too many levels depend entirely on luck rather than strategy. The whole point is to frustrate you into buying boosters. Bejeweled and Peggle, on the other hand, are respectable time wasters. And if PopCap would port Bejeweled Twist to iOS, I’d shell out for it all over again in a heartbeat.
Kirbywarp sez:
I want to like it, too, but the combat is utterly craptastic and doesn’t scale worth a damn. Can’t mod it, either, since I have it on PS3.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Bina sez:
Holy shit, I remember playing with one of those. I don’t think it was mine, though.
~*~*~*~*~*~
@LBT
You might try the manga Koe no Katachi (English title: A Silent Voice). Although, be warned, it’s got some pretty graphic bullying. But it’s realistic bullying that the characters have to deal with and then worth through the aftermath. Unfortunately, the only place you can get it legit in English right now is through Crunchyroll with a paid sub, though Amazon shows the first print volume will be out in May of next year. If you go with electronic releases, they’re already through the sixth volume.
Falconer:
Yeeehaa 🙂 Doesn’t matter, playing is playing.
Phoenician in a time of Romans:
But my (customized) Elerian fempire relishes in subjugating the entire galaxy under their practical and not-too-glittery combat boot heel!
…besides, doing that or releasing Death Spores lowers the popularity score and I always like it when the vote comes up and my empire abstains from voting. 😀
AL3H
That’s how I started, watching my then-BF’s cousin play it, and then I played it myself and ZOMG I was hoooooooked.
I tend to get anxious if I haven’t conquered it all. ALL MINE DANGIT.
Number Munchers!
This article said everything I wanted to say. Thank you.
As for my gaming chops…
I started out with the NES, and back then it was mostly Battle City, Contra, a bit of Mario, and I still remember just how fucking frustrating the TMNT game was. I also played on the SNES, and Genesis, the N64.
Even managed to get a Dreamcast before Sega pulled the plug on that one. Does anybody here remember Tech Romancer? Shenmue? No? Oh well… *sulks*
Most of the gaming I remember fondly was on the PS1 onwards, in particular a lot of Japanese imports. My very first RPGs were Suikoden and Wild Arms. And this is one reason I am entirely on board with Anita on her points regarding sexism in games.
I have personally observed a disproportionate amount of fanservice aimed in the games that I play, and now that I am older, I realize how let down I feel how an otherwise decent title had to resort to showing off some unnecessary skin or boobage just to sell more to my crowd. You’d have to be frakking blind not to see this whenever somebody plays Dead or Alive or Soul Calibur, or the gamut of MMORPGs out there.
The weird thing is that when a gamer or somebody the gaming community thinks is cool points this out, nobody really cares. But when Anita Sarkeesian pointed them out, suddenly people are comparing her to Jack Thompson.
And yes, the irony isn’t lost upon me that these self-proclaimed gamers defending the gaming community from interlopers like Anita are lapping up the talking points of Christian Hoff Sommers, whose basically from the same brand of right wing-nuttery as JT.
I guess what I am trying to say is, as a gamer with a couple of decades experience, I think this double standard stinks, and I refuse to have a bunch of entitled, stupid little turds pretend to speak on my behalf.
Also, this is my second post, and I hear you people have this package for newbies. Does it come with ponies?
@Antonio Pe Yang III:
No, no ponies, but plenty of kittens, whore penguins and the like, plus lots and lots of useful info for aspiring Mammotheers! Here you go:
http://artistryforfeminismandkittens.wordpress.com/the-official-man-boobz-complimentary-welcome-package/
Welcome!
OMG, Shenmue! That’s one obsession me and my brother shared. Lost sooooo many hours exploring, learning combat moves, playing Space Harrier, goofing around with the kitten, drinking soda, etc.
Sadly, our Dreamcast broke and I can’t play the games anymore. 🙁
My brother is part of a Facebook group dedicated to awaiting the conclusion to the Hazuki Ryo saga. Hope springs eternal…
^ Ditto with our Dreamcast.
I feel pretty guilty for breezing through Shenmue using an FAQ, since I was too young to really appreciate its sheer scale and immersion.
I’m currently heavily invested in a 3DS, particularly MonHun and Super Smash Bros.
For some reason, any mention of Tetris nowadays reminds me of this thing: