So the #GamerGaters are mad about a new study that suggests that some of the most dickishly misogynistic male gamers are quite literally losers. That is, men playing video games like Halo and Call of Duty online tend to lash out at women players when they’re doing their worst.
Looking at the behavior of a number of men and women over the course of 163 games of Halo 3, researchers Michael Kasumovic and Jeffrey Kuznekoff from the University of New South Wales and Miami University found that
lower-skilled players were more hostile towards a female-voiced teammate, especially when performing poorly. In contrast, lower-skilled players behaved submissively towards a male-voiced player in the identical scenario. This difference in gender-directed behaviour became more extreme with poorer focal-player performance.
In other words, the more of a video game loser they were, the more of a misogynistic loser they became.
We suggest that low-status males increase female-directed hostility to minimize the loss of status as a consequence of hierarchical reconfiguration resulting from the entrance of a woman into the competitive arena.
In other words, they hate losing … to a girl.
The researchers argue that the entrance of larger numbers of women into the dude-heavy world of video games is especially threatening to “[l]ow-status and low-performing males,” who
have the most to lose as a consequence of the hierarchical reconfiguration due to the entry of a competitive woman. As men often rely on aggression to maintain their dominant social status, the increase in hostility towards a woman by lower-status males may be an attempt to disregard a female’s performance and suppress her disturbance on the hierarchy to retain their social rank.
If this all sounds to you like a plausible explanation for a lot of the anger driving #GamerGaters, you’re not the only one to see the connection.
A recent article on the study on Yahoo News suggests that,
[a]s gaming has traditionally been a male-dominated pastime, these findings could go some way to explain 2014′s Gamergate furore. Several high profile female game developers were targeted with a torrent of misogynistic abuse, including rape and death threats, coordinated by factions of male gamers using sites like 4Chan and Reddit.
And this is what has the #GamerGaters on Reddit’s KotakuInAction subreddit pig-biting mad. In a thread complaining about the Yahoo News piece, the regulars show just what losers they really are by lashing out at … women.
Evidently forgetting that the study in question was conducted by two men, a Redditor called Katastic_Voyage won more than 130 upvotes with a lovely rant declaring that
There’s a huge freaking difference between shit talking, and bullying.
But most of these articles and “papers” are written by women, who live in a woman’s world, and don’t understand the first thing about what it’s really like to be a man. The others are by men who are basically women but doesn’t realize it–they were likely forced to grow up in a woman dominated, catty, passive-aggressive world.
Ok, my bad. The researchers might appear to be men, but are probably “men who are basically women but doesn’t realize it.”
And somehow this all has something to do with metal music:
Woman call all men “dumb” because that’s what they call anything they don’t understand. It’d be like someone who likes classical music calling metal dumb. Even if they’re actually related. Even though there’s plenty of beauty and complexity in metal… they don’t ever dive into it so they deride and dismiss it.
It IS real music, mom! (Sound of bedroom door slamming, followed by the muffled intro to “Enter Sandman.”)
So they take things like:
The need to compete? They think it’s violence.
The need to shit talk? They think it’s bullying.
The fact that men can look at other women and not cheat? It blows their minds that men can actually feel pleasure just seeing a woman of beauty… and that’s it.
Uh, I thought we were talking about video games. Did some mean lady just break up with you?
A fellow called Zakamaru, replying to Katastic_Voyage, decided to show how not mad he was about women invading “male spaces” by getting mad about women invading “male spaces.”
It’s what happens when a bunch of women get into male spaces and some fail to understand it.
Gaming has always been competitive. I can’t even begin to count the amount of times I was called various names and derogatory remarks, but it doesn’t fucking matter. You get insulted all the time, and it takes a special type of person to actually take offense to that. …
It’s not that we hate women. With gaming being a predominantly male hobby, it’s going to have elements of masculinity, competitiveness, and testosterone floating about. When people shit talk, they will use any sort of “weakness” that you have and attack it. If you’re unskilled, you’re a noob/scrub. If you’re an obvious underaged child, you get called a kid. If someone needs a quick all-purpose insult, you’re now a faggot.
When some women see this, they immediately think that it needs to change to fit their worldview. To them, these insults are simply unacceptable, and are “x-phobic” or whatever tumblr buzzword they feel like using today. Never mind the fact that gaming was born from a bunch of socially awkward men who carved out their own space with their own culture and lingo. No, now you have to cater to ME, because I’m a GIRL.
Boy, you guys really put those dumb lady researchers (who aren’t ladies, but who maybe sort of really are) in their place.
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@spacelawn
Yeah, that’s true, there were some pretty sweet environments. The snowmobile in the mountains part is another memorable one
@SFHC
Does that make Captain Price the Meg Ryan of FPSs?
@Lam
Glad Aoe3 still has it’s fans. The era is certainly fun, I guess my biggest problem with it was how the campaigns were not based on historical figures. I was hoping for something like a Lewis and Clark campaign or a Paul Revere campaign or a Queen Elizabeth campaign.
Wow Zaramaru dude. Way to show you’re not a sensitive thin-skinned loser by getting upset that people are calling people you identify with names. No wait, the opposite of that.
Why are they identifying with loser misogynist gamers anyway? They are complaining about noobs, then basically out themselves as such. Shouldn’t they be telling those gamers to ignore this judgment since they get trash talked all the time in games (so are therefore used to it and immune), man up, and not whine about it? They sure are implying only noobs who can’t play would get upset, yet they are getting upset. The lack of self awareness should suck them into a black hole.
I think there are plenty of brownscale shooter fans who would concede that brownscale is an overcrowded genre with many forgettable entries. Hell, every time there’s a new call of duty there’s a raft of jokes from leaderboard players about just how little is actually new in the “new” game. Obviously, that conservatism is part of how they retain their base; said high-ranked players have little trouble changing over and maintaining their ranks; but it inspires cynicism.
I enjoy romantic comedies a great deal, but have no illusions about what they are. Well, other than Easy A, which is a timeless masterpiece.
Love seeing all the game recs here. :3 I recently picked up Darkest Dungeon – if you guys like dungeon dives and party management you should check it out. That being said, why am I not surprised at their reaction to this?
While the study makes sense, the connection with gamergate is tenuous at best, in fact it’s a pathetic spin, any male making this connection is as big a loser as a low status male highlighted by the study, but trying to disguise themselves as if they are a high status males. Pathetic obsequiousness on display by David.
i’ve seens bits of Darkest Dungeon and it has AWESOME art style.
@RV
Hmm, it seems that someone is bad at video games.
@RV …I don’t think “obsequiousness” is the word you wanted there. You’re pulling words out of the big kid bag. No. Bad recreational vehicle!
@Panda – omg it is awesome both in art and in play and it is HARD. My husband joked it’s the first game I’ve gotten that’s beaten me more than once XD
@Johanna Roberts
Oh, gods, yes. I’ve seen some people try to clear the first dungeon and just get flatten by it. It’s so great!
I only touched on it in my Web Design III course, so I’m a little sketchy on it m’self. I know there’s lots of HTML and CSS coding involved, and my brain can’t translate code into images, since I’m such a visual person. (I need pictures, goddamnit.)
Though, I did find this, so maybe that’ll help?
It’s one of mine too. I’m playing it right now, in fact. A mod pack called Natural Magic through the AT Launcher. It’s pretty good, and it’s got all of my favorite magic mods (Thaumcraft, Witchery, Ars Magica 2, Magical Crops, Botania, and Blood Magic), and some other mods I’ve come to really enjoy (Bibliocraft, Mr. Crayfish’s Furniture Mod, JourneyMap).
You are aware, you pretentious hedge-pig, that using a large amount of larger words does not, in fact, make you sound more intelligent? In fact, it makes it sound like you’re trying very hard to cover up the fact that you are not.
Had you read the article, David was quoting GGers who were protesting the study, and were doing so by doing exactly what the study suggested about them, in GGs subreddit, Kotaku in Action. He also linked an article that suggested that it could explain GG’s mouth-foaming anger at women, as the study does uncover that there is a lot more hostility aimed at women in the gaming community, of which I happen to be a part of (before you get your underwear of choice in an uncomfortable alliterative grouping).
Hence the connections to GG in the title, which is clearly as far as you made it through the article before knee-jerking down here to try and make us think you know what you’re talking about.
Perhaps it’s a benefit that “lower-status males” elect to read something before they comment on them. They tend not to put their feet in their mouths as often.
@RV Aww, it’s so cute when you try to logic.
Belladonna – cribbage! That was one of my parent’s favorite card games. In the early years of their marriage, they would listen to radio programs until the station clocked out, then play cribbage until it was time for bed. I never learned, myself.
I did run an all-gay D&D campaign for eight years (from about ’95 to ’03). The players got annoyed at how little combat I put in; instead of quitting, they got together and delegated one player to meet with me and convey their concerns. I said they had unionized, as the Greater Eghtedari Adventuring Guild and Benevolent Society, and he was the shop steward. They got at least one big melee combat per gaming session after that.
I have played Civilization (several editions), but I prefer to play with war turned off. It doesn’t keep the other civs from building military infrastructure, but it keeps them off my neck while I’m building culture/science stuff. Some other players have wondered at this; they seem to feel that six thousand years without a single military encounter would be boring. Me, I don’t find it so. One time, I decided to play a civ according to Objectivist principles; my civ had the smallest territory and population, but the highest wealth. Huh. That would NOT have worked out if I hadn’t turned war off.
I used to play Sim City, and liked building a low pollution, low crime, high education city. Haven’t played for a while; never did play Sims. I may be one of the few people who played Sim Earth. Now that was a frustrating game; it was so difficult to get land animals without cheats, much less intelligent life, that it was the first game I ever deleted from my computer.
@sunnysombrera
I liked that story. I also realized what I like about it: sombrero stems from sombra, shadow.
It’s that light & shadow vibe I got from it, a bit yin-yang-y… I see maybe it was all inside my head! :O
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbg6o5mqar1rajw7eo1_500.gif
Oooh, I’ll have to give Legend a look; I loved playing Pathfinder but haven’t had the chance to play in a couple years and it’s gotten a bit mind boggling now.
RE: CoD games all being the same
I can’t speak to the brownscale shooters’ variety, as I have never had any interest in them and very rarely played any kind of FPS. But I will admit that I am the kind of player who will finish a game (generally an RPG or strategy one) and then go “That was great! Now give me another game with the EXACT SAME GAME MECHANICS, just with a new story and some new challenges to tackle with my familiar and enjoyed toolset.” I mean, I know innovation and progress is good but sometimes I get the next installment and go NO WHY WOULD YOU CHANGE THIS CHANGE IS SCARY. So I can get why game clones might be so ubiquitous, I’m one of those awful folks who goes “YES MORE OF THE SAME PLEASE”.
I’ve been playing electronic games since I was about twelve, so roughly thirty-two years now (yeah, the 71 in my ‘nick refers to my year of birth). I’ve discovered I tend to gravitate toward either simulation-style games – I think the single game I have the most play hours in at present is The Sims 3, followed by Banished – or toward RPGs, more particularly JRPGs, but I’ll take anything which has a decent storyline, doesn’t demand the reflexes of a ferret on crystal meth, and doesn’t expect me to play wholly and solely in first person mode.
First Person perspective games, or anything third person with a lot of camera angle wobble, tend to inevitably make me nauseous. My prio-perception is apparently hyper-tuned to the point where if my eyes think I’m moving and my body says I’m not, I’ll wind up feeling queasy within about ten minutes of it. This is what stopped me dead on things like Skyrim, and Mirror’s Edge and so on, not to mention the whole FPS genre in general. Of course, if I say that playing FPS games makes me feel ill, people tend to think I’m talking about getting squicked out by the gore levels. Nope, it’s not the gore, it’s the movement.
I suspect I’m going to be one of the (mostly female) people who also gets queasy when using an Occulus Rift headset too.
(Yes, I have a long history of motion sickness.)
Favourite game series is the Final Fantasy games (FFVII was my introduction to the series, and I’ve had a go at most of them except V, VI, IX, XIV and the latter bits of XIII) because they tend to come with plot, plot and more flippin’ plot on top with plot sprinkles.
Re Minecraft:
I’ve never played multiplayer or with mods. Are either fun? I love the fantasy of what multiplayer might be, but am turned off by the inevitability of griefers and trolls constantly ruining everyone’s lovely everything. As for mods, I have no idea of which ones are fun and which ones aren’t.
The reason I ask is that I’ve played with the idea of paying for my own minecraft server for a while now. It doesn’t cost much in the grand scheme of things, and being able to provide a space where other people can build stuff without worrying about griefers would be something which would give me the warm fuzzies.
I’ve been think of renting a minecraft realm my self EJ. If I do I’ll let you know. you and anyone else here who plays Minecraft will be welcome to join.
I would love to join a Mammoth minecraft server. I could probably even host a server as well, if people are interested, though it’d be off my home computer rather than a server, so it wouldn’t have quite as much uptime as a normal server.
Has anyone else played Sim Ant? You start as a teeny anthill in the corner of a yard and you win by taking over the entire yard, invading the house, and forcing the family to leave.
I’m in if you start a MC server kirbywarp. Don’t worry about any downtime,it would probably still be better then a minecraft realm since you can only invite 20 people and only 10 of them can be online at a time .
I loved that game when I was a kid, katz! Does it still hold up?
Fabe, kirby: Let’s do this. I suggest that we kick it off on kirby’s and then if it becomes a thing with a life of its own we can always migrate it to paid hosting later.
I further suggest that we get someone who’s not currently working and who plays a lot of minecraft anyway to be our “face”, because they’ll be able to put the hours in and provide effective moderation.
I haz the excites.
Would this be a vanilla server or a mod pack? I’m definitely more into the modpacks myself. I’ve played a bunch of FTB before, but lately I’ve grown fond of the AT Launcher packs (particularly the Yogscast pack… the Flux version of Resonant Rise, I think).
Also around which timezones are you all in… Because it’s nearly 3am where I am at the moment…
Vanilla or mod pack, it does not matter to me kirby, I’m just looking forward to paying minecraft with others.As for time zones its 12.53 where I am. We might not see much of each other if this happens but with any luck they will be enough other people who get in one this that having people to play with will not be a problem,
Alternately maybe we could start a club in the game “trove”
http://www.trionworlds.com/trove/
I’ve only played around with it a bit so I have no idea of how good it is in the long run but it still might be a option.
Huh. Trove looks pretty neat, kinda like Cube World. Is it free to play? What’s the gameplay like?
Minecraft wise, I could try to get a server up and running tomorrow, and tell folks in one of the open threads when it’s up.
Sim Ant holds up, but it’s really difficult. Most of the old sims were. Now they’ve gotten much more casual, which is fine if that’s what you like, of course.