Sorry, Bill Fulton. Gaming Needs Assholes.
Fixing Online Gaming Idiocy: A Psychological Approach is a Gamasutra article by Bill Fulton which addresses two points.
1) People need to not be assholes when playing online games.
2) We can modify online games to minimize asshole behavior.
Rather than base the need for an absence of assholes on an appeal to courtesy or etiquette Bill bases the need on economics:
"Because the online behavior of our customers is dramatically reducing our sales, and continues to stunt the growth of our industry. Non-gamers simply don’t love games enough to put up with the crap they get online."
Bill's position is that there is a need to grow the gaming industry. To grow the industry non-gamers (noobs) must be brought into the fold and so the behavior which prevents them from entering must be diminished. Stated simply, assholes need to stop being assholes so that more noobs will play.
Here's one problem with Bill's argument: Assholes hate noobs. So, really, Bill Fulton has provided assholes with not a reason to stop but rather motivation to continue. The more assholes act like assholes the more noobs they will drive away. Assholes do not want to grow the gaming industry, to inundate their beloved pastime with a bunch of god damned noobs. Assholes are comfortable with the way things are. Despite this, though, developers do attempt to control behavior.
In the article Bill highlights features which stymie asshole behavior such as text filtering, decreased awards for team kills, group kick systems, and social networks. Bill maintains the position that game developers need to implement systems which prohibit or decrease asshole behavior and so make games more appealing to noobs who do not like assholes.
Unfortunately, part of the appeal of online gaming is its asshole accommodating nature. Online gaming allows a user to be their self, to not be restricted by real-world repercussions of their actions. An individual cannot call their boss a "dickless fag son of a syphilitic whore" without suffering consequences. But in an online game one may freely lash out at the anonymous players with whom one interacts.
And that is a good thing.
Part of the appeal of games is the escapism they afford the user. If a person finds the real world to be stressful or constricting they may escape to an online game and so find relaxation and a more enjoyable, comfortable experience. Part of that feeling of escapism is that online games are not subject to the social rules of the real world. The anonymity of online games and their open-ended nature allow users to call one another "dick flossing fags" without suffering repercussions due to the common understanding of the nature of the game. We do not need to feign respect and courtesy in online games at all times since players accustomed to online gaming understand that the insults, threats, and baseless personal attacks are not actually personal but rather the venting of stressed individuals who utilize games as a means of relaxation and stress relief.
Sure, game developers can attempt to stymie their faithful users and tailor the social components of games to noobs and individuals unfamiliar with online gaming. It makes sense from a business perspective for one to grow one's market.
But I think one also need maintain a realistic appreciation of the history of online gaming and the manner by which it grew to its current status. Certainly developers may repress users whose small talk includes Holocaust infanticide jokes as they grasp at fresh blood from the Hello Kitty crowd. But it may behoove developers in the long run to remain beholden to the users who have remained faithful for years rather than abandon their fanbase in an attempt to court a bunch of god damned noobs.
Sorry, Bill Fulton. You gotta' dance with the one who brung ya.
5 comments:
If people want to be dicks with the way they talk, then they should go somewhere where they can talk. "Chatty bitch wants to talk, he should get on IRC", in other words. Internet forums are a great place to lash out with reckless abandon on whomever happens to wander past. Games don't need to duplicate that service because they have an ulterior purpose: they're a fucking game.
So I agree, the internet does provide a place for people to be douche bags in ways they'd never attempt in real life, and that's something of a positive, but that doesn't meant that every facet of the internet needs to cater to that need, and I for one feel that games are one area where dickweeds can keep the fuck out.
I agree with Adam on this one. I have half of <Sick> on my ignore list because they are asshats. They don't need to be asshats they just are. It would be nice if people could get along and let me enjoy my game peacefully.
I think it would be keen if everyone in Online Games could be awesome and nice and not assholes. But I do not think this can happen.
1) Anonymity does not create assholes.
The problem I have with Gabe's Internet Fuckwad Theory is that it assumes that anonymity somehow creates an asshole, that anonymity changes a nice person into an asshole. This is not correct. Anonymity allows a repressed asshole to abandon restraint and embrace its inner asshole. That being said...
2) Online Gaming fosters assholes.
Think about it. Online Gaming = Anonymity + Competition. Couple that with the frustrating "grind" in most of these games (MMOs, CoD4) and you have frustrated individuals anonymously competing with one another. That brings out the asshole behavior. While certainly some will maintain a civil tone in these interactions for those with a predilection towards asshole behavior this is more than enough to unleash their inner asshole. See: (Sick), Realms, Xbox Live.
3) Gaming needs assholes.
This is not to say that asshole behavior is necessary for gaming. Rather, gaming needs the people already playing who behave like assholes. If you completely remove assholes from gaming and people who exhibit asshole behavior? That's a significant chunk of gamers. Xbox Live would have to shut down. Nigh-all high level raiding guilds in WoW would shut down. Realms would not exist. I think that asshole hubris is required to succeed in online games where “succeed” means “to be the best at what one does”.
I think that the genuinely nice people with whom one interacts in online gaming are the exception to the rule and that moderate to extreme assholes are the majority of gamers.
That being said certainly developers can utilize asshole behavior repressing features. In my guild, for example, there are plenty of assholes but these assholes do not regularly behave like assholes; if they did they would be kicked out. The social components of games can be structured to punish asshole behavior.
But that does not fix the fundamental problem of there being assholes. Rather, it masks the problem and represses it. And while we can continually tamp down the behavior eventually it will surpass those bonds and erupt out.
The idea of fixing the problem rather than masking the problem was what I initially wanted to write about. I thought about whether or not it would be possible to create an online game which did not foster asshole behavior, where that fundamental anonymity was not mixed with competition and frustration.
The problem is that removing anonymity removes part of the escapism. Removing competition makes the thing not a game. And those things which cause frustration are not absolute; that which does not frustrate one person may frustrate another.
I do not think it is possible to fix the problem, to create an online game which does not foster asshole behavior. I think that if we do not desire assholes then we have to structure the game to be such that it represses and punishes this behavior.
And when we do that we get things like WoW, where there are many systems in place to repress the behavior but they do not work all of the time. And if we had a system which was so tightly controlled that no one, ever, could be an asshole? Then the game would be too restrictive to be any fun.
"the internet does provide a place for people to be douche bags in ways they'd never attempt in real life, and that's something of a positive"
It is more than "something of a positive"; that is the appeal of the internet! That freedom and anonymity and escapism is why people spend time on forums, in online games. People flock to online communities to escape the confines and restrictive social structures of the real world.
When we remove that freedom and restrict behavior, when we belt away that fundamental appeal and deprive people of that escape? We're just being assholes.
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