We Must Take Back the Gaming Community
In EGM Issue 254, our beloved managing editor Andrew Fitch talked about the fighting-game community, and the cleaning up it needs, given examples like what Miranda Pakozdi went through during the filming of Capcom’s Cross Assault reality show.
Like Andrew, I grew up around the fighting-game community—for me, however, it was more of a direct connection. I made friends with the House of Shaboinkin, the most dedicated group of fighting-game players you’ll find back in my hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. Sure, some of them could be a little rough around the edges, but deep down, they were all good guys once you got to know them—a point that will become important in a moment.
Since Andrew’s editorial, the topic of the treatment of female gamers has exploded exponentially. Part of that has to do with one Anita Sarkeesian and her “Tropes vs. Women in Video Games” Kickstarter project. No matter what you think of Sarkeesian, her opinions, or her study on the treatment of female characters in video games, the reaction she’s gotten from some on the Internet has been absolutely scary. Sarkeesian received a long list of misogynistic (including that classic line tell- ing her to “get back into the kitchen”) and anti-Semitic (despite the fact that she’s actually of Armenian descent) comments, had people draw or Photoshop images of her getting raped, and even had someone make a Flash-based game where you could beat her up. Worse, Sarkeesian’s story is hardly the only example of anti-fe- male sentiment in the gaming community that we’ve seen recently.
As a community, we can’t stand for this anymore—not in regards to female gamers, or any of our members period. We are indeed that—a community—and it’s about time we get serious about act- ing like one. We are a group that has constantly been attacked by outsiders; we’ve been mocked for our hobby, told we’re wasting our lives away, assured that our proudest moments aren’t art. And yet, while we’ve all made the struggle to earn more respect and dignity for our pastime, that struggle hasn’t brought us together like it should. When gamers of color get online, they’re still forced to endure racist nonsense on a regular basis. When women argue about their representation in gaming, they’re still told that their com- plaints are nonsense. When members of the LGBT community struggle to be a part of the gaming community, they still find many who simply don’t care about their concerns.
That, really, is the key to all of this: caring for issues beyond what directly affects us. As individuals, we have to stop caring just about ourselves—and start caring about those around us as well. It’s OK if you don’t understand the concerns or complaints that somebody else has—but that doesn’t invalidate them. At the N00dz or GTFO!: Harassment in Online Gaming panel at PAX East, the panelists talked about how hard it can be for men to stand up and speak out when a female gamer is being insulted, but that support has to come, or else things will never change. We all have to live by that idea. In our com- munity, those who speak the loudest are typically those with the worst things to say; we have to drown them out with the voices of reason and inclusion. The gaming community doesn’t belong to “them”—it belongs to “us,” all of us, and we cannot let it be abducted by those who would ruin it for everyone.
At the same time, we have to remember something: It is individuals who are in the wrong, not the whole. Yes, the gaming community and its various subgroups do have some bad apples in them, but when we speak ill of those communities as a singular entity, we’re damning a far bigger majority of players who are good, decent people. It is those people—the silent majority—that must be convinced of the importance of inclusiveness, and who must come to realize why this is a fight that matters to all of us. If we start off the conversation by declaring our assumption of their minds being closed, then they’ll have no drive to open them.