Gamers and the 'hardcore' gaming mindeset that started in the 2000s' ruined the video game community

Remain convinced the only good community in games is the fighting game community. But, alas, they engage in the bad shit too from time to time.

gamergate was unironically the mainstream debut of the alt-right and I will stand by that assertion

In 1980 something, Nintendo of America made the decision to sell the Nintendo Entertainment System as a gendered toy

This would later be considered a bad idea and roundly mocked

Lots of good points being made but I don't like when it veers toward hatred of demanding games on a conceptual level. Ultrakill has lots of heart and soul and also challenges the player in order to evoke a certain experience, and that is part of the art of games.

"Hardcore" games without much story, games with leaderboards and bragging rights, aren't always being made to exclude and insult players. That stuff is fun sometimes, like Hyper Demon, a beautiful minimalist game in both concept and execution that many players will not necessarily excel at.

Petty, pedantic point perhaps but I do like a game that expects me to learn a bit to win.

I think a big point is also the transition of everything being so damned online now (not gaming but communities and discourse) that what initially was gaming in the 90s and early 2000s (casual gamers, kid gamers, and then weird grown ass chud adults) were very much compartmentalized and separate. Nowadays with Youtube you had the fallout of gamergate create a self feeding subculture that propagates among dissatisfied mainly white young males who utilize one of their hobbies (gaming) as escapism from all the shit capital loves to do (alienation) and create an exceedingly angry stigma to project on anyone entering "their" space that does not conform. Add in how chuds screech the loudest and angry engagement clicks and comments lead to algorithm feedback and you have one of the worst video genres ever of usually a scruffy bearded angry being gobsmacked they have to look at a minority in a video game for even a single fucking second but utilizing safe dogwhistles such as "woke" and "sjw" to "debate about it" (though that second one is falling out of style).

I think the early 2000s PS2 era was the peak of modern gaming. Colourful games, decent 3d graphics. The FPS era hadn't fully began on consoles yet.

The less said about the late 2000s, the better. That's when all the "gatekeeping, misogyny, toxic masculinity and general chuddery" really got kicked into overdrive. Every game got a sepia piss filter as well. And after that we got the blue filters which were somehow even worse.

Whoever caused all this shit. Wtf dudes?? Especially cross with the people who made MMOs.

I've been hearing The Wife Aggro jokes since I could remember my dad's dial up modem. My dad made those jokes too.

You can't escape The Wife Aggro. It's fucking impossible. If you call it out, you're the bad guy. That dude is helping his The Wife!!! You don't even have one, virgin.

Yea there's a reason why I can barely tolerate playing current WoW with the boys. I won't even touch classic.

The Wife Aggro is STILL THERE. MAKE IT STOP.

I dont understand how MOBAs becomes one of the biggest esports when gameplay consists of farming and the teamfights are full of visual bloats that unless you spend 100 hours reading the wiki including the fcking patch notes you understand absolutely nothing. Like just to give you a glance"buy physical attack because everyone does this and this guy wields a sword" but also stuff like "buy this magical attack because these dagger wielding assassin scales magic attack". Why is the goddamn dagger considered magical?

Like at least in stuff in counter strike the game despite some other tactics such as lineups it still overall easy to understand (plant the bomb and kill the enemies),.

I don't know if "post-contrarianism" is a term but I wish it was because it describes posts like this one perfectly

I agree with your complaints towards the apparent predominant gaming culture. But I also believe that there have never been more indie games that are contrary to that culture or just ambivalent to that culture than ever before.

games mechanics become watered down due to the profit motive and challenging games are fun, this whole thread feels like just contrarianism to spite a vocal minority turning being a HARDCORE GAMERRRRR into a personality trait

G*mers never had a chance.

The 70s saw the development of really old games like Dnd, essentially some STEMlord's pet project. Many of these ancient games were tied to Dnd, where the reactionary Gary Gygax's influence in Dnd was completely dominant.

The 80s continued that tradition with games like Rogue and Nethack. This was also when Nintendo exclusively marketed the NES as a "boy toy." Both of what could be retroactively labeled as indie and AAA gaming were firmly men only. Arcades tended to be dominated by men as well.

The 90s further perpetuated this trend with the console wars between Nintendo and Sega, with Sega pushing really hard as the cool and definitely being played by dudes with 'tude console. If you looked at Sega ads during that time, they were all hyper-trying-too-hard-masculine.

The 00s, while carrying the misogynist torch, reflected a qualitative shift in its misogyny. The 00s, or more specifically, 2001 was when Halo 1 was released on the Xbox. This game, more than any other, was what pushed gaming from some nerdy shit into the mainstream. With the mainstreamification of gaming came the dudebros. The previously misogynist nerds were transformed into misogynist dudebros, and the dudebros carried their toxic competitiveness into gaming.

The 10s was when esports, or more specifically L*ague of L*gends, became commercially viable. The esportification of games began and along with it, the toxic competitiveness seeped even in games that weren't designed to be competitive. And it pains me to say this, but speedrunning contributed to this as well. Suddenly, you started hearing about the "meta" and "optimal strats" in some indie platformer. And of course, G*merg*te sealed the deal by politicizing gaming, making g*mers consciously reactionary.

I have checked out of gaming so I can't give you a rundown of the 20s, but it's more of the same shit honestly. The seeds were sown during the 70s, with each subsequent decade nurturing the seedling, until it blossomed into some hideous plant with G*merg*te.

I remember gaming always being seen as a "boys club" for as long as I can remember. They were thankfully pretty welcoming of me (being a brown guy and all) but girls playing games were either given the m'lady treatment or chastised for making a mistake that would get them seen as being bad at the game. Often both.

The "ethical game journalism" days, to gaters, looked like this. https://i.imgur.com/P37EDfX.jpg

I know that's an ad, not journalism, which is the point. They don't want journalism. They want hype waves and to feel bazinga about what they buy without any downer talk whatsoever.

I don't care that much tbh because while the "gaming community" is indeed dogshit (personally I've stopped playing any sort of public multiplayer game since voice audio became the norm anyway), we also seem to be in a golden age of independent awesome video games, including specifically ones with dialogue and story. And the small sub-community of players of those are usually much saner and welcoming.

Hey I was a hardcore gamer but i played RTS and fighting games like a gentleman

The SEGA ads of the 90s were something.

These people should be locked in a room and forces to play nothing but 50 turn Mario Party rounds for the rest of time

Hardcore gaymer = fighting game enjoyer

Casual g*mer consoomer = everyone else

"Hardcore gamers" = the people who had enough money and free time to have a console (or two) and buy and play all the big releases. This group is mostly white, male, decently wealthy, and reactionary (in the same way any given white petit bourg is). The people shaping the game industry range from sicko libertarian dipshits (Carmack) to sicko capitalist [redacted] (Bobby Kotick). It hasn't ever been "good" tbh.

Souls fans when you use anything other than level 1 naked wretch with club the way miyazaki intended

Sorry but the ds1 taught me that running away to do a cheese attack that deals half of the boss hp is the way souls is meant to be played (never fight fair)

I don't really think this took off until Dark Souls though.