Home Gaming Gaming and its love-hate relationship with its personalities

Gaming and its love-hate relationship with its personalities

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Jessica Price was the narrative designer for Guild Wars 2, run by game dev Two ArenaNet. Earlier in July, she tweeted a thread about writing characters based on different game genres. A prominent member of the Guild Wars 2 community, streamer and YouTuber Deroir voiced his disagreement on Twitter.

Jessica Price responded by implying she was being told how to do her job because she was a woman. The community reacted fiercely to her statements & follow up tweets. Soon after she was fired by Two ArenaNet, along with her colleague Peter Fries who stood up to defend her.

Alex “Goldenboy” Mendez is a host & MC for Blizzard’s Overwatch League (OWL). He was recently streaming as he watched a clip on ESPN showing the opening ceremony, which featured himself of course, of the Grand Finals of OWL and he was visibly taken by the moment, appearing emotional and tearing up.

The competitive Overwatch community praised him and congratulated him for achieving his dream, but some remembered how much abuse he used to suffer when he first started out in the scene. Others still, recalled how they almost drove him out of the scene entirely due to how much abuse he received.

Richard Lewis is a veteran of esports journalism and has written iconic and extensive pieces across a myriad of games. Some of the stories he has broken have exposed some of the largest scandals in esports history, from shady management to match-fixing to cheating and more. Lewis has received constant threats from not just individuals but organisations as well, yet he continues to deliver breaking news that would never see the light of day otherwise.

Yet, a prolific member of the scene and one that has risked so much personally still seems to suffer at the hands of the communities he only tries to protect. Most recently, Lewis has been receiving flak after exposing a player for racist tweets along with calling out a journalist for unethical practices. The result is that Lewis suggested he would stop attending any CSGO events unless it was the company he works for who ran it.

A game developer, a caster & a journalist. All three either pushed out or close to pushed out of their scenes by their respective communities.

Gaming communities and their love-hate relationship with personalities

Gaming, especially the esports subgenre, has grown signifcantly. With the expansion of gaming culture and esports, has come the rise of personalities and talent. Indeed, rockstar game devs have been an established thing for some time now, with the likes of Fable’s Peter Molyneux or Fez’s Phil Fish, although the latter had a tormented relationship with the gaming community, which is apt for the topic at hand.

Nonetheless, with the growth of esports, the level of stardom is unlike ever before and is now accessible to more people than ever before. From casters to desk analysts, coaches to pro players, game observers to MCs, everyone can flourish in the spotlight. What many didn’t anticipate, however, was the increased scrutiny and abuse that comes with the glamour and flashing lights.

The gaming community is no stranger to mob justice. There have been numerous figures in the gaming scene that owe their fame almost entirely due to a mob of gamers hell-bent on destroying their lives over perceived or actual wrongdoings. Zoe Quinn, a game dev, was thrust into the limelight in a saga that birthed GamerGate. Allie Rose-Marie Leost, an employee at EA’s motion capture labs in Vancouver was widely harassed online for what the gaming mob thought was her fault in Mass Effect: Andromeda’s awful facial animations, only for it to turn out that she wasn’t the lead animator for the game and thus was not to blame.

With such a track record, it’s no surprise that as more and more personalities enter the gaming scene, the documented case of abuse and aggression from gaming communities increases. An argument often used in these discussions is that esports is just becoming like traditional sports and that the abuse is normal and something personalities have to get used to.

Traditional athletes are certainly no strangers to both online and real-life abuse and its something that has been accepted as part of sports and part of what it means to be an athlete in this day and age. However, there are nuances that make gaming slightly different. The depth of interaction that the gaming community enjoys with its personalities is far higher than traditional sports or even the likes of film celebrities, primarily due to how ingrained Reddit is in the gaming scene.

The harm of gaming culture’s interaction with its personalities

It is true that we live in an age where outrage is the norm, and people almost seem to look for it at every turn. Outrage culture, something I’ve written about in the past, is so prolific that when legitimate issues are brought up, it is all swept with the same brush. I wouldn’t be surprised if that same argument is used to dismiss this article. It is very much because of outrage culture that brands are more cautious than ever before to avoid it and thus the negative interactions that the gaming community has with its personalities can have far-reaching consequences.

The most obvious is that mob attacks can lead to personalities losing their jobs, their income & even their sponsors. These are human beings that are simply trying to put food on the table, and whilst that doesn’t absolve them of all wrongdoing, when you’re attacking someone’s livelihood because they don’t appeal to your tastes or your standard of quality, there is something crucially wrong in the culture that needs to be addressed.

In addition to that, sponsors get cold feet when thrown into a volatile, hostile environment. The Fighting Game Community (FGC) often derides the need for sponsors and is a gaming scene infamous for its hostile but deeply historic culture that often clashes with what sponsors would want. EVO, arguably the most prestigious FGC tournament in the world, had its highest prize pool in any game come from Street Fighter V (back in 2016) with just over $100 000. In fact, its total prize pool in 152 tournaments only amounts to just under $1 500 000.

When you compare that figure to games like League of Legends, Dota 2 and CSGO, it pales in comparison. League of Legends’ prize pool for the second season of its Worlds championship alone, already eclipses that amount, by over $500 000 (Source). The FGC will tell you that they don’t care about sponsors, but the discussion often comes up about how the pro scene would love an influx of sponsors and money to make it a viable career.

Of course, this is not to say that this is exclusively a gaming problem. As mentioned before, from sports stars to film celebrities to famous authors, all have to deal with the price of fame. The internet is a horrible place even for those not in the spotlight. Often, people take to Twitter to discuss how exhausting being on the platform is given how often anger and misery permeate within its digital borders.

Trolling is also an aspect that serves to exacerbate the situation. A whole community in the form of 4chan is notorious for its series of elaborate trolls. Sometimes harmless, but often anything but. The Star Wars fandom has a well-documented history of driving some of its stars close to suicide or from social media entirely. Late night host Jimmy Kimmel has a whole “Mean Tweets” segment whereby celebrities read mean tweets about them.

As much as online abuse and harassment occur outside of gaming, the goal isn’t to rid the entire world of abuse. The goal is to look at how gaming culture perpetuates it and to fix our little corner of the world. That’s not an entirely idealistic goal and is something we should constantly be striving towards. Ignoring the context of gaming culture in the discussion of online abuse & how gaming communities engage with their personalities is foolish and lazy.

Gaming culture has often struggled with women and how they are treated. Again, this is not an issue that is exclusive to gaming, but the context of how women are treated in gaming is important. Most recently, this issue was brought to the fore when Ninja, arguably the biggest Fortnite streamer in the world, revealed that he didn’t play with female streamers as he didn’t want the rumours to threaten his marriage.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with Ninja prioritising his marriage over his streaming career. There is also nothing wrong with Ninja choosing to avoid female streamers to prevent the vicious rumours and stories that the community would create and having to put his wife through that. What is a problem is that he had to make that decision in the first place.

It is beyond broken, that women are being punished for what is the fault of a largely male audience. The culture around women in streaming is already problematic, with many being called “Twitch thots” and the like. For one of the biggest streamers in the world to unwittingly, but understandably perpetuate that stereotype is detrimental to the future of gaming concerning equality and diversity.

You don’t see male music artists avoid working with women due to the risk of rumours and threatening their marriage. You’d be hard pressed to find someone in the corporate world who avoids interacting with the opposite gender to ensure there aren’t rumours of infidelity. The level of abuse seen in gaming around rumours of relationships & Twitch streamers in general is terrifying. You only need to look at places such as Reddit’s LiveStreamFail to see how obsessive people can be with streamers, gaming or otherwise.

Another reason context is essential when discussing abuse within the gaming scene is understanding the power of distribution. For content creators in gaming, Reddit is often life or death. Making the front page with an article or a video is the difference between paying the bills or rationing food for the month. The amount of negative attention Richard Lewis has gotten in the past led to him and his content being banned from the League of Legends subreddit. Despite vehement protests from the community, the ban has not been lifted.

Mods deny it was a personal thing and that Lewis broke subreddit and Reddit rules by brigading threads and threatening the mods themselves, but when the community turns on you, it can be career destroying for personalities. Thankfully for Richard, he has been established in various games and thus he could survive the hit, but very few, if any, LoL-centric content creators could. This context of how little power content creators have in the gaming scene adds another layer of viciousness that non-gaming industries can’t relate to.

The world of South African esports & its personalities

South African esports is often chasing the global scene, but I think this is one aspect in which we’re firmly in contention. Sam “Tech Girl” Wright has had to deal with some abhorrent behaviour from the community, with some questioning her hard work or credibility to get to where she is today.

Michael “axtremes” Harmse has had to deal with pro players in the scene react negatively to his criticism and question his ability to be a caster or his in-game knowledge. Journalists in the scene have had to deal with abuse and threats when calling out problematic behaviour or even just creating a discussion around an issue.

South African esports is such a small, still developing scene that it cannot sustain this level of toxicity. There are so few sponsors in the scene already, when the local industry becomes a hostile environment, brands shy away from investing and growing the scene. The local industry as it currently stands, offers too little value to brands for them to risk it, especially with outrage culture being such a part of society in recent years.

Brands in South Africa already understand so little in the world of competitive gaming, to create a toxic and hostile environment just scares them off and sets back the scene. Everyone loses in the end and all the hard work that has been put in is unravelled. The community reaction to the personalities that organised Mettlestate’s Valkyrie Challenge is an apt illustration of how the community almost drives out sponsorship and growth in the scene.

The way forward

Gaming is an incredibly lucky industry with its relatively intimate access to its personalities but is that something that needs to change going forward? The way forward could look like how film celebrities treat their social media accounts, either through a PR agency or with a very muted approach.

When looking at how game devs engage with communities, companies could enforce a strict social media policy that ensures minimal damage during interactions to avoid a massive fallout that leads to job losses and brand damage along with a mob baying for blood.

Some might even suggest that the community should simply monitor itself and that the status quo is acceptable. After all, gaming has always craved the approval of the mainstream and this is how mainstream personalities and talent deal with their respective communities. They grit their teeth and slug through it.

At the end of the day, a game developer, a caster & a journalist should not have to fight for their place in the gaming scene when their only crime was to be passionate and to care.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Critical Hit as an organisation.

Last Updated: August 14, 2018

89 Comments

  1. MonsterCheddar

    August 14, 2018 at 13:53

    This is why I avoid people most of the time.

    Reply

  2. Anon A Mouse

    August 14, 2018 at 13:55

    Gaming offline seems to solve most of these problems.

    Reply

  3. RinceThis

    August 14, 2018 at 13:19

    Brilliant article my man.

    Reply

    • MonsterCheddar

      August 14, 2018 at 13:55

      Its not in French, Bugger off.

      Reply

  4. Original Heretic

    August 14, 2018 at 13:24

    Very glad that it was pointed out, more than once, that this issue isn’t exclusive to gaming.
    Any, absolutely ANY type of activity that places one in the public eye seems to make some people think that it’s their right to start hurling abuse.
    Fact of the matter is, no matter how good the content is that you deliver, not everyone is going to like it. Even if 99% like it, that 1% is going to start talking shit and they’re going to be vocal about it.

    Where I think the issue in gaming might be a tad more compounded is relative to the medium. As gamers, our form of chosen entertainment is all digital. Hence, you have a far wider group of people who are more active on the digital front.
    And you’re going to have those types who are complete introverts out in the streets, but put them behind a keyboard and they start hurling abuse, ranting and raving at the smallest, stupidest things.

    Reply

    • RinceThis

      August 14, 2018 at 13:25

      stop making sense!

      Reply

      • Original Heretic

        August 14, 2018 at 13:32

        No.

        Reply

    • Kromas

      August 14, 2018 at 13:27

      I really hope you are not including Jessica Price in this statement.

      Reply

      • Original Heretic

        August 14, 2018 at 13:32

        I don’t even know who that is, really. I didn’t follow that Gamergate crap, I only heard about it. For me to comment on that, I’d need to be more informed.

        EDIT: Crap, she had nothing to do with Gamergate. I really knew fuckall about her! One of the many advantages of not being a Twitter twit.

        Reply

        • Kromas

          August 14, 2018 at 13:38

          I posted some video links. That should tell you everything you need to know.

          Reply

          • Original Heretic

            August 14, 2018 at 15:40

            can’t watch those at work. I’ll take your word for it.

          • Kromas

            August 14, 2018 at 15:58

            Okay unrelated she tweeted she will be celebrating the death of that human trash Totalbiscuit.

          • Kromas

            August 14, 2018 at 15:58

            Okay unrelated she tweeted she will be celebrating the death of that human trash Totalbiscuit.

          • Kromas

            August 14, 2018 at 15:58

            Okay unrelated she tweeted she will be celebrating the death of that human trash Totalbiscuit.

          • Kromas

            August 14, 2018 at 15:58

            Okay unrelated she tweeted she will be celebrating the death of that human trash Totalbiscuit.

          • Original Heretic

            August 14, 2018 at 16:01

            What kind of sorry excuse for a human being must you be to CELEBRATE something like that?!

          • Kromas

            August 14, 2018 at 21:04

            According to Kotaku a celebrated dev who fights for the rights of all people and who was unfairly fired.

          • Original Heretic

            August 14, 2018 at 21:07

            And this is the nature of propaganda. Punt a lie for long enough and people will believe it, eventually, even if it takes 100 years.

          • For the Emperor!

            August 14, 2018 at 16:00

            Long story short: she went into a bit of an SJW meltdown when someone (a well respected streamer of said game) dared to slightly disagree with her in a RESPECTFUL way. He even apologised for it and she just kept going.

          • Original Heretic

            August 15, 2018 at 01:04

            Ah. Yeah, pretty damn messed up then. Gotta agree with Kromas, very bad example to use.

  5. Kromas

    August 14, 2018 at 13:25

    Wait … did you just make Jessica Price seem innocent in what she did??

    Okay I am done.

    Reply

    • RinceThis

      August 14, 2018 at 13:30

      What did she do?

      Reply

      • Kromas

        August 14, 2018 at 13:33

        Uhm …. she started hating on a guy for asking a very civil question then went on a tirade of about being a woman and being disrespected and how twitter is supposed to be private and she hates being harassed etc etc. It is one of the worst things a dev could do.

        Reply

        • RinceThis

          August 14, 2018 at 13:35

          eish, not cool. Though to be honest, ruining someones life over something that innocuous is bullshit too.

          Reply

          • Umar

            August 14, 2018 at 14:00

            Yup. The Witch hunt for her was pretty crazy. It scares me how much people on the internet want to totally ruin someone else.

          • Kromas

            August 14, 2018 at 13:39

            Check those news videos. All with sufficient evidence to prove that she is bad.

          • Umar

            August 14, 2018 at 14:00

            Yup. The Witch hunt for her was pretty crazy. It scares me how much people on the internet want to totally ruin someone else.

        • Original Heretic

          August 14, 2018 at 13:36

          Twitter is private?
          Wow, that’s about one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard.

          Reply

        • Kromas

          August 14, 2018 at 13:37

    • Umar

      August 14, 2018 at 13:56

      While I found her rants following the incident really aggressive, I’ve always found it weird how people like Hideki Kamiya and Katsuhiro Harada can openly berate their audience on Twitter, yet there was such a massive witch hunt for Price.

      Reply

      • Kromas

        August 14, 2018 at 14:20

        She berated her audience as an employee of a company with her personal twitter stating as such and she was berating him about company talking points. I don’t know about the other two but she deserved everything she got.

        Reply

        • Alessandro Barbosa

          August 15, 2018 at 00:32

          A week after the Price incident Harada literally called a fan an asshole for telling him that not announcing anything at EVO was bad business. Everyone laughed and praised how hilarious Harada was.

          And yet Price got fired? Personally in both cases I don’t think either should lose their jobs over such petty shit (especially since I’m sure every developer has to deal with ridiculous shit like people telling them how to do their job on the daily), but the way the internet went after Price and not Harada shows…well something.

          Reply

          • BakedBagel

            August 15, 2018 at 08:34

            Legend of the gaming scene and producer of Tekken vs A quest writer

            Yeah the two are totally the same. damn.

      • Kromas

        August 14, 2018 at 14:22

        Also a Witch hunt implies no evidence. This is not the case.

        Reply

      • Kenny Lopez

        August 15, 2018 at 23:49

        She was also doing it in a sexist manner, if it was a guy doing that to female gamers he better be important enough to weather the shitstorm or else he would be fired quick

        Reply

  6. Anon A Mouse

    August 14, 2018 at 13:55

    Gaming offline seems to solve most of these problems.

    Reply

    • Kromas

      August 14, 2018 at 13:56

      Gaming online with exclusively friends also solves that. It is why I own my own servers for whatever I play.

      Reply

    • Pariah

      August 14, 2018 at 13:56

      None of these problems happen only in-game. This happens on forums, Reddit, Twitter, etc. Bit of a moot point there.

      Reply

  7. Skittle

    August 14, 2018 at 13:56

    “You’d be hard pressed to find someone in the corporate world who avoids interacting with the opposite gender to ensure there aren’t rumours of infidelity.” – Bra, this happens all the time

    Reply

    • Conan the Barbarian

      August 14, 2018 at 15:05

      And imagine how much worse it would be if your interaction with people of the opposite sex at the office was recorded and uploaded to youtube/twitch for your significant other and everyone else to see.
      Couple that with the fact that streams work better and are more fun if the players get along well and seem to be having fun together, and it makes a damn lot of sense.

      Reply

    • Anon A Mouse

      August 14, 2018 at 16:01

      Had it at my previous company many moons ago. Decided to leave as it had become way to difficult to maintain.

      Reply

    • Original Heretic

      August 14, 2018 at 16:01

      Yup, seen it first hand, too.

      Reply

      • For the Emperor!

        August 15, 2018 at 00:17

        Saw it more than once as well.

        Reply

        • Original Heretic

          August 15, 2018 at 06:22

          I’ve been on the receiving end, too.
          Messed up.
          I’m someone who likes to make people laugh. If I joke around with women the same way I do with guys, in a total innocent manner, suddenly I’m “flirting”. Some of the women I’ve been with have been waaaaay too jealous.

          Reply

          • miaau

            August 15, 2018 at 09:47

            Ah. You see I just make people laugh. Small, but important difference.

          • Dresden

            August 15, 2018 at 11:46

            Hahaha!

    • Captain JJ

      August 15, 2018 at 00:31

      Yea. Every single day, all day.

      Reply

  8. Craig "CrAiGiSh" Dodd

    August 14, 2018 at 13:56

    The good old days when you could just “C U @ rAge” …

    Reply

    • Alien Emperor Trevor

      August 14, 2018 at 14:14

      Now it’s C U outrage 😀

      Reply

  9. Sageville

    August 14, 2018 at 14:00

    A cautionary tale to be sure….

    I did mentioned before, I hardly think Ninja being selective about who he streams with is punishing women. It sounds like people feel entitled to his platform, it’s his own content and the explanation of his reasoning is perfect;y valid. Punishment implies some form of retribution for an offense, no offense occurred, perhaps constructive discrimination… I dunno… His fame puts everything under an excruciating microscope….

    Interesting discussion though…

    Reply

    • Guild

      August 14, 2018 at 14:03

      Agreed. He has taken a decision which I wouldn’t describe as “unwittingly” but rather smart in looking after your marriage first.

      Reply

  10. HvR

    August 14, 2018 at 14:00

    If you need a common sense guideline document to outline that you shouldn’t attack a customer and big promoter of your product; you should probably just stick to writing not interact with anybody and definitely stay of public social media platforms.

    What is definitely fueling this is the gaming media to refuse to report on these issue in an unbiased way going as far to not report on it when it mobs of Anita and co’s fans trying to get someone to commit suicide via online harrasment.

    Reply

  11. Alien Emperor Trevor

    August 14, 2018 at 14:12

    Instant easy access + thoughtlessness + lack of consequences + a sense of ownership + anonymity + potential for attention = raging online asshole making performance “art” without a care in the world because a game they like did something they didn’t like.

    I was struck by a couple of curious thoughts while reading this. Like what is gaming culture, or the scene? Because you talk about it like it’s a monolith. Because I’ve been a gamer for nearly 30 years and I spend zero time on reddit or twitch, and don’t play any pvp-based games, which is the bulk of what you spoke about above. That’s not my gaming culture or scene.

    Which also lead me to wonder if there’s any correlation between peoples’ involvement in competitive gaming culture and propensity towards online toxicity due to the competitive nature of it, where shit talking is more accepted as normal, and it boils over from there. Which doesn’t mean to say I haven’t seen plenty of toxicity outside of there either, it just seems more prevalent. I’ve seen enough childish BS on the Warframe forums over the years and remember people saying disgusting stuff about Chris Roberts’ wife because she was “ruining their dream space sim”.

    It seems to me this is like everything else people get upset about. The more you make a single thing the core of your identity, the more you perceive every negative reaction towards you and what you enjoy as an attack on your identity, and the more you lash out while defending it.

    Reply

    • RinceThis

      August 15, 2018 at 00:31

      can’t agree more. plenty of people out there who take ownership of things that are not theirs and then cry foul when they are not due rewards they are not, well, due? just look at the star trek Discovery mess.

      Reply

  12. Social Justice Jim Bot v 1.5

    August 15, 2018 at 00:29

    “At the end of the day, a game developer, a caster & a journalist should not have to fight for their place in the gaming scene when their only crime was to be passionate and to care.”

    Or perhaps, social media and gaming attract the most damaged people of all – Lonely, broken, antisocial creatures who find themselves in positions of power, and then eventually end up destroying themselves on the public theatre of social media.

    And that leads us to Mundane Matt… He crashed and burnt in spectacular fashion this past week. Press F for Respect!

    Reply

  13. The Big Bad Wolf

    August 15, 2018 at 00:39

    Great article. Great read.

    Reply

  14. BakedBagel

    August 15, 2018 at 08:34

    Ayyy Glenn always pulling these comment numbers.

    This dude knows how to get engagement Lmao

    Reply

  15. Caveshen Rajman

    August 20, 2018 at 13:19

    Unsurprising who is taking whose side in the comments rofl.

    All I’ll say is, nicely said Glenn. I have nothing further to add, other than I guess, I hope that one day we can stop looking at Your Side v My Side and start looking at the actual issues at hand and try to discuss them a bit more. We are so irate as a people, so quick to anger over what exactly. The next gotcha? What’s the point of any of it? A little bit of empathy could go so far, it’s something I’m trying to practice more and more each day, because I’m honestly tired of the fighting now.

    Reply

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