craigieboy

I have a bitter-sweet stance on Steam as a whole. Of course the convenience of having the vast majority of my PC games obtained and updated through Steam is pretty good and a lot of the games had been bought from various Steam sales for good prices. The flip side is Valve not having much competition and assuming the role as the sole provider of almost every PC game. Stuff like the levels of shovelware allowed and issues with early access show Vavle don't get it right all the time and for a long time there wasn't really anywhere else to go if you didn't like that.

I personally am happy that other clients like Origin, Uplay and Battlenet have stepped up in the quality they offer if only to give Valve a bit of a kick up the backside.

@stonyman65: I hate to really use this phrase but "Banter" when the term isn't used as an excuse to be racist or something similar as well as more "light-hearted" trash talking is something I think a majority of players don't have any real issue over. If I'm in a game and another player says "dude you need to git gud scrub" I probably won't be too happy about my gaming skillz being dissed but on the whole it won't be a huge issue and mostly forgotten after the match has ended.

The tricky part is at what imaginary cut-off point does what people say go from standard trash talking to an actual problem of toxicity and that cut-off point will arguably be different for different people. A little off topic but I recently saw a video from someone playing Overwatch and discussing this issue of toxicity and Blizzard's response video titled "play nice, play fair". The general gist was that in their opinion Blizzard was being overly sensitive and that they were treating the community as children that need looking after.

Arguably there is a little bit of merit in that when regarding to how Blizzard react to immediate outcrys from the community such as with some of the stuff going off in the OW league but the main thing for me was before he made his points he used an example of a previous game he played about the toxicity in Overwatch where 3 other players insta-locked DPS and were complaining when he changed to another DPS because they weren't being effective. He choose to refer to the players as autistic in the derogatory sense that I'm sure some of you will be familiar with as one of those insults that you just see on the internet sometimes. I'm 90% confident the guy doesn't actually have any bad feeling for people that actually have autism but obviously he seemed pretty comfortable with using the word as a way to put down his teammates in the game.

This is why I think games like Rainbow Six Siege as well as Overwatch have shifted to a more zero-tolerance attitude to any kind of chat that has the potential to really negatively affect other players. When you try to have a "You can do trash talking but don't go too far" stance then people will inevitable see how far they can push the boundaries and everyone's boundaries for what does and doesn't upset them will vary. Maybe the autism thing is something some people don't consider that offensive but personally for me I found it in very poor taste and not something I want to see in game.

@the_greg: I think that's the stance everyone is at. Unfortunately as many will know the potential of how vile and scary it could get is huge, I'm reasonably confident that it shouldn't be that huge of an outcry from the internet mob but I've been surprised at the lengths people will go over the least consequential stuff.

Either way he messed up bad and I don't think anyone wants him to get away with it too easy.

@boonsong: It's possible IGN could just give him a "This is your last warning" kind of ultimatum and that would be enough for him to carry on without copying other reviews.

It's pretty accurate what you are suggesting that the Internet will probably lay into his mistake for a while and it'll be difficult for him to drop that tag of "that one guy that plagiarized a Youtuber's review for IGN" even if he goes on to make plenty of other reviews on his own without any copying.

In a little defense of IGN, I'd assume they're as surprised about this as we all are and wouldn't think someone on their books would resort to this. They seems to have as least acknowledged what's happened and in the process of making a decision on it pretty quickly, however this won't do them any favours to their already diminished reputation and I wouldn't be surprised if they are a lot more strict in the process reviews are made for the site in response.

@gamer_152: Just wanna add that there was a period where I stopped playing a game for a couple of months as a result of a particularly bad experience in a single match. There was some other poor matches along the way prior but after that last one I just mentally gave up and shelved the game for some time. The fact that it's as you say probably around 1-20/30 people actively engaging in these kind of actions that really annoys me as you'd think everyone else would potentially be able to outnumber these people and stamp out this unsavoury behaviour quite easily.

I'll be honest I always thought not engaging with someone trying to ruin the game for others would have been one of the best things to do since I assume the main goal of these people is to generate a reaction from everyone else in game. I'll still use whatever reporting feature are in the game but I figured I don't wanna give the person anymore satisfaction that their actions are having the desired effect they want, although I can see how no reaction can be interpreted as "No one seems to mind so I'll keep doing it". It kinda feel like a damned if I do, damned if I don't with this situation.

I think a lot of us would agree that there is a debate worth having on the negative aspects of excessive gaming, particularly with people with prior conditions that genuinely struggle with playing too much. The major problem is all the news outlets want Video Games to be the sole cause of all these problems when really gaming addiction is actually just a symptom of other issues that get swept under the rug.

It must be frustrating for people in the games industry to be commonly demonized by mainstream media for these kind of incidents rather then be noted for the work they actually do.

@tom_omb: This is more of less the point I was going to make. The fact is anyone can be part of a "fandom" if they like the thing it represents and unfortunately this can lead to people who are so selfish and single-minded that they think it's appectable to bully others who like what they like as well as the people making the thing that they like. I find it difficult to really blame anyone for those kind of incidents apart from the person themselves so I don't consider fandoms as a problem.

I think partly the reason groups of popular games/shows get ternish by a few individuals actions is that they are given a bigger platform then they deserve. 95% of fans talking and discussing a new announcement of a game/episode isn't nearly as juicy clickbait as a couple of angry trolls losing their shit over a typically inconsequential change. People being civil isn't interesting to watch so it gets ignored when the subject of fandoms is brought up.

Just recently when the Spyro Reignited Trilogy was confirmed I was in a more 'hype' state then I have been for a while. I always looked on at announcements of Nintendo's big hitters such as Zelda and Smash Bros with the fan reaction and feeling a bit left out. I still love most of what Nintendo do but I don't really hold them up with the same reverence as the people that have had a lot of their childhood dominated by their great games. Most of my gaming childhood was defined by the classic PS1 and PS2 titles with Spyro being a big part of that and seeing those games I enjoyed so much given a new lease of life has given me some indication on what others are feeling when Nintendo pulls it out of the bag with a big title.

There are a few others games in recent years I've been more excited for such as Mass Effect 3, MGS 5 and Gran Turismo 5 which ultimately didn't really live up to what I wanted.

@nodima: What you wrote was relevant enough for the discussion so don't worry about it.