finalark
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Link to original post: [drupal=3164]The overthinker's new video...[/drupal]
Hello, for those of you who are unaware, the Game Overthinker is a Web series from a guy named Movie Bob. In the series, he talks extensively about gaming related issues. Now, I don't always agree with him and I hate how he's a hardcore retro elitist but the man does make some very good points. In his most recent video he talks about "Building a better gamer." He starts out talking about obvious things, like keeping physically fit and expanding your horizons beyond games, but in the third part he goes on an outright rampage on the way that gamers act.
In the Overthinker's video he talks about how these days online gaming has pretty much taken away all social skills that gamers ever had. Specifically, Xbox Live, and while I agree with him there, he stays in his retro shell and refuses to admit the advantages of Online gaming. But that's for later in my blog, for now I want to talk about what the overthinker had to say about the effects that online gaming has had on the gamer community.
The overthinker points out that online gaming had made it so that players think of the other people playing with them as nothing more than bots that they can treat as they'd like. I find this to not be totally true, in many online games I've played the community has been respectable and overall pretty good. In my experience, it's mostly First Person Shooters in which people suddenly think that being pretty good with a fake gun suddenly makes them "******." Although I'd be telling a lie if I said that I never had similar encounters in other communities (Battle.net's community is a good example). In truth, it really is mostly in competitive multiplayer that you come across the screaming twelve year olds. This is actually the very reason why I usually don't play online competitively, if you look at My Resistance profile you'll see that I play almost entirely co-op, or if you look at my World of Warcraft character you'll notice that I have hardly any PvP achievements.
Now for what the Overthinker seems to ignore in all of his videos in which he addresses online play, there are tons of positives in online play. While yes, I'd much rather play local than online I can admit that because of online play you'll always have someone to play with if all of your friends are unavailable, and it also lets gamers from all over the world to enjoy their favorite hobby as one. But still, the community in some cases... the overthinker makes some great suggestions on how exactly we fix this problem. Ignore them, make playing online for these annoyances lonely. Responding to their yelling is exactly what they want you to do. Also make sure that you don't do it yourself, and I agree with all of the overthinker's suggestions. I honestly do try to remember that it's a game, and that the players on the other side of their avatars are people. And yes, ignoring them works, in World of Warcraft is someone is acting like a screaming twelve year old then their either going to get kicked from my group, go onto my ignore list or they're not going to get my DPS for their group.
Now, if you agree with everything that you read or not is up to you. But if you're really interested I suggest you check out his video here (STRONG LANGUAGE ALERT): http://screwattack.com/videos/TGO-Episode-33-Building-A-Better-Gamer
Hello, for those of you who are unaware, the Game Overthinker is a Web series from a guy named Movie Bob. In the series, he talks extensively about gaming related issues. Now, I don't always agree with him and I hate how he's a hardcore retro elitist but the man does make some very good points. In his most recent video he talks about "Building a better gamer." He starts out talking about obvious things, like keeping physically fit and expanding your horizons beyond games, but in the third part he goes on an outright rampage on the way that gamers act.
In the Overthinker's video he talks about how these days online gaming has pretty much taken away all social skills that gamers ever had. Specifically, Xbox Live, and while I agree with him there, he stays in his retro shell and refuses to admit the advantages of Online gaming. But that's for later in my blog, for now I want to talk about what the overthinker had to say about the effects that online gaming has had on the gamer community.
The overthinker points out that online gaming had made it so that players think of the other people playing with them as nothing more than bots that they can treat as they'd like. I find this to not be totally true, in many online games I've played the community has been respectable and overall pretty good. In my experience, it's mostly First Person Shooters in which people suddenly think that being pretty good with a fake gun suddenly makes them "******." Although I'd be telling a lie if I said that I never had similar encounters in other communities (Battle.net's community is a good example). In truth, it really is mostly in competitive multiplayer that you come across the screaming twelve year olds. This is actually the very reason why I usually don't play online competitively, if you look at My Resistance profile you'll see that I play almost entirely co-op, or if you look at my World of Warcraft character you'll notice that I have hardly any PvP achievements.
Now for what the Overthinker seems to ignore in all of his videos in which he addresses online play, there are tons of positives in online play. While yes, I'd much rather play local than online I can admit that because of online play you'll always have someone to play with if all of your friends are unavailable, and it also lets gamers from all over the world to enjoy their favorite hobby as one. But still, the community in some cases... the overthinker makes some great suggestions on how exactly we fix this problem. Ignore them, make playing online for these annoyances lonely. Responding to their yelling is exactly what they want you to do. Also make sure that you don't do it yourself, and I agree with all of the overthinker's suggestions. I honestly do try to remember that it's a game, and that the players on the other side of their avatars are people. And yes, ignoring them works, in World of Warcraft is someone is acting like a screaming twelve year old then their either going to get kicked from my group, go onto my ignore list or they're not going to get my DPS for their group.
Now, if you agree with everything that you read or not is up to you. But if you're really interested I suggest you check out his video here (STRONG LANGUAGE ALERT): http://screwattack.com/videos/TGO-Episode-33-Building-A-Better-Gamer
