In what is becoming a disturbing trend, gamers have launched another vandalism campaign against a critic of video games. The protest is in response to Giles Whittell, who recently wrote in a Times of London piece that he nor his kids would never play video games. So what’s all the fuss?
The outrage stems from comments he made referring to drug use and teen pregnancy. Gamers interpreted his comments to be a direct comparison of those two acts to playing video games. What he actually said was, "I hate being told to immerse myself in them before passing judgment, because it feels like being told to immerse myself in smack and teenage pregnancy before passing judgment on them."
Unfortunately, this misreading further proves Whittell’s point about gamers. He’s not drawing a direct comparison between the three. He’s being satirical, perhaps in a way that only the British can truly understand (and misunderstand, since the page being defaced is on Amazon UK). If you’re still having trouble understanding, perhaps it is best to give that quote another read.
This sort of "social activism" that gamers have taken upon themselves as of late is getting weird. Anyone who dares to criticize them or their games is labeled fair game for attacking. This has, of course, been seen before with politicians, religious groups, and other potentially controversial groups. But entertainment media as an instigator is a new one.
Gamers would be well advised that if they desire to be treated with respect, they will have to respond respectfully, even to the stupidest and low-brow of assessments. This isn’t the Vietnam War people are acting out over, it’s Mario and Sonic.
Related posts:
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- Sly reporter infuriates gamers by questioning their literacy
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April 3rd, 2008 at 10:49 am
Huh… and how is that any different than anyone who badmouths America getting labeled a terrorist?
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:54 am
And I’d appreciate it if you’d refrain from grouping all game players under an all-encompassing label “gamers”, then treating them like some blight upon society.
There is no such group.
People play games online, just like they’ve played other kinds of games throughout history. These people come from all walks of life and have all sorts of temperaments and ideals. Drawing an ideological grouping among people who engage in a particular activity is at best unprofessional, and at worst slanderous.
Baseball, football (European or American), hockey, and basketball fans come in all flavours, too. You have the casual fans, the bandwagon fans, and the rowdy fans. Are you to suggest that ALL sports fans need to shape up their act if they’re to be taken seriously, just because some fans lack the tact and dignity of others?
Are we to set up some special “sports fan” task force to investigate the cultish, borderline terrorist practices of this malignant group who paint their bodies and swill alcoholic beverages while screaming at a group of athletes chasing a ball around a field?
April 3rd, 2008 at 11:30 am
People opposed to video games are routinely given forums to espouse ill-informed views.
As long as people are using open forums to retaliate in a way that is not illegal, I don’t see any problem with people defending themselves. How can that differ from a boycott over company policy?
As for any misperceptions on the quote, grouping video games with teen pregnancy or crack is a pretty weak analogy, and perhaps the true issue of ire rather than simply the assertion that one would not play them. A more accurate analogy would have been refusing immersion in the worlds of remote-controlled airplane hobbyists, or box car racing enthusiasts. An analogy must draw a direct comparison, or it is not analogous.
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Perhaps, you forgot to include the rest of the quote. I’ll do so for you. “This is not because of anything wrong or bad about video games or heroin or teenage parents. It’s not even because of game-induced homicide or web-grooming of little girls by perverts - serious problems, but statistically low-risk. It’s because, compared with everything else on offer in a kid’s life, video games and heroin and teenage pregnancy are a colossal waste of time.”
No one is saying that he is making an explicit comparison but it is clearly implied. One way to win an argument is to put your opponent’s proposition on the same level as something already confirmed as bad and to do so repeatedly. It associates the already known negative with your opponent’s proposition whether or not they have anything to do with each other. I don’t see how being British gets you around that, and, frankly, saying it does smacks of smug elitism or stupidity. Take your pick.
Yes, he is being satirical but facetiously satirical. It’s hypocritical to defend his quote, comparing heroin and teen pregnancy to video games, while scolding gamers for being immature. Whittell’s statement does not deserve a mature response. It would be best to ignore him completely as an attention-seeker pandering to society’s fears and misconceptions of video games, but I’m not going to cry for him when someone responds on his level, much less defend him as you are doing.
You fail to address exactly what is wrong with giving him negative Amazon reviews. He has written a public review of the genre of video games. He admits to a lack of experience with the subject of his review, yet he makes statements in its analysis. If you’re going to decry some negative Amazon reviews, you should also be decrying his statement and the entire level of dialog. Or is Amazon somehow a more revered forum than a newspaper?
Finally, you don’t explain exactly why aggressive social activism might be ok for a greater cause, like Vietnam, but not ok for gamers. First, no one is throwing bricks through his windows or anything. This response is of an appropriately similar scale to his statement. Second, you fail to state why aggressive social activism should not be used on less dire causes. You simply accept it as truth without noting the difference in scale. What exactly would be an acceptable level of activism for a worthy cause? Maybe, you think that members of the civil rights movement should have just written negative book reviews of segregationist politicians.
In the future, please stop and think about the complexity of your subject matter. Try to understand why a person or group chooses their mode of response to a provocative statement and how your response plays a role in the dialog, as well. by vilifying gamers and failing to present our side seriously, you have further lowered level of conversation.
April 3rd, 2008 at 2:27 pm
You’re not seriously trying to draw a comparison between the “plight” of gamers and the civil rights movement, are you? By your own logic, you are mentioning them together in your argument therefore you must be trying to group them together in readers’ minds. If so, that is a sad break from reality.
No one needs a detailed explanation of why gamers have taken the low road here. It should be apparent to the most logical of readers. If nothing else, such a response should be targeted as a letter writing campaign to the Times of London, since Amazon had nothing to do with this incident. It’s akin to spray painting the local Blockbuster because you’re upset over The Last Temptation of Christ.
It’s juvenile. For those who would like to raise the level of discourse, or be taken seriously as you put it, it is the completely wrong approach. It reaffirms every negative stereotype of gamers as immature kids. When gamers begin feeling true persecution, such as that felt by those during the civil rights movement, then they’ll get a shoulder to cry on. In the meantime, they’d do well to show some maturity.
April 3rd, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Submitting an evaluation of a book, even if dishonest and offensive, is not any more similar to spray painting a Blockbuster than video gaming is to teen pregnancy.
I don’t care to use the method myself, but if someone wants to submit a negative review of this man’s book without completely immersing themselves in it, as some might say, I find it rather difficult to defend the author.
April 5th, 2008 at 11:58 am
First of all, you completely failed to respond to nearly every point that I made and instead seized on a single quote taken out of context. How ironic to accuse gamers of doing just that in your article and then turn around and show the same sort of response that you spent the article lamenting. I’m going to assume that you’re just too immature to acknowledge flaws in your argument or pay attention to a serious and honest response to your article, unless you respond otherwise.
Second, I thought it was crystal clear that I’m not trying to draw a comparison between gamers and the civil rights movement. On the other hand, you’re now saying it’s inappropriate to attempt to create indirect associations in the minds of the audience? Well, I’m glad that we agree on the inappropriateness of that tactic. So, you must also agree that Whittell used it inappropriately, then. As I thought was clear, I think that the cause of gamers isn’t anywhere near the same scale of importance, necessity, depth, etc. as the cause of the civil rights movement. I mentioned the civil rights movement using the current tactics of gamers to point out the absurdity of failing to mention the scale of protests, not to associate the two movements. Perhaps, I didn’t word that in explicit enough terms. I thought that paragraph a bit weak, but the point remains. Focusing on this single mention taken out of context in the fifth paragraph of my comment confuses me, and again I worry that you may just be having trouble with someone giving you a serious response.
Third, as your new points, I would appreciate an explanation as to why you think gamers have taken the so-called “low road.” However, I do understand some of the reasons why gamers have taken to their current tactics, rather than something like a letter writing campaign, as you suggest. For one, gamers have written letters, well emails at least, to the Times of London, and, in the past, they have written letters to the publishers of other anti-gamer sensationalist writings. The downside of this tactic is that it is very easy for the publisher and the author to ignore. Even if it is not ignored, the publisher of a newspaper suffers practical limitations that do not allow for the publication of all of the responses, or even all of the responses that are publication-worthy. By using Amazon reviews as a means of publication, gamers are able to get their message on an easily accessible medium that will is much more difficult for the author to ignore. Whittell has been granted a very large soapbox. Gamers are just trying to level the playing field. It’s why protesters write slogans on large signs rather than demurely writing letters of disagreement.
Your next point has been addressed by Alex, but I will add an item or two. I don’t quite see how Amazon suffers the way that a Blockbuster store would by graffiti. Amazon has opened itself to book reviews and gamers are giving book reviews. If there’s a rule that one must be acquainted with the subject in order to review it, then Whittell is violating this rule far more egregiously by reviewing an entire industry rather than a single book. Blockbuster does not ask for graffiti or anything similar, so the comparison is flawed.
Finally, you still fail to address my argument about scale and define precisely what aspects of the tactics of gamers are juvenile. Are only protest movements with dire needs deserving of acknowledgment? No one should complain about anything less than widespread human rights violations? Should we simply allow small instances of ignorance and bigotry? If Whittell were to next say that all video game reporters are hacks who live at home with their parents and write like ten year olds, would you respectfully pen a letter of disagreement and leave it at that? It is not juvenile or inappropriate to respond on a similar scale to Whittell. By failing to do a minimum of research and then justifying his ignorance, he has acted in extreme dereliction of the responsibilities of a public forum, much less a respected newspaper.
The Amazon reviews do not lower the level of discourse with Whittell. I’m not sure that’s possible after his initial statement. Describing the reviews as an act of vandalism certainly tries to paint this picture, though. I do not agree that there was an act of vandalism. The Amazon page is being used as intended. Vandalism on the Internet is usually associated with hacked pages that are modified to show something different. Amazon invites reviews and gamers have simply given his book a similar treatment as he gave the gaming industry.
The best place to introduce greater maturity into this movement is right here. You and other video game reporters could do a lot by discussing opinions like Whittell’s with mature, thoughtful analyses and putting forward a proper model for others to follow.
April 10th, 2008 at 9:17 am
I’m sorry, but I simply have a different viewpoint on the situation. Defend it all that you wish, but you will not convince me that throwing up a bunch of bogus reviews of a particular book is an acceptable form of protest against someone not liking a particular form of media.
One must question why gamers even care what one person thinks? Do you suggest attacking everyone who doesn’t like something you do? His comments were a perfectly valid opinion. The one part you seem to have a problem with you are misreading and not understanding correctly. He is not saying the three are the same or even similar. You and others simply don’t get it, and that’s fine.
But even if he were serious about that part, so what? The reaction of gamers simply plays into a stereotype that already plagues them. It says to the author that gamers are immature and childish. It says the same thing to Amazon as they have to clean up the product page, just as they did after a similar incident. The comparison to Blockbuster is completely valid because the people doing this are causing a headache for a third party who will have to clean up the mess. It’s just silly.
There are simply more productive ways to counter negative images of video games than vandalizing a web site of a company that had nothing to do with the initial comments. It also seems a weird reaction to attempt to harass someone who has a different opinion. Again, it would be akin to blasting the books of Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton with negative reviews because you disagreed with their political opinions. If you read the book and wanted to reply to a specific point, then fine. But otherwise? It’s just childish. It would be even worse if Clinton had written a book on Arkansas tourism and that was what people decided to attack.
Many gamers need to grow up, though I won’t limit that to just gamers. Many people online, in general, need to grow up. They’d make themselves look a lot better if they did.