Don’t be like this kid while playing video games

Let’s just start by saying that conflict does happen online. We here at anyConsole.com do hereby validate that feelings get hurt, and that real conflict does happen while gaming and online. Those hurt feelings take shape in many different forms and for many different causes. Here is my take on the major “hurt-feelings” situations:

  • You’re playing a multiplayer game, and you get repeatedly killed. You’re not having much fun in the game – though others may be – and you’re frustrated.
  • You’re playing online and someone engages in some unfair name-calling. You’re naturally offended, it takes away from the fun of the game.
  • You’re reading someone’s opinion online, and you disagree with it. You may even strongly disagree with it, it takes away from the fun of reading about video games on a website.

There are many different ways that conflict starts online and in console gaming. At the point of offense though – the very moment you find yourself upset, frustrated, or offended – you choose how to respond. I think most ways of response could be boiled down to four categories:

  1. Assertive - disagreeing calmly using logic and reason
  2. Passive - walk away, ignore
  3. Passive/Aggressive - talk smack about someone when they’re not around, anonymously attack them, submit a player complaint, call for a kick vote
  4. Aggressive - name-calling, use of racial, sexist, or homophobic slurs, threats

Recently in my online gaming, and even in activities here on this blog, item #4 really seems to be the dominant force among young people (guessing under 17). More mature gamers tend to choose the first two, maybe the third.

Why is this important? Because conflict resolution matters in gaming. If we can’t all “play nice,” (as all of our mothers taught us to do) then nobody gets to have any fun. It’s no fun to listen to some jerk call someone the “N” word on Xbox Live, though that is routine. It is all too common to be in the middle of Modern Warfare (or any version of Call of Duty, really) and hear some young child hurling some of the most vile and repugnant slurs at his fellow gamers. I don’t know how parents can allow this to go on, but it does.

At anyConsole.com, we want to promote a healthy game culture, one in which everybody is welcome and everybody is having fun. The “N” word has no place in a healthy gaming culture, nor does the “R” word. We hope the community will stand up for less hostile gaming. It’s time to make games about fun and culture, not anger, bigotry and slurs.

As a side-note, we block those who post such nonsense on this blog. Thanks.