Day 9: Welcome!?

Shortly after the first post went up, I found this interesting essay about Eve posted at Polygon.

Lots of things stand out. I mentioned one already: some kind of overlap between playing Eve and building a model ship. But the presence of just one woman quoted in the article sparked a memory of something my wife said nine days ago: she suggested I create a female character ("capsuleer") to see whether I'd be harassed because of the character's (and other players' supposition about my) gender.

Unfortunately, there are lots of examples that dovetail with that kind of behavior toward women: reporter Josh Mattingly's harassment of game designer Laralyn McWilliams, threats of violence toward Anna Sarkeesian, the #1ReasonWhy hashtag before the 2013 Game Developers Conference, a professional gamer's wretched treatment at the hands of her coach, and the inane disbelief of Aisha Tyler's love of video games, to name a few.

All of which are awful. And while I think the vast majority of game players are as appalled by this behavior as I am, I think there's also a much broader exclusionary mindset among game-players than many folks realize or want to admit. In addition to the attention toward the poor treatment of women who play games (and even as characters), there's lots of vitriol toward other populations: beyond the more obvious awful language about e.g. gays and blacks during in-game trash talk, there's much nasty language about new, unskilled, and casual game-players. I even demure from using the word "gamer" because it's often part of the "You're not a [real] gamer because [arbitrary X]." And even though I'm squarely in the middle when it comes to game-buying and -playing demographics, might innate sense of gamer-ness

Many of PBS Game/Show's videos focus on community, and most recently (as of this post, and embedded at right) tried to define "gamer"ness. Beyond this one, host Jamin Warren asks questions about racism, the portrayal and stereotypes of men in games, trolls, sexual orientation, violence, and even (relevant to my wife's initial suggestion) playing a character whose gender is opposite your own.

When it comes to language and welcome-ness online, I often think of a Penny Arcade comic from 2004 that, tongue only mildly lodged against cheek, remains relevant. That caricature, though, is a small but disproportionately loud and impactful population. A more contemporary and thoughtful look into that discomfort-minded population comes from the University of Manitoba, who found strong correlation between trolling (granted, just one type of exclusionary act) and the "dark triad" of narcissism, machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Yowser.

The aforementioned Polygon essay makes clear that trolling and griefing are a big part of Eve. And that's not my cup of tea. But, that essay also spotlights some of the polar opposite -- facilitators, helpers, and generally nice folk -- and that sounds pretty swell. I hope to stumble into more of the latter than the former. Eve lets players create three characters per account. If I decide to create a second character, I'll probably make her female, and we'll see what happens.