Maturity in gamers is a frustrating topic of discussion for everyone involved. Those of us who wish most gamers, whether the average or the professional, would behave more maturely are obviously flustered when they act otherwise. Those who are acting so immaturely are generally not happy or they would not be displaying their lack of decorum in the first place. Those watching from the sidelines mostly just roll their eyes and look down on all of us.
But can we please all agree this is just ridiculous?
Death threats? Seriously?
Treyarch has come out with notes for their latest balance changes. Fans of the guns being nerfed have responded with, I’m not making this up, death threats against the dev team. David Vonderhaar, specifically (Treyarch’s design director) has received direct threats of violence for the balance changes.
As absurd as this is, an even more depressing realization is that it is not unusual. As Activision’s Dan Amrich blogged,
(Vonderhaar) often gets told he should die in a fire or kill himself or is a horrible person. If anybody thinks for a second that this is okay, it is not.
The very fact these sorts of violent wishes are coming from multiple sources who apparently feel minor nerfs to a video game gun genuinely justify threats of horrific violence, as surprising as it is, should be significantly more surprising.
It’s just video games
Sadly, such wildly overblown immaturity is largely accepted as normal. Among the gamers I tend to play with, Call of Duty fans in particular are considered their own sub-class of human, viewed with a mingling of contempt and disgust. This is not because most Call of Duty fans are actually as bad as this, but is a result of both the mass market appeal of the games and the sorts of immaturity as these threats.
This kind of behavior is not acceptable, and non-gamers will continue to view all gamers with at best a mildly tolerant lack of expectation until it is as rare as it is vile.
What we gamers need to realize is the phrase, “They’re just video gamers” is deserved. Even if it is just a small, seemingly psychopathic minority, it is our small seemingly psychopathic minority, and sooner or later we need to take responsibility for such. The more people we have telling these digital children of all ages their behavior is unacceptable, the more we can create an environment the world can take as seriously as we do.
