Tabletop, DnD, board games, and minecraft. Also Animal Crossing.
3rd International Volunteer Brigade (Hexbear gaming discord)
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I think the early 2000s PS2 era was the peak of modern gaming. Colourful games, decent 3d graphics. The FPS era hadn't fully began on consoles yet.
The less said about the late 2000s, the better. That's when all the "gatekeeping, misogyny, toxic masculinity and general chuddery" really got kicked into overdrive. Every game got a sepia piss filter as well. And after that we got the blue filters which were somehow even worse.
Oh god I am in an eternal struggle against the „creatives“ and their constant use of disgusting filters which destroy the natural colors. Tho I must confess I loved the golden filter of deus ex human revolution and the grain filter of ME1 and yes even the brownish tints of dragon age, I know I am bad haha.
Filters have their place tbh. Sometimes it makes a lot of sense aesthetically.
The issue is falling back on it to the point it becomes a meme.
I remember gaming always being seen as a "boys club" for as long as I can remember. They were thankfully pretty welcoming of me (being a brown guy and all) but girls playing games were either given the m'lady treatment or chastised for making a mistake that would get them seen as being bad at the game. Often both.
G*mers never had a chance.
The 70s saw the development of really old games like Dnd, essentially some STEMlord's pet project. Many of these ancient games were tied to Dnd, where the reactionary Gary Gygax's influence in Dnd was completely dominant.
The 80s continued that tradition with games like Rogue and Nethack. This was also when Nintendo exclusively marketed the NES as a "boy toy." Both of what could be retroactively labeled as indie and AAA gaming were firmly men only. Arcades tended to be dominated by men as well.
The 90s further perpetuated this trend with the console wars between Nintendo and Sega, with Sega pushing really hard as the cool and definitely being played by dudes with 'tude console. If you looked at Sega ads during that time, they were all hyper-trying-too-hard-masculine.
The 00s, while carrying the misogynist torch, reflected a qualitative shift in its misogyny. The 00s, or more specifically, 2001 was when Halo 1 was released on the Xbox. This game, more than any other, was what pushed gaming from some nerdy shit into the mainstream. With the mainstreamification of gaming came the dudebros. The previously misogynist nerds were transformed into misogynist dudebros, and the dudebros carried their toxic competitiveness into gaming.
The 10s was when esports, or more specifically L*ague of L*gends, became commercially viable. The esportification of games began and along with it, the toxic competitiveness seeped even in games that weren't designed to be competitive. And it pains me to say this, but speedrunning contributed to this as well. Suddenly, you started hearing about the "meta" and "optimal strats" in some indie platformer. And of course, G*merg*te sealed the deal by politicizing gaming, making g*mers consciously reactionary.
I have checked out of gaming so I can't give you a rundown of the 20s, but it's more of the same shit honestly. The seeds were sown during the 70s, with each subsequent decade nurturing the seedling, until it blossomed into some hideous plant with G*merg*te.
I hate esports i hate how Riot took all the actually fun modes in league like OFA and nexus clash and the pve game modes and decides to only make them appear in rotations (or not even appear for pve modes) because apparently Riot only cares about competitive and ranked play.
Also hate how certain characters like Azir is effectively neutered because its too good for the highly coordinated esport teams, whose gameplay barely resembles even the highest ranked play.
Billion dollar game cant even afford to support other game modes.
LoL says "here's a game and some pieces tailor-made to play it" while DotA says "here's some toys and a sandbox, it's out of my hands now" and I think about that every day
LoL says "here's a game and some pieces tailor-made to play it" while DotA says "here's some toys and a sandbox, it's out of my hands now" and I think about that every day
hell yeah, same
honestly I think dota's way should be the way for fun+challenging games in general
I honestly think the skinner box click button get dopamine cycle of single player action games is specifically damaging to a human 🧠 in ways we won't understand for decades. Between that and gambling type games that are just gambling with extra steps, we have a wide array of ways to do weird harm to yourself while being alienated under capitalism
A better world exits. MMOs allowed for beautiful social experiences. MUDs and like VR chat allow for self exploration. Fighting games have a diverse worldwide community dedicated to sharing and self improvement. Sport games allow people to explore important parts of their lives in new ways. Plenty of things I missed besides. But all way better than Gamerism.
The "ethical game journalism" days, to 
gaters, looked like this. https://i.imgur.com/P37EDfX.jpg
I know that's an ad, not journalism, which is the point. They don't want journalism. They want hype waves and to feel bazinga about what they buy without any downer talk whatsoever.
Blatant false advertising. Nobody has ever wanted Battlecruiser 3000AD.
Uhh...😅 I did...
I thought it would basically be No Man's Sky. Fly around to planets and do stuff. But the designer himself flamed me on USENET so I quit following it and never played.
Battlecruiser 3000AD! By Derek Smart, Ph.D! Wow, that takes me back. The original "in development forever" game way before Daikatana or Duke Nukem.
A lot of them didn't even get that even the early Duke Nukem games were already mocking this shit as immature misogynist garbage. Which is how we got the dumbster fire that was DN Forever.
Randy Pitchford has always been a piece of shit but a big part of it was not getting what made the Duke Nukem franchise funny and instead doing what he thought was funny in DNF, which was some really fucked up sadistic stuff that basically had a rimshot sound after it was presented.
I agree with your complaints towards the apparent predominant gaming culture. But I also believe that there have never been more indie games that are contrary to that culture or just ambivalent to that culture than ever before.
If someone puts "gamer" on their dating profile tho
Hardcore gaymer = fighting game enjoyer
Casual ~~g*mer~~ consoomer = everyone else
The SEGA ads of the 90s were something.
Yeah I think that style of marketing started it.
games mechanics become watered down due to the profit motive and challenging games are fun, this whole thread feels like just contrarianism to spite a vocal minority turning being a HARDCORE GAMERRRRR into a personality trait 
