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ironwolf

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Gamers Get No Respect. Why?

A common lament. Especially on this site, whenever the members discuss news or political decisions that affect or threaten to affect their favored hobby.

Why do you suppose this is the case? Is it all down to the “man” looking for scapegoats? Is it due to religious bigotry? Is it due to the media being too lazy to properly investigate a story? Or could it possibly be the fault of the gamers themselves? Could it be possible that the rest of the world sees in the average gamer exactly what the gamer himself professes to despise?

Most of the members here claim to be unable to believe the ignorance and bigotry that is shown against them in the media, or by politicians seeking to “protect the children” from the immorality and violence contained in video games, but, as right as they may be about this, there are few places on the web where bigotry and unfounded opinion flourish more than in the threads attached to various stories on this very site.
I present as a prime example of the problem I speak of, the following story.

http://n4g.com/news/894051/...

Within the originally posted story from Kotaku, the story is identified as a fake; a satire from the anti-religious comedy site Christwire. Later an alternate source was added, again identifying the story as a fake. Several posters, myself included, pointed this out. Did it make a difference? No. The story’s temperature rapidly ran up to over a thousand degrees as the supposedly enlightened members of N4G began to display that they were able to:

A. form and spout uninformed opinions on a story without actually reading it and
B. expose, to the world, their unbridled bigotry against all things Christian, American, and/or Southern.

I had been convinced by other threads, over the years, that there were a number of bigots that occasionally showed themselves on the site, although I believed the number to be relatively limited. Following what I saw develop in the thread I cite above, I am no longer certain the number is all that small.

So, once again let us ask ourselves, “Why do gamers get no respect?” I submit that it is due to things like this thread that are seen by people doing research for the media and the government when gaming related news or legislation arises. Do a Google search on a newly released game or gaming related story and see how high up the list N4G probably shows up. Then think about the opinion of the gaming community that an outsider would form reading some of these threads.

Gamers get no respect? We are lucky gaming hasn’t been made a capital crime.

coolbeans5335d ago

Although the it does somewhat reflect the article, is that the right choice for a picture? I'm not sure about everyone's ethnicity or race here, but I'm worried that may become a sensitivity issue. You..could put a pic of Rodney Dangerfield with his "No Respct!" tagline or something of that nature. Perhaps I'm just blowing that out of proportion.

caseh5334d ago

LMAO, I didn't even notice the picture until you pointed it out!

SeraphimBlade5334d ago

Yeah, change it to Dangerfield, or if you're going for some obscure points, Jabber Jaw

rob60215334d ago (Edited 5334d ago )

My thoughts:
If you play videogames a lot you're likely not to get outside or get much done while you're doing that. For that reason, it's seen as lazy. I know this isn't true of all of us, but as much as we don't want to admit it - there's some truth to it and people that do fit this description. That's the main reason 'gamers don't get respect.'

In my opinion I don't think most people outside hardcore gamers are busy looking at N4G comments and judging based on those. The outlandish comments I assume are mostly from (sometimes younger) immature posters. It's largely driven by the protection anonymity provides and it's not exclusive to video games.

There's a reason why most stereotypes are usually negative for the group they're placed on. People often use negative stereotypes to bolster their own ego: if someone else is lesser, they're better. For that reason, when someone makes a joke about 'gamers' you gotta stand up for it, rather than laugh with them.

70°

Microsoft Gaming Revenue Drops 7% Year-on-Year, Content and Services Down 5%, Xbox Hardware Down 33%

Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.

Read Full Story >>
simulationdaily.com
Jin_Sakai69d ago (Edited 69d ago )

Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.

dveio68d ago

To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.

Jingsing68d ago

The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.

Tanktopmaster9268d ago

Once they re-evaluate exclusive all will be fine….

S2Killinit68d ago

Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.

Jingsing68d ago

15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.

Tanktopmaster9268d ago

These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse

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40°

Games Done Quick is coming to Europe for the first time with 3 days of Gamescom speedruns

The charity event will be streamed live from Gamescom in August.

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Report: Injustice 3 in Development at NetherRealm Studios

Thanks to the slip-up of an artist working on the title, we now have more evidence that a new Injustice game is in the works.