The time for invisible boundaries that guard the 'purity' of gaming as a niche subculture is over. The violent macho power fantasy will no longer define what gaming is all about.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
We are witnessing a very slow and painful cultural shift. Some male gamers with a deep sense of entitlement are terrified of change. They believe games should continue to cater exclusively to young heterosexual men with ever more extreme virtual power fantasies.
Developers need to start moving away from the entitled macho-male power fantasy in their games. They need to recognize that there are wider stories that they can tell.
Up until now, the biggest question in society about video games has been what to do about violent games. But it's almost like society in general considers video games to be something of a nuisance, that they want to toss into the garbage can.
Games have a huge impact on our society because the media plays a role in helping to shape our attitudes. So it's not just fantasy.
At its best, entertainment is going to be a subjective thing that can't win for everyone, while at worst, a particular game just becomes a random symbol for petty tribal behavior.
We've been playing games since humanity had civilization - there is something primal about our desire and our ability to play games. It's so deep-seated that it can bypass latter-day cultural norms and biases.
There's a toxicity within gaming culture, and also in tech culture, that drives this misogynist hatred, this reactionary backlash against women who have anything to say, especially those who have critiques or who are feminists.
I think 'World of Warcraft' shows that people today still like a good fantasy hack and slash game. I always thought that a lot of computer fantasy games leapt into complex party-based play somewhat prematurely.
Gamers both demand and deserve novelty. They need something new. As a game developer, one of my rules is there will be at least one thing in every game that I worked on that no one on the planet has seen before.
Video games seem to be mostly a boy thing - viewed by young boys and created by big boys. I believe that if more videos games were created by women, the violence in these games - especially against women - would be rapidly toned down.
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