Talk:Video game/Archive1

Anti-gamers
Can we make a section on what games the anti-gamers would hate the most? Stuff like No More Heroes (super violence, super awesome) and Megami Tensei (creatures from alot of different beliefs fighting each other, kill God at the end of Shin Megami Tensei 2? You know, just the good stuff that would make their minds explode--Thanatos (talk) 20:38, 4 September 2010 (UTC)


 * The main ones are the ones that attract controversy, including as Grand Theft Auto series, Bully, Rapelay (despite not being available outside Japan, and despite the issue already being resolved), Doom, Mortal Combat (as spelt on a legal document trying to ban such games), The Sims (for having third-party "adult" skins), The Torture Game (Newgrounds flash game), Pokémon, Primal Rage, or any other game that appears on the media bandwagon. --Sigma 7 (talk) 22:03, 4 September 2010 (UTC)


 * There are always unknowns. Some just don't get much of a release despite stellar reviews. It could just be a helpful warning to any nutjob that wanders onto this page.--Thanatos (talk) 23:22, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Mission
I only skimmed this, but what on earth does it have to do with our mission? 03:45, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe we ought to have a category or namespace called "Background"? It's indirect -- there's enough anti-video-game idiocy out there that a description is on-mission (in the sense of clearing up misconceptions), but it is supplemental material. EVDebs (talk) 03:52, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I know we could have a good article on the topic, but this ain't it. I'd start by 1. adding "mission" reason to lead. 2. Deleting the entire first section, pure pointless cruft. 3. Deleting most of the rest.  Although, I am sorely tempted to delete the whole thing.  If this junk wants to live maybe it could go to fun, but really.  It just looks like fanboyism at its worst right now.  04:11, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * PS, it's really badly written. 04:12, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The article may seem like it isn't written correctly, however, it's a frequent target of pseudoscientific sociology. The same applies to comic books, table-top RPGs (including D&D), Facebook, or whatever the next cultural production may turn out to be. Speaking of which, the sociology article isn't complete despite the massive amount of pseudo-science found there.. --Sigma 7 (talk) 16:33, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It needs to lose the "genres" section and just get to the point. 17:55, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd be glad to work on this article, but first I need to know what Human considers "cruft" since he seems to consider games as a whole to be unworthy of his valuable time. Colonel of Squirrels医药是医药，和那个不是医药. 18:09, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll try to list my criticisms in order of occurrence... first, the "description" in the lead is weirdly pedantic. Second, the "genres" section should simply go, or be pared down to at most a half dozen easily absorbed bullet points - if one doesn't know what these are, that 2 or 3 screens of text isn't really going to "prepare" them for the rest of the article.  The New Media section is a bit weak, it comes across as whiny.  Everything after that is the "article" and seems pretty good, and should probably immediately follow a much shorter lead/intro.  These are just my opinions, but I feel applying some of this would result in a much more useful and accessible article.  If this were an album, it's like it starts with a difficult prog-rock tune with odd time signatures, then there's a 23 minute wank with rambling solos, then at the end are three hit singles.  18:40, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, my kind of album. [[image:Evilgrin0005.gif]] 18:43, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Man that emoticon looks totally badass next to my sig. 18:49, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

In defense of the Genres section
I'm willing to accept that it's poorly written; I did a lot of it kind of stream-of-consciousness, so if it needs rewriting, so be it. However, there was a reason for putting the genre section in in the first place -- there's probably still quite a few people out there who assume that the majority of video games are hideously violent, so the genre section is there to show that there's a lot more to video gaming than shooting and fighting, and that essentially all these genres (including text adventures) are still popular in one audience or another. EVDebs (talk) 02:16, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * So is there any way to cut it down and streamline it so it is readable and useful? Five bullet points, perhaps?  The problem with is a bit like if we tried to list every sub-genre at heavy metal, I think.  02:20, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * How about, instead, it says "There are probably still quite a few people out there who assume that the majority of video games are hideously violent. However, ..."?  03:05, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure. I suspect I'm not the person to do it, since I was the one who had the dactylolalia issue in the first place. I think I was trying to do exactly that but it proved less simple than I thought. EVDebs (talk) 02:45, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I just signed my unsigned post above yours. Can't it just say, 1st person shooter, sports games, MMPORGs, and something, and be done with it after that line I pasted above?  Sometimes when people explain what they were trying to do, they say it far better than when they were trying, was where I was running with this.  03:05, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Tell you what, you give me a list of 5 or 6 broad top-level categories of VGs and I'll try? We can always roll me back...  03:06, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

I've moved the genres to a subpage: [Video game/Genres] (now essay: video game genres). It may be of interest to some of our readers, so I don't think it should be deleted or cut too brutally, but it's too lengthy & off-mission to stay in the main article. I've also put in a new & much shorter intro, linking to the subpage. I've left the pedantic definition in as another section, but I don't think it's really necessary. 12:13, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, I tried to do those things, but they were edit-conflicted out. 12:24, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry Weasel, I made eight million edits and got conflicted, and decided to be an executive prick about it. Sorry again if I made your better intro go bye-bye, i slimmed it down myself a bit.  Again, sorry, and nice work.  The toughest thing on a wiki is when you start on something, every other bastid on the site joins in before you're done.  12:36, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I know that one.  12:46, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Mass Effect and Faux News
Someone who's better at riteing English should probably add something about this:, wp:Mass Effect -- Nx  / talk 13:06, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Leetspeak
I never really understood the problems with leetspeak and textspeak. Language is a tool, and tools are adapted depending on circumstances. For example you don't use a hammer to saw wood. You don't even use a woodsaw to saw iron. The same way you don't use French to address the president of Germany, there's a specific tool for communication in video games where different rules apply due to the nature of the medium. As long as everyone understands each other, does it matter whether you talk in latin or binary?62.159.14.62 (talk) 08:48, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * You've answered your own question with "As long as everyone understands each other". Scarlet A.pngsshole silverbrain.png 14:48, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

But everyone does understand. 11:49, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

"it emerged that the alleged shooter had merely liked the game on Facebook.[6]"
1. I've read in several reports that the shooter did bot have a Facebook account; 2. The link supporting the claim is to a story from 2008. What up? Theory of Practice "Now we stand outcast and starving 'mid the wonders we have made." 15:01, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * ARGH! Confused myself!! Nx's post above is from 2010 and I just copy-pasted that link without thinking. F**k me. Revert it. I fucked up. Scarlet A.pngpathetic silverbrain.png 15:04, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Health
Just randomly browsing the site here, I noticed this article needed a citation for the claim that video games can cause heart attacks. My friend has a disorder called Long QT Syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_QT_syndrome (essentially, if the heart beats too fast it skips beats) and last month he was playing an online game during which he got so excited his heart rate increased to the point that it caused arrhythmia and he fainted. He took a trip to his doctor and got checked out and he's fine now (though he's not allowed to drive for another month). Anyway, what I'm wondering is if I talked to him and he got a statement from his physician, could that be uploaded to count as a citation? 209.118.97.18 (talk) 01:34, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't know if that's technically considered a "heart attack" or not, though we can just change it to "heart conditions." Yeah, if you can upload it as an image file I'd say it's good.  Although I think you might need an account to upload files.  Wehpudicabok (talk) 02:38, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * That's not really a video game causing it, because from what I gather from this story it's just aggravating a condition by getting excited and increasing your heart rate. A particularly exciting game of chess could, in principle, do the same, but no one would then blame chess for "causing" it. For it to be a "cause" in the way we need to talk about it, it needs to be an exclusive proximal cause, not just an easily substituted contributing factor. Scarlet A.pngd hominem 07:43, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * This is about the Video game section which has a list with an uncited reference to heart attacks. :) The section doesn't claim that these things are exclusive to video games, just that there are side effects of the way games are played.--ZooGuard (talk) 08:59, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Sexism section
Yeah, so ... I wanted to add a section to this article speaking about sexism in video gaming, which has been a rather hot topic this year and last year. I wrote an essay of sorts on it (here: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Essay:Sexism_in_Video_Gaming, in which I would appreciate any constructive criticism) to gather my thoughts on the topic. It's kind of way too long to move over all the points and words into this article, though, so I'm thinking about what bits to move over here and what bits to keep in essay form (maybe a link?). Eventually I'm going to figure it out, hopefully, but any suggestions would be appreciated. Nullahnung (talk) 09:09, 24 August 2013 (UTC)


 * I tried to add this to the article, but it was reverted: "Lacking any kind of self-awareness of its own hypocrisy, compare this section on sexism with the section on violence. Violence in gaming is laughed off as silly moral outrage over nothing of consequence. In contrast, sexism is treated as a serious problem." Chrimony (talk) 02:44, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

"stfu n00b" section
I'm not widely informed about in intelligent "gamer talk", but the section doesn't really do a great job, nor does it quite fit with the rest of the article. Compared to the rest of the article, I haven't seen much hoopla about this crap either. The section needs to be at least expanded, maybe similar to the one in the Youtube article? LEFTY GREEN  MARIO 22:41, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

PCMR
Is it worth talking about "PC master race" in the article (or anywhere else on RW for that matter)?

A guy on the Escapist released a video poking fun at PC gaming elitists, and it turned into a fairly popular in-joke in the gaming community. Eventually, it got hijacked by people who never got the joke—specifically, that they were the butt of the joke all along. It's no longer a joke nowadays, but rather about 80% serious. No, they aren't literally Hitler. Yes, they have a major superiority complex. Yes, they feel they need to evangelize to the "lowly console peasants" while at the same time shitting on them for not being rich fucks. Yes, they're annoying, cancerous assholes. 20:38, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

"Primary character by gender, race."
According to the chart, 9.7% of the primary characters are black. How did they count the games where you can choose which skin colour you want to have? Forgive me for the outdated examples, but in Deus Ex (the original) you can choose to be any skin colour you want. The same applies to many other RPGs (Baldur's Gate, etc).

How was this counted? White? Black? Asian? All?

The full text of the study isn't available, so I can't check. The abstract also mentions "results weighted according to game sales". Are these figures the weighed results? Or the absolute ones?

Also, it mentions "the results are similar to those found in television research", which is interesting, as sometimes I get the impression that some people think that games are "worse" than other mediums... Carpetsmoker (talk) 18:30, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Here's the full text. 18:40, 27 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks!
 * "In the event that a game provided the option to choose from a list of primary characters, such characters were selected randomly so that characters from both genders, all ethnicities and all age groups had an equal chance of being selected. Then, all  characters were coded on the variables of gender, race and age"
 * Not sure if this is a good way to do things. If we have 30 games, 10 where you can only play as a white character, and 20 where you can choose your skin colour, then this method would show that only 33% of games features black characters, while the reality is that in 66% of the games you can play as a black character. In fact, I would say that being given the option of your skin colour (and sex) is probably the best scenario for all... Carpetsmoker (talk) 18:50, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Schism between violence and sexism sections
The page basically handwaves all accusations of "violent video games cause violence" away (without references), but takes "sexist video games causes sexism" rather serious. It seems to me that one of the sections is wrong. Not sure which, though...

We should probably also link to high-quality meta-studies if they exist, rather than a few contradicting individual studies. Carpetsmoker (talk) 21:04, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Male Gamers Are Always Chaotic Evil
I edited the moral section and said that there is no such thing as an ethnic gamer, because they all support violence, misogyny and racism. After all, all girl gamers hate all boy gamers. Now I hope I get a response for Laci Green--180.216.121.40 (talk) 13:39, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Fuck off, troll.--Kugelschreiber (talk) (mail) (block) 13:44, 24 May 2016 (UTC) 13:44, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * No more of a troll then the bias feminist.--180.216.121.40 (talk) 13:48, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Congrats on your obsession over something no one else has cared about for at least a year. Maybe it's time to do something with your life other than worrying about what some lady said about video games years ago. Petey Plane (talk) 14:12, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Then I'm sorry for my edits and I do feel that I have stretched the argument for too long. I wasn't just talking about Anita but was referring to gender representation in gaming as a whole. The thing is I do care about women, including women in gaming, I just feel that feminist want all men to take it personally and there is a reason why I don't play those kinds of games. It's just that when it says that sexisism and racism are common in most gaming communities, the artical implies that all gamers are sexist as well as racist.--180.216.104.68 (talk) 12:37, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I would like a response.--180.216.108.175 (talk) 10:15, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Where is my response? No doubt feminist boycott an entire medium and an entire demographic and my edits are correct, gamers are expected to support violence against women, even thougth the vast majority don't.--180.216.96.172 (talk) 09:59, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Hipocrite (talk) 15:06, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Have I threatened violence, no, have I said women can't be in gaming, no, have I said any derogatories, no, have I made any sexist demands, no. Therefore I'm not really a misogynist.--180.216.96.172 (talk) 00:56, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

ESRB and the game Night Trap
but there's one weird one, In short the game was sexist and had light sexual tones. You have to protect women from monsters, (or something). Apparently, news outlets overplayed the violent tones, when the game was actually a light comedy with no onscreen nudity or violence. Is this missional? 16:58, 14 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I guess so. —вιgℓʝвιgℓ (ᴛᴀʟᴋ/sᴛᴀʟᴋ) 03:30, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps coverage of game industry all-around asshattery?
Well, the list is endless: the lootbox gambling craze that went so far that even foreign courts are investigating, Electronic Arts exploiting its workforce, microtransactions, the debate (with the context of increasing prices of video games for both developers and consumers) that video games should or should not be considered a luxury, Konami mistreatig just about everyone, Nintendo formerly exploiting for conflict minerals, E3 being cynical corporate sellout PR crap, perhapss the video game equivalent of the manufactured hype of Academy Awards; Activision being cynical crap head (need specific sources on that one, but I know Hacktivision is bad: Skylanders is case in point), Nintendo exploiting terrible Youtube copyright policy to stifle content creation, Capcom for locking content in the disc behind a paywal, Nintendo Software Technology Corporation's woes behind Project H.A.M.M.E.R which involved accusations with anti-Japanese racism.

On the other hand, maybe I should make an article about the Mario series especially since there are some stuff in there that I'd consider missional for RationalWiki and even dump its "interesting fax" in there like Mario tipping over the 9/11 buildings and saying "oops", praying to a Koran, and Peach saying that Mario's mother scrubs toilets in hell. 01:07, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

And now EA's asshattery with lootboxes is so bad, there is mainstream media coverage, and we're seeing courts in Belgium, Australia, and Sweden at least. 04:38, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
 * There is also the common defense of microtransactions that "games are super expensive to develop, which necessitates microstransactions". This is one article on that. 01:57, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
 * how did i forget this pos argument. BabyLuigiOnFire (talk) 02:21, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Violent thoughts after video games
"The American Psychological Association has found that children playing video games in a general category do not show an increase in violent or aggressive behavior. They did find that children who played violent titles saw an increase in aggressive behavior."

I'd really, really like to see the American Psychological Association study the effects of losing particular games like Mario Kart and Mario Party. Those games are infamous for generating intense frustration and resentment for each other, and it's a common joke that these games are friendship killers. Apparently, Risk does the same thing to people. So, there's another point to consider when people whine about GTA V or Doom. 01:33, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
 * GTA V is an easy target, mostly because of its age rating and other themes to get pissed about, and it's the perfect red herring for idiotic pundits to talk about gun control. Games like Mario Party and Mario Kart get a pass mostly because...those guys never really had experiences with video games in the first place and wouldn't know a thing there. BabyLuigiOnFire (talk) 01:39, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Spore (2008 video game)
Should an article about Spore be created here? Wikipedia has a scientific accuracy section on it. BabyLuigiOnFire (talk) 05:20, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Video game development sweatshoppery
And that's not just crunch time, there are people experiencing psychological maiming from developing extremely violent video games. It's an oft-overlooked aspect. 19:25, 5 August 2019 (UTC)