Hello,
Thank y’all for welcoming me into your inboxes week after week. I can’t wait to see where this new year takes us. I have interviews I’m hoping to secure and some great topics lined up. As I continue planning for 2021 I’d love to hear any feedback y’all have.
Now on to a less fun note. It took a solid five days before 2021 decided to go a bit crazy. I’m going to keep things brief as there are more important things on peoples’ minds this week.
The elephant in the room
Insurrectionists were let into the Capitol Building. A lot of blame has been rightfully placed on social media for radicalizing people with the insular feeds they create. Some blame should go to video game companies as well.
The most frequent place I’ve been called the N-word in a malicious manner is in online game lobbies. The same spaces that give millions of people an escape give racists a place to spread their ideologies.
The anonymity, privacy, and fleeting nature of online matchmaking make it an efficient tool to sus out new recruits for hate groups. It’s not just in violent, WWII era Call of Duties. Racist players are also found in family-friendly games like Roblox.
Being cycled through lobbies every fifteen minutes allows people to dangle racist bait and see who bites. Most people (or at least I hope most people) ignore it, but the ones who seem to like it can keep talking with them after the game is done. That’s part of the reason why white supremacist sites like Stormfront have gaming related message boards.
There needs to be better moderation and censorship. To their credit, companies are taking steps in that direction. The new PS5 records all chats for moderation purposes, and Xbox has recorded parties for product improvement in the past.
The biggest problem in my eyes is that it’s much easier for a player to just mute someone being ignorant for 15 minutes instead of going out of their way to report them. I’ve certainly been guilty of it. In the future, I hope companies can find ways to incentivize players to report bad actors.
What to take away:
If social media is a loud echo chamber, online video games are intimate confession rooms. This debacle doesn’t fall solely on the game community, but I do believe they’ve played a part in radicalizing people in the US that shouldn’t be ignored. Companies need to be kept under a microscope and held responsible for the communities they help foster.
Gaming news that caught my eye:
Kotaku: A great analysis of what diversity looked like in big-budget games this year.
Polygon: I’m going to do a more in-depth article on this topic, but here’s a good list of fifty games that should be on your radar for the new year.
Collider: The KFConsole is a pretty powerful gaming device. It’s a creative way to get in on the new console hype and engage the physical modding community.
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Logging off:
Thanks for reading. Feel free to contact me through any of the methods below. I’ll answer all your questions.
Email: zacharystubblefield@yahoo.com
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zach-stubblefield-59875b152/
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