Are gamers TOXIC? A response to Charles Randall

That letter at the end... Damn Troy, right in the feels.

i've begun immediately ignoring everything someone says after 'toxic' because it always means something entirely petty or that they think they're too good to use the block button.

If a "Dev" is not a "Gamer" too, I don't give a F about him or his games.

Football riot trashes a European city - "Eh, footie will be footie. We can't control how sports fans act." Some kids in Call of Duty and League of Legends call people slurs. - "This cannot continue! Regulation and stricter community policing! Now!"

I legit cried when you read that letter T-T

As a female, i have NEVER been harassed by anyone in any game ever on the basis of my sex. Gamers do not care about your gender, skin color, or any other frivolous differences. All gamers care about is playing games and having fun.

The last time I came this early, the video was monetized. I wish this wasn't a joke.

Something like that letter at the end alone would carry my optimism towards gamers as a Dev. That was awesome!

I'm here wondering why it's always gaming and gamers being targeted and not every other hobby. You see sports fans fight against each other and physically hurt one another and everyone's just like "Well that's just the way it goes!". You see music enthusiasts trash talk other types of genres and their fans and not a peep. Same goes for movies, shows, comic books and it's just the internet in general. Gaming is perhaps the only hobby where you can treat your customers and fans like complete trash by releasing broken games, unfinished games, ask for more money even after buying the product, adding microtransactions, etc etc and fans still love them. Maybe...just maybe gamers are tired of being treated like trash? Especially console gamers that have all these anti-consumer bullshit like pay to play online or in Xbox's case even pay to change your gamertag? Maybe developers and publishers should start listening to their customers when they tell them something 5, 10 years in a row? I'm looking at YOU UBISOFT. That's funny too. The person that complained worked at Ubisoft. He has no room to complain. Ubisoft has been at the fore front of shitty gaming practices. Oh and as a minority I'm so sick and tired of being treated like a defenseless fucking baby that can't do anything on my own. Stop using minorities as a pawn for your virtue signaling bullshit.

He's got it backwards. We're "toxic" because of the secrecy, and the defensiveness and hostility criticism gets, as well as a severe lack of empathy. I'd like a game delay not to be feared for the bad reactions, but come with a simple "I'm sorry, I know this sucks" followed by maybe a basic explanation of what went wrong. Instead we get a quiet date shoveback, no explanation, and the expectation that we should have no complaints about being a month from release only to hear 6 more months. The lack of explanation makes us think people screwed around on the job too long and can't meet a deadline, and the lack of empathy makes us continue into thinking they don't even feel guilty about it. Nothing is universal, and there are instances like Ms. Sarkesian that are just plain wrong and won't admit it, but any businessman should ask how much they're asking their customer to deal with.

The industry has become so incestuous and ideologically entrenched in general, that they have grown to hate their own audience and any criticism that isn't from their own is seen as toxic behaviour or harrassment. No wonder we are currently in the predicament we are in when a lot of triple A games are being released broken, getting constantly delayed, with anti-consumer features like microtransactions, or taking whole sections of games out and selling then as DLC to leech more money out of us. This creates anger and resentment, and no wonder gamers are getting fed up.

If more devs and publishers were like you, the gaming industry would be a whole helluva lot better.

Aaaand immediately demonetized. Sigh. At least you can also find me on vid.me/: vid.me/Troylus

I'm a "person of colour" (I hate that term. Just drop the pretense and say "coloured" already), who lives in the Caribbean. I don't get the harassment other people get (but I'm also a guy and straight, so that might be why, you know? lol). Of course I've been called a white person by these types of people before because that's how this works. I would love to see how games are developed. Most of it is a mystery to me. There's a channel on youtube that takes different games and takes the camera out of bounds, showing how developers make backgrounds, or model faraway buildings or effects, or where things go when they go offscreen etc. And that's VERY interesting to me. ( youtube.com/user/PencakeAndWuffle ) I love video games. I love exploring these creative worlds, these characters. I love fighting and doing cool things and being a nuisance as well as interacting, conversing and feeling in equal measure. Video games can do things no other medium can do and it's something incredibly special. I'm honestly glad to be a part of the hobby, but it infuriates me when developers and journalists take their audience for granted and spit on them. There does seem to be developers (publishers, mostly?) who attempt to nickel and dime customers. Broken released games, paying for online, microtransactions, day 1 DLC, preorder DLC, on-disc DLC, always online/denuvo etc And on top of that just coming out and saying HEY AUDIENCE, YOU'RE HORRIBLE TOXIC PEOPLE while stroking their Women/PoC/LGBT pillow as if that'll do anything but feed into the narrative. Especially when paired up with the crazy anti-gamer articles Kotaku and Polygon et al put out. When they come out and say stuff like that... what do they expect? What kind of responses do they want when they do something like that? When they come out and scream "gamers are entitled!" I mean... yes? I'm a customer. I'm paying for your product.

I would just like to say that Disney Infinity was legit, IMO.

I love your videos. This one being the best. My thoughts run 100% parallel on this one.

That letter at the end had me in tears.

Hi Troy I am a Retailer in the FMCG market and if I would apply the same logic as these articles then all my cuatomers are toxic. We simply see this as customers being more aware of their environment and simply strive to make them happy. It's called "customer service". Good video btw.

It's raining. I don't know why but it started to pour during that letter. I DIDN'T ASK FOR THIS FEELS TRIP. On a serious note, stories like these are what gaming is about. whether it is overcoming loneliness, depression, mental health, or creating a fantastical world in a dark hour, gaming is more than a bunch of guys trash talking. to think any differently is an insult to every gamer who plays for charity, plays to give people a show, plays to overcome their own inner struggles. It insults and throws them aside for narrative. Thank you for everything you do Troy. We may disagree on many levels, but we need more developers like you standing up and not only defending ys, your audience - but understanding that we are so much more than the gremlins they claim we are.

I've often thought that a lot of the tocixity from gamers to devs is actually due to the lack of devs being candid. Most gamers, myself included, know so little about how games are made, but I can tell you that at least in my case I'm always interested in behind the scenes stuff, even as little as studio tours. I think a lot of people might actually welcome more of a peek behind the curtain, so maybe what the gaming industry needs is it's own Neil DeGrasse Tyson to explain things in an easy to grasp and entertaining way?