The Community Factor

Communities -- collective forces of people who work and support each other towards a common goal, and as a result, create a social and integral bond in through every day living.

The Video Gaming community is an anomaly in so many ways, even today. The community has served as a fundamental that trades off between being strength to stigma to every single individual who participates in it actively, myself included. Labels can range anywhere from juvenile or vindictive, to supportive and trustworthy, and little has been done to find a consistency -- until recently.

Bold statement, you say? I’d have to admit that your counter argument is generous, to say the least, and skepticism justified. However, there’s a steadily recurring trend through our hobby’s public, and it’s undeniably recognizable. We’ve covered some of these events before, but there’s a theme with each passing one -- a sign that our culture is maturing. We’re another step closer towards the respect we’ve demanded in the last decade.

The first white elephant holding us back? Our behaviors and interactions, the somewhat ageless detriment associated with the gaming public. Whether they’re online or at a figurative “water cooler,” there’s an argumentative tension continually lingering in video game community interactions; it’s a definitive trait that’s practically synonymous with anyone labeling themselves as a “gamer.” Granted, an element of debate is more than healthy, but the patterns of abusive dispute are more common than not, and much is based on the semantics of varied components that encompass gaming beyond a genre of gameplay. People get lost in the trivial details of preference towards hardware, specification, development, and so much more. Absolutely anything and everything is pounded into ground with mental trenches and verbal ammunition, tossed to such personal extents -- given the right blind passion that pushes someone to such hateful extremes and escapes the sensible boundaries of critique, comparative to fellow media contemporaries like literature and film. The lines, however, have slowly blurred, and common grounds like social networking and consumer trade shows where initial segmented groups like game press, industry personnel, and the community can gather and share opinions on much more personal level. Yeah you’ve got your message boards and letters that could argue otherwise, but those particular outlets have effectively bridged the gap between these crowds.

The internet, where anonymity once fueled hateful and ignorant banter, has now made strides, washing away some of the stereotypes of homophobia or racism in any game related gathering... to an extent. The hate isn’t completely gone, mind you, but if you were to take a step back in time and examine some of the more warped experiences you witnessed (or even worse, if you were the victim), the hazing permanently pushed people away from the lifestyle. The same threats or hate posts on forum threads, or blog comments that leave a bitter taste in your mouth to where it leaves you questioning the future of shared gaming -- they’re gradually becoming a thing of the past.

In fact, there are even social networks centering exclusively on the lifestyle and community of video games. These sites are growing more and more in popularity, and have become ingrained in some player’s routines, becoming a new magic all of its own. With effort, sites like Raptr and GiantBomb created incentives towards networking and competitive/cooperative gaming. These gradual movements towards the social aspect of the gaming medium change everything, through some incredible milestones that our industry and culture have seen.

We’ve discussed Operation Rainfall before, a group of individuals who didn’t settle for dismay over Nintendo’s decision not to localize first-party published Japanese RPGS to America, and instead launched a campaign swaying Nintendo to reconsider. It’s unlikely that most of these individuals had any experience with public relations at a business level to assist them in reaching their goal through negotiations with the Big N, and yet after viral campaigns and numerous letters that gathered support from anyone who supported the cause, they were one step closer to achieving their master plan. Xenoblade Chronicles will release in the states, exclusively through GameStop and ShopNintendo.com on April 6 this year.

So to recap -- a group of individuals sharing common interests gathered together, relentlessly pursued their ambition towards persuading a corporation, and composed themselves to such a professional level in which their efforts were acknowledged. The same perceived bunch of angst-filled virgin losers, with nothing more than an image of gay-bashing, hygienically challenged man-children, were able to boycott a decision with conviction that would color a politician green with envy. Operation Rainfall continues their efforts, with the other two games in their mission.

Meanwhile, we’re currently witnessing one of the most unprecedented events in video game history. Tim Schafer, the overlord of Double Fine Productions, has independently launched their own donation drive towards developing a new point-and-click adventure game. Acknowledging the niche the genre has commercially commanded, while retaining the conviction of the genre’s cult following, Tim appealed to the gaming community with his interest in developing and documenting something that would be funded directly by us through Kickstarter, skipping the middleman (the publishers) altogether.

The dynamic of realtime constructive feedback through active updates and film documentary only shows the maturity level our community has reached. Recognizing the reputable talent of an individual who has charmed and entertained millions with his produced work, and answering the call to arms in contributing the latest development it’s immensely endearing. This demonstrates that we’ve come a long way from being identified as a market demographic that will flock to any shallow marketing ploy that publishers would work to pander, with very little understanding over what we really want to a cognitive element that’s recognized in a game’s potential beyond the role of a consumer. This event has shattered Kickstarter records and has exceeded its $400,000 goal with a staggering 1.6 million dollars! The surprising factor isn’t the fact this was all done within its first week, but rather the fact that the fund is still growing.

These milestones will forever be etched within the history of our medium. They weren’t initiated by a brilliant visionary in gaming development, or a multi-million dollar business move... they were accomplished from the very thing that gives any sort of meaning to what video gaming is: all of us. And we should be Goddamn proud of it, and what we will work to accomplish next in the future.