Toxic Tango

Gaming Websites aren't in a great place. I should know, I used to write for them. COGconnected and I ended on good terms and I've still got lots of respect for the people who gave me that gig in the first place, for letting me make the Years Later series of Halo videos...

But, there's a reason lots of those people are no longer there. Gaming websites are filled with fluff. You get almost no money. And if you piss one of the eight million different fanbases potentially reading your site, your comments section becomes a waste bucket.

There's very little satisfaction that comes with the job. You're not in an environment to really enjoy games. You've gotta crank out reviews on games within five minutes of their launch. You need to make your opinion distinct without being forced or controversial. You've got to be in-depth enough to compel a reader to keep scrolling, but you've also got to be accessible enough to accurately summarize a game in a number.

These are very much the reasons I left when I saw an opportunity too. I hated writing fluff pieces, coming up with top ten lists, and playing shit video games nobody cared about.

However, that's also why I don't really read sites like Kotaku, PCGamer, Gamespot, etc. I mostly just follow PCGamer because they cover mods that sometimes I lose track of. Gaming News these days isn't the rare source it once was. Most of the time, by just following a handful of people on Twitter, you've got the news sent to you rather than having to go to it.

So, you've got websites that by the nature of their struggling business model, have to be, for lack of a better word, toxic. Inflammatory headlines, rushed content, and lack of research stemming from a lack of time are all commonplace in this industry.

And then you've got readers that hate gaming websites so much, it becomes their equivalent of jerking in the shower.

Kotaku's reputation for years has been the website of crybabies. The place where "Beta Cuck" is on the nametag. Pumpkin Spice Latte, scarf in the summer, soundcloud rapper, petition dot org, whining manchildren.

Man, Youtubers are so much more honest! They tell it like it is! Because they use the fuck word and whore out to Raid rather than EA! Websites should take note!

So then Kotaku comes along and writes an article calling the new XCOM Mobile game the piece of shit that it is, and suddenly people are concerned about professionalism. Citing "needless negativity" and "let people have fun."

Now, I've done a video specifically about how communities aren't a hivemind; how when you get conflicting voices, it stems from the spotlight moving to different parts of a given community. So, I don't think that the people complaining about professionalism are the same people calling Kotaku pussies.

At least, I didn't at first…

What I forgot about was the Phil Fish situation. 

Back when Indie Game: The Movie came out, and one of the games featured in it, Fez, was relevant, one of the most publicly hated figures was Phil Fish because he was, well… an asshole.

So much so, both the media and the greater gaming public kept piling onto the man's reputation to the point of using a potentially racist comment to talk about Phil Fish, rather than the other way around. To these people, the goal wasn't about hating what Phil Fish specifically said or did, it was just about hating Phil Fish.

And really, I could easily see Gaming Websites suffering a similar fate. I can totally envision a situation where they get an Esports Champion to review the next DOOM, and people critique them for not writing a review for the common consumer, or that more fluff pieces for Fortnite should be posted, or that the latest Triple AAA failure doesn't deserve a low score because Call of Duty got a 6/10.

I've already seen instances of these things over the years. I remember when people were spamming downvotes on IGN's Medal of Honor: Warfighter review a 4/10, the same Medal of Honor Warfighter that's been relentlessly mocked since its release and died within two months!

What's different about Gaming Websites compared to say, the situation with Lindsey Ellis' Raya tweet, is that Gaming Websites need to upset this crowd that hates them to survive.

The things gaming websites do are often cited as a necessity to keep the lights on, not understanding that there may be a point where a particular business model may no longer be viable or acceptable. 

It doesn't matter if people are pissed off, developers are given grief, or that the article isn't even truthful, if you're options are those or die off, the former's going to be picked.

I won't be surprised if we see more aggressive headlines from sites like Kotaku in the future, because it generated them a lot of attention they don't ordinarily receive.

They say it takes two to tango, and in this case, the toxicity is the tango.