New year - new goal to miss! Here's to achieving a weekly blog post for the entirety of 2024 (apart from that first week, but I needed a holiday!!!. For my first trick: here's something I hope we see this year - and it's not what you think.
In my defence, it was this or take up jogging...
Gaming is fun, and its popularity is growing. In 2022, the UK video games industry alone was valued at £7.05 billion. I've always said that when a hobby is no longer fun it's just a chore. People game to distract, to relax, to be with friends, to make them. It would make sense, then, that gaming should be a positive and uplifting space.
Once you've stopped laughing and the cries of "cyka blyat" have left your ears, I think you'd agree that positivity is not the first thing that comes to mind when we think about the modern gaming community.
I'm not saying that there aren't positive elements of the gaming community. But it still seems self-evident that many people find it easier to be negative rather than positive.

Star Citizen is a really good example of this. It's fine to believe that its been too long in development, or that the sale of ships is unethical, or that the project is mismanaged or whatever. There's a lively debate to be had on all of these issues.
But time and again we have seen people wishing that others lose their money or that their faith in the development of the game is proven false. Now, you may be thinking that Star Citizen's development is something of a fringe case, and likely to come in for more criticism than other games. And you'd be right.
But criticism is one thing. Wishing the loss of money on others all because they don't agree with you and therefore act differently is precisely the sort of bullshit I'm talking about.
Let's look at another, more popular game as an example. CD Projekt Red's announcement that Cyberpunk was to be delayed for a second time was met with actual death threats to developers within the studio. One of the more tame examples threatened to burn alive the developer who received the threat.
Yeah. That was a "tame" example.

Strange, isn't it? One the one hand, the community becomes very defensive of developers who are forced to endure so-called "crunch"; massively increased working hours each week in order to meet a deadline. On the other hand, a delay (that could ease the aforementioned "crunch"" is met with death threats and robust criticism.
The two points of view don't seem to make sense - there's clearly hypocrisy in the messaging. Or is there?
If we take the idea of being defensive about developers under crunch, and instead view it as people just finding a reason to be negative toward a studio, it makes more sense. And yes, I truly believe many of the same people who have (justified) issues with crunch are the same people who lose their shit when the game they are waited for is delayed.
Many who make the argument of "if you don't like it, don't play it" in defence of their own games will be the ones whinging about hot-tub streams on Twitch, completely failing to heed their own advice.
There's an entire sub-culture of streamers and content creators are building their whole brand on the idea of "salt farming".
So now that we've defined the problem, what's the solution? That's simple. But it turns out the simple stuff can be quite hard.
It's entirely possible to engage in what you enjoy, and avoid the stuff you don't. I mean, I detest football management games, and I'm pretty sure The Sims will be waiting for me in hell. Here's how I cope with the fact that these games exist:
I don't play them.
I don't watch people play them.
I don't join communities based around these games. And I'm so much happier for it.

It would be disingenuous to suggest that I don't think we can't have debate about what we don't like in games, their development, or in the wider community. Clearly that's not what I'm suggesting, as I type about something I don't like about the wider gaming community.
But, at the risk of repeating myself, feel free to state that you don't like a monetisation model, or how long a game is taking to develop, or that you feel let down by another delay, but do it without attacking the people who don't hold your viewpoint. The former is constructive, the latter is toxic. Of course people aren't going to see everything the way you do. Unless you're prepared to only play the games someone else enjoys, you've already accepted that this is the case.
I'm using "you" a lot: clearly I don't mean the person reading this.
What I'm hoping is that, instead of getting into the argument with them (where they'll drag you down to their level then beat you on experience), you simply point out what they're doing, and move on.
I don't expect for a second that it will change them. What it will do is change the people in your orbit. People who agree and who want the same positivity will be drawn to you, those who don't will get bored and wander off.
This is genuinely one of those things where you can radiate a way of being to the people around you, and invite them to do the same. I hope you'll join me in dong so.
Lets have a more positive year this year, and every year after. It's time to embrace positive gaming in 2024.
Comments