It’s no secret that the bulk of AAA games market revenues come from in-game purchases , mostlyfrom live-service games. It’s also impossible to ignore that the live-service market is fiercely competitive....
When I was late teens I played vanilla wow, but after adapting to adulthood, the appeal of playing with or even talking to people decades younger than I am (with maturity to match age) has absolutely no appeal. I really want to play a lot of the multiplayer games out there, but don’t want to play with a bunch of asshole kids with nothing better to do than be assholes.
Face to face, maybe, because there’s a lot more context and social boundaries and stuff, but honestly I don’t even understand a lot of what they are trying to communicate at this point, and I honestly usually don’t care, so it’s not an appealing proposition at this point. That’s the full whole reason I don’t play ttrpgs anymore; can’t find an adult group and can’t stand to be around a group of 14yo boys.
It’s a shame, too. I don’t really mind playing with other people, usually PvE, but when you’re just so much more mature than they are the whole dynamic can be grating. PvP though? I’m not sure what’s worse, the shit talkers or the teammate griefers who throw a game for some silly reason.
That said, I met my wife in an MMO and you very much can make genuine connections with strangers on the internet. Just… You know, if you’re hitting 40 and they’re 14, the FBI might want to have a word with you.
That genuinely sounds like a good middle point, unfortunately it isn’t actionable for me as I haven’t any friends with whom to play. My humans have drastically different genre interests than I do, assuming they even game.
If the games don’t need communication to be good, play em anyway. Go for solo performance and if the team wants to whinge then it’s their fault for being mutable. I give everyone a chance, mute them if they spam or go squeaker, it’s honestly not that common to be an issue these days even in games like COD
I mean, you’re more or less correct although toxic masculinity feels pretty immature, and certainly more common with teenage boys. Given the number of muscle cars nearly running me off the road these days, I certainly agree they’re not all teenagers, though!
Gotta wonder if that guy who just said he slept with your mom on COD was really 30+ year old “alpha male” lol
I agree and I think a salient reframing of your statement is teenagers typically more than anything else want to be treated as adults, to be a teenager is to constantly be observing young adults and attempting to emulate their social behavior. So the question becomes why do we tolerate toxic adult conservative men setting such a cruel and hateful example that teenagers then copy and magnify?
What some teenager screams at you in an online match is just a shrill echo of the serious and dangerous ideologies modern (and not modern) conservatism is explicitly founded on and violently defends the “right” to spew everywhere in every context consequences be damned (the consequences being a feature not a bug).
There’s definitely an aspect of catharsis in showing that kind of person how much better at the video game you are though. I don’t play a lot of PvP but when I do, and everything clicks, I absolutely get it
Coincidentally, teenagers are also the reason most gamers prefer single-player games.
This is a fact.
When I was late teens I played vanilla wow, but after adapting to adulthood, the appeal of playing with or even talking to people decades younger than I am (with maturity to match age) has absolutely no appeal. I really want to play a lot of the multiplayer games out there, but don’t want to play with a bunch of asshole kids with nothing better to do than be assholes.
Face to face, maybe, because there’s a lot more context and social boundaries and stuff, but honestly I don’t even understand a lot of what they are trying to communicate at this point, and I honestly usually don’t care, so it’s not an appealing proposition at this point. That’s the full whole reason I don’t play ttrpgs anymore; can’t find an adult group and can’t stand to be around a group of 14yo boys.
It’s a shame, too. I don’t really mind playing with other people, usually PvE, but when you’re just so much more mature than they are the whole dynamic can be grating. PvP though? I’m not sure what’s worse, the shit talkers or the teammate griefers who throw a game for some silly reason.
That said, I met my wife in an MMO and you very much can make genuine connections with strangers on the internet. Just… You know, if you’re hitting 40 and they’re 14, the FBI might want to have a word with you.
Right from the start there have been adults only guilds in WoW though.
I just play them exclusively with friends and mute random people that get obnoxious.
That genuinely sounds like a good middle point, unfortunately it isn’t actionable for me as I haven’t any friends with whom to play. My humans have drastically different genre interests than I do, assuming they even game.
As someone who doesn’t play with friends either:
If the games don’t need communication to be good, play em anyway. Go for solo performance and if the team wants to whinge then it’s their fault for being mutable. I give everyone a chance, mute them if they spam or go squeaker, it’s honestly not that common to be an issue these days even in games like COD
I dont mind teenagers, it is the absurd toxic masculinity culture I hate, which isnt really a teenager specific thing in my experience.
I mean, you’re more or less correct although toxic masculinity feels pretty immature, and certainly more common with teenage boys. Given the number of muscle cars nearly running me off the road these days, I certainly agree they’re not all teenagers, though!
Gotta wonder if that guy who just said he slept with your mom on COD was really 30+ year old “alpha male” lol
I agree and I think a salient reframing of your statement is teenagers typically more than anything else want to be treated as adults, to be a teenager is to constantly be observing young adults and attempting to emulate their social behavior. So the question becomes why do we tolerate toxic adult conservative men setting such a cruel and hateful example that teenagers then copy and magnify?
What some teenager screams at you in an online match is just a shrill echo of the serious and dangerous ideologies modern (and not modern) conservatism is explicitly founded on and violently defends the “right” to spew everywhere in every context consequences be damned (the consequences being a feature not a bug).
There’s definitely an aspect of catharsis in showing that kind of person how much better at the video game you are though. I don’t play a lot of PvP but when I do, and everything clicks, I absolutely get it