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註冊: 2011/11/20
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已發表: 2012/2/21 下午1:45
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editorial \ˌe-də-ˈtȯr-ē-əl \ (noun)
1) a newspaper or magazine article that gives the opinions of the editors or publishers; also : an expression of opinion that resembles such an article;
2) Is the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Magelo.
Throughout yesterday, Twitter and Facebook jumped alive over a controversy. This was no ordinary controversy over a class nerf, nor a developer gaffe, nor a game closure. Far from the topics covered by gaming internet misanthropy, the subject centered around Jennifer Hepler, a writer for the BioWare team on several games (including SWTOR).
Before I get to why this is the first editorial you will see on Magelo, let's get some background on what happened:
See, Jennifer is a writer, and as such she finds herself particularly immersed in the lore of games, and not the combat aspects. To me, this is fine. After all, we all have our particular interests in the games we play. For some it may be PvP, for others it may be dungeons or raids. In the case of this particular individual (and many others who sometimes hide in the shadows), she prefers the story underwriting the game. Not itself an item of controversy.
But in what is often referred to in the media industry as a "gotya moment" she admitted this while answering the question commonly asked of women in the gaming industry: "If you could tell developers of games to make sure to put one thing in games to appeal to a broader audience which includes women, what would that one thing be?"
While her answer may not be representative of all females who play games, this is what she actually said:
A fast-forward button. Games almost always include a way to "button through" dialogue without paying attention, because they understand that some players don't enjoy listening to dialogue and they don't want to stop their fun. Yet they persist in practically coming into your living room and forcing you to play through the combats even if you're a player who only enjoys the dialogue. In a game with sufficient story to be interesting without the fighting, there is no reason on earth that you can't have a little button at the corner of the screen that you can click to skip to the end of the fighting.
While there were other quite similar opinions expressed during the same interview, this is the quote which has received the most attention with such eye-catching titles as "Killer Woman: Jennifer Hepler", forum posts which call her "a poison which is killing BioWare" and even accuse her of attempting to "kill Mass Effect 3 by making Shepard gay".
Matters only got worse when Ms. Hepler responded in a rather quick fashion to the controversy in a now-deleted Twitter post, accusing those participating in the harassment campaign as being misogynists. While the opinion may (or may not) be entirely accurate, this didn't exactly help the situation.
While I have always prided myself in accrediting my sources with any news story, this isn't a news story and I have decided that to link to the various forum posts and so-called "news articles" which participate in this would be reckless and irresponsible to our viewers, to Ms. Helper and to the gaming community as a whole.
I literally sat here for hours as the controversy unfolded, deciding how to cover this. See we aren't known at Magelo for TMZ-style reporter-ship, and I categorically refuse to exploit gaffes in the name of ratings for any reason. And it was while thinking about this that I decided to revisit our old friend "civility".
See, we often refer to ourselves as a "gaming community". But what does this actually mean? According to Webster's Dictionary, a "community" is, "a group of people with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger society". For us, that common characteristic is the desire to escape from our everyday lives of work, drama and for many the common metropolitan foes of rudeness, discomfort and scrutiny.
Moreover (and especially with this controversy), we have forgotten that even in that unique aspect we have in common, we have different opinions. Otherwise we would all be playing the same game. What I consider "fun" is not necessarily what another person would.
Those who have gamed with me know how deeply interested I am in lore. I must have a reason to want to go out and kill things. In that, myself and Ms. Hepler find a certain commonality. As such, I don't necessarily agree with Ms. Hepler's opinion. In fact, I believe that even implementing an option to skip combat would take far too much away from an MMO. That being said, I completely respect Ms. Hepler's opinion, her right to express it and what she considers "fun".
It seems so often that we see gamers so staunch to their own opinions that they disenfranchise themselves with why they play them in the first place. To go farther than that into a harassment campaign is not only immoral, but in many places illegal and attacks the very core of what a community is.
So as you go along in your gaming or forum-trolling affairs, please try and remember that the person on the other end of the keyboard is just that: a human being... with all the feelings, dreams, hopes and ambitions as any other. Try and find the commonality that may lie under the surface. If this fails, and you find that you completely disagree with them, smile and thank them for doing exactly what you are also trying (hopefully!) to do: To add your two cents in the common desire to add a glimmer of sunshine into what otherwise may be a day filled with haste and debauchery.
For those who have read this far, thank you for your time.
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