"casual game bad" syndrome

[rnottelovesowls]

i really like playing games when i get the chance. i also enjoy watching people play games, even if it's a game that i don't play. but uhhh... i'm noticing a trend lately. a lot of Gamers™ have a huge problem with working together as a team, or playing games just for fun. it's all about "da grind", they say. climbing up the competitive ladder and reaping the rewards of... a shiny cosmetic item that has no baring on gameplay. this same competitive gamer demographic loves to scoff and turn their noses up at casual games, especially the cooperative multiplayer games popular among friend and family groups, like Peak and Among Us. you know, the ones branded as... ugh... "friendslop" on social media? on that note, let me copy-and-paste something i posted on the imood forums recently:

"i hate the term "friendslop" to describe co-op multiplayer games popular among friend and family groups, like among us and peak. the suffix "-slop" implies that these games are low-quality junk played by people with no taste. and putting the words "friend" and "slop" together? are you implying that it's stupid to have friends to play games with? must be depressing, being so miserable and unlikable"

oh! and worst of all, you better not be bad at an online multiplayer game, or else these gamers will ACTUALLY tell you to kill yourself in voice chat! if you've ever had this happen to you, i am sorry

all in all, does nobody else think that competitive gamers' irrational hatred of casual gaming is becoming a bit of a problem? god forbid people want to play games for fun, or play games that don't involve killing each other. i'm willing to bet even people who try to get high scores in arcade games aren't this toxic. i definitely don't see arcade gamers telling newbies to kill themselves for being bad at pac-man

what do you make of all this, gamers?

[sunnyp4rk]

I love Animal Crossing and the Sims, and what I do is just play the games and disregard the opinions of those who hate them for whatever reason. Life is too short to worry what some losers think.

[GideonWilhelm]

All I can say is that I've noticed a lot of toxicity in myself back when I used to play Overwatch, and I've since dropped that game like a hot rock to avoid seeing that side of me.  I just... don't like it.  Especially when I don't have the skill to back it up.  Honestly, I believe for me, that was fostered after TF2 went free to play. 

The game used to involve a bunch of servers I loved hanging out in where everyone knew the game, and win or lose, we were all just there to have a chill time.  You did your best to fight, your team did their best, the other guys did their best, and all the while everyone's just chatting about whatever's been on TV.  And then with the free to play update, those servers got swarmed and had to lock down.  I couldn't find where to get into any of them, so I was left with the free to play newbies who refused to use the voice comms.  People would freak out and hide when I ubercharged them, instead of barrelling through enemy defenses like ubercharge is made for.  Half the team would go Spy or Sniper and we'd start getting steamrolled.  Or the whole enemy team would go spy or sniper and we'd steamroll.  It just wasn't fun anymore.

When I moved into overwatch, it was all magnified.  You can't win unless you coordinate, and everyone's trying to be the superhero carry.  It's nuts.

I think I might've gotten off track here, lol.  The term 'friendslop' isn't something I've really seen in more than a [auto redacted] screenshot or two, and I've been scrolling Reddit.  Then again, I'm not in a ton of competetive game subs, but all the same, I haven't personally seen enough to believe it's a real phenomenon and not just a quick meme.

If it is a genuine complaint shared around social media that I'm just not seeing, my reflex would be to blame... competitive games, honestly.  Particularly the competitive gamers that are constantly loaded up on cortisol seeing casual co-op gamers as *the worst* because "the casuals having fun and screwing up my competitive play need to be punished in my favorite game, but they're not, so I just want SOMEONE else to be miserable too!"

It's not a bulletproof theory, but hey, it's the best I got.

[mortaki]

Yeah, this is actually why I've been avoiding online multilayer for years now. I personally like being bad at games. I've almost always played games from a lore/storytelling perspective, so playing suboptimally is a part of the fun. And it is genuinely really funny when I describe how I play Minecraft to people.

I don't necessarily think it's the people playing those games, though. I think it's the way the games are designed. Or rather how their communication systems are designed. Of course, any community above a certain threshold of popularity is going to have a small but loud percentage that is "toxic" and "problematic" and just generally rancid. But I've seen modern games that actually have really great in-game chats/voice. There's really  not anything wrong with competitive games themselves, but moreso the highly individualistic nature of these competitive games. No, in many of them you can't win them alone technically... but there's a reason the concept of "carrying" exists. It promotes main character energy and thus main character behavior. And if everyone thinks they're the main character...

I, personally, like playing a supporting role in most games. Think healer, archer, wizard, sniper. I like providing cover fire and mitigating attrition. There's a lot of games that seem to support that kind of gameplay/role, but in reality, there's no real incentive for frontliners/DPS to protect those kinds of players while there is incentive to target them, so either they have to be a very aggressive support or they have to abandon the role entirely. At least, that's been my experience and observations.

[MrsMoe]

I'm a person who loves horror and story-based games, but I also love games like Animal Crossing, Stardew or The Sims because I sincerely love games that have no specific end point and varied ways to play while also being low stakes. People who are dismissive of casual games come across to me like they view video games as an art form uniformly as a sport, something you need to grind at and be competitive with others for. They absolutely can be, but thinking that's all video games can be is extremely diminishing of them as an art form.

[eezstreet]

For a long time, I have been bouncing around the idea in my head of the concept of a game that actively mocks the player for trying to take the completionist approach in tackling its story. “You’re still playing this game? Why?”

Primarily this is a commentary on the idea of socially egoistic consumption - you’re playing a game because it gets you some Achievement/Trophy or it makes you Cool or something - but also attacks the idea that games can be categorized as simple decision trees and Gameplay Loops.

The issue I struggle with (aside from just lacking the time - I am working on 2-4 contracts at any given time, strictly as side projects - and that I am not an artist) is that this, as a concept, is actively hostile towards the player. Nobody’s going to want to sit through hours and hours of gameplay only to be mocked for feeling some degree of satisfaction afterwards.

Of course…there are people who regularly listen to things like avante-garde music where engaging with audience expectations is kind of the point.

I think to me, the thing that bothers me the most is unnecessary gatekeeping. If someone isn’t interacting with X thing the way that Y person wants, they get irrationally upset about it. Is that more of what the underlying issue here is?

[Noah_S]

I think to me, the thing that bothers me the most is unnecessary gatekeeping. If someone isn’t interacting with X thing the way that Y person wants, they get irrationally upset about it. Is that more of what the underlying issue here is?

For me that's a big issue. I have a game on my phone that I enjoy and play a bit of daily. I've completely left online spaces about it because people get so hostile if you don't optimize your gameplay. Meanwhile I'm here optimizing my fun. I play with a custom background because I enjoy looking at the meteorshower as I play more than I'd enjoy the slight performance increase from a plain black background. Even something as simple as that gets people all up in arms. You'd think that fun graphics are killing puppies or something based on the reactions. And they're just as bad if someone picks different options in the gameplay.

It's a single player game!