Gaming and Diversity

On May 24th, 2018 the British gaming commentator TotalBiscuit at the age of 33 died from cancer that plagued him for years. While for most in the gaming community this was a time for mourning many people celebrated his death. He was involved in the GamerGate controversy which oversaw the harassment of a couple of women in the gaming industry. The women wanted to promote diversity in the gaming scene but because of their harsh attitudes and actions, male gamers attack them threatening different means of assault. While TotalBiscuit's involvement was scrutinized it was overlooked by many because of his untimely passing. Those affected by the long finished GamerGate drama instead of offering words of support condemned anyone who mourning TotalBiscuit's death and some talking about how happy they were that he passed. Seeing as this is the last blog post I am going to, for the first time ever, talk about my opinion on the matter. I did not watch TotalBiscuit's yo...

As reports came out that Grand Theft Auto 5, commonly known as GTA 5, has become one of the most sold media content in the world, selling 95 million copies since its release in 2013 it really brings up what kind of people are not only playing GTA 5 but are playing video games in general. The GTA series is considered one of the most well-known series next to the likes of the Call of Duty series. This consistent popularity can give us a window to see what kind of people, race, gender, etc. play video games and observe how diverse the community is currently. Recently there was a resurgence of players in GTA because of the allowance of mods and custom servers. These custom servers brought to life a seemingly dying community of role-players who moved from the ever-buggy game Arma 3. This shift has allowed the player count to maintain its player base with the addition of regular updates to the game by Rockstar, the makers of the game. Thanks to the popularity of GTA 5 we can see a l...

Gamers who have played the popular first-person shooter Rainbow Six Siege are familiar with the ever-present diversity of characters in the game. The game has playable characters from all over the world including China, Britain, Africa and many more. Rainbow Siege six is known for their detailed background for  all of their characters giving details to what they were doing before joining spec ops and what they like to do in their free time. The newest female character, Alibi, an Italian character originally from Lybia and her ability is rumored to let her create a hologram of herself, confusing enemy players. While having a female character is not new in Siege the persistent diversity is always nice to see, especially in a first-person shooter. Women do play games but first-person shooter games have been a male-dominated game and hopefully, the inclusion of strong female characters in Siege increases the number of female players of all kinds.

One of the most popular games right now, Fortnite, recently hosted a competition called #Boogiedown. This competition challenged gamers to film themselves doing an original dance and posting it on social media, with the winner of the competition's dance being put in the game. Many gamers of all backgrounds filmed themselves doing all sorts of creative dance that yet again showed the power of Fornite's popularity but also showcasing the diversity of the game. While there were many children submitting dances for the game there were also many teenagers and young adults. This group of the community consisted of a surprising amount of African American gamers solely because of the lack of representation in the gaming community. While Fortnite may be mainly for casual gamers it is nice to see a different community have so much self-representation for the game and hopefully increase representation in the gaming scene.

A recent fiasco in the gaming scene was the formation, and sudden end, of Bully Hunters. The group was formed by a female Twitch streamer and was created in order to stop bullying of women online. A demonstration by the group of how it would work was streamed on Twitch. The demo featured the one and only game that they currently supported, Counter-Strike, and showed a staged example of what their vision was. The demo featured a male gamer verbally harassing a female gamer using foul language, so the female gamer went to the bully hunter website, gave them the name of the harasser and joined the game to kill the harasser in-game, thus humiliating him into ending his harassment. However, this dream of their's is quickly defeated if you have ever played Counter-Strike. Firstly, the community of Counter-Strike wouldn't tolerate harassment and if someone was harassing another player, they can be kicked from the game by the other players. Second, one of the most prominent optio...