opinion The Dangers of Gamer Entitlement

[Muhammad Farrukh]

This week, a small subset of the gaming community humiliated, defiled, and verbally attacked a female BioWare employee for the suggestion that video games should place more importance on narrative.

The attack on Jennifer Hepler, which continues with a consistent, unrelenting, and deep-set conviction not unlike religious fervor, points to an escalating manifestation of gamer entitlement, the idea that gamers have the right to do and say without suffering the consequences of their actions.

Hepler, a senior writer at BioWare with credits on titles including Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age II, and Star Wars: The Old Republic, was the subject of a Reddit post earlier this month referencing an interview she gave in 2006 in which she says a fast-forward button could be used to make games more appealing to a broader audience, including women.

"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," Hepler said in the interview. "Yet they persist in practically coming into your living room and forcing you to play through the combat 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."

The original Reddit post--titled "This women(sic) is the cancer that is killing BioWare"--was later removed by Reddit's moderators for violating the site's code of conduct and directly targeting an individual.

Hepler, unaware of the escalating undercurrent of rage mounting over a point she made six years ago, joined Twitter on February 2. In the 10 days since, Hepler has been called "****", "slut", and "######". She's been criticized for her gender, her appearance, and her religion. Attacks on her have referenced Hitler, bestiality, rape, murder, cannibalism, and prostitution.

And for what?

For suggesting that maybe video games should have skippable combat sequences, just the way they have skippable story sequences? For suggesting that players who are more interested in story than gameplay should be given more choice? There's hardly any point in trying to defend her original argument, whose validity should be immediately clear to anyone who understands that video games, like other forms of media, constantly strive to evolve and attract a growing audience. (It's even been put into practice before--L.A. Noire allowed players to skip action sequences after three failed attempts.)

No, the torrent of abuse that Hepler has endured has had little to do with skippable combat in games. The savagery displayed this week flows not from specifics but from the sense of ownership that makes some gamers believe that they own the games they play. That's a common mistake; gamers buy games, so naturally they feel entitled to them. But games are, and have always been, the property of the people who made them. People like Jennifer Hepler.

While an increasing number of publishers and developers seek to establish an ongoing relationship with players through fan sites, communities, forums, and social networks, the creation of this two-way communication channel brings with it the illusion that players are entitled to affect the decisions directly related to them. So, when a company like BioWare--whose relationship with its players and community has, for the most part, relied on mutual respect--makes the decision to delay a game due to any number of reasons, gamers who have actively invested in "loving" BioWare and its games feel it's their every right to lash out.

Gamers who feel this sense of entitlement fail to view the player-developer relationship as the multifaceted construct that it is. They fail to see that a relationship between an individual and a company requires a different set of guidelines, emotions, and responses to a relationship between two separate individuals. Jennifer Hepler is the consequence of that misconstrued connection. She is an individual whose attackers, angered by her suggestion that games should focus less on combat, acted on the belief that they are the only ones who can, and should, dictate how games are made and played.

How much respect should a company show to a group of gamers who launch a personal attack on one of its employees? BioWare Edmonton studio general manager Aaryn Flynn gave up any hope of a civilized conversation earlier this week, retorting with "Whatever, f***ing moron" in reply to a tweet about Hepler's "pig disgusting fetishes." The backlash was immediate: tweets filed in calling BioWare unfaithful to its community, arguing that the company "treated its loyal fans like crap" after they offered "genuine criticism."

But BioWare has the right to do so much more. It has the right to pursue legal action against Hepler's attackers. It has the right to shut them out of its community, to refuse them any kind of service in the future. It has the right to tell them that this behavior has no place in the gaming community, to show them that every sexist, racist, comment only serves to undo years of growth and progress in changing outdated attitudes in the industry.

Like us, BioWare has the right to stand up to each and every gamer who brutalized, harassed, and dehumanized Jennifer Hepler, a game developer who to date has dedicated her working life to making games better for the very same people who turned on her.

UPDATE: BioWare CEO and cofounder Dr. Ray Muzyka responded to the attacks on Hepler overnight, donating US$1000 to Bullying Canada in her name.

GameSpot

[Nick H. Supervisor]

:blink:

I don't get how they got so angry over this idea. I especially don't understand how it took 6 years for them to get angry over the comment. What's the problem with having an option to skip the action sequences? Just because the option is there doesn't mean that every gamer needs to use it, the same way that not every user will skip the dialogue sequences.

Gamers do have a bizarre sense of entitlement when it comes to their games, and I include myself in that group. I will make it known if I don't like a particular decision that the game developers have made, and I will call out a game for its lack of imagination or improvement over previous releases (a prime example being the CoD series). But it's true, I have very little right to stomp my feet and complain. The best I can do is make the decision not to buy the game, and hope that enough people follow suit so that the industry says, "that was a bad idea."

What this small group of gamers have done towards Jennifer though...well, that's completely out of order. They make themselves look bad, they make the rest of the gaming community look bad, they don't get anywhere in trying to make their point, and ultimately - as the article points out - they degrade the relationship between the developer and the gamer.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Wow. Some people are truly pathetic. I'll never understand the sense of entitlement that some gamers have. They feel as though the game should be developed for their specific preferences. I feel sorry for Jennifer Hepler and I hope that she can get past this.

[Vice]

I saw this on reddit as it unfolded and I thought it was pretty ridiculous. The reddit community (of which I'm a part) has some serious morons running around and this isn't the first or the 5th or the 10th time something like this has happened on that site. It's as if they take a comment by any member with a lot of upvotes as obvious gospel and get their pitchforks and are ready to march the tower for almost any reason that goes against the hive mind consensus.

Pathetic and I feel very sorry for that woman.

[Miuku.]

The Reddit community IS a group of serious morons, I haven't really read anything from there that doesn't reaffirm my belief that the average IQ is dropping and fast.

It's essentially 4chan, with a different guise.

[Dotdot]

Pre-pubescent teens and the webs worst it would seem. Honestly if your still using anonymity on the web as a means to act like a moron really you shouldnt be online. Grow up ffs.

[compl3x]

Nice post, Muhammad, but you really need to break up the text into paragraphs. It makes it really hard to read when it is one big block of text like that. I don't know why it doesn't auto-format it from how it was formatted from the site it was copied from.

-------------------------------------------------

The reddit hive mind strikes again.

It's all rather odd considering there are legitimate things to criticise devs and publishers over, yet some women gets crucified for some comments she made 5 or 6 years ago. So many gamers are idiots and are giving my beloved hobby a really bad name.

Truth be told, most of the people involved in this will go out and buy ME3 when it drops.

[Muhammad Farrukh]

Nice post, Muhammad, but you really need to break up the text into paragraphs. It makes it really hard to read when it is one big block of text like that. I don't know why it doesn't auto-format it from how it was formatted from the site it was copied from.

Sorry man. :(

Will try to do it next time

[qdave]

And thats the sad state of gamers today :( I think she is right...mindless shooting is not going to cut it, and games that are stuck in your mind for longest is something with a captivating storyline and dialogues.

[metal_dragen Veteran]

And thats the sad state of gamers today :( I think she is right...mindless shooting is not going to cut it, and games that are stuck in your mind for longest is something with a captivating storyline and dialogues.

I would agree with that too except for the caveat that a game is, by definition:

A form of play or sport, esp. a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck.

It involves some amount of interactivity on the part of the player, typically involving skill, strength or luck (per the definition). Clicking through sequences just to advance is not a "game," that's the equivalent of turning a page in a book. Granted, that could be a valid expression of a story, but it's not a game.

Having said that, I have no gripe with her statement given that she qualifies it as being optional in the same way that you can now, optionally, skip dialog by pressing a certain key/button in most games.

Also, on the topic of her treatment, it's abhorrent. This is the reason that gamers have a bad name in the mainstream media and why women in gaming are so often afraid to even let it be known they are female. Fortunately, most gamers know that these people are a minority of our community, but unfortunately, they are often the most vocal, obnoxious and downright hateful which is what the media will latch on to.

[n_K]

Wow.

That's pretty sad that they're resorting to just throwing around insults and harassing her like she's a pedo.

In fact, they're causing her more problems than if she was a pedo, what a joke.

[shakey]

I wouldn't call it bad about gamers, but I would call it horrible immature mob mentality. While a lot of us grew up gaming, and are now mature, there is still a huge amount of gamers who are still in the immature age/mindset. It is just horrible actions from immature mobs.

[muratoner]

I wouldn't call it bad about gamers, but I would call it horrible immature mob mentality. While a lot of us grew up gaming, and are now mature, there is still a huge amount of gamers who are still in the immature age/mindset. It is just horrible actions from immature mobs.

you're right...I can only play online games for a very short time then get back to single player cause i just can't stand people (read:kids) bossing other players or newbies,abuse the game's vote-kicking system or cheat and especially when they try to talk to someone who reveals her gender.While nice people leave the game those immature pricks constantly change servers so they can ruin everyone's experience.