This week, I’ll be discussing abuse and toxic behaviour in the CS:GO community. Before we get to it, let me reiterate that I am madly in love with Counter-Strike. It’s simply one of the best team games out there. This piece, however, is meant to highlight one important issue that I think we can overcome.
RPS is running that article by Emily Richardson on abuse in CS. I have no idea why people freak out over freedom of speech being taken away or how anonymity allows abuse because there’s no accountability. I’m like what the fuck is wrong with you people?
Oh I know the problem, I have pretty much never played that game outside LANs because of all the racial slurs online. But now I’m a grown up and I still like this game very much. I play with bots and can’t wait for that next LAN that will happen someday.
“The problem stems from the lack of consequence in these games for what would be arrestable real world conduct.”
No, the problem comes down to the fact that we’re talking about teenagers. Maybe early twenties, you know that time when you don’t know shit and you think you’re smart and sleek but you’re still testing boundaries. It’s an age issue to me, by far. When I read this:
No one likes dying, and dying for something that was the responsibility of another player gets to people generally
It gets to you when you’re young and have no patience. When you’ve been married, pay taxes, saw real death hit real friends and that you just want to have a good time strategizing on a Counter Strike map with people who share the same kind of life, none of that gets to you unless you have other issues that are not the game’s problem. Isn’t it obvious?
I don’t care who you are, I just know that if you’re sixteen to almost thirty I mostly don’t want to play with you. It’s fine, you don’t want no grumpy old gamer, I don’t want none of your ignorance and lack of self-control.
Now a lot of games are still played by young people and if games like LoL or DOTA2 have everlasting abuse issues, it’s because early 20s+stardom+insane cash prizes leads to people losing their shit online and getting nasty.
So Two Things To Save CS:GO and multiplayer games:
– There’s a Steam ID and FB connection? Let me filter by age and report age cheaters.
– Let’s log off. Let’s have WAY more LANs. That’s ultimately far better (hearing an opponent shout “fuuuck” across the room is always so satisfying) and if you want to fistfight on the parking lot, there’s that too.