Elitism in the Gaming Community

This piece may seem a bit... hypocritical in itself, however I will say now that I never mean to sound elitist in any way that I write or communicate with someone. I find it to be a rather conceited application in one's life. One may find that what they say to them may seem confident, but to another it can come off as rude. To think that you stand at the zenith and all others circle the bottom is downright an ignorant way to promote oneself about the internet.

To start my actual article, I ask you all to think about the internet. As it stands now, it is a great source of information, but to me, it fails completely at what I thought it's goal was. Information spread throughout the world via communication between others. Yeah it seems rather easy to go on Wikipedia and find out something about Shakespeare for a final, but is that communication between others? Did I ask someone and did someone report back to me on it? No would be the simple and straight answer here. So where do I go for information via communication? Or to put it into a gaming community-sense, where do I go on this world wide web to get the information for my gaming needs? If I need to know how a game plays, can I be expected to suddenly acquire the information out of thin air? No, so I go to gaming websites. I hover around IGN for news of Kingdom Hearts 3 or I type Kotaku into my address bar to find information on Little Big Planet but much in the way that Wikipedia gives me information on the Chemical Composition of table salt, those websites too give me information without ready, live communication. Perhaps I'm being too unforgiving in my statements, my aspirations, but I expected that everyone could simply co-exist peacefully and get information from one another. Yet if I'm expecting to learn how to counter an infinite in Street Fighter or how to effectively meteor-smash in Brawl where am I expected to go? It's not like Brian Crecente or Matt Casamassina or going to be online to help me, so I go to gaming forums. A forum much like it's out-of-internet counterpart is a place where people get together to discuss on a certain issue or event or thing that they enjoy. I remember back then, likely still now, public access stations that aired "Insert Show/Music Group/Movement" Forum where they could discuss something and have people call in about it and mouth off. Well the internet is home to its own style of forum and sadly for better or for worse they are very similar in nature. You see the problem I have with the gaming culture is that while a game is a game and a tree is a tree, a player is not a player. Perhaps that's worded both wrong and wierd. A gamer will tell you their a gamer like you and me but they aren't. I'm not gonna use "hardcore" and "casual" here... okay I might use "casual" but not in that sense. I'm not talking about the guy who plays Bejewled at work when he needs to unwind, I'm more or less talking about the kind of person who has been gaming all of their life, but don't put huge, massive amounts of time into it. When I speak casual, I refer to someone who can pull off a shoryuken, but doesn't know the framerates for a spinning piledriver. Someone who may have finished God of War, but not on God difficulty. Then there are those between that and what may be called "expert" or "pro" gamers. Yes they game like anyone else, the difference is just the sheer amount of determination and time they place into any given game. Typically they are a decent bunch, but for the small minority thta are not, they seem to project a majority in gaming forums. To put my own experience into it, for every decent person I find on one, there are at least 3 others that are not. And this isn't about human decency. I'm not talking about someone saving a kitten, I'm speaking about one's ability to communicate properly, one's active social skills, because there shouldn't be a difference in one's social abilities on the net and our of it. Why should it be so hard to find out how roll cancel? Why should I stare at my screen full of disdain because I ask why an infinite should be banned only to be called a scrub, a noob, or one of the many more terms elitist posters create for someone who isn't like them?

Which brings me to the topic truly at hand, my title, Elitism in the Gaming Community. Why does it exist? I can't give an official answer to that because I'm not the ruler of minds, I can't read them and for what it is, no one can. Freud wouldn't know so why should I? I can give my own guesses but I believe that would come off as for lack of a better word, bitter. So I'll go this route instead and simply ask what can we do as a community to get rid of it? If I enjoy a good game of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 every now and then, why should I be called a scrub if I head down to the arcade where some guys are playing and upon finding that they glitch and infinite call them cheap? Perhaps there lies the problem, the term cheap is going to be offensive as long as it is used negatively. I doubt Rally's/Checkers gets angry because someone called their food cheap in relation to McDonalds as long as they meant it in a positive way. However as far as gaming is concerned, the only way to positively identify something as cheap is the price of the game. Calling a technique someone uses cheap is as good as calling them cheap, so they are going to verbally attack back with scrub. But there shouldn't be a balance like this. Instead of scoffing because I can't 5 star an expert song in Guitar Hero, how about attempting to teach me or give some hints, it makes it look more like a community and you don't give off an elitist impression, because no one should want to be labeled that. I find that at these tournaments, all the good people seem to stick to one another and have their jokes and their own little seperate community, but shun those that are just starting and trying to get into it. From that approach, they would wonder why they even attempted in the first place and stop playing the game, slowing the spread of the community. As well, those that don't see themselves as being good, don't be so quick to call something cheap and walk away from it. I've been told that nothing is cheap and that there is always something else to get around it. I believe it should be up to those that think they're great to teach that to those who aren't so much. Being genuinely nice is the only way I see gamers being respected.