Yesterday (being December 1st as of this writing, but whatever), there was a streamed award ceremony for video games, aptly titled "The Game Awards 2016" which I wasn't planning on watching until Castlevania: The Lords of Shadow crashed and I had to log out in order to get back to trying to play. That was when Steam reminded me that this award ceremony was currently on, so I figured I would give it a go.
I happened to log in during the "Best Action Game" award nominations, which went to DOOM, which doesn't really surprise me, although it was going up against Overwatch and I have heard that this is a somewhat popular title. Then there was the award for "Games for Impact" award, which is described as "For a thought provoking game with a profound pro-social meaning or message" with That Dragon, Cancer taking the award. I was immediately drawn in, partly for the fact that this game that I had heard quite a lot about over the last year, but also because of the fact that this award didn't go to a game like Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare for it's gripping portrayal of "snipping the gayest n00b" while "bending your mom over a deep fat fryer." Then there was the award for "Best Trending Gamer" and "Best ESports Player" and I knew that I was out.
There were also a few cringe worthy moments that seem to have been scripted by studio executives who felt they knew how to communicate the cool games and technologies to kids. And then there were the people typing out swastikas and "whitepower" in the absurdly small chat window through Steam's streaming of the event.
Nolan North says, "Hey Fireheart, knock that shit off!!"
This was during voice actor Nolan North's acceptance speech for his work as Nathan Drake from Uncharted 4: A Thief's End.
Both of these were during the same speech (as noted by the fact that Nolan North is still talking), but as you can see, more swastikas and different user names. So let it be known, that both NEU GAEM and Fireheart both may not be all nice people, even if they are trolls who think that throwing up an appropriated symbol is either cool or that no one would notice as hundreds of people frantically vomited in their comments to a video game award show.
Then right after (I do not have any screen caps of the chat window at this time as it was going by too quickly for my hand to hit the Prt Scr button although you will have to believe me that I did in fact read/see the following comments) Nolan's acceptance speech, Raphaël Colantonio from Arcane Studios came on to talk about both Dishonored 2 and their upcoming title Prey, a very large number of people started commenting on the size of Mr. Colantonio's nose along with other antisemitic remarks.
Throughout the majority of the stream that I watched, there were a number of people (or it just might have been the same person over and over, but I know that I saw more than one user name popping up) were using racial slurs of the N variety and numerous messages with three and four lines full of "WhitePower." I really wish there was a recording of sorts for the chat window if only to call out the dozens of people hurling religious and ethnic hate throughout the event. Now, I was only present from about 1:13:24 through 1:55:20 and missed the last hour for good or ill, but from what I saw still looked like the fledglings of an award show for video games that was on the right path to be taken semi seriously by people who play video games, people who don't play video games, and people who actually give a damn about award shows.
Now I am probably over reacting to my reacting about all of the antisemitic and hate speech, but considering the political climate that we find ourselves now living in and the fallout from the results of November's results (the fallout being the droves of people who feel emboldened to retch their foulness upon the rest of us, regardless of who/what/where we were birthed), and things like people posting nothing but swastikas, and whitepower, and n*gg*r, need to be taken seriously. And while people like NEUGAEM and Fireheart may not be attached to real people on Steam (or they might be; no doxing here, but if you post something in a public space, it's open to being made public), if Steam or anyone else is going to have a public chat window open for people to communicate for all to see, at the very least police that and ban people who insist on using hate speech because that appears to be the new hep thing people are doing nowadays.
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
And Thought It Really Isn't Like Me To Complain
P.S. And for all I know, this is something that happens every year at The Game Awards and I'm just blowing things out of proportion. And I wonder how much of this is known by the organizers of The Game Awards? Just some post scriptal thoughts.
Then right after (I do not have any screen caps of the chat window at this time as it was going by too quickly for my hand to hit the Prt Scr button although you will have to believe me that I did in fact read/see the following comments) Nolan's acceptance speech, Raphaël Colantonio from Arcane Studios came on to talk about both Dishonored 2 and their upcoming title Prey, a very large number of people started commenting on the size of Mr. Colantonio's nose along with other antisemitic remarks.
Throughout the majority of the stream that I watched, there were a number of people (or it just might have been the same person over and over, but I know that I saw more than one user name popping up) were using racial slurs of the N variety and numerous messages with three and four lines full of "WhitePower." I really wish there was a recording of sorts for the chat window if only to call out the dozens of people hurling religious and ethnic hate throughout the event. Now, I was only present from about 1:13:24 through 1:55:20 and missed the last hour for good or ill, but from what I saw still looked like the fledglings of an award show for video games that was on the right path to be taken semi seriously by people who play video games, people who don't play video games, and people who actually give a damn about award shows.
Now I am probably over reacting to my reacting about all of the antisemitic and hate speech, but considering the political climate that we find ourselves now living in and the fallout from the results of November's results (the fallout being the droves of people who feel emboldened to retch their foulness upon the rest of us, regardless of who/what/where we were birthed), and things like people posting nothing but swastikas, and whitepower, and n*gg*r, need to be taken seriously. And while people like NEUGAEM and Fireheart may not be attached to real people on Steam (or they might be; no doxing here, but if you post something in a public space, it's open to being made public), if Steam or anyone else is going to have a public chat window open for people to communicate for all to see, at the very least police that and ban people who insist on using hate speech because that appears to be the new hep thing people are doing nowadays.
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
And Thought It Really Isn't Like Me To Complain
P.S. And for all I know, this is something that happens every year at The Game Awards and I'm just blowing things out of proportion. And I wonder how much of this is known by the organizers of The Game Awards? Just some post scriptal thoughts.
No comments:
Post a Comment