The problem with self-identified “gamers” is that they don’t much like games.
What they really like is outrage. Endless Twitter threads about Ubisoft. YouTube rants about EA. It’s the same cycle every year—and every year, they eat it up.
Now, yes—sometimes outrage does move the needle. Loot boxes got attention because people wouldn’t shut up about them. Steam’s refund system only exists because players demanded it. Fair enough. But let’s be honest: that’s the exception. Most of the noise is just outrage as lifestyle.
Because while gamers are busy fuming over Assassin’s Creed DLC, thousands of games are releasing—many of them incredible. Games that will never get a spotlight, because gamers would rather keep hate-watching the same corporations they claim to despise.
Kicker is, Ubisoft and EA don’t actually matter unless you make them matter. They don’t have a constitutional right to your wallet. If you stopped buying Assassin’s Creed, it wouldn’t exist. Yet you do buy it. Then you complain about it. Then you buy it again.
Meanwhile, you could be playing Baldur’s Gate, Silksong, or any of the other masterpieces sitting right there waiting. But no—better to log on and shout about how much you hate the thing you voluntarily gave $60 to.
So sure, outrage has its uses. But don’t pretend it makes you some champion of the medium. If you care about games—actually care—play the good ones. Otherwise, drop the gamer label. Because what you’re really into isn’t games. It’s the drama.
There’s just no point in identifying with a group based on entertainment as consumption. I play a lot of games but I don’t consider myself a “gamer”, in the same way a person who understands the language of cinema and the ideas behind film critique doesn’t consider themselves a “movie watcher”.
There are those who merely consume art, and there are always a few who think about art in its larger context and what the artistic choices of a piece represent to them. An artist will of course try to appeal to the consumer for practical reasons, but those practicalities exist in tension with the more genuine motives of creators, because art is the study of choice and mass appeal is an uninteresting, despite being understandable.
I don’t know why game consumers choose to be so readily fleeced, perpetually dissatisfied, and tedious about their preferred media intake. Small studios are creating incredible games that run perfectly on launch, require no special hardware, and actually make interesting creative choices. Maybe they’re enjoying their anger, who knows.
In any case, we shouldn’t associate with them unless they’re up in arms about something meaningful, on those rare occasions.
The more I think about it, the more I like this comment.
I could change the rules here to say, “No self-identified gamers allowed,” but I think something might be lost in translation if I did that.
I just wish there was a less wordsy way to explain that life should be an interesting and meaningful exploration of ideas rather than a mindless yet fraught pursuit of stimuli.