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> For one thing, when I was playing video games in the 90s, a huge fraction of the online gaming population was made up of kids, and online game communities wer

> For one thing, when I was playing video games in the 90s, a huge fraction of the online gaming population was made up of kids, and online game communities were nicer than they are today Maybe it’s because I grew up playing FPS, but for as far as I remember people in these games were extremely hostile to women.

ntsplnkv2 8y ago
Nostalgia is a powerful thing. I will say, though, dedicated servers which were far more common back then typically had admins that would moderate servers. On good servers toxicity was almost nonexistent. I miss those days a lot. I like matchmaking of today a lot too, but some of my best memories came from the communities built on dedicated servers.
- aidenn0 8y ago
  I think community expectations are important. People in general, (maybe kids especially?) want to fit in, so they will meet whatever the perceived expectations of their peers are.
dragontamer 8y ago
I mean, I grew up in the 90s playing "Neopets" and I remember that the online gaming population was made up of kids, but overall more friendly. I also played Starsiege Tribes and Starcraft Brood War online, and... yeah, a bit more toxic over there. The "hardcore competitive" community just oozes toxicity for some reason as far as i remember. But even "Yahoo Chess" (a very peaceful community) would have a difference between my Sister's chat and my chat when we were kids. People really do treat women differently online. My sister was slightly better than me in Chess (she probably won 60% of the time vs me), but otherwise we both were roughly on the same level. The only major difference would be our usernames.
- crazypyro 8y ago
  Competition can often breed toxicity. I've actually found Starcraft to be less toxic simply because in the most competitive game mode ( 1 versus 1), there's nobody to blame but yourself if you lose. People tend to get toxic about using "cheesy" strategies or playing the "overpowered" race, but overall, the most toxic communities I've been apart of tend to be highly competitive games where team play is a key component. Some examples in my experience are games like Counter-Strike, Dota 2, LoL, etc. A couple common features of these games are: 1. Matches tend to be drawn out over at least 30 minutes, if not longer, forcing you to be teamed with people you may not get along with for a longer period. (Overwatch comes close to having this issue, but I still feel the shorter match times tend to limit extreme toxicity you can find in other games) 2. A single player actively working to harm the team, or simply not at the same skill level as the rest of the players, can easily sink the team's chances of success. 3. An individual matchmaking / visible ranking system which fosters toxic attitudes like "well, I'll sink your rating if I don't like you", since every member of the team is ostensibly trying to raise their rank. #3 when combined with #1 and #2 can create situations where "trolls" can easily ruin a game that may take an hour to finish and may even prevent any chance of victory. These factors tend to be key to the most toxic game communities I've been involved in.
  - tialaramex 8y ago
    You'd think, but SC2 shows that plenty of people are ready to blame someone else when they lose in 1v1. Ketroc (unconventional Master level Terran, lots of ravens) must upload videos in which his opponent accuses him of cheating about once a week on average. Some will threaten to report him, others still manage to at once accuse him of cheating, claim they're winning not losing and then threaten to report for cheating when inevitably they're crushed. Back in the day a lot of cheat accusations came from people who really were cheating themselves (games modified to reveal territory and units which should be hidden to you), today who knows why they do it.
- superkuh 8y ago
  Just as a tangent, Starsiege: Tribes is still around and active on the friday+weekends. The community took over patching a decade ago and run custom coded master servers now. You can get a modern client at https://playt1.com/ https://playt1.com/ 20 years on and it's still going because of community modding and dedicated servers. I'll eat my hat if Overwatch is available in 20 years.
  - dragontamer 8y ago
    Wow, thanks for jogging a lot of childhood memories. I was much younger, and didn't know how to "think competitively" back when I played Tribes (or Tribes 2. I'm looking at the Wiki pages and I'm having issues distinguishing my memories between the two games). I pretty much was the guy who logged into servers, played as if it were "Deathmatch" (even though the flag was important and stuff), and eventually left without telling anybody. If there was a n00b staring at a console or something irrelevant, that was probably me. Its a little intimidating for me to think of going back to this game, where the community has been honing their skills for the last 20 years :-) Still, I'll probably check it out. Thanks for the info.
aidenn0 8y ago
My very fuzzy recollection makes me remember that DWANGO and Quakeworld gamers were more hostile to women than subspace games, and Dan mentions in the article that he played Subspace.
slavik81 8y ago
Overwatch is the only First-Person Shooter I have ever played where I have heard women speak in voice chat and other players continued to focus on the game itself. In other games I've played, a woman in voice chat would always become the center of attention, whether she wanted to be or not. The attention wasn't always negative, but it was unavoidable (and thus probably pretty frustrating). That happened in Overwatch sometimes too, but I was surprised it wasn't more often. My suspicion is that it's the a result of the competitive mode putting focus on the gameplay and a larger than average female player base for an FPS.
- danso 8y ago
  Came here just to say this. Before OW, my other multiplayer games were Valve's (CS, TF2, L4D), and I didn't know any girls/women in real-life who played them. Given the hours/years of time I played, I would have to guess that I played in a game with a female player at least a few times, but I could not for the life of me ever recall a single time. It would be such a rare occurrence that if it did happen, I think I would remember it generally. With OW, I'll hear a female voice at least a third or fourth of my random games, as well as see female-gendered screennames who may not actively participate in chat. I haven't played many games between old-school CS and TF2, so I don't know if the overall demographic has changed. But I wouldn't be surprised if OW's diverse and welcoming cast and lore was a major factor in attracting female gamers. As much as I liked the older games, OW was the first game that made me realize how much diversity could itself be a feature -- not just in attracting a playerbase, but just more creative designs (though I understand it may be too cartoony for some, of course). If only Blizzard's writing could be as clever and less clichéd-ridden than Valve's...
  - Gaelan 8y ago
    It's not that you've never played with a woman—you've just never known you've played with a woman.
    - danso 8y ago
      That's what I mean. If I had played with any, they may have not been active in voice chat. In OW, it's not uncommon for me to hear women players.

ntsplnkv2 8y ago

Nostalgia is a powerful thing. I will say, though, dedicated servers which were far more common back then typically had admins that would moderate servers. On good servers toxicity was almost nonexistent. I miss those days a lot. I like matchmaking of today a lot too, but some of my best memories came from the communities built on dedicated servers.

aidenn0 8y ago
I think community expectations are important. People in general, (maybe kids especially?) want to fit in, so they will meet whatever the perceived expectations of their peers are.

dragontamer 8y ago

I mean, I grew up in the 90s playing "Neopets" and I remember that the online gaming population was made up of kids, but overall more friendly. I also played Starsiege Tribes and Starcraft Brood War online, and... yeah, a bit more toxic over there. The "hardcore competitive" community just oozes toxicity for some reason as far as i remember. But even "Yahoo Chess" (a very peaceful community) would have a difference between my Sister's chat and my chat when we were kids. People really do treat women differently online. My sister was slightly better than me in Chess (she probably won 60% of the time vs me), but otherwise we both were roughly on the same level. The only major difference would be our usernames.

crazypyro 8y ago
Competition can often breed toxicity. I've actually found Starcraft to be less toxic simply because in the most competitive game mode ( 1 versus 1), there's nobody to blame but yourself if you lose. People tend to get toxic about using "cheesy" strategies or playing the "overpowered" race, but overall, the most toxic communities I've been apart of tend to be highly competitive games where team play is a key component. Some examples in my experience are games like Counter-Strike, Dota 2, LoL, etc. A couple common features of these games are: 1. Matches tend to be drawn out over at least 30 minutes, if not longer, forcing you to be teamed with people you may not get along with for a longer period. (Overwatch comes close to having this issue, but I still feel the shorter match times tend to limit extreme toxicity you can find in other games) 2. A single player actively working to harm the team, or simply not at the same skill level as the rest of the players, can easily sink the team's chances of success. 3. An individual matchmaking / visible ranking system which fosters toxic attitudes like "well, I'll sink your rating if I don't like you", since every member of the team is ostensibly trying to raise their rank. #3 when combined with #1 and #2 can create situations where "trolls" can easily ruin a game that may take an hour to finish and may even prevent any chance of victory. These factors tend to be key to the most toxic game communities I've been involved in.
- tialaramex 8y ago
  You'd think, but SC2 shows that plenty of people are ready to blame someone else when they lose in 1v1. Ketroc (unconventional Master level Terran, lots of ravens) must upload videos in which his opponent accuses him of cheating about once a week on average. Some will threaten to report him, others still manage to at once accuse him of cheating, claim they're winning not losing and then threaten to report for cheating when inevitably they're crushed. Back in the day a lot of cheat accusations came from people who really were cheating themselves (games modified to reveal territory and units which should be hidden to you), today who knows why they do it.
superkuh 8y ago
Just as a tangent, Starsiege: Tribes is still around and active on the friday+weekends. The community took over patching a decade ago and run custom coded master servers now. You can get a modern client at https://playt1.com/ https://playt1.com/ 20 years on and it's still going because of community modding and dedicated servers. I'll eat my hat if Overwatch is available in 20 years.
- dragontamer 8y ago
  Wow, thanks for jogging a lot of childhood memories. I was much younger, and didn't know how to "think competitively" back when I played Tribes (or Tribes 2. I'm looking at the Wiki pages and I'm having issues distinguishing my memories between the two games). I pretty much was the guy who logged into servers, played as if it were "Deathmatch" (even though the flag was important and stuff), and eventually left without telling anybody. If there was a n00b staring at a console or something irrelevant, that was probably me. Its a little intimidating for me to think of going back to this game, where the community has been honing their skills for the last 20 years :-) Still, I'll probably check it out. Thanks for the info.

aidenn0 8y ago

My very fuzzy recollection makes me remember that DWANGO and Quakeworld gamers were more hostile to women than subspace games, and Dan mentions in the article that he played Subspace.

slavik81 8y ago

Overwatch is the only First-Person Shooter I have ever played where I have heard women speak in voice chat and other players continued to focus on the game itself. In other games I've played, a woman in voice chat would always become the center of attention, whether she wanted to be or not. The attention wasn't always negative, but it was unavoidable (and thus probably pretty frustrating). That happened in Overwatch sometimes too, but I was surprised it wasn't more often. My suspicion is that it's the a result of the competitive mode putting focus on the gameplay and a larger than average female player base for an FPS.

danso 8y ago
Came here just to say this. Before OW, my other multiplayer games were Valve's (CS, TF2, L4D), and I didn't know any girls/women in real-life who played them. Given the hours/years of time I played, I would have to guess that I played in a game with a female player at least a few times, but I could not for the life of me ever recall a single time. It would be such a rare occurrence that if it did happen, I think I would remember it generally. With OW, I'll hear a female voice at least a third or fourth of my random games, as well as see female-gendered screennames who may not actively participate in chat. I haven't played many games between old-school CS and TF2, so I don't know if the overall demographic has changed. But I wouldn't be surprised if OW's diverse and welcoming cast and lore was a major factor in attracting female gamers. As much as I liked the older games, OW was the first game that made me realize how much diversity could itself be a feature -- not just in attracting a playerbase, but just more creative designs (though I understand it may be too cartoony for some, of course). If only Blizzard's writing could be as clever and less clichéd-ridden than Valve's...
- Gaelan 8y ago
  It's not that you've never played with a woman—you've just never known you've played with a woman.
  - danso 8y ago
    That's what I mean. If I had played with any, they may have not been active in voice chat. In OW, it's not uncommon for me to hear women players.