Gamer Outrage from an Autistic Gamer’s Perspective
I am an autistic gamer, and I don’t believe that one needs to write a thirty minute essay on YouTube to go into detail about how much drama and negativity there is in the gaming community. It’s a song and dance that we’ve been practicing for the past twenty years or so now, and if I were to be brutally honest, it was obnoxious the first time it started and it’s been getting ridiculous to the point where it just needs to stop entirely.
I don’t need to tell you where I was when this event happened or what I was playing when this was going on or anything like that. I remember a time prior to my discovery of the internet where I didn’t have a lot of opinions on any particular game, and those were good times. It felt like I didn’t need to have an opinion about generation so and so Pokémon or Sonic’s transition to 3D. I didn’t care much back then and I don’t care now or at least I’m trying not to care much again.
I remember frankly more pleasant days where I never really bothered to label a game as good, bad, or mid. If something worked out for me, cool. If it didn’t, I’ll just find something else. I never had any deeply held beliefs about quality or reputation or anything like that. In fact, I’m learning to cut them out of my dictionary altogether; those two words are completely meaningless to me now.
Anyway, I’ve been running away from internet drama for what feels like fifteen or twenty years now. I personally keep my own politics on video games and the business of video games on a childlike level. I often feel like I don’t have to go that deep behind the scenes into video game development. I don’t need to know what’s going on at this studio, and I don’t need to know anything about the he-said-she-said. I always hear these horror stories about how this guy did this, or this guy said that, and it caused this to fail, and I honestly don’t care.
I personally think that if I can beat a video game either because or in spite of its challenges, it’s good, and I know I just said I don’t care about good, bad, or mid. For me, the one true thing that will always matter for a video game is personal enjoyment. I already know some numbskull is gonna come onto this and say, “Well, that doesn’t mean it’s good.” My brain has already been wired in a way that says I don’t care. I think that’s one of the best benefits of autism; you can easily filter out information.
I’m just now learning to shake off the shame of being called a fanboy. It doesn’t hurt when you own it. When you call me a fanboy, you’re not criticizing me, you are describing me. It doesn’t matter because I beat you to the punch. I am a proud fanboy of whatever I can get my hands on regardless if it’s mainstream or obscure. When I get hooked, I get HOOKED, and no, I don’t have to pick a side when it comes to dueling fandoms. I can like two or more different things equally.
Anyway, there is absolutely no law anywhere written or unwritten that says you have to recognize the flaws in something. Speaking as a hardcore fan of Sonic the Hedgehog was recently gotten on a Pokémon kick, I find that much of the outrage concerning inconsistencies and what-have-you are just entirely manufactured. I mean, surely if you have all this free time to point out problems with something, then you surely you have enough time to fix them. Otherwise, who cares? Who cares if something is good, bad, or mid? What’s the point of attaching terms of moral and social value to items that don’t inherently possess those things? I think the best examples are both Sonic 06 and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. As far as the gaming community is concerned, these two games in particular are the moral equivalent of murdering a little girl’s parents. I swear to God that is hyperbole.
Like I said before, I remember a much more peaceful time where I didn’t have any strong opinions on a game like this. I got brainwashed into being a hater back then, but now I happily consider 06 to be one of my favorites next to Shadow the Hedgehog. 06 is kind of a unique case for me because at first it looked like it didn’t work out, but then someone came along, took the data and transformed it into P06 and made it work out. And again, I don’t know why 06 turned out the way it did, and I don’t care to learn about it. I think we can finally put to bed the claim that once something is bad forever, it’s bad forever. As for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, it’s just another case of glitches and inconsistencies being blown out of proportion by the internet.
I actually want to talk about a word that really bothers me, and that’s “flaw.” Why do people care so much about them? Is it because gaming lives in a meritocracy? Are they really flaws, or are they just differences? Do flaws really make you so ugly that everyone has to hold them against you until they reach their deathbed? On one hand, a flaw is a flaw if it can be fixed with action. Otherwise, again, who cares? You have all of these overrated celebrities on YouTube making videos day in and out pointing out the flaws in something. Some of them actually managed to worm their way into the fandom. They actually infiltrated them and got them to making fun of themselves. There’s this one overrated nobody who thinks Sonic is artistically arrogant. What does that even mean? If you’re trying to say that you don’t like Sonic’s art style, you need to leave. I should have taken a stand sooner way back when I was a fan of Naruto and got severely bullied for it. If you don’t like Sonic or Naruto for being what they are, you need to get over it. It’s not your cup of tea. You deal with it. You don’t have a right to spread hate. Just mind your own business.
I wish I could say that Sonic and Pokemon fans are just that, but I feel that I would be coddling and discriminating on both fandoms since they are gamers just as much as the next group. They both demonize and villainize and lecture people and make somebody the bad guy in all this just as much as Halo or Call of Duty or Final Fantasy.
Surely if one is so dissatisfied with the way things are right now, they can get off their sweet fanny and do something themselves about it. I hear indies are a real big thing now. I know for a fact that a majority of us are adults, and we’re picking on other adults when we should be solving problems like adults. Most of the time I’m up to my neck about people complaining about “toxic positivity” and “revisionism,” and then the next thing I know I am getting worked up over problems that don’t exist. Adults are bullying other adults for insignificant things, and I suppose the reason I get worked up so much about it is because video games have been with me for life. They’re my go-to art experience. I care way too much about video games to see a nutwhack bash on the medium or a genre or specific franchise. One expression that really triggers me to no end is “So and so need to die.” I get so upset when someone says that. It is absolutely positively, the most unfair thing to say. It’s unfair to the people who worked so hard to make it reality. It’s also unfair to people like me who love it so much. All for the crime of not meeting your standards.
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In fact, let’s back around to autism for a minute. There are people like me who absolutely despise black and white thinking. In fact, we don’t even see the gray. I mean, good lord, lest we forget there’s a whole rainbow as cheesy as that sounds. You would think when something doesn’t work out, it would be the next best thing. It would be a golden opportunity to reexamine why it didn’t work out, and build something even better on top of it. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t think it takes a lot of courage or effort to reconcile what works with what either doesn’t work or needed to work.
Back to what I said about revisionism. I mean, wow, I can’t wait for someone to come along and say remaking Devil May Cry 2 or Dual Heroes
for the Nintendo 64 is revisionist. I think a lot of people in the gaming community make up stories to tell themselves just to stay within a state of perpetual victimhood. And how fair do you think it is to people like me who are told they have a persecution complex or they actually face bullying and harassment just for their interests? Why does the topic of gaming have to be a life and death struggle on the internet where outside of it, it’s just “Hey, cool, video games.”
I mean, now that I’m thinking about it, there was another issue a long time ago where I practically had no voice in. When Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released, there was this big fight between Mewtwo fans and Lucario fans. and I as a fan of both Lucario and Mewtwo equally. We had no right to say anything in the matter. My voice was completely drowned out. So how do you think I feel about this whole thing? There was a time where I faced so much bullying and harassment and abuse that I couldn’t even function mentally, physically, or emotionally.
Video games and all of its creativity and flamboyancy and eccentricity have pretty much kept me sane in a world where everybody wants to control me, and It hurts to see everything devolve like this. It’s been a quick twenty years and already I feel like I’ve stared into the darkest of the darkest abyss. Nobody is focusing on solutions or alternatives. Nobody wants anything to change for the better. They just want to fight and argue for the sake of fighting and arguing. And don’t even get me started on freakin’ cringe culture.
How is kicking and screaming and bullying supposed to help other than you getting a whole generation or two of console games of Sonic games off the shelf from what I understand? How is threatening Sony going to help them reverse their decision to eliminate physical copies? Gaming is not activism! And some people are proud to call themselves bullies, by the way. Yeah, you’ve got people actually celebrating bullying. You’ve got people making jokes like, LOL, this guy didn’t get bullied enough in high school. Some people say they were picked on in middle school at least. Well, I was bullied from high school up to college for being a Sonic fan. They do not stop unless you make them stop. I think the strongest term I can use to describe some gamers nowadays are soldiers of outrage.
Throughout high school up to now, I was a constant victim of people forcing their beliefs and opinions on to me. and I was never given the tools to defend myself. I mean, my own personal story begins in like 2005-ish high school. I was just introduced to YouTube. At first I thought it was a cool thing and well when you know it I was just rekindling an interest in Sonic at this time I had just gotten my hands on Sonic Riders and I think it’s my third favorite Sonic game. I had so much fun with it. To make a very long and complicated story short, I ended up falling in with the wrong crowd. I mean, this was the era where I got brainwashed into being a Sonic hater. I mean, at first I thought we were fighting for a good cause for something irrelevant, but then everything just turned upside down. People started turning against each other. Someone who once told me that patience was everything. Immediately turned his back on Sonic. and even claimed that he ruined his life. Yes, he actually said that Sonic ruined his life. Again, the voices that deserved to be heard the most were being drowned out the most.
Ever since that day, I’ve practically felt like I’ve never been allowed to express my interest in Sonic. About what I like about him, about what we can build upon, how he can evolve and grow. The same with Pokemon. I mean, I do own all the Switch titles. But yeah, I’ve seesawed multiple times back and forth between the idea of Sonic and Pokemon and Smash Bros. actually inspire bullying. I mean, I’m already being told I gaslight myself for my ideas about reconsidering certain entries.
Nothing has ever made any sense, and on one hand, I probably should just let it sort itself out. I mean, most of the problems are just not even there. Nothing is really good or bad, but thinking makes it so, you know? Nothing’s really wrong with Sonic or Pokémon, it’s the people who react to it. But yeah, this has been a really tough uphill battle throughout most of my life so far. I’ve never seen anyone get bullied for saying they weren’t interested in something. I mean, that’s all you gotta say. when somebody asks if you’re interested in something. No, thank you.
I’ve already robbed myself of a long time worth of gaming and I want it back. You’re not supposed to hate the people who inspire you. You’re supposed to help them up when they supposedly go through a hard time. I’ve been working on this all week and I’m just now hearing that BioWare has shut down, and there’s already grave dancing. I’ve never demanded for a good video game, and I hope I never get to play one ever again at this if this is the way it’s going to be now.
Bullying and defaming just because, “Oh, we just want to play a good game.” My favorite franchises and icons and studios should not be on the brink of facing cultural erasure just because of one or two games that didn’t work out. If there’s a lucky day where I break into the indie scene, I pray what I make never becomes good. Good is like being a slave to expectation. I do not want that.
I’m going to say this one more time. I don’t care about good, bad, or mid. I don’t care about quality or reputation.
Stuff should be allowed to exist just by virtue of being art. Go ahead and accuse me of spreading toxic positivity. I don’t care anymore.
