My Response To The Ice Bucket Challenge

28 Aug 2014 . category: . Comments

Today, I finally got hit with the “Ice Bucket Challenge”. My choices were simple: donate, or dunk myself in icewater (or do both, preferably). ALS is a horrible, horrible disease, and I know it causes plenty of suffering. That said, I wanted to take some time to reframe the challenge for myself.
In response to the challenge, I’m donating $100 to Child’s Play, a charity that does what it can to improve the lives of children. Read on, and I’ll explain why.

Video games have just been a thing I’ve grown up with. I love the escapism–the way it lets me experience characters, settings, and emotions. I love the challenge, and the satisfaction that comes from surviving that wave of enemies, or nailing that turn and winning the race. But most importantly, I love the way that games tend to bring people together. No matter how busy I get, I love sitting down to play a game with someone I care about, whether it be my roommate on the couch next to me, or my childhood friend hundreds of miles away. When we share in that experience, we grow as people.

That being said, there are plenty of problems with the gaming community. Too many of us view the term “gamer” as a term of exclusion. Too many of us hold on far too tightly to our defintion of the media, going so far as to lash out against anything different. Too many of us lack compassion for our fellow gamers, who love the media but do not feel as well represented.
In the past few weeks, it’s been really hard to consider myself a “gamer”. So many of my fellow “gamers” have taken part in some pretty horrendous things. Zoe Quinn, an independent game developer who released the game Depression Quest, has been mercilessly picked apart online. I’ve heard of the term slut-shaming, but I’d never understood what it meant untill I read some of the replies to her on Twitter. It’s withering, it’s shocking, and it’s totally unacceptable. When you couple that with the fact that a lot of the charges against her are flimsy at best (and all-out manufactured at worst), it’s an embarrassment to the community.

Quinn isn’t alone, either. Anita Sarkeesian is an outspoken critic of games, paying special attention to the way women figure into the media. Her “Tropes vs Women in Games” series is through, academic, and ruthless. It makes sense that it’s provocative–criticism is intended to be. What doesn’t make sense is the amount of hatred she gets in return for it. Instead of criticizing her points, abusers attack her. They claim she’s not a “true gamer” (whatever the hell that means), that she simply doesn’t understand the media. If you believe these people, games will never benefit from her criticism.

I love games, and I consider myself part of a community of people who love games. I do not want to be part of a community that relishes attacking women who have the temerity to share unique insights on games and game culture. These past weeks have left me feeling sad, angry, and a little helpless. By violently shutting down people like Quinn and Sarkeesian, we are preventing games from growing as a medium. We appear to the outside world like a bunch of savage misogynists, incapable of critical thinking.

But then I remembered the thing that keeps me playing games. Games bring people together. That unity is what makes groups like Child’s Play so successful. Child’s Play is an organization that uses games to help children in hospitals and domestic violence shelters. They recognize gaming as a positive force, one that can provide a supportive community and a much-needed distraction. Looking at their testimonials, you can see the positive impact they have on the children they help.

The folks at Child’s Play are truer gamers than any of the internet legion out there that claims the throne. True gamers recognize that the power of games comes from sharing experiences and ideas. People who seek to tear down those with ideas that are new, strange (and sometimes downright uncomfortable) aren’t gamers. They’re cowards.

---