Toxic Masculinity Is The Elephant In The Gaming Room

Now that EA has released the cover picture and the trailer for Battlefield 5 it is time to look forward what should be another great title in a series that has shown tremendous growth and support over the last decade plus.

The trailer features gameplay that includes women in warzones during World War 2.  Apparently, this kind of inclusion of women in a game that doesn’t feature them as busty sex objects is offensive to boys that have aged towards becoming mediocre adults that would like to think they are manly.  They have an obvious misunderstanding of what it means to be a man.  It is worth talking about this because it is still something that we clearly need to continue working on in larger ways than hashtags and such.

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A lot of the anger is that they are showing women in combat roles.  The feelings are obviously misplaced and those that try to justify it use the weak excuse of ‘historical accuracy’.  What they seem to forget is that women and minority groups have largely been written out of history in order to preserve the societal idiocy that continues to push an often white male narrative.  For evidence of this, here is an article about a badass woman named Aethelflaed that was nearly written out of history.

Sadly, there are some rather loud personalities coming out of the digital cesspool so they can get attention for being the worst kind of person they can be.  The disgusting and uninformed posts are easy enough to find if you want to read them.  I won’t link to any of them because they don’t deserve the clicks – or the time of anyone.

It’s been almost four years since I had to tackle this topic head-on (link here) and it still leaves me stunned for some weird reason that insecure males are so proficient at existing in their little bubble of idiocy.  Part of me is holding out hope that most of these personalities are Russian trolls that are trying to sow hate and discontent within the gaming community.  Part of me knows that these people actually exist.  It makes me sad to think that there are still people out there that raise their kids with the poisonous vitriol that eventually becomes an adult with destructively ugly misogynistic beliefs and a loud mouth to go with it.

All of this said… I have to end on a positive note.

EA has impressed me with their response (link here) to the trolls by telling them that they aren’t the kind of gamers they want anyway.  I like this move because it finally shows that positive steps are being made at the top and it’s not just some sort of grassroots movement with empty hashtags and tweets.  It’s vital for companies to continue making these statements and decisions because it tells the loud boys that they aren’t needed in the first place.

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The Difference Between ‘Versus’ & ‘And’ – FPS Games

A few years ago EA/DICE released Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4 as their preemptive attack on the hearts and minds of modern combat FPS gamers. This move was largely in response to the Call of Duty Modern Warfare regime breaking all sorts of sales records and taking a huge number of gamers hostage in their fast paced and crispy arcade-style shooter.

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That’s also where the similarities and battle between games stops in its tracks.

Battlefield 4 came out in late 2013 and still has a base of over 60,000 gamers across consoles and PC. Call of Duty releases a new game annually through one of three developers and they are widely considered the preeminent shooter when it comes to gaming these days. Where COD continues to try and freshen up a game with jump boosting and wall running, Battlefield continues to refine gameplay and tighten up on the stability of their online experience.

A lot of gamers jumped into the imaginary mosh pit of COD vs. BF a few years ago when the developers seemed to be at war. It was like they thought they had to choose sides. As time has passed and gamers grew into their habitats for shooter preference it became clear that these games weren’t at war directly from a gaming perspective. While they were certainly at war on the corporate end of EA vs. Activision they were on different planets otherwise.

Call of Duty has a more crisp feeling to its controls and handling. I compare it very much to Halo in this regard. You aren’t going to feel much recoil in the control or screen presentation – ever. It is also much like Halo, focused on maps that are largely centered on infantry based combat. Halo does have its fair share of vehicles, etc… and we will stop the mentions right there.

Battlefield has always felt slower and a bit more difficult to master when it came to aiming and firing weapons because almost every weapon felt different from recoil to carrying speed to aiming in general. Battlefield is closer to a simulation than Call of Duty will ever be. It isn’t a good or bad thing… it is just a fact.

That is why we are looking back to Battlefield 3/4 and now forward to Battlefield 5. It is my hope that Activision will release another crappy iteration of Ghosts and I will be able to save $60 to put towards the premium edition of Battlefield instead. This is because when it comes to
Battlefield and Call of Duty it will occasionally result in Battlefield versus a crappy COD game.

As for Battlefield Hardline, Medal of Honor War Fighter… etc… well, COD had my time and money during that time. Personally, I’m tired of booster jumping and wall running.

Granted… I’m also an OG when it comes to gaming, so maybe I should set aside my bias.

Yeah… nope.