I think the early 2000s PS2 era was the peak of modern gaming. Colourful games, decent 3d graphics. The FPS era hadn't fully began on consoles yet.
The less said about the late 2000s, the better. That's when all the "gatekeeping, misogyny, toxic masculinity and general chuddery" really got kicked into overdrive. Every game got a sepia piss filter as well. And after that we got the blue filters which were somehow even worse.
Oh god I am in an eternal struggle against the „creatives“ and their constant use of disgusting filters which destroy the natural colors. Tho I must confess I loved the golden filter of deus ex human revolution and the grain filter of ME1 and yes even the brownish tints of dragon age, I know I am bad haha.
Honestly some games benefitted from the piss filter, like Fallout New Vegas. If it were made with modern graphics I would want them to keep the piss filter instead of being vibrant like Fallou4 76
Filters have their place tbh. Sometimes it makes a lot of sense aesthetically.
The issue is falling back on it to the point it becomes a meme.
I agree with your complaints towards the apparent predominant gaming culture. But I also believe that there have never been more indie games that are contrary to that culture or just ambivalent to that culture than ever before.
If someone puts "gamer" on their dating profile tho
games mechanics become watered down due to the profit motive and challenging games are fun, this whole thread feels like just contrarianism to spite a vocal minority turning being a HARDCORE GAMERRRRR into a personality trait 
G*mers never had a chance.
The 70s saw the development of really old games like Dnd, essentially some STEMlord's pet project. Many of these ancient games were tied to Dnd, where the reactionary Gary Gygax's influence in Dnd was completely dominant.
The 80s continued that tradition with games like Rogue and Nethack. This was also when Nintendo exclusively marketed the NES as a "boy toy." Both of what could be retroactively labeled as indie and AAA gaming were firmly men only. Arcades tended to be dominated by men as well.
The 90s further perpetuated this trend with the console wars between Nintendo and Sega, with Sega pushing really hard as the cool and definitely being played by dudes with 'tude console. If you looked at Sega ads during that time, they were all hyper-trying-too-hard-masculine.
The 00s, while carrying the misogynist torch, reflected a qualitative shift in its misogyny. The 00s, or more specifically, 2001 was when Halo 1 was released on the Xbox. This game, more than any other, was what pushed gaming from some nerdy shit into the mainstream. With the mainstreamification of gaming came the dudebros. The previously misogynist nerds were transformed into misogynist dudebros, and the dudebros carried their toxic competitiveness into gaming.
The 10s was when esports, or more specifically L*ague of L*gends, became commercially viable. The esportification of games began and along with it, the toxic competitiveness seeped even in games that weren't designed to be competitive. And it pains me to say this, but speedrunning contributed to this as well. Suddenly, you started hearing about the "meta" and "optimal strats" in some indie platformer. And of course, G*merg*te sealed the deal by politicizing gaming, making g*mers consciously reactionary.
I have checked out of gaming so I can't give you a rundown of the 20s, but it's more of the same shit honestly. The seeds were sown during the 70s, with each subsequent decade nurturing the seedling, until it blossomed into some hideous plant with G*merg*te.
I remember gaming always being seen as a "boys club" for as long as I can remember. They were thankfully pretty welcoming of me (being a brown guy and all) but girls playing games were either given the m'lady treatment or chastised for making a mistake that would get them seen as being bad at the game. Often both.
The sad part is that there have been girls and women playing and developing games since the beginning but they were mostly pushed into the background, so now they get accused of invading a so-called male space. Can't win
AFAIK the arcade boom was pretty popular with both men and women, since at that time it was a social hobby and kids were doing a lot of hanging out and hooking up at arcades. It wasn't until the turn to console gaming, which was primarily an anti-social activity, that video game advertisements started really focusing in on young boys. Nintendo bears a lot of the blame here, since they defined the western market following the big crash, and they saw the NES as exclusively a boys' toy - but it wasn't just them of course, in particular I remember the OG XBox's marketing doing a lot to create a "bro culture", along with stuff like the channel G4, which I think was created intentionally as a reaction to the previously existing perception of gamers being nerdy.
Children (overwhelmingly boys) who played vidya games were nerdy. There was a brief period during the Pac-Man era when vidya games were for everyone, and soon it went into hardcore weirdness. Games got hard and unless you had the patience to play again, and again, and again, and again...you can forget being a part of the crowd. Games with 45 levels when nobody ever got past level 4.
and they saw the NES as exclusively a boys' toy
So there's a bit more to this, if I remember all this correctly, Nintendo couldn't exactly call the NES a 'video game console' when they started selling it in the US because the crash had pretty much made that a really bad financial move to call it as such. And also they had to sell it in the toys section to start with, which has had and still has a lot of segregation between boys and girls toys. And also considering how brick and mortar stores have acted for a long time, they likely had a bit of a hand in this in the way of demanding nintendo to pick if it was a boys toy or a girls toy or else they won't stock it.
I don't care that much tbh because while the "gaming community" is indeed dogshit (personally I've stopped playing any sort of public multiplayer game since voice audio became the norm anyway), we also seem to be in a golden age of independent awesome video games, including specifically ones with dialogue and story. And the small sub-community of players of those are usually much saner and welcoming.
Hey I was a hardcore gamer but i played RTS and fighting games like a gentleman
Fighting games don't count, when your opponent can punch you irl for getting out of line it really cuts down on the bullshit
The SEGA ads of the 90s were something.
Yeah I think that style of marketing started it.
These people should be locked in a room and forces to play nothing but 50 turn Mario Party rounds for the rest of time
Hardcore gaymer = fighting game enjoyer
Casual ~~g*mer~~ consoomer = everyone else
Whoever caused all this shit. Wtf dudes?? Especially cross with the people who made MMOs.
I've been hearing The Wife Aggro jokes since I could remember my dad's dial up modem. My dad made those jokes too.
You can't escape The Wife Aggro. It's fucking impossible. If you call it out, you're the bad guy. That dude is helping his The Wife!!! You don't even have one, virgin.
Yea there's a reason why I can barely tolerate playing current WoW with the boys. I won't even touch classic.
The Wife Aggro is STILL THERE. MAKE IT STOP.
I dont understand how MOBAs becomes one of the biggest esports when gameplay consists of farming and the teamfights are full of visual bloats that unless you spend 100 hours reading the wiki including the fcking patch notes you understand absolutely nothing. Like just to give you a glance"buy physical attack because everyone does this and this guy wields a sword" but also stuff like "buy this magical attack because these dagger wielding assassin scales magic attack". Why is the goddamn dagger considered magical?
Like at least in stuff in counter strike the game despite some other tactics such as lineups it still overall easy to understand (plant the bomb and kill the enemies),.
L*ague dropped at the right place at the right time and everybody started chasing the MOBA dragon just like people were trying to chase the WOW dragon.
I don't know if "post-contrarianism" is a term but I wish it was because it describes posts like this one perfectly
Post country music fan
Also yes I fully admit this is a dumb post.
Tabletop, DnD, board games, and minecraft. Also Animal Crossing.
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