I dont recognize this but sure, study says... But im going to go with my own experience. :)
this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2026
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Here's my personal anecdote that supports this.
I live in Pennsylvania, which is considered a swing state, but it did vote for Trump both of the times he won. Pretty humiliating.
AGDQ this year was in Pittsburgh so I got to attend a couple days. It is by far the most inclusive crowd I've been in locally, where people can just let their true colors out without constant fear. I think it's the only crowd where I've heard "trans rights" exclaimed and met with cheers. And it's truly inclusive in both directions. I'm a big old bearded straight cis white guy and nothing made me feel out of place either.
Between gaming communities and FOSS/linux communities, I think it's we nerds who are so inclusive!
makes sense,maybe the less inclusive/racism thing comes from your view not the video games you play.
Unless that game is csgo
Source: I play csgo
Don't for get dota 2!
Source: I play valve games.
From my quick read through of their methods it seems like they didn't account very well for the types of games, platforms and demographics. The decade in question saw a massive explosion of gaming as a hobby into the mainstream and, importantly, a strong growth of women in the gaming population.
So as a whole you have games becoming more mainstream to younger ("woke") audiences and more accessible while the inclusive-biased demographics also blew up. It's not at all shocking that you'd find more inclusivity there.
A much more interesting study would be separating the gamers from the Gamers. Show me how people playing Splatoon and Animal Crossing compare to the neckbeards living in LoL and HoI4...
A much more interesting study would be separating the gamers from the Gamers.
That would require you to define a Real Gamer, which would be divisive by design.
It's an exercise in nutpicking.
It's hard to give an exact definition, but someone playing candy crush on their phone is meaningfully different than a LoL player. Not in elitism or whatever, but for example one is a game any person might play for a bit while bored, and one is a demanding competitive immersive game. I would say a good separation is the cozy / not competitive games with competitive games, since the competitive ones are the places most people think of Gamers not being accepting.
Normally I would agree... But there is a seriously real difference between someone who plays csgo dota and hoi4 vs someone who plays animal crossing splatoon and peak.
Its fundamentally two entirely different demographics which no over lap. Both are gamers but only one set are "gamers".
Anyone who's been around long enough knows how fast the gap between the groups are.
Yeah I have no idea why you lumped first person shooter players, moba players, and 4x players in the same category. Talk about fundamentally different demographics.
Edit: by the way, I love the Endless series (Legends, Space 2) and love Animal Crossing. I also have 5000 hours in Tarkov. Peak is also fun.
there is a seriously real difference between someone who plays csgo dota and hoi4 vs someone who plays animal crossing splatoon and peak.
About ten years of age range, for the most part.
Its fundamentally two entirely different demographics which no over lap
Yeah, famously, people never get older
Which of these groups do you expect to be older, I honestly cannot tell. I swear, not bait.
Personally, I'd expect the nintendo group of these two to be the older one.
Which of these groups do you expect to be older
In my experience, you start out playing Splatoon as a kid and then you discover CSGO when you get to HS/College and then you get a job, get married, have kids, and its back to playing Splatoon.
I can almost guarantee that 4x players are the oldest, yes this is a vibes based assumption.
This is obviously just my experience but the younger generation is not inclusive at all, kind of the opposite. At least around the north east US where I have lived.
I work in a kitchen. I often have food runners, hosts and dishwashers who are under 18. They're extremely uncool sometimes.
Yeah.
Kids are jerks. They’re naive. I certainly was; I think that’s always been a thing, though I can’t comment on how much worse or better it’s gotten.
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In almost 50 years of playing D&D I've found that gamers tend to be more accepting of just about anybody than the general public is. I think it's partly because the gamer population itself gets more than its share of being spurned by that public.
let me point you all in the right direction: people in general are more inclusive than the general public is led to believe
Metal heads and punks are also really inclusive despite society viewing them otherwise.
and despite a tiny but vocal minority of them being bigoted assholes (for metalheads at least, don't know enough about punks)
The Skinhead movement was originally Nazi punks. As The Dead Kennedys said, they can fuck off.
every group of humans has a subset of bigoted assholes. dont hold it against them unless they are tolerated by the majority.
Punks are always having to run off Nazis who want to come to their shows.
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All the people who complain about games being woke don't play any games.
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I play a lot of multiplayer games and I find that gaming constantly teaches me that no matter what, it always comes down to the quality of the community.
Every other aspect of design is a detail comparatively.
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Yeah, they are thinking of 2000s xbox live chat. It's been a while since then.
This study isn't saying that xbox live users today are better than xbox live users 20 years ago. They may actually be worse. All they say is that xbox live users today hold more inclusive beliefs than the general public today. The community could still be more toxic than the general public, despite those beliefs. And the general public could have become worse over the last 20 years.
I think games these days don't select for anything in particular. It's a giant space that caters to every taste. That gamers are more inclusive than the general public could have any of a million reasons, but I think it's easier to look at non-gamers than try to find any commonalities among all gamers
Also the trash tends to stink the most.
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What stereotypes? I have never heard someone say that
Bullies say that kind of stuff.
Largely comes from shit heads who use open VC, especially on FPS games, to say heinous shit, given that it’s pseudonymous and they’re not likely to face real consequences from it.
It’s less of a thing these days simply because the novelty has worn off and pseudonymity is less of a protection than it used to be, since a bad reputation in an online community actually means something if you spend a lot of time there.
But, a loud obnoxious idiot shouting slurs or spamming them in text chat tends to paint a whole community in a bad light, creating the stereotype.
Gamergate?
Isn't it much more than a stretch to call those dickbags a stereotype of gamers? It was like 4 people. Unless I misunderstood the term "playa" or something..
It was much more then just 4 people. More of a case of a vocal minority but it also shaped my perception of Gamers and made me disengage from almost all Gamer^TM^ spaces apart from News.
A couple years ago there was a meme of calling the n word the gamer word. I think this was caused by some streamers at the time saying the word on stream. Connotations of it being the gamer word.
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Just don’t hang out with Madden or COD players and you’re probably fine :D
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