Gamers Must Die

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ID:122837
 
Jan 14 2012, 12:21 pm (Edited on Jan 14 2012, 12:54 pm)
Keywords: my_life_etc
Jared and I have been toying around with the idea of starting up a regular podcast for a couple years now. Many of you probably remember our BYOND Podcasts from awhile back, and nowadays we do an informational NEStalgia podcast every now and then. Those podcasts were essentially our practice runs for this:



The gist of our theme for the podcast is as follows:

There is something very wrong with the world. When the hell did gaming go from being a source of entertainment to becoming some sort of lifestyle choice? When did the majority of gamers become mean spirited, self-entitled dipshits who believe that crap like console rivalries actually matter? From obsessive neckbeards who shed involuntary tears of joy every time they think about Final Fantasy 7, to rage-filled losers who spend almost as much time ranting about how much they hate World of Warcraft as they do playing it.

...Are we the only ones who aren't okay with this?

Gamers Must Die doesn't care about your Gamerscore, your Tier 10 raid gear or your kill/death ratio. We're here to talk about games without all the fanboy love affairs or irrational hatred for the games or their developers. Most importantly, we're here to speak to other people like us who enjoy video games but can't stand the increasingly obnoxious culture surrounding them.


If you enjoyed our previous BYOND Podcasts or if this sounds like something that might appeal to you, then check it out at Gamers Must Die.com. There is some coarse language and the occasional more adult-ish topic, so it's not meant for younger listeners. I don't plan on linking BYONDers to new episodes or blog posts after this, so be sure to follow us on that site if you want to stay up to date with future content.

Enjoy! Or don't. This one might be hitting a little too close to home for some of you...
Jan 14 2012, 12:47 pm
Haha, just by reading this I am already in love with this podcast.
I'll definitely check it out! (:
Jan 14 2012, 12:54 pm
I don't even know what a "Gamerscore" or "Tier 10 raid gear" is.
Jan 14 2012, 2:28 pm
I thought it could be interesting, but it really isn't. It's insulting for the sake of being insulting, there's no entertainment value, which makes it extremely boring to listen to. Although I only watched about half of the first episode, it apparently doesn't matter whether I watched the whole thing or not before criticizing. It seems to be funny only to yourself, loathing everything you can point out seems like a waste of time. I'm not defending anything you pointed out, some of it may be true, but it needs to be entertaining, not just random public bitterness. I avoid pretty much all drama in BYOND, so I have no idea what your personality is like, but I can say this definitely made me think less of you.
Jan 14 2012, 2:36 pm
Well thank you for the feedback. I can't even begin to tell you how broken up I am over someone whom I've never seen or interacted with before thinking less of me, but I'll find a way to carry on.
Jan 14 2012, 3:19 pm
I'm not sure why there is so much hate here. While I agree that games were made to be fun, and should be fun, certainly the competitive nature of games like CoD, Halo, and Starcraft is the purpose of those games. It's a bit of an outdated belief to expect all gamers to be enthralled in storylines and having fun nowadays. As well, I have found that myself (as well as other people who aren't necessarily gamers in the lifestyle-sense of the word) tend to still get a kick out of beating the crap out of our favorite Nintendo characters in a good game of Super Smash Bros. Melee, as well as progressing Cloud through the fantastic story that accompanies FF7. So it's hard to tell if you are against competitive play, or if you are against the idea that leagues form around competitive play, and that people feel like superior humans if their K/D in Halo is 18/1.

If it's the latter, then I agree with you for the most part, but either way this seems a bit unnecessary and whiny.
Jan 14 2012, 3:43 pm
We didn't really discuss competitive play, and it wasn't on our radar for any of these episodes. The competitive side of gaming isn't an issue - the only major issue there is with how people treat each other in online games.

One of the things I've noticed with some of the initial reactions to this podcast is that people are reading a lot of stuff into what we're discussing. Being aware that people have a tendency to do that is a good thing to know moving forward, although I'm not sure if we can do much to address that.
Jan 14 2012, 3:50 pm
I only brought up competitive play due to that being the only set of communities I noticed having these sorts of people (though I didn't consider the fact that this was just an assumption, and it sounds like you've met other communities that address each other in the same way). I was also thrown off when you mentioned kill/death ratios, as that tends to stand out as who is "better" at a game than another person.

But you should probably knock HoN as one of your next podcasts - they have the worst community of people I've ever experienced. :P I immediately uninstalled the game after about 2 days of playing because of it.
Jan 14 2012, 3:54 pm
CauTi0N wrote:
But you should probably knock HoN as one of your next podcasts - they have the worst community of people I've ever experienced. :P I immediately uninstalled the game after about 2 days of playing because of it.

Yeah I've heard terrible things about that community, but I don't get a chance to play many games these days so I haven't tried it yet. Perhaps Jared and I will give it a test run as an experiment and do a segment about it on the podcast :)
Jan 14 2012, 4:06 pm
Just listened to these and I have to say they're pretty funny. Looking forward to the next one.
Jan 14 2012, 4:11 pm
That's actually not a "HoN" problem - it's a problem with any game that competitive. HoN, DotA, LoL etc. are very skill based games, meaning a lot of players will take it seriously. No one wants to lose at a game they take seriously, so they bitch and rant at anyone who even slightly ruins a game even if it's not on purpose. I can see getting mad at someone who intentionally jacks up a game, but these people act like if you're not a professional, you don't have a right to play.

But anyway, I found your talk about the IGF useful. I always wondered what that would be like. I know now not to waste my time with it.
Jan 14 2012, 5:14 pm
Eh, good idea but not too funny..

Ranting == Bitching... which is always annoying to hear soo yeah.

And I boast a 1.84 K/D in MW3, just sayin.
Jan 15 2012, 12:01 am
I have a laptop with one of those glossy HD screens made for movie watching(I'm guessing), and it makes Playstation games actually look better. I think the glossy screen smooths out the Playstation textures.
Jan 15 2012, 5:19 am
When did the majority of gamers become mean spirited, self-entitled dipshits

Probably when internet access became widespread enough that most gamers can play games with/against strangers. Back when you had to sit at the same console or be on the same LAN as your competitors, these problems didn't exist.

One of BYOND's relatively untapped strengths is that anyone can host a game. This lets you create a game that people can download, host, and play with their friends - people they actually know. It could be a huge selling point for BYOND to offer a simple way for people to play a variety of games with people of their choosing, rather than being subjected to the world of socially inept gamers.
Jan 15 2012, 6:53 pm
It's a really cool idea, but with a slogan so ironic, I don't know how I could ever bear to tell all of my friends without them bursting out in uncontrollable laughter.
Jan 16 2012, 2:56 pm (Edited on Jan 16 2012, 9:01 pm)
Semi-tangent: I rather liked New Challenger's reply to the Girl Gamer Manifesto. I don't think they knew they were replying to actresses in a show promotion at that point though. ;)


[Edit: Where are all the RPGs in the IGF?]
Jan 17 2012, 1:27 pm
I found this interesting as well:

"We, Team Wanderlust, submitted Wanderlust: Rebirth to the IGF back in 2008 ( http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2008.php?id=139 ) and never tried again. We found that the judges would rarely play longer than 15-30 minutes before stopping and judging if a game is good or not, and this simply just doesn't showcase what an RPG is all about.

We have submitted Wanderlust to several other competitions, and all the same result. Judges play for 15-30mins, and then stop and pretty much say sorry your game isn't better than this game I could play and beat in 15mins. It seems that the games that do the best in the competitions are ones that either 1) can be beaten very quickly or throw all of their features at you within the first 10 minutes, or 2) already have a huge following and lots of media coverage, so the judges have an easier time recognizing and relating to the game.

It really is a shame though, having created an RPG, it gets overlooked a lot by people who are wanting that quick indie fix (the quirky games that have a fun gimmick, but you stop playing after an hour)."
Jan 17 2012, 1:56 pm
Here is another very good rant about the nature of the IGF from a few years back: http://www.auntiepixelante.com/?p=409

...I actually read that rant before submitting my game, but I figured that after choosing Minecraft and Desktop Dungeons as winners in 2011 they had changed their ways. Turns out I was wrong!


ACWraith wrote:
[Edit: Where are all the RPGs in the IGF?]

That's a great post. I can attest to the lack of time put into judging: almost everything in NEStalgia is logged, and the 4 people that I was able to identify as IGF judges spent about 10-20 minutes in the game each.
Jun 18 2013, 2:11 pm
Ben and I have re-launched the podcast for I think the third time now.

The previous episodes have been a great experiment for us to figure out what works and what doesn't work, and between that and some significantly better equipment that we're now using, we think that the quality has improved quite a bit.

Here's the link for the first new episode:
http://gamersmustdie.com/2013/06/ episode-6-lets-get-this-started-for-reals/

We're also offering some prizes :)
Jun 18 2013, 2:53 pm
Are you a gamer... Or a gaymer?
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