Game Jerks

A BUNCH OF MINDLESS JERKS WHO’LL BE FIRST UP AGAINST THE WALL WHEN THE REVOLUTION COMES

Fact. The world, for its entire history, has been divided in half. There are two species walking this earth — the Jerk and the non-Jerk. You know who’s who, too. When you know someone, you either like the person or you don’t. If you don’t, there’s a reason for that. The person is a Jerk.

The Jerks have always wanted power (real or imagined) and have always tried to usurp the non-Jerks. They’ve come pretty close to victory a couple times, too. Wars are fought every day, everywhere. Over what? Some Jerk wants something he shouldn’t have, non-Jerks disagree of course, and pretty soon it’s just Jerks and non-Jerks, arguing it out. Meanwhile, the meek, the inexperienced, and the scared stand around wondering which group is which.

Ok, I’ll admit it… not only am I a total ‘Net geek, I admit that I actually enjoy playing online games and care enough about them to be somewhat bitter about it. Yes, that’s right… this puts me in the hardcore “nerd” category, I suppose. Not that I’m alone in this… no-o-o-o, there are thousands of people out there just like me playing… and they are playing with other people. That’s a good thing, I suppose, but it’s also where some of my bitterness comes in.

The problem is this : anonymity leads to meanness. If you don’t know the other player and he or she doesn’t know you (and chances are great that this is the case), then it’s very easy to piss each other off, to fly off the handle, and to point accusatory fingers where they’re better off not pointed. It’s just the way people are. Sounds silly, right? I mean, it’s just a game, right? Nuh uh… online game players take their games very seriously and they can get very creative in their sociopathic behavior. This creativity gets cultivated and transferred from one idiot to another, and voila — you’ve got a perfectly fun game that has become crippled by total Jerks. If your goal in life were to ruin the game experience of as many people as possible, then you would be the perfect Jerk in every online multiplayer game I’ve ever played.

Whereas in single player games, jerks are not a major concern since you’re basically pitted against the game code alone, in multiplayer games the quality of the people you share the game with becomes a crucial factor in the enjoyment of the game. Some people just have to win. No matter what. So they turn into Jerks. Sometimes the Jerks band together and make life hell for the game Admins, some talk trash in the forums, some turn to cheating by creating multiple accounts to abuse the game system, some spend all their time questioning every aspect of game development or administrative decision-making instead of just playing the damned game or working to improve it, others take to spreading malicious lies and innuendos which lead to player dissatisfaction and division in the game community, etc. Interestingly, the average age of an online game player is 29, so we can’t blame this idiotic behavior on immature teenagers. The blame must be placed on immature people. Even though ageism is alive and well in the real world, it doesn’t carry any weight in the online world. In my experience, racism and sexism don’t carry any weight online either.

The Jerks are not having fun from their own actions, no, they enjoy the way their actions adversely affect others. In the end, they turn the game from being an escape into a more enjoyable world into a chance to be tormented by a faceless person over the ‘Net. In real life, there are very strong reasons for not being a Jerk, for one thing, being a Jerk in real life can result in getting beaten up. The actions that the game may take against an idiotic Jerk do not actually affect the player in any way except in his capacity to play the game, and thus there are many fewer detriments to the player to act non-disruptively in a game than there is for the player to act non-disruptively in real-life. Because of this, it is difficult to find a way to discourage players from acting in ways that are not blatantly rude to the other players around them.

Game Admins can try to set a good example, to be models of the kind of player behavior they would like to see in the game community, but this has little impact on the actual behavior of the jerks in the game. Any sort of in-game system of points removal will only work for players who are being Jerks during in-game play, it doesn’t deter Jerks in the forums or in private messaging. Admins can’t mandate player behavior, that never works because they always get accused of favoritism or prejudice toward certain players. You can’t reason with Jerks, they don’t want to change their ways. I’ve learned that no matter how much I care about a game or the players I meet, no matter how many hours I put into working behind the scenes or helping people with their problems, it doesn’t matter, there will always be Jerks ruining our good time.

But only if we let them.