The following is a guest editorial sent to my by Kalashnikov. It’s offering some interesting insights on the issues of younger players in TFC.
For quite a while now, I have been a dedicated half-life gamer. Starting out when I was 13 (I am 15 now, and have been for ... oh 30 minutes ... since 12:00 PM/00:00 AM on Fri/Sat the 22nd/23rd). And have been in 2 clans, staying in the first for around 1 year, and being in the second for 6 months ... and being a floater (drifter) in between. And what really scares me is the fact that, even though I am not a 9 year old whiner, (15...) I am still afraid to reveal my age, or even hint at the fact that I am not an adult.
The reason for this is whenever I see someone doing this in a game
that is younger than 16, they get slagged off, or whenever they ask a
question, intelligent or not, most of the time they are told ’fuck off
you whiner/child’. It has happened to me time and time again. The
problem is, older people, or even some people like me that I have had
the misfortune to meet, have had the image of the 9 year old CS gamer
impressed onto them. The major problem people like me have is that we
become tarred with the same brush as the minority of really young
players that have been give half-life as a present, for their birthday.Let me tell you why some extremely young people become disliked as much
as they are. Ever since I have come onto the net at about 12, as an Age
of Empire’s gamer (ugh), I have conducted myself in much the same
manner as I would in RL (Real Life™). This means being responsible,
helping others out with problems, not insulting people, and generally
being sociable. I do not see the internet as a barrier that means I can
do whatever I want with impunity, though I probably could. The problem
is, younger children see the net as something where everyone is
anonymous, maybe rightly so, and they make use of it in that way. They
insult people that they would not in RL™, they attempt to hack, and
they generally do not conduct themselves with the same respect or
maturity that they do in the Real World. This does bring a certain
amount of dislike to them, and this, unfortunately, carries into their
gaming. We all know that at a young age, we took almost everything very
seriously. We would have (and I expect quite a few did) whine about
petty things, such as who got the extra millimeter of coke in that
glass that your mother poured out for you. Some people would bawl their
eyes out because of that. Because at a younger age children take things
more seriously, games become more than a game for them, they become
something they ’must’ be good at. And they cannot accept that there are
people better than them out there. So when they lose, they don’t like
it and take a bad attitude, not treating it as a game.As a
result people hate them. This sort of child normally is the person you
see in a game of TFC spamming ’LAG! LAG!" Over and over again. This is
the sort of person that will make up all kinds of excuses to explain
their death. This is the sort of person that overuses 1337speak (come
on, we all use it sometimes) and spams it over and over again. And
consequently, this is the sort of person people hate. Understandably.
But from what I have seen, people will do one of two things about this.Ignore the person completely, giving no constructive criticism or taking no action
Or...
Take too much action, and not suggest anything, but immediately kick/ban the person from the server.
This does not help anyone. This just serves to infuriate the person
more, and make them take their anger out on another person. What I
propose is this. Before banning them, talk to them. don’t shout.
(caps). don’t annoy them. Just calmly explain to them that what they
are doing is not good for them, and it isn’t ’cool’, and it isn’t
’funny’. Tell them how to enjoy the game, and tell them, for gods sake,
to play like a normal person. I do accept that some/most children wont
accept this, but try. Otherwise things will only get worse.The
problem, in short then, is this: The declining age of the TFC/Half-Life
community means that too many people are taking it more seriously than
before. This leads all too frequently to arguments, and people being
pissed off at the young person. Possibly with reason. However, too many
responses to shouting, name calling etc. are ’I bet he’s 13.’ this
comes from generalization, and is wrong. Maybe if some people took the
time to try and change the way these ’9 year olds’ feel, we wouldn’t
have these problems.What I propose is this: Try and be a little
more tolerant of the younger gamers. Tell them where they go wrong,
help them to improve. Try and ignore some spam, and tell them what is
wrong with spam, if they continue. But most of all, try and help them
to understand that it is only a game.What I expect or demand
from the older gamers is to be able to tell that the number of so
called ’9 year old whiners’ is a minority in the community. And also,
try and understand that a 15 year old is not automatically a whiner. Or
a 9 year old (that should be obvious). Please, don’t tar us all with
the same brush. don’t punish the majority for a very small minority,
most of which is there because of the unhelpfulness of the general
community.
I might add that spamming, whining or trash-talking is no prerogative of the young. We all know that an older person isn’t automatically more mature or more reasonable than a younger person. However we have to deal with the fact that we have an increasing number of younger people playing online games. We have to take into account that their social skills might be a little behind their gaming skills 
, and I agree with Kalashnikov that those of us who claim to be mature and reasonable should show a little more tolerance and - IMO very important - serve as an example to the younger players.
How can we expect them to act maturely, to be humble and learn fairplay and good conduct when we older players don’t behave much better?
Here we encounter a far more grave problem: The increasing decline of the community. The community becomes increasingly focused on skill and victory. For many people everything is just a mean to personal glory. I suspect a number of people even see playing in a clan as a mean to show off themselves. What example can those people offer? Isn’t in fact the community adapting to the egocentric attitude we blame on younger players?
When we worship skill and success above all, is it a surprise that those kids don’t learn to fit in, to humble themselves and to work with their team instead of trying to prove their l33tness?
Look around you and ask yourself if we are not setting the wrong signals to the upcoming generation of gamers. Ask yourself if we don’t get the immature behaviour we deserve by imparting the wrong values ...
Thanks, Kalashnikov, for this editorial. You can discuss this editorial here.
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