With the growth of the gaming industry, and our lack of proper social lives (not that it’s our fault!), we’ve started turning to gaming for at least some sort of escape from our otherwise gray lives. Gamers can range from young kids to teenage players, and even girdle wearing oldies. But really, what’s the point of comparing ages as long as everyone is a decent player.

Finding and being a decent player however, is not as easy as it used to be. Gone were the days that most parents can leave their kiddies alone to go online and play, especially if you’re really a hardcore gamer slash parent and you’ve read “Fixing Online Gaming Idiocy: A Psychological Approach” by Fulton at Gamasutra. The article, although “charming” when it come to some words used, is very enlightening. You’ll probably nod and think “I’ve experienced that” when you come across a key sentence.

Gaming used to be best leisure around (unless you can afford to buy a sport stadium with the best wall climbing or basketball court), but sadly some people are turning it into a vulgar past time.

While there were already insulting and mad-about-everything players to begin with (certainly we’re not claiming that gaming used to be pure and serene), these kinds of players were not as rampant as they seem to be now on our precious servers. Regarding the disturbed players, Fulton says “…I would describe as “frequently barbaric”. Insults of all kinds, including racist and homophobic slurs, are commonplace”, which is being putting it nicely. There are actually people who play games online just so they can be annoying (or much more than that) to others. It’s quite amazing, how some people can waste their time and effort (and let’s not forget money and probably precious good eyesight) as they lean over their PC or gaming consoles, waiting for the next victim of their never ending hatred to the world to arrive. What’s the source of their madness; it is not scientifically confirmed (personally though I think it’s the lack of personal interaction).

“..some gamers might be thinking ‘If he’s so thin-skinned that he can’t take the online banter, maybe he shouldn’t play online.’ Unfortunately, many people do just that — they stop playing online.” Sure it’s really macho (not!) to throw around scathing words at someone who’s just trying to regain HP in a corner of the (cyber) city that you’re currently in. You can spot a distressed (or mentally disturbed) gamer when you see him tell another play that something’s wrong with his mother or father, even his sisters. Most often than not the gamer’s gender and gender preference will be put to the table. If only the world is so perfect, a player (or if not, heavens forbid a bot) under assault will not retaliate and will choose to be the better man (or woman), but really, who can hold back a barking reply (especially if a day at work is that bad)? You should know however, that you might turn into one of those barbaric players pretty soon.

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