Posted on 03/22/2018 11:36:06 AM PDT by TigerClaws
At a time when President Donald Trump, the National Rifle Association, and others on the right are blaming video games for promoting violence—with nary a shred of credible evidence—a new book has leveled a completely different criticism at the gaming industry: "toxic meritocracy."
According to Christopher Paul, chair of the Department of Communication at Seattle University and author of The Toxic Meritocracy of Video Games: Why Gaming Culture is the Worst, video games promote individuality, reward skill, and encourage players to do their best in order to win. These are supposedly bad things.
"Games are based on leveling up and getting stronger," Paul tells Campus Reform. "We expect the most skilled, hardest working player to win. The typical narrative in a game is a rags to riches story where the player propels the character into a key role and perhaps even attains god-like status."
"All those things shape our expectations and focus players on individuals, rather than the collective," he added. "As actualized meritocracies, video games quickly become really toxic spaces where players are focused on individual glory, rather than creating positive spaces for interaction."
Not all is bad, Paul notes, pointing out that games like Mario Kart and Mario Party are more cooperative and based on "luck, contingency, and serendipity," elements that he hopes game developers will prioritize more in the future.
"Moving away from merit allows communities to be developed on different terms, giving an opportunity to build something else, something new, something that has features other than the endemic toxicity that comes with meritocratic systems," Paul contends.
Speaking as someone who played a whole lot of Mario Kart and Mario Party growing up (and in college...and as an adult...), I will say that the luck-based elements are sometimes a lot of fun, but they're also infuriating. In the Mario Party games in particular—where the "luck" aspect can be overwhelming and game-breaking—my play-group often came away thinking, "Well, that was a terrible game." The mini-game comes to mind where Bowser appears, forces you to pick a random color, and then relieves you of your hard-won coins and stars if you choose wrong.
If that's your thing, more power to you. Play all the Mario Party you want. But I don't think it's "toxic" for more serious gamers to prefer games with clearly defined rules and a skill-based system that rewards good gameplay. Gamer culture has its problems, but promoting meritocracy isn't one of them.
At least Paul doesn't want to regulate away the aspects of gaming he doesn't like. The person who wants to do that is the president of the United States.
If there’s such a thing as toxic meritocracy doesn’t it stand to reason that there’s such a thing as toxic affirmative action? Oh, wait, to paraphrase Mr. Spock, reason is a concept liberals are unfamiliar with.
There’s a business opportunity. Develop a game where the mediocre are on the level with the skilled.
>>”Moving away from merit allows communities to be developed on different terms, giving an opportunity to build something else, something new, something that has features other than the endemic toxicity that comes with meritocratic systems,” Paul contends.<<
When there is no merit, there is no work. How long would this jerk survive in a world where everyone just does whatever the hell they want (or, more importantly don’t want). People can be pretty lazy in the absence of rewards for work.
I looked and looked but could not find a satire label on this article...
...
So does reality.
Check with that founding father of liberalism, Charles Darwin.
What in ignorant twit.
Not a big fan of video games, but if the reason he hates them is because they encourage “toxic meritocracy”, they must not be all bad.
“Toxic meritocracy”, I suppose, is in the eye of the beholder.
Personally, I have been getting an overdose of “toxic liberalism” here lately.
>>There’s a business opportunity. Develop a game where the mediocre are on the level with the skilled.<<
I have a Gear VR which is my reward at the end of a hard day. I am not really very good at many of the games but they are fun anyway.
There is one — Pirates or somesuch where you shoot cannonballs at ships.
My high score after dozens of games: around 11 thousand. High score for all players? 60 FREAKING MILLION!
Assuming it isn’t just game hacking (what would be the point?) I am sure people that played, earned the strategies, accumulated stuff, etc. would LOVE for me to be just give 55 million points.
If the prof wants to program serendipity into the games that will seem to lead to a pronounced level of fatalism in the gamers. In other words, “why work at all when the outcome seems to be against me. Regardless of what I do, a boulder is just going to smash me and everyone else will be rewarded.”
The horror!
What a faggot.
Winning is toxic.
Toxic Meritocracy? Better than a Toxic Mediocracy.
after reading it, I have to declare that satire is dead.
As Jordan Peterson has pointed out, Marxism hits a brick wall when it comes to the Pareto Distribution.
A small number of people will ALWAYS be hugely better than most people at any given task. It’s just the way it is. You cannot change it. Average basketball player vs Michael Jordan? Not close. Average musician vs Mozart? Not close. Average real estate guy vs Trump? Not close.
Marxists want a society where extraordinary individuals no longer stand out and disrupt “the collective”. The only way to block extraordinary people from excelling is to kill them. Which is what Marxists do. But the Pareto Distribution will not be denied. Kill the best people and of the remainder, there will ALWAYS be 10-20% who are still vastly better than whoever else is left.
...or no longer relevant.
Well put!
A rather interesting thing to say, given that video-game players are often depicted as losers living in their parent’s basement.
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