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Tall an' handsome

Anger sells. It sells big. On the back of games.

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It's not exactly a new principle, but in the last years it has started to overshadow reason and it certainly didn't leave out the gaming industry as this article by Cnet illustrates.

Quote Originally Posted by article
Welcome to 2019, where some influential gamers on YouTube have learned what many others, including the president of the United States, have figured out: Anger sells. It sells big.
If the article gets only one person to think first instead of reflexively 'liking' videos of that nature because they happen to address a concern they have about a game then I'll consider the time well spend.

This part in the article brings up hope that something will be done about this type of content from the service's side.

Quote Originally Posted by article
On Wednesday, YouTube said it would take a tougher stand against the more toxic elements on all parts of the service. "Everyone on YouTube will be subject to the new hate speech policies, whether it be in videos they post or in other actions like comments or stories," a YouTube spokesperson added.
Critic and anger is fine, exploiting it through rage\hate isn't. 'Viral' here lives up to it's original meaning (of, relating to, or caused by a virus).

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Updated June 07, 2019 at 11:51 PM by Gigantus

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Life on TWC

Comments

  1. Dismounted Feudal Knight's Avatar
    It's the idea of holding comments, something that can spiral out of any individual content creator's control, accountable that very much puts me on edge before anything else youtube is saying.

    By accountable i mean accountable to the video creator; naturally, the actual commenter is always accountable for what they write. This is something I have heard is the case with their new policy, although perhaps I simply heard it wrong.
  2. Gigantus's Avatar
    My point wasn't so much about holding comments accountable (although a sensible policy is welcome, see further down), rather to encourage to 'activate the brain before liking\commenting'. It's the indiscriminate dissemination\support of stuff like this that encourages the author to continue and most likely to intensify it's outrage, a cycle that can spin totally out of control.
    Updated June 09, 2019 at 07:01 AM by Gigantus
  3. Dismounted Feudal Knight's Avatar
    That I can certainly agree with. A moderate, measured response is the key to achieving something productive. Without such moderation from the beginning or near the brink, there is no dialogue, only a . Certainly defeats the point of any reasonable conclusion.

    But I'll be contrarian and say that outrage, not moderation, is what brings issues to light at all, makes people pay attention in a world where people literally just scroll away events that may or may not interest them if they actually stood out or were repeated. Of course this isn't to say that it should take precedence over moderation, especially when there's some sort of response that comes to 'fine, you're mad, what do you want to do about it?" I will say that a sort of balance, at least with society's position, is the best way to go somewhere. Those who purely go on anger are certainly not people who are helpful in addressing the problem; however, save for a few exceptions, they're certainly helpful in promoting it.

    Unfortunately, short of a societal change, the only good balance is being able to strike the attention of the masses and make something stand out before you can make the measured critique that is necessary for a solution.

    Just a bit of debate food, not to contradict the base point that yes, outrage outrage outrage is not particularly helpful and sells with a crowd a little too well.

    Then again, I can't count it as anything surprising. It's just another outlet for attitudes expressed all across history...
    Updated June 10, 2019 at 05:54 AM by Dismounted Feudal Knight
  4. Gigantus's Avatar
    Noise gets attention, that is an undeniable fact of life. It's what comes after taking attention that is concerning, a classical example the 'review bombing' not that long ago. Where complaints over a game's issue let to intentional negative reviews of all other games released by the company in question.
  5. Dismounted Feudal Knight's Avatar
    Certainly. That I would quantify as excess, and while I think people do have the right to bomb a game that's the subject of bad mismanagement (a review is too vague to be held beyond individual standards, and if the individual denounces a game based on that, that's their opinion as long as it's their opinion and not parroting), the truth is that review bombs unfortunately result in
    - Ignorant users parroting misinformation or what they heard from their favorite youtuber - I exclude that from the 'their opinion' stipulation
    - Attacking games simply because the company was involved with them, even when the game has absolutely nothing to do with the recent games in question (Rome 2 bombers coming over to Medieval 2, for example)

    There's a balance, and unfortunately the mob is very poor at knowing the boundaries of reason.
  6. Gigantus's Avatar
    Being part of a mob is a concious decision, the main incentive being the assumption of 'zero reckoning', and as such one is responsible for actions taken. As one is in creating the circumstances for such a mob to likely form - as such I regard measures taken to prevent such happenings appropriate but also have to acknowledge the problem of doing so sensibly.

    And yes, I was referring to the R2-->M2 incidents.