Welcome to Online Gamer: 101

I’ve only been to one foreign country, and if you’re over 25, you’ll understand exactly what I mean.  I’m talking about the on-line video game world - that place filled with the disembodied consciousness of minds ranging from age 7 to 87. 

If you’re looking for a good anthropological study,  immersing yourself in their world is the perfect social experience.  The ability to unplug from the matrix at any point, mixed with the high degree of anonymity, allows everybody the ability to become an entirely different person.  I know most of the gamers are from the same physical country as I am, and more often than not speak the same language, but their culture is as foreign to a newcomer as I imagine landing in Russia would be.

That’s not to say that there isn’t order.   There is certainly a social etiquette, as well as things considered taboo, all of which vary depending on the type of game you’re playing.  

In general, I find you are judged by both your behavior and your skill; and when you are judged, it is to the extreme.  There is very little middle ground.  Every time you sign in, you are with new people, and they will judge you.  Every few games, the player base rotates, and you are again with new people, and they will judged all over again. 

I’d say that only about a 15% of players that you run into actually have a microphone and are actively using it.  However, if the group of players you find yourself with do have microphones, you will find out what they think of you rather quickly.

If you suck for more than one game, not only are you acutely aware of it, but they will tell you.  Well, they won’t tell you; they’ll tell the other players, somehow forgetting that you’re there, or that everyone in the game and/or on their team can hear them. 

If you sabotage someone - accidently or deliberately, it doesn’t matter - you will be punished to the fullest extent of the law.  You will find yourself kicked from the game, or else swarmed by a mob of gamer avatars and bludgeoned to cyber-death until you quit.

  

There is a lot of trash talk that flies around, as well as extremely volatile gamers that go off the deep end anytime they die, you screw up, or the opposing team wins.  It doesn’t mean anything.  I just ignore it most of the time.  Partaking in their belligerence only makes you feel dumb and dirty.

Stranger yet is the silent gamer sub-world.  Back in the day, we didn’t have microphones, or else we had to find separate, backward means of talking to one another.  Even now, most people either don’t have the means to talk, or don’t want to; and quite franking typing is too difficult while you’re in the heat of combat.  All communication is therefore pantomimed by a player’s avatar.  

Communication in silent games is usually straight forward.  If there’s a clear objective, everyone follows it to the best of their ability.  If people enjoyed the game, they stick around.  If they don’t, they leave. Sometimes though... sometimes you have no idea what a person's doing (take my Killer Teammate for example).  

It’s a cut-throat silent culture in some respects, but simple enough.  If you piss someone off, they will  Kick you; Quit; or Kill you.    Simpler than the talkative bunch in some respects.

Don’t get me wrong, you can end up in a lobby (session, game) with a crew of mature, laid back players, who at the end of every round say, “good game everyone,” and who during the game will complain about the opponents in such of a fashion that they are actually tipping their hats to the player’s skill.

And if you can wind up in a crew of people like that, you have immersed yourself in a cultural and social experience that is what the gamer community is truly meant to be.