Why does the gaming community (among others) have to be so destructive and toxic?
I know this is human nature and this is nothing new. It's absolutely impossible to make something that everyone is happy with, but what's the need to be so destructive?
I recently finished The Callisto Protocol and in my opinion it's a great game but I remember people saying that "The game was so bad that they (Krafton) had to give it away (PS Plus) for someone to play it".
Oddly enough I probably like to contradict most people because another game I'm interested in playing is Immortals of Aveum and when I read one or another review people say that "It's just another generic dead game, like those generic trash Netflix series", I mean, is it really necessary to be so destructive? And I want to clarify, I don't give a shit what people say, if I like a game and I enjoy it I don't mind paying full price for it, and if I don't like it, I just don't do destructive reviews.
What I least understand about the gaming community and what I find most toxic is when they criticize others for playing something they like, like the phenomenon of criticizing Genshin Impact players or in the past the same with Minecraft. Do I commit a sin by playing something I like?
As an add-on to OP, is it just my confirmation bias or are competitive games a trove for alt-righters? Never seen so many Trump supporters except in CSGO and rocket league...
Celeste speedruns are fairly competitive from my understanding. I have not watched the top players, but in general the Celeste community seems pretty good from the little indirect interactions I've had with them. But it's solo play and leader boards, not real-time matches (although those probably exist too, but you still don't interact with the other players).
Curious if that direct combativeness is part of difference. Of course another important difference is the Celeste community is fairly unique given its trans game status. But I don't think that's necessary to build a good community: smw kaizo isn't inherently trans, but the community decided years ago that it wasn't going to tolerate transphobia, for example. But its extremely non-competitive imo.
Celeste isn't the best example because it was made by a trans person. The story is literally about the dev overcoming their own internal issues with, and accepting, who they are. By default, most alt-righters aren't going to touch that game.
The SMW kaizo community has several prominent trans contributors and notable members (Shoujo and shovda being probably two of the more public ones, both participating in the relay race at SGDQ 2022, which also had at least two trans creators). I'd include Maddy among the notable member, but that's a relatively recent thing with her release of Super Sonic Saves the World World and Sure Shot (a level of which was in the SGDQ race and was co-created with another amazing member of the community). Unfortunately it wasn't always that way apparently (the SGDQ 2019 relay race did include someone who was later shunned by the community for platforming transphobes apparently).
Also, the kaizo community and Celeste community have a lot of overlap given they're both tough platforming games for lots of community-made content.
Its also just small enough that everyone can know most other people who are part of it.
They're probably some of the more vocal ones, so get noticed most.
If someone is off playing Candy Crush, they're usually not waiting and chatting in a multilayer lobby, so you don't notice them. Same for the people who only use game chat as necessarily, rather than for average conversations.