Humanity and Videogames

We hear footsteps from down the other end of the deserted metro train station. It echoes off of the cold and clammy walls of this long fluorescent light-lit tunnel. The footsteps are of heavy boots accompanied by faint ruffles of thick denim shuffling and metal clicking. I see a rifle muzzle stick out of a concrete post at around ten meters out in front of me. There's another soldier crouched right beside me. We wait, seeking cover behind a waist-high wall. The soldier beside me is wearing a Kevlar helmet with Kevlar skirts draped down the back and sides of his head, looking like a futuristic version of what those Japanese World War II soldiers wore. On his back is a folded up riot shield. He's clutching his Beowulf rifle that's a modified M-4.  It holds rounds larger than the regular 5.56mm. On his thigh, attached are two grenades and some extra rifle magazines.

I'm wearing something similar. But instead of a Kevlar helmet, I have night vision goggles that have four lenses so I won't have to turn my whole head when looking around. I have a backpack that holds an EMP blast generator. The meter on it says it's still charging from when I used it earlier. In my hands is my Type-95 bull-pup rifle. My favorite because of its low recoil.  

Without warning, the soldier beside me jumps over the waist-high wall. A clanging sound breaks the tension in the air as he unfurls the spring loaded, handheld riot shield that he had on his back which he now holds up in front of him. He sprints forward ramming his shield on the soldier with the muzzle sticking out from behind the concrete post, knocking him down. I pop up from the half wall, aim at the downed enemy's feet which were the only parts of him that I could see since he fell behind the big post. I pull the trigger and hit him around twice out of the 10 rounds that I spewed out. He's still not dead. I leap over the half wall to get a better angle before he completely stands up. Just before my feet hit the ground I hear the all-familiar ripping sound that I've been hearing from years of putting myself through this: the sound of a headshot. It was inflicted by a sniper way-way downrange who was prone on the ground with his bolt action, silenced Nemesis, a 50cal sniper rifle.  It’s capable of 1 shot kills. My character turns white. An indication that I died. It slumps on the ground. An icon of a headshot comes up on the top right corner of my screen together with the player's name who inflicted it. I almost instantly forget the name because all I can think of at this moment is respawning. Like a junkie who just sucked on a crystal meth cloud – I'm already itching about the next hit.

Meanwhile, as my temporary demise was happening, the guy with the blitz shield kept going, knocking down 2 more enemies.  He stops, reels back his blitz shield and aims his Beowulf at the 3 enemies who are almost stood up by now.  Then, out of nowhere, his body turns white.  He gets thrown to the side like a giant flicked his head.  It was another headshot from that sniper downrange.

“You fucking idiot.  You useless fuck!” blares out of my headset, like the sound of those voices in your head you hear after you get a speeding ticket, after you didn’t get that life-changing job because you filled out the application wrong or after you get another eviction notice from your mortgage company.

“You useless noob.  You didn’t back me up!” goes the all too familiar rant that you hear while playing Ghost Recon Phantoms.

Ghost Recon Phantoms is a PC based free-to-play, team-based, third person shooter videogame.  Free-to-play means you can play for free with standard weapons, armor and accessories.  But if you want better weapons and all of that, you have to pay.  Team-based, meaning you win with teamwork because players in a team are grouped by special abilities that are needed to accomplish the objective which is to protect and capture points in the map.

The special abilities are as follows: Recons can “cloak” themselves and be invisible and have “Oracle” to scan through walls to see where the enemies are, Assaults can “Blitz” or can “Heat” up enemies and Supports have an EMP blast that can disable enemy devices/abilities. They can also form a bullet-proof force field.  These features are pretty common in other free-to-play shooters except that this game is in the third person (point of view is behind the character) and it has “sticky walls”.  Only a handful have these particular features.  Sticky wall is when your character is near a wall, you press a button and your character sticks to the wall.  Press another button and you can pop up and shoot.  This combined with a handful of well-designed maps, excellent weapon feel and its overall not-too-far-in-the-future aesthetic (I especially like how they did the augmented reality interface) is why I have been playing this game daily for around 2 years now.  I’m really happy with it.  But sometimes it could feel like a job you really like and enjoy but just can’t bear the people you work with.

It’s very common to hear (and read) animosity in GRP after you fail to back up somebody or fail to scan at the right time or for almost anything, really.  It is directed to enemies, teammates, the game developers and to all of their moms and sisters.  It is so common, it’s disturbing.  Nobody filters.  There is no consideration that you may have been killed as soon as you popped up from cover, or your scanner has not charged up yet, or you just couldn’t aim right at the time.  

The word “noob” gets thrown around like nothing.  There is no acknowledgement of the diversity of people’s gaming skills.  Sadly, the same goes with the words fag, gay, cunt, bitch, nigger, etc.  These get thrown around knowing the diversity of the people who are playing.  

The environment of competitiveness, anonymity and no real world repercussions really brings out how people are, their true colors.

I’ve heard girls being called “bitch” and told to “go suck on [their] boyfriend’s cock”.  Players are called “fags” for using the notoriously easy to use full auto shotgun AA-12 (Gaygay-12) or for deciding to shoot from afar.  Top players routinely call their teammates “retards” and “idiots” when the match isn’t going their way.  Game developers are mocked for “doing a shitty job” when the game glitches.  Players are called “pay-to-win fags” when they dominate using bought weapons and upgrades.  It’s a constant stream of selfish hate.

In a lame attempt to go against the flow, sometimes instead of giving them a hard time I chime in and show new players where the good sniper and “camping” spots are, I call out people on their misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia and overblown sense of entitlement, I try to remind people that players who pay keep the game alive by putting food on the developers’ and their families’ plates.  I do this in the hope of planting a seed – the enlightment of having perspective and the idea that it’s not cool to be an asshole. But it’s a futile attempt.  Quixotic.  I’m usually all by myself.

It may be unfair to judge humanity based on this. Still, I will. I understand the fact that maybe most of these bigots are kids.  But that actually makes it worse.  It shows how common it is that people start off on the wrong moral foot in their formative years. It shows how most people are generally evil by default. Evil either by commission or omission.

Ghost Recon Phantoms officially announced that they are shutting down the game in December 1.  There weren’t enough people who paid, I guess.  The $20 I happily spent on it wasn’t enough.

Since the news of the game’s shut down, the game’s store has been practically giving away everything like that scene in the movie Lord of War where Nicholas Cage landed his supply plane full of guns in the desert. Finally, I could use those weapons that I have been hoping to get in the “mystery boxes” the game used gave away.  

English speaking players have dwindled since the news came out, too.  They have been replaced with Spanish and Portuguese speaking players.  Why this happened, I don't know. What I do know, though, is even if I couldn’t understand them fully, the few cuss words and the overall hateful tone is still there.  The bigotry and animosity is universal.