Online gaming to me is only fun with people I know - or know something about - online gaming with complete strangers is a no go area for me. I've tried it several times and it wasn't a pleasant experience. It's either rude and obnoxious kids or rude and obnoxious adults. As an experiment I was once rude and obnoxious too and within an hour I actually accumulated quite a following - of minions? - that grew and grew whenever I verbally destroyed yet another player who was there just to play a game. I was lousy at the FPS game but the minions chose to protect me for whatever insane reason. I was appalled and intrigued at the same time. As this is excellent testing ground for social experiments and researching ' human ' behaviours. But it really made me sick and after that I turned off the game and never went into its multiplayer mode again with strangers.
The 360 Live experience is the same way and online gaming with friends is a lot more fun than with strangers.
The only way I can actually enjoy online gaming anonymously is on the Wii or the DS when Human interaction is limited to the avatar on screen and the moves you make. No communicating in the mean time.
I'd say that with any environment where people get to interact socially but can remain anonymous to some degree, in some it just brings out the maladaptive immature personality traits allowing them to be jerks, obnoxious and rude without personally facing the direct consequences:
- online gamine
- online chatting/messaging/forums
- traffic
- living in a city with millions of anonymous folk as your neighbors - you need to be anonymous to survive in a city, the brain doesn't copy otherwise.
Online gaming to me is only fun with people I know - or know something about - online gaming with complete strangers is a no go area for me. I've tried it several times and it wasn't a pleasant experience. It's either rude and obnoxious kids or rude and obnoxious adults. As an experiment I was once rude and obnoxious too and within an hour I actually accumulated quite a following - of minions? - that grew and grew whenever I verbally destroyed yet another player who was there just to play a game. I was lousy at the FPS game but the minions chose to protect me for whatever insane reason. I was appalled and intrigued at the same time. As this is excellent testing ground for social experiments and researching ' human ' behaviours. But it really made me sick and after that I turned off the game and never went into its multiplayer mode again with strangers.
The 360 Live experience is the same way and online gaming with friends is a lot more fun than with strangers.
The only way I can actually enjoy online gaming anonymously is on the Wii or the DS when Human interaction is limited to the avatar on screen and the moves you make. No communicating in the mean time.
I'd say that with any environment where people get to interact socially but can remain anonymous to some degree, in some it just brings out the maladaptive immature personality traits allowing them to be jerks, obnoxious and rude without personally facing the direct consequences:
- online gamine
- online chatting/messaging/forums
- traffic
- living in a city with millions of anonymous folk as your neighbors - you need to be anonymous to survive in a city, the brain doesn't copy otherwise.
PS3: MarkVergeer | Xbox 360: Lactobacillus P | Wii: 8151 3435 8469 3138
Armchair arcade Editor | Pixellator | www.markvergeer.nl