Guest Posted August 19, 2001 Share Posted August 19, 2001 I guess general RPG is as good a place to post this as any.Convention season is over. Some of us have spent time attending local cons and perhaps traveling. A fair amount of us spend time online and speak with people across the country. And so, with all this fresh in your minds I have a question for you.Does the gaming industry have an attitude problem?I mean, given recent problems on the WW forum, the fact that on RPG.Net, the WW Forums, and various other places I constantly run into freelancers and gaming industry "professionals" who are sarcastic, condescending, and even downright mean to fans, customers, non-fans, non-customers, and each other. You've got people at cons who (ahile admittedly busy) can't tear themselves away from schoomzing to talk about their product or *gasp* sell some of it. What I especially notice is how much some people who "work" in the gaming idustry hate beings treated as equals by customers, freelancers, and what have you. If you say "Hey I disagree with you and think maybe you're overreacting" to some of these people (or some equivalent civil disagreement) you get rudeness and a sort of "how dare you speak to me thusly you peon!" attitude. Combine this with the poor social skills of many a gamer and I swear the whole indutry has got this weird sort of "attitude problem". Customers, fans, and even other members of the industry are treated as outlets for accusation, ridicule, and scorn.And this isn't just WW even though I'm posting it here...oh no, they aren't even the worst. I've seen phone rep guys from WotC strut about like they designed Magic and refer to their customers in a number of derogatory terms. I've seen game designers who admit glady they weren't that familiar with the subject of their licensed property because "Well its a hot commodity and we'll sell to fans of X with no problem." (Sidenote..they didn't). I've worked for a game company whose chief officers actively disliked talking to anyone not in the industry (I should know..I had to speak to most of the customers they "didn't have time for"..some of which were interesting and even had real viable assistant they could offer. I've been blow off by gaming industry goons at a con parties and ended up hanging out with comics artists and film industry people (who were cooler and nicer).And that last part is where the "proof" really comes in. When the cast members of Babylon 5 or the artist on several premiere Marvel series (though at the time he'd only done a few) is nicer and more civil than some guy who (at most) has designed a few rpgs....then the gaming industry has a problem. An attitude problem.(Now at this point someone may be wondering "who does this guy think he is to criticize like this" Fair Question..here's the answer.I've written 1 rpg and a few supplements, a few short stories, and "worked" in the gaming idustry for a few years. Thw whole story is a mess and is part of the reason I have left the industry to return to academic life. Even when I was being treated pretty well as an "insider" I noticed this but recently I've been thinking about it again).To paraphrase a recent book and novel "The gaming industry is not its own special little snowflake". All of you who do a job, go to work, and make your money are just as "special" as they are. Yet whenever I am around the "hub" of the industry constantly barraged by the sound of industry insiders patting themselves on the back about how hard they work, how brilliant and innovative they are, and how little they get paid because "they love their job". Well, for some of them that's true.But those aren't the people that say all that. Those people are too busy doing stuff. And even if that's true for all of them the self-praise is colored by the disdain so many of them feel for others and the air of arrogance they possess.I swear after a a few days at a con I feel like Lt. Gerard...."But I wrote for WotC!""I don't care!"[Now go ahead and jump]But maybe its not attitude...maybe they all have self-esteem problems. I mean every time the rpg industry tries to "break out" they alienate their fanbase in favor of new markets that they handle poorly due to their own "confidence" that they know what they are doing. I know people who do this with relationships too...and the reason is usually a deep self-loathing. That and a sense of entitlement..which might be the other problem...Nobody owes these people anything. If they left a higher paying job..tough. If they had to put up with fools and idiots to get their chance...well so did I. You owe John Wick, Gareth Michael Skartka, Mark Reign Hagen, and whoever else out there who has seen fit to talk down to critics, customers, and whoever as much as you owe the writers of the books you buy and the makers of the movies you watch. You owe them the price of their product and basic human decency. Everything else is a bonus.So why am I saying any of this? Dunno. Been kicking it around for awhile. As I prepare to start up this year of grad school I find my tolerance waning for a bunch of lonely disaffected people who want to act like jerks every time they feel they're being threatened, questioned, or not given their "due respect". The funny thing nothing really set this off. I guess I was just wondering if I am alone in my opinions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Final_Knight Posted August 19, 2001 Share Posted August 19, 2001 I'm sure it will come as a surprise to no one, but I agree with you. Not much to add to that, at this time at least. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 20, 2001 Share Posted August 20, 2001 You have my sympathies Jack. Its a hard thing when you realize the people you respect are less than you'd expect. Someone once said you should judge the art before the artist, and I think that can easily be said of games like 7th Sea, Aberrant, and Vampire. Sometimes the people who create are exactly like the impressions you get from the work, and sometimes not(I always envisioned Stephen King as a kind of Vincent Price looking guy, then I saw a picture). Having never been to a convention (they can't seem to take the Sheer Damn Manliness of the Canadian north) I don't have any of your experiences, but I can only attest that the developers I have interacted with (G.C. Grabowski, Ethan Skemp, Bruce Baugh, Jackie Cassada, Nicky Rea, and Shane Lacy Hensley) have been cordial and pleasant in my dealings with them. I hope in the future they'll tend to be more the rule than the exception. -Stacy Dooks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Ranger Posted August 21, 2001 Share Posted August 21, 2001 Yeah, it is interesting to note that gaming companies as a ganeral rule are also useless at replying to requests for information regarding corporate endevours. I have only once received reply back from a RPG company to a query I made by e-mail. That was from SJ Games who were very helpful and it pushed me more towards their products. I think the gaming comminity as a whole tend to be elitist and very condecending with very little reason, I believe its the culture of the Clique...not much we can do about that except maybe point it out to them. I mean who is running PR and Marketing for WW? The corpse of a mongolian parrot??! Think business people! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thingmaker Posted September 23, 2001 Share Posted September 23, 2001 I've only met two game writer types at cons. One was Gary Gygax. I hold the opinion that he is an hemoroidial asshole. The other is Bruce Baugh. I hold the opinion that he is polite to strangers and enjoys his work. My take on other industry professionals is limited to observing them on panels - not quite the same as talking one-one-one. Are they insecure in thier positions? Quite possibly - authorship was never a lucrative occupation, nor one universally appreciated. Are they any worse than any other class of artist? Not in my experience. Creative individuals often (not always) feel that their efforts go unnapreciated. I must wonder, however, how much of our dissapointment toward these people stems from their failure to meet our expectations of them. I'm not saying that they are all saints and that we fail to appreciate them for who they are; I'm just wondering if they may be sensitive introverts who lack the social skills to conduct themselves gregariously at cons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avenger Posted September 23, 2001 Share Posted September 23, 2001 Oh, I agree. All to often people walk up to someone as simple and as non-celebrity as Lucian Soulban or Andrew Gates or even comparatively Gary Gygax and act like blithering idiots who are meeting Cestus Pax for the first time. And then they get uppity and offended when the person doesn't conduct themself like a rational, extroverted professional.Well of course Gary Gygax doesn't act that way. The man writes RPG's, for fucks sake. He doesn't have an agent, he doesn't have a publicist, he doesn't have a PR coach and he doesn't have a degree in pretending he gives a fuck about your 7th-level Elven Bard/Assassin. Many of these men still live with their mothers, guys. And you're expecting social wit? As the classic saying goes, 'they're more afraid of you than you are of them', and treating them like celebrities only makes them feel more awkward. -- Avenger------------------Don't try to run, you son of a bitch. You'll just die tired.avengingcrusader@hotmail.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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