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Peppers, video games, tourism, and gatekeeping

Houseman

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Sanctuary legend
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People who challenge themselves with the hottest peppers they can find are called chiliheads. Chiliheads openly welcome you into their hobby. First you start with something weaker like Jalapeños (4,000 to 8,500 on the Scoville scale), and work your way up until you're eating Carolina Reapers (~1,641,183). If you want to be able to withstand the heat, you need to put in the effort. If you don't like it, then stop, or stay at the level that you're comfortable at. That's fine.

Gamers also welcome you into their hobby. We have a variety of games of every taste and skill level for you. You could start with something like Mario Bros for the NES, or you could jump right in to a walking simulator like Gone Home, or start a farm in Stardew Valley. If any particular game is not to your liking, that's fine, there are plenty more games for you to choose from.


If you can't take the heat of a Carolina Reaper, would you demand that the pepper be changed until it is diluted to the heat of a Jalapeño? That would ruin the enjoyment for someone else, wouldn't it?

Likewise, if you find something you don't like in a game, would you seek to remove it? What if other people enjoy the aspect that you'd like to remove? Aren't you harming the hobby for other people?

If you don't like something, that's fine. Don't eat the pepper that is too hot for you. Don't play the game that you don't like. Don't demand that something else be changed so that you can enjoy it. The gatekeepers are the people preserving the Carolina Reapers, so that future generations can continue to enjoy them. Likewise, gatekeepers in the gaming hobby would like to preserve the things that they find fun from being changed.

Don't demand that something be changed so that you can enjoy it. Either change yourself by gradually moving out of your comfort zone and broadening your horizons, or find the things that you do enjoy and stick with that.
 
I'm big on what the original developer's vision for the game was. Even if I personally might have done it differently. For example, Noita is a rougelite. I don't particularly care for roguelites. I would have designed the game differently. But in the end, if that's what the developers envisioned the game to be, then that's what it is, and that's exactly how it should be.
 
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Why yes, I do enjoy sharing my peppers with others, and I love to see people take as much joy in them as I do.
But growing the hobby does not mean changing or diluting my peppers so that they are more "accesible" to "modern, diverse audiences", or anything like that. Growing the hobby means helping you increase your spice tolerance.

If we dilute Carolina Reapers so that everyone can enjoy them, then there's no point in being a chilihead anymore. The goal is not to grow by any means necessary, so that you can boast that you have the biggest, most inclusive hobby in the world. The goal is not to change the Carolina Reaper so that everyone can eat them like popcorn on day one. The goal is to raise the quality of the hobby by creating many different kinds of peppers and ways to eat them. Quality, not quantity.

The above tweet is actually what prompted me to create this topic. Hey, @Rec_A_Dork, if you google your own username and stumble upon this thread, come reply! You don't even need to make an account!
 
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@DeadSceneMedia, @GamersLamo45103, @nickjcal (Nick Calandra):

I'd agree that "tourists" who only play live service ftp "trash" (you mean like Candy Crush?) are making everything worse, in an indirect sense.
However, these "tourists" are not the same group of people that hardly get excited for future games. Do you know why?

Consider what happens to a chilihead who is capable of eating Carolina Reapers. They're the ones pushing their limits and gaining higher tolerances to levels of capsaicin that would literally kill a beginner. What peppers do you think they're interested in? Hotter peppers, not weaker ones.

They're not interested in a new Jalapeño variant that is weaker than a Serrano. They have well surpassed that level of spice.

Similarly, perhaps these gamers aren't interested in very many new games because these gamers only get excited for truly innovative experiences that push the limits of what the industry is capable of. They are the "elite chiliheads" of gamers.

Maybe gamers who would spend 100s of hours on multiple playthroughs of Elden Ring and other FromSoft games aren't the same demographic that would be interested in a 4-hour retro-graphics indie adventure. Maybe those games you think they should be getting excited about are better suited for beginners and those newly introduced to the hobby.

Maybe the "elite chiliheads" are miserable because more money and effort is put towards cultivating "beginner" peppers, and very few people are making peppers that push their tolerances.

And maybe if you can't see that, then you're the tourist?

---

I should make a twitter account so I can converse directly with these people, but I have a feeling that they'll just block me. They're always welcome to come here, though!
 
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This discourse only gives me the idea that we should either play some coop videogames or start a spicy pepper eating competition. Or both, both is good.
 
This discourse only gives me the idea that we should either play some coop videogames or start a spicy pepper eating competition. Or both, both is good.

I like spice, but not too much. And what games were you thinking of?
 
I like spice, but not too much. And what games were you thinking of?
I don't really know, was just throwing the idea. I got a bunch installed though like TF2, Borderlands 2 and 3, Darktide and L4D2
 
Honestly, I don't buy into the entire concept of "gatekeeping." It's never been anything but yet another meaningless woke buzzword as far as I'm concerned, which is why I find the occasional "ackshually, gatekeeping is good and we should do it more" comment from people on the other side of the aisle equally silly.

The problem with it, like with everything else concerning woketards, is that it comes from a place of fundamental intellectual dishonesty and projection. They don't actually like whatever hobby it is they claim to be into, they only like the idea of liking it, which is why they are always dead set on changing every single thing about it, and then proceeding to get all pissy and cry "gatekeeping" when actual fans of the thing they claim to like tell them to fuck off.

I remember very well the whole "don't you want more people to enjoy video games?" argument from my days at the Escapist, and I don't know if I actually said as much back then, but my honest answer to that would be "I don't particularly care." I'm not a gaming company CEO, I'm not a shareholder, I'm a consumer. I want good games. And the more you make any media "for everyone," the more you reduce it to an insipid grey mush.
 
And the more you make any media "for everyone," the more you reduce it to an insipid grey mush.
That's literally what gatekeeping is for. Gaming isn't for everyone, it's for those that want to enjoy it as it is. I'm not going to go into the knitting hobby and say it needs more representation to make me feel better. But wait, the wokies actually did infiltrate it, trying to capture it as a space for their agenda, just as they have with gaming, atheism, and countless other things before.

I'm disgusted they are trying to coop "tourist" from us. It doesn't even make sense when they use it that way, other than as a pejorative.
 
They don't actually like whatever hobby it is they claim to be into, they only like the idea of liking it, which is why they are always dead set on changing every single thing about it.

This is the truth. It's the same idea of people fleeing places like California to Texas, Montana, etc. to get away from their instituted political systems, only to bring those same ideologies with them to their new environs. Same with the Muslims who want to implement Sharia in western countries. They (or their family) fled for a reason, but simultaneously want to keep the old ways as well. To have their cake and eat it too.

It feels like people are seemingly more and more wanting to live in a personally handcrafted society that suits their ideals rather than dealing with reality, and it's bleeding over into all aspects of culture.
 
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