Online gaming issues: Are we losing culture and ethics?

The virtual world – a little haven for people who are sort-of anti-social, and probably their preferable place to socialize instead of doing such in the real world; and in this kind of world where you communicate to someone quite anonymous with only a pseudonym and/or picture as identity, it is easier to make enemies and more difficult to make friends.

Zooming in, online gaming comprises more slice of the pie in the virtual world. People would love to have a few games at hand, wanting to excel on it compared to millions of people who want to do just the same. And in the virtual gaming world, can we still think of proper attitude, culture, and gaming ethics? First things first, are there such thing?

There may not be any but common sense would tell us that there is. Where are all the manners that our parents teach us while we were kids? In online gaming, they are forgotten.

China aired out on the goal of most online games: killing monsters and even human characters. They see this as something that would influence the physical activities and mental thinking of minors. True enough, most online games (especially RPG) are violent and full of gore. But there is more to violence than what people see on the game. Outside that is something more dangerous.

In an article found through the net entitled Online Gaming’s Dirty Little Secret, it stated:

Fast-forward to the current generation of games, and hearing racial epithets like the "n word" or homophobic slang like the "f word" shouted online is more commonplace than you might want to believe. Meanwhile, women who play in the male-dominated world of online gaming sometimes find themselves the victims of sexually suggestive comments and gender-based taunting.

We rant about these but, who should take action? There are not much regulations with regards to online violence. Some countries have, some countries don’t. Measures should be taken but if it’s online, it is quite inevitable.

Game developers should take the first step with regards to this matter since they’re the ones who are feeding the people with violence. With their games, it is like telling the people that violence is fun. It may not be their main goal in making such games but, have they thought about it when they made such games? Maybe no. Or maybe yes – but maybe they just disregarded ethics over marketability.