Get it? Slings Mud? Because Bartle designed… you know? Sure you do.
We spotted this through Destructoid, and we’d like to call your attention to it as well: Richard Bartle, one of the original fathers of multiplayer online gaming, has penned a column for The Guardian. Taking some time away from his fellowship at the University of Essex, the man for whom the Bartle Test is named has very succinctly told game-hating politicos to suck it.
This is by no means a new sentiment. Tycho has said it, Stephen King has said it, we’ve said it, and chances are you’ve said it at some point: Don’t feed the trolls. Whether fame-hungry or just ignorant, the Jack Thompsons and Stephen Limbaughs of the world will continue to deliver misinformation, and we do ourselves a disservice by paying them any attention. Granted, our outrage burns hottest when we imagine there are people out there who accept their ravings as fact, but Bartle’s approach is a rather smug and forward-looking one — he suggests we let them rant their way into obscurity, for we, the gaming masses of the world, have already won the war. As the gaming community comes of age, it is we who will soon be dictating policy, not the fearmongers of the world. We’re in our 30s now, we’re involved in running the world, and we don’t suffer fools lightly.
Upcoming parents played games themselves, or if they didn’t, their siblings did, or their friends did. They’re no more concerned about “moral decay” or “aggressive tendencies” or any of the other euphemisms for “ohmygod I don’t understand this” than you are about soap operas. They’re the present, not you: you’re the ever-more-distant past.
Gamers vote. Gamers buy newspapers. They won’t vote for you, or buy your newspapers, if you trash their entertainment with your ignorant ravings.
Bartle even closes with a good old MUD reference.
Your views are mortally wounded, and soon they will be dead.
> KILL POLITICO
> LOOT ALL
> EAT CORPSE
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