Podcast for 01-28-08 | Hating on the Griefers

A open letter to a podcast that used to help me get through a shitty work week -

The show used to be about the joys of being a geek and listening to two nerds talk about whats great in the world of video games, food, movies and tv. Ever since Grant Darigol left, the show has turned into the audio version of xbox vs PS3 forum post. For the past 3 to 4 months every episode was been filled with nothing but negativity be it toward "the man", causal gamers, jock's, mainstream media, etc. Its fine to go off on things every once in a awhile, but when a one hour show is filled with NOTHING but negativity and lost all the fun of being a nerd, I just not enjoyable. It used to be great listening to people that had passion in their voices towards cool new shows, must have games, funny news posts from around the world and epic movies to watch. Now it seems to be turned into this us(elitist nerds) vs non gamers and mainstream media rants.

It does come down to being your show and not mine, your ideas and not mine. I just had to put this out there from a fan of past shows. I would just say listen to past shows or even go back and listen to shows from the radio days..you sounded HAPPY and proud to be geeks and nerds. Now it seems that the show is on the attack and must justify everything mainstream media gets wrong about us. - Billy

Nice podcast this week. I really dug the griefing segment. Qais is awesome.

Chris was about 85% wrong with the whole argument. "Greifers" exist everywhere, not just on the internet or in video games. And, the fact of the matter is, they actually are managed according to what society deems "serious business" - reckless drivers, identity thieves, shoplifters, etc.

I totally agree with Qais in his breakdown of what "serious business" entails - online banking, credit card payments, personal finances should all be taken very seriously. The thing is, precautionary measures have been taken to prevent "griefers" from ruining these experiences - SSL, TLS, and other cryptographic protocols.

Online games, while some people may have time/money invested in them, are intended for entertainment purposes. If "griefers" were breaking the terms of service of whatever game they were playing, then it is the responsibility of the game developers to handle them - much like it is the responsibility of an online bank to hire developers to handle breaches in security, or a state trooper to handle a reckless driver.

There's no law against being a douchebag. And at the end of the day, it's just a video game. If they are breaking the rules of the game, then the game developers need to enforce it. If they have a financial investment in the game, then they should have been fully aware of the risks involved in the investment and planned accordingly - ie, a store owner putting locks on his/her door. And if they consider their WoW account to be their life's work, well, aside from re-evaluating their lives, they at the very least learn an important life lesson that life isn't fair and people are assholes.