Overwatch Stereotypes Essay

I have been passionate about video games for a long time, but I just recently introduced myself to a new genre of video games through a game called Overwatch. Overwatch, which is a team-based first-person shooter game, is the first game I have ever played that used live voice chat for team coordination and communication among the players on a team. As I became more familiar with the game, I started to notice an interesting phenomenon. I realized that players would make initial judgments about their teammates based on their voices. Most of the time this had little to no effect on the actual gameplay. However, sometimes I would hear a higher pitched voice start to talk over voice chat. At this point, the other players usually started jumping

It follows a pattern that may even reinforce it. Whenever a younger gamer is talked down to over voice chat, they are strongly discouraged from joining voice chat again. On the other hand, if a younger gamer is intentionally trying to bother people, the rest of his team’s anger only reinforces his behavior. This creates a kind of “circle of death” scenario. Because the young gamers that do not fit the stereotype getting scared away from voice chat, and the ones who do are encouraged to join voice chat more often, the stereotype has a way of reinforcing itself. Secondly, the stereotype will probably stick around longer than it should because it actually has some basis in reality. It is true that younger gamers are in an earlier stage of development than older gamers. Younger gamers have not had as much time to learn what is and is not socially appropriate. This does mean that a younger gamer is likely to be less experienced and less skilled than an older gamer. However, it is still entirely possible for those positions to be flipped. In fact, in Overwatch and many games like it players are put in a team based on their similar skill levels, so anyone who assumes that a younger gamer is less skilled than an older gamer is frankly incorrect. However, those details give most gamers a reason, even if it is not a valid one, to maintain their opinions on younger