Ubisoft put out a video featuring former rapper Ice-T – yes, the same rapper who made a song called “Cop Killer” – talking about proper Game Etiquette and how to reduce toxicity in the gaming community.
Ubisoft’s post was made on June 14th, 2019 featuring nearly three minutes of tips provided by the former rapper and co-star of Law & Order: SVU.
The man himself @FINALLEVEL dropped by our #UbiE3 conference to break down how to handle yourself when you run up against a toxic gamer! pic.twitter.com/n9wwqZ5tzZ
— #UbiE3 (@Ubisoft) June 14, 2019
If the video in the tweet doesn’t work or it plays slow, Ubisoft also has a separate video available for viewing over on YouTube, which you can check out below.
It starts off fairly benign.
He gives viewers some ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘C’ style questions about how to deal with hostile situations during intense moments of hardcore gaming. He notes that ‘A’ and ‘C’ are the correct answer for dealing with someone smack talking you, which is to say that you either keep practicing or do nothing. He says that camping in the next round to only kill the person smacking talking you is a “noob” move and that your teammates won’t appreciate it.
WRONG.
I player-camp all the time when someone annoys me. It’s a great way to teach them a lesson, even if it costs your team a victory. In multiplayer PvP bouts, revenge is a dish best served hot and right off the buffet of punishment. But I digress.
The next scenario is about dealing with trolls. He tells people to either ignore them by hitting the mute button or tell them to chill out.
It’s the last one that seems to send a real mixed message.
In the final segment the situation is framed that someone “doesn’t sound like you” and after going through the first two responses, which is to basically “encourage inclusion”, he goes off on a rant with option ‘C’, which is titled “Uh oh”. He starts badmouthing “sexist”, “racist”, “homophobic” people. Essentially he uses the kind of ignited language one might expect from the very people he’s condemning, claiming that those people are out there to “ruin it for the rest of us”.
He then finishes up by saying that he “knew you’d pick C.”
So here’s where the logic starts to break down: is he saying that it’s okay to drop all kinds of profanity against people deemed “sexist”, “racist”, or “homophobic”? And what classifies an association with these terms? Anyone who disagrees with a feminist is labeled as a “sexist” these days, while anyone who calls out people like Shaun “Talcom X” King or Rachel “Raisinet” Dolezal instantly get labeled as “racist”.
Are they also trying to say that it’s okay to act “toxic” so long as you’re doing it against “toxic” people?
I could be wrong but it almost feels like Ubisoft was snickering while still trying to play both sides of the Culture War with this video.
They’re still parroting the whole “evil gamer trolls are racist, sexist, and homophobic and need to be dealt with!” while also throwing in an anti-establishment figure who was known for some of the most vitriolic and controversial rap content in music history.
There are more dichotomies here than an Outdoor Sportsman executive who’s a PETA-loving vegan that identifies as a furry.
Anyway, I’m sure this is just more of Ubisoft trying to play both sides while keeping their name in the press like a duplicitous merchant of (the culture) war. All of their attempts so far have seemed to work.