I reported them for harassment with the following statement:
The purpose of this group is to review bomb any game that has gay representation. Their discussion threads talk about using other platforms to discriminate against LGBTQ+ communities and individuals to circumvent Steam’s TOS policies. This type of behavior promotes discrimination, review brigading, and toxicity. It is surprising Steam is tolerating such open homophobia on this platform.
It is invisible under recommended, for me. I had to switch to “most popular” to even display it after an explicit search.
I mean… as much as it’s dumb, everyone has a right to make a list and review games how they wish, right? Some gamers don’t like loot boxes, others don’t like [checks notes] DEI or PoC in games. Better those people don’t buy a game and end up toxic elements in the gamespace, right?
Making crystal clear to people like this like they are not even remotely welcome in your community after they let it slide that they have hateful vile opinions is the only solution. Everything else offloads the pain and suffering onto the victims in favor of not doing shit to actually kick those toxic people out of any respectable place that they can make their tiny pathetic voices of anti-trans, racist and sexist tirades of insecurity rise above a cacophony of shame and insults thrown back at them.
Throw eggs, shame these people, and though we can’t make them go away, after all we define ourselves on our desire not to wish harm or erase groups of people, there is no conflict here, these people have always been here and will always be here, the question is how afraid they are to let their disgusting hate hang out in daylight at any particular time. Bigots are cowards and they will fall in line as they always do when they realize the crosshairs are beginning to turn back around onto them, our job is clear.
Basically the correct play here is to force bigots to be closeted bigots, make them deal with what LGBTQ+ people have endured, see how their fragile snowflake personalities shatter on the tiniest bit of friction and pushback from someone who isn’t afraid of them.
Aka, let’s just have a nice time without them ok :)
I agree with the sentiment but I don’t think you are being completely honest with yourself. Churches are the worst offenders in this whole deal, yet for some reason pastors, priests and their congregations go about merrily with their lives. Going for some idiots while these engines of hate keep working is wasting your efforts. Churches should be permanently vandalized and people should be protesting outside, shaming anyone who goes in there. Why are they getting away with it?
Established culture, critical mass, and platform ownership.
Steam is an online platform owned by Valve. They have ToS and a Code of Conduct. Those are published, announced baselines you can compare and report against.
Churches are not all the same, and are generally not on a platform with authority you report them to.
You’re asking for public shaming. Which can and does [sometimes] happen as bad press, protests, and prosecutions. But generally, it’s more difficult and higher risk in the real-life public, and less likely to succeed given their established nature.
Lootboxes influence how the game plays. Inclusive characters is [an issue of] perception, not gameplay.
Opposing inclusion [of other kinds of people] is different from opposing mechanics.