Bluetracker
Tracks Blizzard employees across various accounts.
The toxicity makes a lot more sense once you realize some of your teammates are literal children
Was in a game last night and this guy kept calling us "kid" so I finally just said, "lol I'm 35, but thanks" - this ACTUAL kid then proceeded to flip out. He couldn't process the fact that a 35 year old was playing a game for fun. He asked why I wasn't busy adulting and couldn't seem to understand that adults can make times for games and healthy relationships - it blew his mind when I mentioned that my husband and I play HOTS together, in response to his weird attempted insult about having no relationships. Me being a woman also blew his mind, it seems, judging on his rude comments. This went on all game, with this child just incapable of understanding that adults can play video games. He was literally convinced that adults must be adulting all the time and kept asking how I had time to play and making wild leaps and assumptions to explain how. Also, because I am a 35 year old woman, apparently I'm magically and automatically a mother! My husband will be interested to hear this. I guess our imaginary children do eat into gaming time :(
Our Brightwing ended up being a daycare teacher and happily joined in with remarks like "the kids never seem to realize that the teachers have lives outside of the classroom" which cracked me up!
So, yeah, next time people are rude, just realize that half your team is probably quite literally 12 or 13 years old, and it becomes comical instead of infuriating.
KinaBREW
Might also blow some people's minds that people working in the game industry could be in their 20s to their 70s. Though there's a pretty large chunk occupying the 20s-30s range. Lots of us are in our late 30s, early 40s.
Some of us older devs play video games more than younger players do. We want to gather inspiration from other games and experience the same things that our players do on our own so that we can make the experience better.
There are lots of people of all ages and skill levels playing video games with you. Be kind to each other.
KinaBREW
When I was growing up I would go over to my mom's friend's house. She had a Nintendo. Normally I saw her playing metroid or Legend of zelda. When I asked if I could play she said no and made it clear that it was her system and her down time and she wanted to play her Nintendo. So I watched. She was good at those games too. She's got to be pushing 70 at this point. People of all ages love games.