Just thought I’d share something I thought was pretty interesting. I have a mother in law who is… well let’s just say she’s a stereotypical older mom who doesn’t own a computer, just an iPad. During the pandemic, she started getting into Nintendo games and bought herself a Switch. Fast forward a few years later and she’s interested in getting a Steam Deck, since one of her “mom groups” told her about some pandemic inspired games, similar to Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing that are only available on Steam.

When it comes down to it, she doesn’t care about her computer, she just wants to play computer games in a way that’s easy and accessible for her. We’ll be getting her a Steam Deck for her birthday, which in my opinion is just super neat. Even PC gaming is becoming extremely accessible, and it’s a fantastic time to be a gamer.

        • acastcandream@beehaw.org
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          43
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          NPC’s is worse to be honest. It’s generally used to attack people’s social/political values and call them “sheeple” without using the term. Normie is gross but it’s mainly just dismissive and having too high an opinion of one’s own taste/interests.

          Ultimately it’s cringe as hell to say either lol

          • Die4Ever@programming.dev
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            21
            ·
            1 year ago

            Normie is gross but it’s mainly just dismissive and having too high an opinion of one’s own taste/interests.

            Really? I always thought it was supposed to be self deprecating, like saying “people who aren’t fucking weirdos like myself”

          • NightOwl@lemmy.one
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            8
            ·
            1 year ago

            Maybe there should be a contest to see who can come up with the most cringe worthy label.

          • SkepticElliptic@beehaw.org
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            NPCs is ten times worse because it is used to dehumanize people you don’t agree with, further alienates you away from normal society and pushes you deeper into cult like thinking.

      • Wanderer@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        18
        ·
        1 year ago

        “We can do better” or worse “X do better” is more cringe.

        It’s just everyone judging everyone like they are worthless. Maybe people want to be part of the group maybe they have an identity with hardcore gamers. They don’t need to do better that’s their right.

        • some_guy@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          What hobby group was I referring to exactly?

          Because I don’t think gamers are a hobby group any more than tv watchers are a hobby group.

          Or do you think maybe I meant “we” as a collective for the people in this thread?

          🤔

  • Adramis [he/him]@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    70
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Post: Uses the word normies in a positive sense and literally says it’s great that gaming is more accessible

    Fediverse: Is this a neckbeard?

    It’s amazing that a non-slur single word can get y’all so fucking bent out of shape. It was worth a double take, but not shitting on the entire post. It’s literally a post about a non-traditional gamer / not-power-user / etc person finding a sense of community and fun because of the rise of handhelds. Is shutting down that discussion over one word worth more than seeing the good in recent trends?

    I hope we continue to see more good handhelds get made - I’d personally love a Steam Deck, but seeing Valve get some good competition would be good for the technology (not you, Apple / Meta). Maybe I’m just too old, but I’d love to see slide-out keyboards again…

    • Eddie@lemmy.lucitt.socialOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      20
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’m glad that somebody said it. Lemmy is becoming quite a shit show in this regard. These FOSS enthusiasts and Linux master race people are really starting to deter me from the platform.

      I love FOSS software! I love Linux! I hate people telling other people how to think or what to spend their time with. Most of the people in this thread can fuck right off.

    • sarsaparilyptus@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      1 year ago

      Post: Uses the word normies in a positive sense and literally says it’s great that gaming is more accessible

      Fediverse: Is this a neckbeard?

      The reaction is a bit more like

      “B-B-B-BUT THE CONNOTATIONS!!! Bro you just LITERALLY used a word that has PROBLEMATIC CONNOTATIONS because it’s ALSO USED by PEOPLE I DON’T LIKE, and that makes you GUILTY BY ASSOCIATION!!! I am PROUD of how I combine purity testing and code switching into a DEFINITELY accurate litmus test, because I think I’m a character from Dune!! I don’t know what the FUCK ‘context’ is but it SOUNDS like something the ALT-RIGHT would care about!!!”

      If I ever caught myself taking an obvious self-effacing remark seriously, I would be so ashamed. Anyone coming into this thread with hurt feelings about the word “normies” is a huge dork and needs go outside.

      • Evergreen5970@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        I would really appreciate if we stopped doing the “if you disagree with my opinion you’re an [insult] and also must be out of touch with reality so I will say you need to go outside” thing. It’s really exhausting. This is Beehaw, the be(e) nice server and I’m kind of getting sick of seeing this kind of snark on a server where the expectation is people being nice to each other.

        I was skeptical at “normies” but the overall tone of the post is inclusive, so I’m not the target of your rant because I figured it out. I was able to figure it out because I’m terminally online and have the experience with online posts to know that some people use it as a pejorative and some people use it as a self-deprecating catch-all for people who aren’t too into their hobby.

        I also have autism and some people with the condition aren’t as good as me at putting together the connotations of words AND the overall post to figure out the poster’s intentions. And some people aren’t terminally online and have less exposure to seeing this word used. They’ve likely overwhelmingly seen it used as a pejorative, and end up very skeptical of this post. I don’t like the idea that people like me, or that people who might have reasonably arrived at a different conclusion about this, are being told that they’re huge dorks who need to go outside.

        Really starting to feel like Beehaw is just like any other online space. I see the same amount of snark and negative assumptions of people who didn’t see something the commenter’s/poster’s way. Sure, it’s free of bigotry, but all the spaces I occupied were already bigotry-free. Even back when I was on Reddit, because in the small subreddits I looked at the few bigots were downvoted to hell and had their comments hidden. (I’m aware that not everyone was lucky enough to only be interested in topics that had easily accessible bigotry-free areas so Beehaw still serves a useful purpose for them.)

        • sarsaparilyptus@beehaw.org
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Yeah, I get it. Here’s the thing though, this specific part:

          I also have autism and some people with the condition aren’t as good as me at putting together the connotations of words AND the overall post to figure out the poster’s intentions. And some people aren’t terminally online and have less exposure to seeing this word used. They’ve likely overwhelmingly seen it used as a pejorative, and end up very skeptical of this post.

          Those people all have one thing in common: nobody put a gun to their head and said “what’s going on with this post? Make the call and post your comment NOW”. One thing all we here on the internet do all have in common is the ability to read, and to use our sapience to make decisions about what we read. To say “this seems out of line. Could it be what I think it is, or am I assuming?” By process of elimination, a person either chooses to do that, or chooses to be assumptive. And also:

          I don’t like the idea that people like me, or that people who might have reasonably arrived at a different conclusion about this, are being told that they’re huge dorks who need to go outside.

          There is no reasonable way to get to the wrong conclusion.
          Ever.
          If you’re being reasonable, you either find the right conclusion beyond all reasonable doubt, or you concede that you don’t have enough information and then move on with your life. The only way to get to the wrong conclusion is to jump to conclusions, because being reasonable requires you to start from the point of “there may be no answer I can find”. The people in this thread who got it wrong made assumptions, jumped to conclusions, and defended themselves by being belligerent. That is a fundamental lack of respect for others’ intelligence that goes beyond being rude to people and using mean words.

          • Evergreen5970@beehaw.org
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            To say “this seems out of line. Could it be what I think it is, or am I assuming?” By process of elimination, a person either chooses to do that, or chooses to be assumptive.

            I’m assuming you’re human right now, even though the possibility exists that you are an alien who hasn’t revealed themselves as such and that your alien self prioritizes engaging here instead of talking to the world’s governments. I’m choosing to be assumptive because I don’t care to track you down and try to match your identity to a human person in real life, because I find doing that distasteful even if I never end up exposing your identity to anyone else in the world, and because I am extremely confident that this assumption is correct. But it is still an unproven assumption.

            Should I hold the possibility that on the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog or alien or something in my head because it’s an assumption? Probably not. I should probably assume you are human. People will make assumptions they believe to be reasonable, and people will also call out what they believe to be bad behavior even if they’re wrong.

  • silvercove@lemdro.id
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    58
    ·
    1 year ago

    It’s also changing how normies think of Linux.

    Also it basically doubled the % of linux users at Steam.

      • Reverse Module@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        27
        ·
        1 year ago

        Still, casual gamers did think Linux couldn’t game. It’s changing this opinion in the best way possible and that’s really important since Linux is the best OS. I personally think we still live in medieval PC times as long as Windows is the main OS used.

        • Goronmon@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          16
          ·
          1 year ago

          Still, casual gamers did think Linux couldn’t game.

          The parent comment is right. Most people don’t think about Linux. Ask a ‘casual’ Swtich owner what OS the Switch uses, and their answer is probably going to be pretty close to the answer that a similar Deck user would give.

      • callyral@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        1 year ago

        Normies¹ don’t even really think about Windows or OS in general, most people just think it’s just what a computer is like regardless.

        ¹ : Normie as in person who is not experienced with computers and PC gaming

      • OverfedRaccoon 🦝@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        1 year ago

        I was going to say I slightly disagree, but then I thought about it some more and realized they probably just see it as SteamOS in the same way Android doesn’t make people think about Linux either.

      • Corroded@leminal.space
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        Even so it made it significantly harder for people to make the dated throwaway comment that you’ll lose access to a majority of your games by switching to Linux.

        With that I feel like people will see it’s just as usable as MacOS and Windows in a majority of circumstances.

        • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          I lost all my games when I swapped to Linux.

          But that’s because it was a decade ago, and I was way too lazy to figure out why wine wouldn’t work, tho I don’t really pc game anyway and these were mostly older games, even then. Small loss.

          I know there’s a lot of stuff either native dev or ported/cracked for Linux, just never really spent the time to look into it.

          The only thing that’s going to cause problems for me now is idk how Linux handles vr. I assume not terribly well, since none (almost none?) of it is native dev. I’m looking to move away from consoles now that they are moving away from physical media (no point collecting if there’s nothing to collect), so Linux being more robust is great! But vr maybe my stick point. Depends how well developed it gets I guess.

          • Corroded@leminal.space
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            VR headsets and games with anti-cheat software still have issues. I haven’t been able to get Oculus Rift S to work for example.

            I think some headsets like the ones made by Valve and HTC work better though. I’m not sure if there’s currently the same degree of rapid advancements for VR Linux gaming as there are for gaming in general on Linux. I know OpenHMD exists but I haven’t tried it out myself.

            • shadowbert@kbin.social
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              1 year ago

              My Vive Pro does work - but not as nicely as it did on windows. Driver support for stuff like reprojection doesn’t seem to be there.

            • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              Yeah that’s kinda what I was expecting.

              I don’t really have a vr setup right now (have a psvr, the tracking sucks but I want to like it) but I was thinking maybe an index at some point…

              Tho tbh if I need to keep a windows pc for that to work… I can… I won’t be thrilled for it, but my laptop is touchscreen and running 11… idk how Linux does with touchscreen so I haven’t changed it out yet, probs could upgrade the hardware to game off it.

                • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  1 year ago

                  Not yet, but I looked into it before I bought it and I’ve seen that it can be done as sort of a viewing unit? If I understand correctly that’s all it would be, which is still probably a powerful tool, but I just got the vr like a month ago and then immediately got two surprise kittens so I have not had time to play at all, much less do anything fancy with it.

                  However if you want to tell me all about it, I am more than happy to learn from a person rather than an impersonal article. Really.

      • silvercove@lemdro.id
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        When some Microsoft simp makes unfounded claims about how you can’t game on Linux, we now only need to point at the Steam Deck.

    • firecat@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      No, this is incorrect, OP thought steam deck is ok because the games are exclusively only in steam. OP never try to consider her mother-in-law. Giving someone linux and just assuming they understand is not going to help make them like the game or machine.

  • Squirrel@thelemmy.club
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    37
    ·
    1 year ago

    First off: normies?

    Second, you’re absolutely right. Steam did a great job with the whole Steam Deck Verified thing. It ensures that the game “just works”, which is someone that can’t always be said of PC games. It makes sense, given the near uniform hardware of the Deck, of course, but it’s still important for reaching the console and/or casual gamer markets.

    And let’s face it, the Deck is just convenient as hell. It’s the mobile gaming solution I’ve wanted for decades.

    • Grimpen@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      1 year ago

      …but I totally get what he means. Some people just aren’t excited about fiddling with settings, hardware, software or otherwise. It’s just a pain. Even myself, I’ve noticed I’ve lost most of my appetite for twiddling with drivers and such so I get it. When I play a game, I want to play the game, not set up the game, tweak the game, etc.

      This has always been one of the key advantages of consoles over PC gaming. You can go to Gamestop, buy the game, plug it into your console, and then play. Or at least you used to.

      Consoles have gotten more fiddly over the years, and the Steam Deck meets them halfway. If you are okay with online game stores, managing storage space for your games, you are already good to go with your Steam Deck. If you want to, you can tweak your settings for more battery life or performance, or venture outside the Steam Deck Verified games.

  • slaytswiftfan@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    35
    ·
    1 year ago

    normies is cringe. reminds me of way back when it started to become more socially acceptable to be nerdy and people got mad about it

  • TwilightVulpine@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    22
    ·
    1 year ago

    Putting the connotation aside for a moment, is it even accurate to call people who are interested on niche secondary gaming devices as “normies”? Whatever may be their backgrounds, seems to me like they are dedicated gaming enthusiasts.

  • TwilightVulpine@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    1 year ago

    Putting the connotation aside for a moment, is it even accurate to call people who are interested on niche secondary gaming devices as “normies”? Whatever may be their backgrounds, seems to me like they are dedicated gaming enthusiasts.