The Toxicity of Online Play

Hello peeps!

I was recently playing Splatoon 2 online and I was getting a bit annoyed. Don't get me wrong, I love this game! It is a world of inklings and octolings duking it out by splatting ink all over the battlefield. As an inkling, you can quickly maneuver through your team's color in squid form to flank and slow down your enemy. This game added a whole other dimension to first and third person shooters. Killing your enemies is not the game's primary focus.

I connected with different people from around the world with my smartphone via Nintendo's online app. Through this app while playing the game on your Switch, you can talk with your friends and play matches with each other (this set up is dumb). As I was playing, two of the people in my group started arguing with each other about who's fault it was as to why we lost our match. It was simultaneously amusing and disruptive. It was funny but it made jumping into battles very slow. We could not immediately start matches until someone won the argument.

One said "I told you to pay attention! Come at me bro!" and the other responded, "Yo dude, chill out. I did what I had to do." Me being the unofficial mediator told them "Let's take deep breaths, hold hands and sing kumbaya." Soon after, the lobby would end (ugh).

Another thing that gripes me is people constantly disconnecting from the battle, either because they had a bad connection or the more likely reason, they raged quit. I had three consecutive matches where I was on a team of two against a team of four.

For the love of Zeuz, why can't people just calm the heck down and have a good time. We must remember that the gaming community is about bringing people together and having a great time. If we cannot do that, then what is the point?

-Dumb Goomba