I often say I’m a video game culture writer, but lately I don’t know exactly what that means. Our culture right now is kind of embarrassing. Too much of it is about the collection of physical objects, jokes that outsiders won't understand, and heated forum debate.

There are little kids shouting sexual slurs over Call of Duty, teenagers pissing over other people's hard work in Minecraft, and grown adults whining on Twitter about fact that someone would dare make a game for someone other than them. With the internet comes a group of people who have to re-learn how to behave.

Our culture is a melting pot of so many different, wonderful people from all walks of life. Thanks to the internet, gamers are more diverse than ever. I only fear that the most toxic voices have become the loudest. Many of them barely even play video games.

Lately, I often find myself wondering why I'm just sitting here instead of doing something about it. And I know I’m not alone. We can all be better than this. We keep broadcasting these trainwrecks to the world, giving these lunatics a microphone for them to spew their hate. We are doing this, and it has to stop.

Most people, from indies to industry leaders, are mortified, furious, and disheartened at the way we've directed the conversation has taken over the past few years. We have given press to the harassers and blamed the problems of an entire industry on a few bad apples.

Ignoring responsibility is clearly no help. Game websites with huge readerships have sort of shrugged their shoulders. They say things like ‘it's what gets clicks’ and ‘we have the freedom of the press.’ This is what represents our community. That’s what we are known for, whether we like it or not.

That’s not super surprising, actually. While video games themselves were popularized by warm, welcoming people, we never talk about them. We only give attention to the loudmouthed blowhards and whiny crybabies. Suddenly a generation of schoolyard bullies had bloggers broadcasting their every threat to the world.

By the turn of the millennium that was the narrative that every gaming publication put forth. "Women are oppressed. Women are victims. Fight the patriarchy!" There have been entire panels at conventions about this bullshit.

It makes a strange sort of sense that video games have become scapegoats for moral panic, for atrocities committed by the youth of hypercapitalist America -- not that the games themselves had anything to do with tragedies. Yet in 2014, the industry has changed. We still think that only one demographic for commercial video games matters. Yet the market has only broadened since its inception, with new genres popping up every year.

It’s clear that most of the people who drove the market in the past have matured -- both in the broadening and refinement of their tastes. With how diverse the gaming landscape has become, the notion what makes someone a "hardcore" gamer is increasingly more difficult to pin down.

This is hard for people who’ve drank the kool aid about how their identity depends on battling the patriarchal boogeyman. It’s hard for them to hear that there isn't some grand conspiracy to keep women off the internet, just a bunch of idiots who have nothing better to do than write nasty tweets all day.

We also have to scrutinize the way many contest creators bow to the demands of those who aren't even their customers. This is hard for new developers who want to try and reach as many buyers as possible. But in the words of Bill Cosby: "I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." When you water down your game to try and reach every type of person, no one will be happy with the result.

But it’s understandable. A new generation of fans who grew up with games are finally experienced enough to make games of their own. And some of the games that they've made are working as gateway titles to bring new people to the medium. The desire for every game to be the next Minecraft is understandable.

This means that over just the last few years, writing on games focuses on personal friends and starving artists who 'need our help,' not giant media conglomerates who pay us money for positive coverage. It’s not about spotlighting good games anymore. It’s not about telling people what to avoid. It’s about deciding what gets popular and what doesn't based on our own personal agenda.

These straw man ‘oppressed women’ conversations people have been having are largely the domain of a prior age, when women weren't even considered real people and everyone turned a blind eye to domestic violence, because it was nobody's business. Now part of a writer’s job in a politically charged publication is to indoctrinate readers, make them 'true believers' of the shit we're saying.

Developers and writers alike want games about more things, and games made by different kinds of people. The current landscape of games is diverse, but it could be so much moreso. What about people who haven't been lucky enough to have constant internet access? The people who still play PS2 games, simply because the games on it are cheaper than those of the current generation; what would their games be like? We could be doing so much more to help those less fortunate than ourselves have a fair and equal chance.

The “Gamer” stereotype is just a dated concept that no one who actually participates in the community believes in. The idea that the sort of person who can spend over 100+ hours in a single title are only whites, only heterosexuals, are only males is complete bullshit. What makes someone a gamer isn't what sort of category they fall into, but their love for the medium and their fellow gamers.

We've all made mistakes in the past, but that doesn't matter now. The future of gaming is bright and wonderous, and I hope that you'll join us in making our culture a better place for every gamer.