Why is gatekeeping still a problem in 2023?

“It’s a massively multiplayer game, so if you don’t like grouping up you’re doing it wrong” — if there’s a phrase I personally see used to make people playing World of Warcraft feel bad more often than this one, I can’t think of it. And it immediately makes me stop talking to the person who says it, especially if they say it to me.

First off, I’m the one playing for my game sub. If I decide that means I’ll level to max each expansion and then retire that character and level another to max without doing any group content? Then that’s what I’m going to do, and if you have a problem with that, it’s none of my concern. If I’m enjoying myself and not going around inflicting bad vibes on other players, then where is the harm done, exactly? One of the reasons I’m enjoying Diablo 4 so much is because I never feel like I have to join a group, not even when a world boss shows up.

Secondly, I do, in fact, often do group activity in the various MMOs I play/have played, but let’s get real here. I’m an aging gamer and I’m a disabled gamer and a lot of younger players are not very welcoming to that combination.

I have, on several occasions now, missed seeing a detail and been called out for it with a variation of, “What, are you blind or something?” — and since the answer is yes, it gets old extremely fast. I enjoy playing with people I know are cool. I even enjoy tanking for them, and I know full well even with the impaired vision I’m one of the better tanks I know. I have a lot of experience. But I also know I’m slower and blinder than I was back in vanilla. Sometimes, solo play lets me relax and just enjoy the game.

I see it in terms of what comics people are allowed to like, what TTRPGs people feel welcome to play vs which ones have players determined to keep them out, and I see it in video games like WoW where there are always some players who spend more time trying to tell other people how they should be playing instead of playing themselves. Why is this still a thing? Why was it ever a thing?