Why are videogame communities so consistently toxic?

wrath
29

That is exactly what I was questioning. The issue with data is always that it can be interpreted differently based on perspective and criteria. Additionally it can be easily corrupted when it is “polling data” as people then can answer the questions with a different idea of what is being asked.

At work we had a gallup survey every year a long while back. And one question was “Do you have a best friend at work?” and the numbers were abysmal. Essentially most people said on the answer scale 0-5: 0. Because most people thought of it as “My best friend does not work here.” But that wasn’t what they were asking…they wanted to know do you have a work “best friend” someone you can confide in and seek help from.

Asking me have I been annoyed or come across “tools” in Hearthstone is different than asking me if I have been harassed. Because I personally wouldn’t consider the emote function as harassment…mainly because it is negated so easily.

Now Warcraft would be a different matter. Because even if I mute, block, unfriend a player…said player can still grief me in game by camping me on a PvP server, or stealing farm mats from me or kills, etc.

It would be interesting to get more in depth as to what they asked, how the phrased it, were there followup questions or explainers/examples given…etc.

I will defend Hockey only in that fighting is WAYYY down in the NHL as they have begun to phase it out of the game and removed it entirely within the NHL playoffs. In professional sports there is “gamesmanship” going on, rightfully or wrongfully, and it absolutely is/can be considered harassment. But I draw a line between athletic sports and gaming “esports” in this way…I am a fan of the Patriots, but I do not play professional football. So I am by definition disconnected from what happens on the field for players and what I enjoy as a fan.

In gaming…we are both spectators AND participants. Which brings a very different level to things. I can watch the Overwatch League sure…but I also play the game itself so I am much closer to the ground as it were to what happens within the game’s environment.

I guess my point here (sorry for perhaps rambling) is that gamers should be far more acutely aware of their words and actions within the game and should be far more sensitive and responsible in how they conduct themselves. I am not happy when Player X on an NFL team is guilty of domestic assault, but it isn’t going to change me watching the sport nor rooting for the team as a whole. I have no real effect on what goes on in that player’s life and for the team. But as a gamer, I do control how I interact with my fellow gamers and what I contribute to the community as a whole. We all do when playing.

Short of it…gamers should be held to a higher standard. Maybe that’s just, like, my opinion though. :smiley:

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30

We mostly don’t play professional sports, but people do play sports. If you live in a city there is a pretty good chance there is somewhere you could go play pickup games of basketball tonight or at least a few nights a week. And if you do that for a year I’d put the odds of getting insulted by a jerk at pretty near 100%. If someone uses “gamesmanship” to “get into theirs opponent’s head”, they are very likely doing something that would be considered harassment off the court.

I think a lot of the toxic behaviour in videogames was imported from sports, and that trash talking in sports gives cover for jerks playing games to present their behaviour is normal or acceptable.

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31

“Locker room talk.”

Go ask a gay guy how it felt to sit in a locker room, or a woman reporter, and then tell me there’s no harassment (not @anon50609448 directly, but anyone who thinks the problem is video games alone and not toxic masculinity).

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32

I’ll point out that trash talk is effective at throwing opponents off their game and this extends even to video games.

My purpose isn’t to excuse the behavior, but people are going to keep using it if it’s an effective way to gain an edge.

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33

If people can’t “trash talk” without rape and death threats, they need to go fuck themselves with a rusty knife.

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34

I don’t disagree. Also, ouch.

Unfortunately, no games I know of have refs that will throw down a red card when trash talk crosses the line. Add in a complete lack of consensus agreement on where the line is and text chat which makes it ridiculously hard to convey tone compared to meatspace and you end up with the out-of-control situation we have now.

I don’t even want to talk about gaming communities where the toxic people drive everyone else away, but I suppose that’s the same for all communities that lack strong moderation.

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35

You’ve just reminded me of a folk festival I went to with a friend when our oldest kids were babies. We’re both lifetime folk music fans, so when we saw there was a festival within driving distance on a weekend we could both do, it seemed perfect. We got there, and it became very clear very quickly that the promotion of music at this event was promotion of WHITE folk music and tradition alone. How great that American culture included only white folk music, from white Northern European traditions, etc. etc. There were no black families present. Or Latinx. Or Asian. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. I think I’ve only been to one folk festival since that one, because driving distance in the Midwest doesn’t get me far enough away from this version of what should be a much more inclusive and diverse musical community.

So yeah, music can definitely be the basis for a toxic community.

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36

I think that’s a good point, but the harassment isn’t just team to team. People who are ostensibly on the same team will harass people who they feel aren’t playing well, or they will harass women for being the only woman in a group.

It’s just a general shitiness that has all of the trappings of the worst elements of toxic masculinity, only more petty and cruel. It rememinds me of some of the biggest jerks from school. This is unsurprising given that the gamers with the most time on their hands are probably in that age group, though I’ve no doubt there are adults who are harassing as well.

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37

Gaming communities need to start excluding people who think that racism or death and rape threats are okay. If someone that people are playing with starts in with that shit, they need to just stop playing with them, or at the very least tell them it’s not acceptable and they don’t want to hear it.

And rape and death threats, along with blatantly racist language are not hard to discern at all.

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38

And rape and death threats, along with blatantly racist language are not hard to discern at all.

Sure. More a question of manpower than difficulty.

In-game, you could ban someone after the fact, but people unfortunately work around it. The most effective thing, I think, would be to penalize someone in the game immediately, so that it takes away the incentive to cross the line with trash talk. That way everyone sees it to have the line drilled into them and the harmed party has a good chance of beating them as justice.

Course that only applies in game, but I’d hope it would carry over a little to the communities as well. Otherwise, it just takes moderators who can react quickly - something most communities simply lack given the 24/7 nature of forums, chat systems and comment sections.

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39

Other players can and should call it out, too. And it should not be on women or players of color to do the heavy lifting here, either.

And I feel like calling it “trash talk” is really just… understating the problem here. We’re talking about full on harassment, not some light hearted banter.

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40

I mostly play coop games (Destiny) these days, but when a younger dude is in the party saying stuff like, “aw that dude got totally raped” or similar I try to call it out. Like, “hey man, the kind of talk is not cool. You will think it is funny until it happens to someone you know”.

I don’t think anyone has ever taken heed. Probably because it isn’t real to them. Not yet.

The saddest part being it certainly has already happened to someone they know.

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41

really only since the early nineties.

it’s like the idea that women were never programmers or leaders in software development. this is how successful our patriarchy works. it expunges women from the record even within our own lifetimes.

feminist frequency did a good bit on the changing tone of marketing over the years, but darned if i can find it.

basically, the theory is that companies found it easier and cheaper to focus on one demographic - and since boys tended to be the ones with more disposable cash, game marketing came to target boys and specifically excluded girls.

the corollary being that also influenced the kinds (and content) of the games which got aaa funding. ( and look, we have a feedback loop. girls don’t buy games. why think about them? )

( did you know the person who invented “skinned meshes” used to create every video game character was a woman? )

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42

Unfortunately, women aren’t always innocent or non-toxic either, though their bad behavior tends to take different forms.

Speaking of books, I remember how bad parts of the Harry Potter fandom got back in the early 2000s, with the book and the movie fans clashing with each other, rampant entitlement from shippers and other opinionated fans, and every sort of weird and problematic sexualization of the characters and sometimes actors going on. And a lot, probably majority, of these people were women, since the majority of adult HP fans were women.

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43

and that costs money, just like facebook moderation - which is incredibly weighted towards giving white male culture a pass. ( look who owns facebook. )

companies will (generally) only do moderation if they are dragged kicking and screaming to it. ( algorithmic filters are an almost total fail. )

you’re right in my opinion tho. small in-game nudges, penalties rather than bans, would radically improve behavior. ( could even be that whole three way option trick in action maybe. do i want to behave good or this user name might be banned? okay, i’ll risk the ban! yay! oh, do i want an penalty? okay, i’ll behave good. don’t slow my game down. )

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44

I agree, but no-one was really making the AAA distinction I was referring to above before the late 1990s – before then the budgets and performance expectations were roughly level for most games (unless associated with an existing non-home or movie/TV franchise). From the beginning of that category and a bit earlier, though, the industry decided to cater to an adolescent boy’s mentality when developing and selling blockbuster big-budget games.

Sexism was still present in the video game and general tech industry (as I discussed the first time a disingenuous attempt was made by codinghorror to pin the blame for the culture primarily on the medium of games) but they weren’t really making the game category distinctions (and associated marketing decisions) we do now.

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45

Of course there are definitely toxic people out there, but is it not reasonable to suggest that they receive attention disproportionate to their numbers? The Internet generates bad opinions, and reporting on bad opinions is a reliable way of generating column-inches, attracting traffic, and advertising a product – and inspiring further rebuttals, and more bad opinions, and so on, until people are vociferously defending positions that they otherwise would not have thought to be of any significance.

No doubt a whole lot more people have heard of Ooblets now than otherwise – though things might well be long past the point where it would have been worth it.

1 Like
46

But that’s exactly the kind of thing I mean. They might not listen immediately, but if you keep hammering home that it’s not cool, I think it might get through to some of them.

No one said that.

So, people who are being harassed should not do anything about that, because it’s just a small subset? How about we go the opposite way, that people who are not engaging in this kind of behavior actively discourage it in their own circle of players/friends?

Rape and death threats are not “bad opinions”. They are harassment.

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47

It does take money. That said, I would pay a little bit for a moderated game.

I guess i’d also be happy to just play against nice people - maybe just those who have never had behavior flagged or have verified identities.

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48

user flagging is prone to driving trollies. but it’d sure be nice to see the attempt more often.

the ps4 network can’t even get rid of spam sent to my user account. why is that even a thing?

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