(Partial rant) Why are gaming communities for multiplayer games so often filled with toxicity? Why aren't game developers doing more to stop this?

There are plenty of multiplayer games I adore. However, it seems like every community has these “brain dead”, patronizing, or out right toxic elements that are just nasty. I’d rather debate politics than make suggestions in some gaming communities because the responses are just so … annoying.

As an example, I once dared to suggest that a game developer implement a mode to prevent crouched status from rendering on death cams so that players that are bothered by t-bagging could avoid it (after a match where a friend rage quit because someone just kept head shotting him – possibly with cheats – and then t-bagging). This post got tons of hate, and like -50 upvotes on reddit because of course someone should be forced to watch someone t-bag them.

Another example on a official game forum… I made a forum post suggesting Bungie use Mastodon (or really just something else being my intent)… The response I got was some positivity but mostly just “lol nobody uses that sweetie” and other patronizing comments.

Meanwhile studios themselves often seem to be filled with developers that understand this stuff is a problem, and the lack of sportsmanship (or generally civilized attitudes) does push away players. It just doesn’t make sense to me that no studio is saying “get lost” to these elements or implementing anti-toxicity features. I just want to play games with nice normal people, is that really so much to ask?

spicyemu,

Why are gaming communities for multiplayer games so often filled with toxicity? Why aren’t game developers doing more to stop this?

Have you read Lord of the Flies?

josh_dix,

Dota 2 has an ability score and a bunch of report mechanics. I think they’ve finally got it tuned really well. I haven’t experienced toxicity in a while tbh. It definitely still exists and it’s got to be a very hard system to balance. They’ve iterated on it a lot!

Zikeji,
@Zikeji@programming.dev avatar

A while back I decided to stop playing competitive/pvp focused games due to the stress it would cause me. One of the biggest things I’ve noticed is just how much less toxicity there is.

FunnyUsername,
@FunnyUsername@lemmy.world avatar

Online games for the most part, are inherently competitive. When you combine competitiveness with anonymity it’s pretty easy for it to go toxic. I don’t think you can remove the toxicity from competitive online games anymore than you can remove bar fights out of sports bars. In my experience games that aren’t competitive but are still online do not have this problem. Save for the occasional troll who gets off on being a stinker.

TheLurker,

deleted_by_moderator

    •
    steal_your_face,
    @steal_your_face@lemmy.ml avatar

    if you get angry at people in a video game I think it’s time to step away from the game. While I think action should be taken against hate speech and racism a little trash talk in competitive games is par for the course. Personally I think tea-bagging is hilarious even when done against me. I also usually mute anyone not in my group so I don’t hear annoying people screaming which can be done in any modern game.

    GentlemanLoser,

    What you’re describing is usually called “looking the other way” and bullies thank you for the support

    Dark_Arc,
    @Dark_Arc@lemmy.world avatar

    “If someone pushes your buttons repeatedly to try and tick you off, and it does or you just generally don’t like it, you’re the problem … it’s just a video game”

    I don’t buy this argument… and characteristically that’s the exact argument you’re making. If it didn’t work other people wouldn’t be in here defending it as a “mind game.”

    This has been sorted out in other competitive spaces, there’s no reason gaming has to be this way.

    steal_your_face,
    @steal_your_face@lemmy.ml avatar

    You can mute everyone from every game made in the last 20 years. If tea-bagging pushes your buttons so much the only solution you find is to ask the dev to remove crouching; then yes, you need to look within and work on your anger problems. Should probably step away from the game as well.

    Dark_Arc,
    @Dark_Arc@lemmy.world avatar

    You can mute everyone from every game made in the last 20 years.

    I literally just listed one where you couldn’t that was released within the last 10.

    If tea-bagging pushes your buttons so much the only solution you find is to ask the dev to remove crouching

    Didn’t ask for that.

    ICastFist,
    @ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

    like every community has these “brain dead”, patronizing, or out right toxic elements that are just nasty

    Which is extremely unfortunate. WoW forum threads could be a cesspool in a matter of seconds.

    Anyway, as others pointed out, the main problem is competition. The more competitive a game is, the more invested some people get. The more invested you get, the more likely you are to rage at losses and behave like a monkey against a losing opponent. Hell, you don’t even need to be a player to feel invested, just look at people that worship their sports team.

    For online games, companies just shrug and point to their automations for trying to control toxicity (Riot Games probably being the “best” in the area), because it’s much easier to automate than to come up with a solution.

    My main recommendation is to avoid super competitive games. If you want to play those, then you’re probably better off trying to find small groups of colleagues for that. In ye olde days of games coming with the server-side executable, these groups were called clans. Quake, Unreal and Jedi Outcast had lots of them.

    RealFknNito,
    @RealFknNito@lemmy.world avatar

    Please… Please just let it be toxic. I get that it can get pretty bad but I’m exhausted of having to police my language to the utmost degree because a dev thinks “night” is a racial slur because of the first three letters. The systems suck, it makes normal communication a chore, and the few wholesome moments often get ruined by it. Censorship in games and online to avoid toxicity is becoming a stranglehold and I can’t take it.

    highduc,

    I get what you’re saying. When I was a kid playing some Red Alert or C&C game with a friend we’d be censored when saying “cum?” - which means “how?” in our language. I thought that was stupid as shit. I still do now for the most part. It’s hard to have a conversation when everyday words are censored (and I was too young to know the meaning in english).
    A more relatable example: If a group of friends of a particular minority want to play with each other and call each other names (that would be offensive otherwise) that may be in good fun and censoring that would be stupid and ruin the fun.

    BUT

    If somebody is being harassed and targeted for being black or asian or a girl or whatever, that’s way different. I think we’ve all seen it happen quite often and it sucks and it often goes on for quite a lot - some of these games can last for up to 90 minutes AND they punish you if you leave early! So having to endure all that abuse certainly sucks and that sort of behavior should be punishable so that people don’t become punching bags for others to vent their frustration. In a lot of cases these folks are kids or young adults.

    I think companies could deal with that but they choose not to out of convenience (having to implement some sort of moderation could get expensive and to do it properly you need to get some human eyes involved to decide on the matter), and fear that they might lose a paying customer (in case they ban an abusive player for example).

    graphicsguy,

    You’re right that it’s messy and imperfect and false positives can be really frustrating.

    But the alternative - no efforts to maintain a safe space - is that vulnerable people are typically the target. Toxicity typically punches down.

    I’ll happily trade some clunky inconvenience so that those people can safely participate

    spicyemu,

    But the alternative - no efforts to maintain a safe space - is that vulnerable people are typically the target.

    On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.

    RealFknNito,
    @RealFknNito@lemmy.world avatar

    It doesn’t need to be all or nothing. We can do it in moderation. Remove slurs, don’t over reach by going after every curse word, every bad phrase, every impolite slight. We don’t need an internet with training wheels or water wings. Most of us are adults and I’d like to feel like one when I log on.

    graphicsguy,

    Ya fair enough. I’d put my “razor” at behaviour that targets vulnerable / minorities, which is probably broader / vaguer than just slurs, but it’s going to be a spectrum of opinions and preferences

    RealFknNito,
    @RealFknNito@lemmy.world avatar

    We agree there then, protected groups is where it should start and stop. Slurs I think would cover the majority of that kind of behavior but the problem is the more you try to crack down on bad actors the more false positives you get. There’s a term for it but it’s escaping me.

    Dark_Arc,
    @Dark_Arc@lemmy.world avatar

    Most of us are adults and I’d like to feel like one when I log on.

    I’d like to feel like it too. Adults shouldn’t act like children.

    Dark_Arc,
    @Dark_Arc@lemmy.world avatar

    You’re welcome to be toxic with others who want that, but I hate that this behavior, defines the competitive gaming experience. There should be other options.

    I’m not talking about “safe spaces”, I’m talking about giving people options to say “fuck that” without having to just avoid the game (something that’s totally possible).

    You don’t need banned for doing stuff like this, but you also don’t need to be shoving it down people’s throats that just want to play the game on skill and strategy alone without this cringe “mind game” idea and blatant disrespect for other players.

    RealFknNito,
    @RealFknNito@lemmy.world avatar

    Sure but the only way games can actually solve it isn’t by policing chat but by giving you control over what chat you see. Mute options and features like in League of Legends, a full chat ‘off’ button. Additionally Incentives for sportsmanlike behavior which grant relevant rewards seem to serve as good positive reinforcement.

    A lot of people just get emotionally invested in games. It’s not always a mind game or strategy, it’s often times just someone who is more invested in the outcome than maybe you are. Hell, sometimes it feels good to make your opponent rage.

    I just don’t want to leave it up to game deva because they almost always over correct:

    Dark_Arc, (edited )
    @Dark_Arc@lemmy.world avatar

    Those “turn X off” buttons are fine; they’re great actually, that’s exactly what I’m advocating for (at least in the in game portion of things). There should be more of that, and they should be standard options.

    e.g. it took Quake Champions years before they finally decided to add a mute chat button … and when I suggested it almost a year before they implemented it, the discord chat lit into me “get tougher skin”, “lolololol”, etc kind of comments.

    Every time it’s brought up people take it personally like it’s their right to be a dick in the game you both paid for… just because developers didn’t implement an option to allow people to shut them up. Even here there are some pretty obnoxious takes (I’m not talking about yours) insisting I just need to get over it because “it’s just a game.”

    I’m not saying anybody should be prevented from having a competitive rage baiting game where they trash talk left and right … but some people do not enjoy trash talk regardless of whether or not they can “handle it” and I am one of those people.

    Edit: For forums, I think non-constructive criticism/disrespectful comments/personal attacks should be “punished” by disabling forum/comment access though. There’s no benefit to “mind games” or “trash talk” there… if you don’t have anything constructive to say… I don’t think you should be on, e.g., a suggestion forum. It’s not helping the poster or the developers, it’s just outright spam.

    Heavybell,
    @Heavybell@lemmy.world avatar

    Some people are just out there playing the “induce rage” metagame. They enjoy upsetting others more than the game itself.

    TheDarkKnight,

    Deep Rock has an amazing community mainly because the devs take it into consideration with the entire design of the game. It is possible.

    mea_rah,

    Journey had one of the best multiplayer experiences. The way they made it was absolutely amazing.

    Stuka, (edited )

    You’re playing competitive games with primarily teenagers and young adults. They are always gonna be toxic and very few companies are willing to dedicate a ton of resources towards content moderation. There are big games that do, like Overwatch, so if it’s a problem for you then you should either only play those games, or play games that don’t attract the young toxic crowds as much.

    And honestly asking for a feature to hide your delicate eyes from teabagging in an FPS is a bit much.

    Rayspekt,

    A big point could be that those toxic cunts are the players that are the most engaged with the game and maybe spend the most money. Nobody needs to pay for skins more than one time in League, except for people with smurfs for example.

    Rayspekt,

    Man, if I could play League of Legends with decent human beings consistently, I would be so happy.

    FireTower,
    @FireTower@lemmy.world avatar

    Serious competitive multiplayer games have this problem IMO because they foster a us v them competitive mindset and take no steps to dissuade players taking it to seriously. Players act like crabs in a proverbial MMR bucket.

    Mikina,

    That why I usually try to avoid matchmaking as much as possible, and stick to a smaller communities within the game.

    For example, when I was spending some time few years ago in the WoW roleplay community, which was one of the most fun I ever had with that game, I’ve found out that if I do pugs with people from within it, be it just picking up people on the main realm’s Discord or from one of the RP guilds I’ve met, I’ve never had issues with toxicity. Even if I eventually stopped RPing, I still have a friendlist full of people I know I can pug with without problems, or I can just hop onto the Discord again and pick up a pug there. Also - I’ve never had as much fun progressing through raids as when it was with a group full of hardcore RPers from our RP guild, who we’ve managed to convince to give raiding a try, even though they mostly just use WoW as a platform for playing DnD. Most of them weren’t really good, it was slow and painful progress, but we still had a lot of fun.

    And I have the same experience with Sea of Thieves, where I found a smaller local Discord server that used to host game nights, and it was also a nice experience. Sure, I had to make the effort to get to know the people, instead of relying on anonymous matchmaking - but that’s what multiplayer should be about. And still, in general, even if I play with random people I don’t know from within the smaller community, it’s generally a lot better experience - because assholes and toxic people generally don’t last long there.

    And if I do play a MP game with random people, I just mute people at the first sign of toxicity, and just add them to my ignore list.

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