Is It Possible To Fix Gaming Toxicity?

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Exile009 wrote:

Pretty nice video I found on the topic, complete with abundant examples of games for each point - https://youtu.be/1BOJLcklWsc (title of the post is the title of the video)

The first half of it (dealing with designing effective communication systems) is relevant more for competitive multiplayer games (shooters, fighters, RTS, MOBAs, etc.), but the second half is more general. Worth a watch, not long either (16 mins). But to summarize the gist of the second half - instead of constantly trying to implement more and more punitive systems in your games (or forums, for that matter), how about trying to encourage and incentivize good behavior? Instead of always calling for ever harsher policing, how about designing systems that celebrate (and perhaps even reward?) positive online interactions as well? For an immediate example - whatever happened to the 'Valued Poster' program on these forums?

And, particularly for competitive games, it's worth noting that some of these 'toxic' behaviors actually confer advantages and so make sense to engage in (even if that advantage is simply psyching your opponent out). As this video expands on - https://youtu.be/PElmAFZFoqQ

Other times you may be rewarded for it not simply because you're some kind of sadist (btw, it helps to not automatically presume malice), but due to other factors (such as being part of a herd, in the case of a pile-on). But we humans have other social neural pathways as well, which instill us with our capacity for altruism and cooperation (including that same herd instinct from earlier), which often tend to work rather well in smaller communities (as one commenter on the first video pointed out - btw, artificially re-creating small communities is another possible idea, say by using a multitude of servers). But we can design or add game systems to engage these pathways too.

People often tend to blame 'human nature' (or the nature of just this rather tautologically defined subset of 'bad people') for this, as if it's something intrinsic. Or anonymity, another simplistic boogeyman. But 'human nature' is responsible for both our greatest tragedies, and our greatest triumphs. It isn't simply negative. Indeed it's highly context-dependent. So change the context. Design your social system to foster positive interactions, and who knows? You might actually get positive interactions! Maybe then you won't even feel the need to just keep calling for ever harsher and harsher policing.

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yamface wrote:

League of legends tried everything in the book to counter toxicity. It ended up being that the best way to stop toxicity was to make everyone stfu and not say a single thing in chat at all. Even the guy in charge of punishing toxic players ended up being toxic himself irl. What a world we live in.

It's part of human nature, stop resisting. You'll never see most of these guys again anyway.