Abstract
This paper will revolve around the attitude and negative behaviour that is present in the digital world of gaming. Games in themselves have evolved beyond traditional single player games and adopted an interactive online form where players can communicate while playing with or against each other. However, can we actually claim that these platforms have created a space where bullies can prey off the weak and simply walk away scot free? Is the negative and toxic attitude in games the result of an innate psychological need to come off as strong by putting down those who are seemingly weak or is it the result of getting dragged down into a digital environment where cyber bullying is the norm? This paper will give the answers to these questions and help elucidate the extent to which cyber bullying can have an impact on the individual player as well as the gaming community as a whole.
Full text
In the digital era of the web 2.0, there are numerous examples of platforms where users can communicate on a different plane with media rich content. Those platforms have given birth to communities where the essence of communication itself has been redefined. The world of online gaming has made optimum use of the capacity of communicating on the web and has allowed for new experiences when gaming. Previously, games were mostly individual activities and multiplayer games required physical presence of all players through split screen gaming. However, with online gaming, players are able to play with other players irrespective of geographical constraints. While these features have allowed the creation of communities where players can interact with each other in real time while being immersed in a game, it has also given birth to a platform where the users are able to act inappropriately towards other players while being shielded behind the unique level of anonymity that is provided by the internet. As a matter of fact, gaming communities have simply created a new platform where cyber bullies can operate with little to no consequences (Hines, 2011). In this conference paper, we will be seeing how an inappropriate behaviour in a gaming community can adversely impact the experience of players as well as the reason behind such behaviour. Based on the results of researches that have been conducted, we will attempt to understand what drives individuals towards such kinds of behaviour and most importantly what are the actual consequences of inappropriate behaviour in a gaming community in aspect with the individual player as well as the community as a whole.
To start off, we will be defining what is actually considered as an inappropriate behaviour within a gaming community. Basing on general norms itself, there are certain behaviours that are deemed as unacceptable within every community in general. Examples include, racist, homophobic or misogynist remarks. While these kinds of attitude are still negative attitudes within the world of gaming, there are still other kinds of behaviour and actions that are specifically related to gaming communities itself. When players are engaged in gaming communities, they may find themselves faced with other players who use bot scripts as a means to circumvent the rules of the game so that they avoid the hard, repetitive and tedious grindings that may be required to progress in the game and hence leave the competition behind through the means of an unfair advantage (Muñoz & El-Hani, 2012). Believe it or not, but this form of cheating to progress in a game is actually one of the most harmless forms of inappropriate behaviour that goes against the ethics of gaming. As a gamer, I would rather have someone cheating rather than someone who spends his time in the gaming community calling other players names or even being straight up racist. Very often, in the gaming community, you find players who abuse other players and use a language that is offensive to a degree that may even drive players to stop playing a particular game.
If we take into consideration the high level of interaction that is possible on the internet in general, it would make sense that this level of interaction and communication may be misused and result in numerous cases of cyber bullying. In fact, “cyber-racism and other forms of cyber-bullying have become an increasing part of the internet mainstream, with 35% of Australian internet users witnessing such behaviour online (Gail & Natalie, 2017).” While this is the case with the general use of the internet, this kind of behaviour is often replicated in gaming communities where players are often victims of cyber bullying and have to face negative remarks that may arise from unsatisfactory performance in the game or simply being placed in the wake of a mean individual. The gaming world is becoming increasingly competitive with professional players earning a lot of money playing and somehow, this competitive attitude is being replicated by amateur players as well. The only bump however is the fact that amateur players have the tendency to succumb into what I would call “the blame game”. Whether it is when gaming or engaging in any other activity where one would emerge victorious, the losing party often feels a high level of frustration from being in the losing team(Teng, Tseng, Chen & Wu, 2012). In gaming communities, players would rather blame their teammate for a loss rather than embracing their own faults and incompetency. This feeling of frustration coupled with this blaming attitude is what is at the core of most inappropriate behaviours in a gaming community. Sometimes, however, the cyber bully is just a plain mean bully who thrives upon the misery of the weak.
An important aspect to understand, however, is what drives cyber bullies to act in the way they do aside from a poor attitude born from frustration and why they appear to have free rein to behave in any way they want in gaming communities. The majority of members in a gaming community is often children and teenagers and “members of this particular demographic group are often the ones who are more prone to be on both side of the bullying coin (Lehman, 1986)”. This means that those individuals are more likely to be the ones bullying while also being the ones who are bullying. Since teenagers are the most prominent demographic group in gaming communities it automatically implies that the bullying attitude would be reflected in the gaming communities as well. While there are certain psychological factors that would help to understand what motivates bullies such as a means of seeking attention or a reflection of a bad environment with the family household, we should also consider why the gaming communities act like a perfect hunting for bullies who use the platform to prey upon their victims. If we consider the fact that a recent study came to the conclusion that spending more time playing online games would increase the risks of being victim to cyber bullying (Chang et al., 2014), we can understand why the gaming communities are the platforms where bullying is more likely to occur. By exposing the teenagers and children who are most likely to be bullies and victims of bullying to an environment which places them even more at risk to be victims of bullying, the result would be easily predictable.
The attitude of gamers, however, is often considered as insignificant and free from consequences. An individual playing a game may vent out his/her frustration on another player and since the victim of this abuse is very often a stranger with absolutely no connection to the bully outside of the gaming community, the bully and even the victim may simply shrug off this behaviour as nothing serious since it had little to no impact on the victim. However, this is not always the case. The bully may, knowingly or unknowingly, use one of the victim’s most exploitable insecurity against him/her and this may cause lasting psychological damage to the victim and may lead to the victim committing an irreversible act that would put several people in the way of harm (Mishna, Khoury-Kassabri, Gadalla & Daciuk, 2006). In any case of bullying, the response from the victim is not always predictable but the kind of behaviour that bullying may incite has been segmented into three categories; “Firstly, victims may adopt a passive approach, such as abstaining from taking action or choosing to ignore it; secondly, victims may adopt an active approach, such as reporting such behavior to other people; thirdly, victims may adopt a reactive approach, such as responding to the bullying behavior (Lee & Wu, 2018).” The first response is usually harmless, and the second response seems like the proper course of action, but the third kind of response is often the most dangerous while also being the most unpredictable one. Victims adopting the third response may end up responding to the bully with an even meaner comment or in worst case scenarios, causing physical harm to himself/herself or to those in his/her vicinity.
While the pragmatic behaviour of bullies might be difficult to comprehend in terms of what drives them towards bullying, it is far simpler to understand why cyber bullies are far more efficient and more dangerous predators as compared to the traditional “give me your lunch money bully” that you may encounter in a school. The most powerful tool of any bully on the internet and in gaming communities is the veil of anonymity that anyone can wear on the internet. It is easy to hide one’s identity on the internet by using a fake name and in gaming communities you would rarely find anyone who is using their real name as almost every gamer would rather use a gaming name as a means to create an identity within the game (Sublette & Mullan, 2010). As a result, hiding behind a fake identity can be considered as a norm within gaming communities and even professional players are known through their gaming name instead of their real name. When taking this fact into consideration, we can understand how gamers in an online community can hide behind a fake identity and through this veil of anonymity they are able to act in any way that they want and say whatever they want without any real-world consequences. Call someone stupid in the real world and they might punch you in the face but do the same thing while protected by the digital barrier of a computer screen and the worst that can happen is that person reporting your account. “Not only are the identities of cyber-bullies concealed, but so to are the impacts of their acts on victims. With the victim being out of visual sight, the act of cyber-bulling is made easier by allowing the cyber-bully to hide behind technological devices (Hines, 2011).” We cannot also ignore the fact that cyber-bullies are oblivious to the reaction from their victims and this makes cyber-bullying easier even for someone with a decent moral compass. If someone is being bullied physically and they end up crying this may have an effect on the bully who might feel sorry for his/her victim but in online communities, this is not the case. The bully would not even think of the consequences of his/her action since he/she may not even play with the victim or hear from them ever again.
It might seem surprising as to why victims of cyber bullying may not turn towards anyone for help in case, they were victimised in an online gaming community. The main reason would be because gaming communities are platform where you interact with strangers mostly and the larger the community the more likely you are to encounter a player with a toxic attitude, but this also implies that you even less likely to encounter the bully again. Also, blocking someone and preventing all forms of interaction with you is relatively easy on any online community. There are, nonetheless, another reason why gamers, especially teenagers do not report cases of cyber bullying. In a lot of cases, parents have already antagonised games and electronic devices and the victim of cyber bullying may feel like if they were to tell their parents about the case, they may end up without any electronic device that they can play and socialise on (Hines, 2011). The teenagers would rather face the cyber bullies instead of being devoid of their electronic devices. Another reason is how “new technologies enable and expand the avenues for racial vilification, raising distinct problems of dissemination, anonymity and enforcement (Gail & Natalie, 2017).” The fast rate at which technology is progressing coupled with the level of anonymity on online platforms makes it harder to regulate online behaviour even for the legal authorities. Hence, most cases of cyber bullying are just shrugged off as insignificant and since cyber bullies do not face any consequence for their behaviour they would not discontinue acting in an inappropriate fashion.
Nonetheless, we cannot claim that the gaming world is only teeming with cyber bullies and is full of toxic behaviours. There are also numerous instances whereby gamers adopt positive attitudes and behaviours that contribute towards creating a wholesome and welcome digital environment that is appealing even to the new, unexperienced and somewhat unskilled players. Some gamers do not fall into the spiral of cyber bullying but in fact they play in a fashion that encourages other players to keep playing and some even go as far as siding with gamers who are being bullied. In fact, some games even allow other players to commend players who have played well and adopted a good attitude in game and these commends are publicly displayed on the player profile which would encourage other players to partake in game with those players. There are also players who simply abstain from communicating with other players and hence contribute neither to the digital environment’s toxicity nor wholesomeness. In the end it all sums down to a personal choice about adopting a positive behaviour. Each and every gamer hold the rein over their own behaviour and it shows that if one is willing to do it, they can opt not to tread the path that is cyber bullying.
To conclude we would say that online gaming platforms have indeed allowed cyber bullies more power and it is far easier for them to bully their victims. The anonymity that is provided online serves as a means to protect the bullies and allow them to act in the way they want with seemingly no consequences. However, cyber bullying might seem insignificant but it the fact remains that at the end of the day, it is still bullying and no cases of bullying can be claimed to be absolutely without consequences. We cannot ignore the fact that “victims of cyber bullying would feel frightened, worried, distressed, and can suffer from social anxiety disorder, eating disorder, drug or alcohol abuse, criminal behaviour, and chaotic or nervous interpersonal relationships (Lee & Wu, 2018).” This shows that no act of bullying is free from consequences. Stepping into a gaming community may cause someone with good morals to be corrupted by the toxic environment since humans tend to adapt to comply with the norms of any group that they are in (Lee & Wu, 2018) but that does not necessarily mean that one should blindly follow the trend and further contribute towards the toxicity of the community. By bringing about a change in individual attitude it may be possible to remedy to the abysmal situation that online gaming communities are actually in.
References
Chang, F., Chiu, C., Miao, N., Chen, P., Lee, C., Huang, T., & Pan, Y. (2014). Online gaming and risks predict cyberbullying perpetration and victimization in adolescents. International Journal Of Public Health, 60(2), 257-266. doi: 10.1007/s00038-014-0643-x
Gail, M., & Natalie, C. (2017). Regulating Cyber Racism. Melbourne University Law Review, 41(1), 284-340.
Hines, H. (2011). Traditional bullying and cyber-bullying: Are the impacts on self-concept the same?. Western Carolina University.
Lee, Y., & Wu, W. (2018). Factors in cyber bullying: the attitude-social influence-efficacy model. Anales De Psicología, 34(2), 324. doi: 10.6018/analesps.34.2.295411
Lehman, B. (1986). Bullies. Why they pick on other kids. Boston Globe.
Mishna, F., Khoury-Kassabri, M., Gadalla, T., & Daciuk, J. (2006). Risk factors for involvement in cyber bullying: Victims, bullies and bully–victims.
Muñoz, Y., & El-Hani, C. (2012). The student with a thousand faces: from the ethics in video games to becoming a citizen. Cultural Studies Of Science Education, 7(4), 909-943. doi: 10.1007/s11422-012-9444-9
Sublette, V., & Mullan, B. (2010). Consequences of Play: A Systematic Review of the Effects of Online Gaming. International Journal Of Mental Health And Addiction, 10(1), 3-23. doi: 10.1007/s11469-010-9304-3
Teng, C., Tseng, F., Chen, Y., & Wu, S. (2012). Online gaming misbehaviours and their adverse impact on other gamers. Online Information Review, 36(3), 342-358. doi: 10.1108/14684521211241387
Hi HJoondan,
You have written a great paper that was a good read and raised some interesting points regarding cyber bullying. Your topic was particular relevant to me as I have come across many toxic players in my time playing CS:GO and it was great to see that toxicity analysed. However, I was wondering what you thought some possible solutions were to the problem of cyber bullying in online gaming communities. I have come across a solution in CS:GO with their “Trust Factor” which is a score your profile gets based on factors like how many times you accounts gets reported for hacking or inappropriate behavior and hours played. The idea is that players with a high trust factor, (as in they are friendly players who are not toxic and don’t cheat) play together separate from the undesirable players (suspected hackers and toxic cyber bullies). What do you think some possible solutions are and what do you think of CS:GO’s solution?
Thanks,
Ryan
Hi RThuys
Thanks for the feedback and the positive response. Personally I am an avid gamer and I believe that anyone who plays online is highly likely to encounter toxic behaviour and poor attitude from other players. Nonetheless, gaming communities are starting to take actions and adopt patterns that segment toxic players from good ones. Still I find that some of these measures are not efficient enough as not everyone goes towards actually reporting poor behaviour. Very often we just reciprocate with even worse behaviour and in the end, the toxic attitude gets worse and the players with such attitude keep playing without consequences. I believe CS:GO’s solution seems appropriate but I have played CS:GO for a while and it is such bad attitude that drove me away from the game. While the measures seem appropriate, the extent to which they are efficient is highly questionable. There was even an instance last year where a pro player was caught using an aim bot in a professional tournament. So the extent to which the toxicity can be cleared from online games is quite debatable and it would not be an overstatement to claim that CS:GO is one of, if not the most toxic platforms in the world of gaming.
Hi Hjoondan,
I have to to admit I too stopped playing CS:GO due to the toxicity. I noticed I was not only playing with toxic players but I was also becoming more toxic and angry myself. However I do think the efforts CS:GO has undertaken to combat toxic behavior is admirable and should be commended as it is an uphill battle. As you said a pro player was caught cheating in a tournament, if they cant even stop that how will they curb toxicity. Technical changes seem ineffective in the case of CS:GO and there is a culture and tendency for people to be mean and unforgiving to others. So perhaps there needs to be a cultural shift away from toxicity and the devs needs to play a part in cultivating this which is similar to what you explained at the end of your conclusion.
Thanks,
Ryan
Hi HJoondan,
This is a well-written paper of yours.
While my paper (The Impact of Online Gaming Society to Individuals’ Interaction and Offline Relationship Development) talks about how online game can be seen as a fun and social platform, which eventually allows players to take their online friendship to another level, I do believe that cyberbullies also poses a threat to the online gaming communities. Not everyone will be as lucky enough to make friends in the virtual reality, let alone escape the bullying everywhere.
Online game community is supposed to provide a “third place” for players. Where they can relax and enjoy this “away from home and work” environment, just as Oldernberg suggested in Ponsford (2016, p.15.) However, it has become a very competitive environment, where most of the players play to win, especially males. Studies has found that most male players play to win, instead of casual and supposedly “relax” game (Terlecki, 2011, p.24). So, do you think that bullies in online games are male or female dominant?
Personally, I have been playing multiplayer games and have witnessed players harassing other players just because they couldn’t play well. I noticed that many players like to talk back and defend themselves, however, the game room will then be a mess and the two party will start fighting, hence the game mood will decline.
Even if these bullies had their identities protected by the anonymity that the game provide, don’t you think that eventually people will dislike them, and it would affect them as well? They might harass players, but at the same time, other players would also deem them as the infamous bullies or some sort. Even with their identity concealed, people would hear about them and start to talk bad about them.
So, I guess it could be a double edge sword?
You stated that the bully would not even think of the consequences because they believe that they would not be playing against each other anymore, however, online game players are also based on servers. Personally, I play online games as well, and I seem to always have the same circle of players every time I play, due to the demographic server location. I recognize almost more than roughly 75% of the players that I’ve encountered every time I play. So- I guess some of the bullies know that they will play with each other again. There are many notorious bullies in game that everyone knows about.
What do you think would be the consequences of those who experienced cyberbullying in online game? I also noticed that in your previous reply, you stated that there was a pro player who got caught using aim bot in a professional tournament. What do you think the game developer or whoever is in charge for the tournament to ensure that no cheaters are allowed in the game, especially a tournament?
Reference to what I said:
Ponsford, M. (2016). The mutual interaction of online and offline identities in massively multiplayer online gaming communities: A study of EVE online players (Order No. 10306832). Available from ProQuest Central; ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (1870036763). Retrieved from https://search-proquestcom.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/docview/1870036763?accountid=10382
Terlecki, M., Brown, J., Harner-steciw, L., Irvin-hannum, J., Marchetto-ryan, N., Ruhl, L., & Wiggins, J. (2011). Sex differences and similarities in video game experience, preferences, and self-efficacy: Implications for the gaming industry. Current Psychology, 30(1), 22-33. doi:http://dx.doi.org.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/10.1007/s12144-010-9095-5
Hi TDelphine,
First of all thank you for your comment. It is undeniable, without enforcing gender stereotypes in any way, that gaming communities are mostly male dominated and there are aspects of the male biological genes that contribute towards the toxicity of a community. Male players tend to be more competitive and their ego might get hurt with a loss in the virtual world. The fact that there are less girls in gaming communities might even be due to the fact that they would not want to play in a virtual environment where they would either get taunted or flirted with for being a girl. Some of my girl friends who are gamers would play online games but do their best to avoid revealing the fact that they are girls in the online environment. In any case, the toxic environment of online games is actually worse for a girl because I have seen girls being taunted online and believe me when I say, I would not want to be in her shoes.
With regards to the issue with anonymity, gamers who adopt a poor attitude might certainly get a poor reputation for being a bad player but nonetheless it is highly likely that their bad attitude would be associated only with their gamer tag and not with their identity outside the digital world. As a result, their real identity remains untouched. Besides even if the gamer gets banned from the game, they can still create a new account and play under a new identity and since their previous account was banned they might turn out to be even more resentful towards the community.
Gaming communities vary in size and players tend to play under a specific geographical server due to having a lower ping. The larger a community the less chance you have of playing again with the same player. In the off chance that one is playing with a player that has behaved inappropriately, the most effective course of action would be to simply mute the player or block them so that you may not encounter them ever again. In professional tournaments, they always do their best to prevent such occurrences but nonetheless it would be impossible to eliminate all forms of cheating. Personally, I believe that gaming tournaments are doing their best and proper measures are being undertaken towards players who have been caught cheating. Nonetheless, players who think they can get away with it will keep on cheating because as you mentioned above, gamers have started to value winning more than playing.
Hi Hjoondan,
I totally agree with you on the aspect on how hard it is to deal with players with bad attitude. They just can’t seem to stop cant they? There are some trollers that I encountered during games at times, and they are quite well known on the number of accounts that they have due to the ban they received from showing bad behavior and cheats in the game. And even if you blocked their other accounts, you might still encounter them through their other accounts, whether you like it or not. So i guess, for now, we can just wish that these players just miraculously have a change in heart xD
cheers!
Hi HJoondan,
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your paper especially because it completely counter-argues my paper, which I find very refreshing. Your paper was rather easy to understand, mainly because I did this stream. There was a lot to unpack from your paper, a LOT of food for thought which makes a conference paper successful in my opinion. You have a clear abstract and it is easy to identify what your key argument is, which is cyber bullying in online gaming communities. You have defined what is considered ‘inappropriate’ behaviour at the start and explained it in a general sense such as how racism for example can be used in games. You also provided good stats about cyber racism in Australia, this is incredibly important to me as a local audience, understanding how this may directly affect me. Your quote where you challenged virtual communities in games being a positive thing raises a really good point, “given birth to a platform where users are able to act inappropriately towards other players while being shielded behind a unique level of anonymity that is provided by the Internet”. Lastly, I think it was incredibly important that you outlined the consequences of bullying in both online and offline spectrums, your distinction is articulated clearly and it enabled me to paint/visualise an imaginary Venn diagram when you were explaining both.
There were two points I did think you could improve on. Firstly, I would suggest using subheadings for each of your paragraph, as I think it would better refine and explain to readers what your point is, of each body paragraph. Secondly, I was a little unclear when you said “those individuals are more likely to be the ones bullying while also being the ones who are bullying”, for the latter, do you mean “while also being the ones who are bullied”?
As mentioned, I do have a few questions I would like to pose to you.
1. In terms of racism, do you think it becomes common for users to fake their nationality in order to evade racist attacks? How do you think people gain knowledge of this country in the first place (what makes a nationality more superior than the other to be attacked on), could this be linked to a larger political context? E.g. Choosing USA as your nationality could be seem superior due to its dominance in society
2. Do you think gamers brag to their friends about the accomplishment in attaining an ‘imaginary’ trophy (and a sense of bragging rights) about who can get banned the most (because its ‘cool’)?
3. Do you think the current banning regulations e.g. Xbox’s ban of communicative services for a month or so, is strict enough? Should in-game avatars reveal the bad reputation of the player too instead of just displaying that on their profiles? Marginalisation could be positive, deterring negative behaviours in gaming communities.
4. On a serious note, if cyber bullying led to suicide of a player (a real human) from another location in the world, would players who performed bullying actions feel any remorse (if they found out)? You should consider that there is a factor of being strangers and the geographical divide which makes cyber bullying so freely committed because consequences in some sense, are not directly visible.
5. On a contrary, do you think people and society take cyber bullying in gaming too seriously? Would an individual whom is genuinely emotionally affected by derogatory comments about them (playing PUBG for example) be taken seriously?
I seriously look forward to your responses and anyone else that would like to input!
Feel free to check out my counter-arguing paper too!
https://networkconference.netstudies.org/2019Curtin/2019/05/06/press-f-to-pay-respects-to-those-who-still-thinks-video-games-means-isolation/#comments
Hi Christopher,
Thank you for your comment and it was indeed a typo on my part in the above sentence. Thank you for highlighting it for me. I will number down my replies according to your questions and I hope I will be able to give you satisfactory answers for your queries.
1. The biggest factor that would give away someone’s nationality would be the language factor. The most common language in a European gaming server is most likely to be english since most gamer would find themselves more at ease with the language. Nonetheless there are players who would still communicate in other languages like french, german or even russian and even if a player is talking in english, their accent might give away their nationality. As it is the case with racism in general, it is usually the minority that gets picked on. Suppose you are the only german player in a 5 man team and all the other players are British. You would be the minority and might be the one getting picked on. If we reverse the scenario with 1 British with 4 germans, the british might be the one to get picked on. I think that hiding your nationality would not serve much purpose because there are other factors that might give it away unless you are confident that you can pull it off by faking it all the way.
2. As much as I would hate to admit it, I have personally bragged to my friends on cases where I had a poor attitude in gaming and my friends actually reacted positively to it. So I guess we do live in a world where bad attitude can be celebrated. As bad as it is I think this might be the case for other players as well, where they find a sense of pride in putting down their peers in the virtual communities.
3. The primary issue with online gaming communities is actually how lenient the consequences of poor attitudes seems to be. A simple ban which can be circumvented by using an additional account. I do believe that gaming communities do not take serious actions enough when it comes to dealing with bad players. However we should also consider the fact that the gaming communities do not have more power to take actions that are more consequential.
4. There is little likelihood that a bully would be aware of the consequences of their actions due to the geographical divide but if ever they do become aware of it the feeling of remorse would depend entirely on the bully. They might feel some remorse or not depending on their character and I guess we cannot generalise this situation since not everyone would react the same way to it.
5. I really appreciate this question because I sincerely believe that some people cannot draw the line between the real and virtual world. This might seem harsh but the online world of gaming is a cruel world and if you cannot deal with it you would be better off not stepping into it. But from a more comprehensive perspective we should consider the fact that some people are able to find solace only in the virtual world and they might be driven towards games as a means to seek their own safe space and it would be the responsibility of every player to show at least some consideration for others. If not for the sake of maintaining a wholesome virtual community but at least for the sake of maintaining some degree of humanity.
I hope my answers were satisfactory and feel free to reply if you have any more queries.
Hi HJoondan,
I really enjoyed reading your paper. It was very well-presented and you’ve provided some interesting points on the different factors which contribute to cyber bullying. With the anonymous nature of the gaming sphere, players are definitely exposed to a plethora of toxic players. I do think that game developers need to consider a modern content filtering system to decrease cyber bullying on the gaming platform which is usually meant for relaxation and enjoyment.
While bullies pick up on one player or repeatedly taunt others, don’t you think this toxicity stem from bad sportsmanship?
Feel free to check out my paper which explores the way gender swapping acts as a defense against hypersexualisation, homophobia and trollism/harassment in MMOs.
https://networkconference.netstudies.org/2019Curtin/2019/05/06/gender-swapping-as-a-defensive-mechanism-in-mmos/
Hi HJoondan, I found your title very catchy which insights me to read your paper. I agree with the fact that those you tend to bully people weaker than them are those who are the weakest and who suffer the most. I think that in gaming platforms there no such laws where someone could report or block a person who bullied, I think that this is one of the platforms where people do not pay attention to the fact that bullying can also happen as we are used to seeing those hateful things on different social media platforms where we are active users. This was a well-written paper of yours and I enjoyed discovering more on the adverse effects happening on those gaming platforms.
I look forward to having a response from you and feel free to check my paper.
https://networkconference.netstudies.org/2019Curtin/2019/05/06/social-media-has-a-detrimental-connection-between-people-and-their-authentic-offline-self/
Hi HJoondan,
There needs to be more regulation around cyber bullying just as much as there needs to be controls put in place for dealing with it in the real world. By introducing consequences to these actions we can begin to regulate the internet and make it a more accessible place than it currently is, as people will be positioned to become less afraid of the consequences of online use if they feel reassured they can browse safely.
Hi HJoondan,
You wrote such a captivating paper dealing with the issues of cyber bullying in online gaming communities. I personally have not encountered such bullying as I am a very casual online player but definitely know about some of the issues that revolve around it, like League of Legends is quite known for some very vulgar and aggressive players. Some thoughts and questions I wrote while reading your paper:
“..users are able to act inappropriately towards other players while being shielded behind the unique level of anonymity that is provided by the internet.” I love the way this was phrased, the idea of the internet acting as a shield of anonymity is such an interesting but very true perspective.
Another point that you wrote about which I found very interesting was the whole concept of the blame game, the idea that players would rather blame their teammates for losing rather than accept their own fault and incompetency. Do you think that a concept like this is something unique to online gaming communities, or is this also something recurring in the offline world?
Thanks,
Patricia