#4

[Sepiida]

Must say I was a little skeptical of this series when it started but this was a very good article. It summed up a problem in the gaming community without demonizing the medium as a whole. Well done Dr. Mark.

As to the question I'm not sure there's much that can be done. The combination of the anonymity of the internet with young, hormonally driven teenagers is somewhat a recipe for this sort of thing. Any attempts to curtail it, like perhaps penalizing players who use ethnic slurs, are surely bound to fail since people will either desert the games or find ways around the rules. As others have already said people are jerks in the real world so it's no surprise their jerks online.

 

[Rorschach_pln]

Great article, this is turning into one of my favourite series. I've also recently thought about online behavior and I started watching my friends while we were playing. I don't think there is a way to change all this, but you can take steps in the right direction. For example, I try to "moderate" my friends and tell them when they are being unreasonable in hope that when they play without me, they will think harder before they start a flame war. In the case of WoW, I think your best bet is to play on a Role-playing server, at least you know most of the people there will try to act accordingly. That's what I did, and I had a lot of fun, with almost no encounters with jerks.

Looking forward to your next article.

Oh, and thanks to the guy that linked the "psychology of games" blog, will check it out ;]

 

[Chirez]

Is social aggression not a status thing?
You have hundreds of people jostling for position in a social situation where status is inherently both the most valuable currency and very hard to define.
I'd guess most of the insults are a form of verbal shove, designed unconsciously to elevate the insulter and lower the insultee.

You can't really police things like this, you're talking about punishing people for 'unacceptable' behaviour, which brings up the problem of defining the unacceptable. Also, it would take a hell of a lot of work to watch everyone in a game like WoW. Though if people complain about the behaviour or others, I suppose the chat logs could be reviewed. Since Blizzard can read everything you type.

As for games creating an environment where violent behaviour is acceptable, or rewarded...
It seems to me that, in the real world, there are certain actions which are considered acceptable, like giving random strangers flowers, and others which are not, like punching random people in the face.
If you create an entire spectrum of virtual experiences to cover the full range of behaviours, it seems reasonable to me to assume that people would be more interested in those which allow them to do things which under other circumstances they could not do.
Any one of us could go out and give random people flowers with no adverse effects.
If you want to punch strangers in the face, you need a virtual world in which to do it.
That is why games tend toward the violent or unacceptable.

It seems to me that at some point soon we're going to have to realise that if someone wants to massacre a bunch of people, or rape, or torture, or any other of a wide range of things which are unacceptable for various reasons, it's far better for such impulses to be explored without any actual impact on the real world.

Perhaps it would be better not to explore them at all, I'm curious as to your professional opinion on that. Some people believe anger is best expressed by violently attacking a pillow, others believe such actions only fuel the fires, and suggest letting the emotion go.

 

[oathblade]

Just a brief comment:

In EQ they had 'Ledgendary' servers (if I remember the term right) where you paid more but you got GMs running around doing plotlines and monster invasions and the like and they were VERY harsh on griefers. I and my friends mourn that they dont offer that service in WoW. Having a server where the GM approved all guild/character names and moderated the global chats would be well worth the extra money, it gave the adult supervision some players need to behave themselves.

 

[George Page]

If I had to bet, I would say that most jerks in--let's say WoW--aren't really bad people in real life. I do think that maybe there are issues they deal with like low self-esteem, lack of confidence, not fitting in, socially awkward, and things like that. But bad? I wouldn't say so.

But in an anonymous setting like WoW, with all of the powers and freedoms it offers, I believe it gives these people a chance to be on top for once. And, unused to such success in real life, it goes a bit to their heads.

The main factor in all of this is the anonymity a game provides, combined with the lack of repercussions. I say it's the main factor because I discovered a trick to dealing with online dirtbags in Halo 2 & 3 that also works nicely in WoW. The trick is thus:

1. An online exchange of text or voice goes south, and the other player is saying things like, "I'll kick your ass", "You suck"--and all the variations", etc.

2. If something clever to say presents itself, I use it. This has a 40% chance of ending the harassment. (cause it's usually funny).

3. If that doesn't work, I feed straight lines to pump up the vitriol of the agressor.

4. I "let myself get mad", and start "losing control". Basically appearing to sink down to the agressors level.

5. When the agressor has reached his peak, I change my persona to one of focused calm, with an almost pleasant tone--except making it obvious that something is off. Regardless of how the agressor reacts to this, I begin the questions:
"Where do you live?" -this always gets a snide remark.

"Seriously, what city are you in? Come on, tell me the State at least." -still snide, but the wheels start to turn.

"What's your address? Fine, what's your phone number? I can do a search." -the agressor begins to back down and goes on the defensive, "I, I'm not telling you," etc.

"What's your zip code? What pets do you have? What's your Mom's license plate number? What color is your house?" -these odd but scary questions make them think harder, and see danger in saying anything at all. But since the questions are odd, they usually try to regroup in a half-hearted and futile manner.

"Hey! Tell me your social security number now! What is your social security number?!" -the agressor is now in full defense mode, and are only looking for "flight" options and not "fight" ones. At this point, they either become conciliatory or disappear.

The reason this trick works--obviously--is that the tough, strong, anonymous jerk suddenly finds himself in what is apparently a real world situation with real world consequences. It's unnerving, throws them off-balance, and makes being an ass not fun anymore.

I'm sure this wouldn't work for everybody all the time, but it has worked every time for me across three console games and WoW. Maybe this is because I've only ever had the opportunity to use it on teens and early-twenties kids. Maybe it wouldn't work if the agressor was a true badass in real life.

Then again, a true badass wouldn't feel the need to play out any insecurities in an online game.

 

[Dyp100]

Probably one of the best things I've read on the Escapist (and dear I say the Internet) in a while. Enjoyable to read as well as insightful and thought provoking. Even though a lot of this stuff I know myself, it's still highly enjoyable to read.

 

[megs1120]

I also noticed that you (very circumspectly) implied that Mass Effect rewards the player with sexual content for chatting up NPCs. I have to leap to the game's defence here, because I thought that we all learned from the "alien sideboob" fiasco that any lusty teenager looking to get his jollies to Mass Effect is going to be sorely disappointed. He would be better off with a lingerie catalogue. The only reward for building up a personal relationship with an NPC is the existence of such a relationship, which is surely the exact opposite of what Tom Bissell is wringing his hands about. And you can do it with male NPCs as well. Seriously, Mass Effect is one of the worst examples you could have semi-used. Just put a picture from The Witcher up there or something.

I agree, I understand what the article is getting at, but Mass Effect, heck, pretty much any Bioware RPG is a terrible example to use when a person is trying to make a point about scandalous sex in video games.

Aside from that, the subject of people acting like asshole on the internet seems to exist well outside of gaming in particular. Go just about anywhere and you'll encounter people, often mature adults, behaving terribly. Most people on the internet are utter bastards. Just go to any political website and read the comments on any article having to do with Barack Obama.

 

[CitySquirrel]

While this questioner wonders about the impact of all this nastiness on impressionable teenagers, I think another category of potentially nasty players are the teens themselves

This is a really important point to get across, especially since you see this argument from people outside of the gaming community. I didn't play a lot online when I was a teen, but if I remember my teenage self correctly, I might not have been the most polite person in the world. Many adults I know actually find themselves turned off from gaming because of the teenagers that the letter writer is worried about.

 

[mkline]

L

Dr. Mark, hopefully you are aware of Jamie Madigan and his blog www.psychologyofgames.com. If not, allow me to be the first to point you in his direction. One of his posts addresses the same issue, although from a research instead of a clinical standpoint.
http://www.psychologyofgames.com/2010/06/05/deindividuation-character-creator-stab-them-in-the-face/

Looks very interesting--I will certainly check this out. I was not aware of this particular site, but I do think more folks are paying attention to the psychological effects and of gaming and other issues related to these experiences. Can't help but be a good thing as long as we get beyond glib summary judgements.

Thanks for the tip!

Mark Kline

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Snip

I agree with some of your points - but the way I read Dr. Kline's article, it looked like he made many of the same points, just in different areas (obviously) from the place. I'd just like to take this opportunity to also make the point that Freud is stoopid. .

Dr. Mark, like Penny Arcade seem to subscribe to the theory that Anonymity turns People into Assholes.
I prefer the theory that Society turns People into Assholes but Games allow them to display it, due to the Anonymity.

But yeah, Freud made most of his great ideas while living with three women and taking cocaine, which makes you paranoid and impotent. Possibly not the best guy to be talking about your mother with.

Edit: Something I should have added is that this catharsis is needed to reset the system, in the same way we sleep to clear/restore our minds. But it needs to be physical (if only vocal) as well as mental. Twitch gamers will revert to vocalisation catharsis, Gankers will be playing out superiority issues.

But we do need to do it. Remember that time when your mum told you off for flicking food at the table? Did you develop subtle revenge fantasies for flicking it at her next time? What if there was a place where you could?

Honestly, I don't think Anonymity is our protection from Responsibility, it's that lack of responsibilty allows us to turn to asshole-ism. And, despite what halo we wear, we all do it at times.

 

[mattaui]

I'll be the first to say that this problem, when I've encountered it, has been less about teenagers than about grown, often married men, and even sometimes their spouses. It could be a matter of my own age and those being the folks I run with in guilds, but sometimes even having someone's name and phone number isn't enough for them not to behave like complete jerks. So you've got multiple things at play here, and truth be told I can deal and ignore some noisy little kid, whether at the mall or in my game, assuming they're not making it difficult for me to enjoy whatever it is I'm doing. What you can't ignore is when you run smack dab into pure cultural differences of what is and isn't okay to say around kids, or what you're comfortable having in guild chat as acceptable teasing.

I've had people try to excuse their friend's execrable language and antics by saying 'Oh, they were in the navy together' or 'Man, that's just how I talk to my brother', and so on. That's when real conflict flares up, because that's not someone acting out intentionally, but behaving in a way they think is appropriate, who then try to turn it around on you and ask why you're giving them grief over it.

Random acts of angry punks, sure, that's just people being people, acting like they'd act in person if they could without risking a slap in the face or being shouted down. That's not nearly so big a long term problem, especially when trying to set a guild culture, in what's acceptable and what's not. Either you lose people who get offended and you give into the social bullying of the lowest common denominator, or you have to take a hard line and get those folks to change or leave themselves.

 

[camazotz]

I believe our psychologist friend has been out of the true male competition loop for too long. Trash-talking isn't just a psycho-social disease or what have you-it's an integral part of competitive games played against other humans, especially other men. And learning to ignore or counteract trash talk is central the development of tactical skills under pressure.

The Army, officially and unofficially, trains medics to do the right thing to save the patient even if it means ignoring or countermanding someone screaming above your head.

Michael Jordan isn't just the greatest basketball player because he's the most athletic, he's the greatest because he can consistently out-trash talk the other team (which doesn't get seen that often on censored sports channels.) And didn't anyone here see BASEketball?

It's not a disorder. Excessive politeness and deference is learned behavior that gives way under varying amounts of stress.

In other words, politeness is conditioned, or if you will, unnatural. Trash talking is natural and genetic. In some cases, it's also emergent depending on the nature of the game.

The only reason women are more polite IRL and occasionally online is because they have less attention to lose from losing, and therefore no incentive to get better. They're already women on the Internet! Why would they need a slot on the high score tables to feel better about themselves or attract more attention?

(Attractiveness is one of the surest routes to self-deception, online or in the real world. And far more evil in this world is done politely than ugly-ly.)

You are incorrect, I feel, in your belief that "trash talk" is a default state and polite discourse (or manners, what have you) is learned behavior. I think there is ample evidence and a general consensus in psychology and sociology that both are learned behaviors. Aggressiveness itself is something innate to humans, yes, but how we express it (such as trash talking) is a symptom of learned behavior and very specific to culture.

Put another way, there are many different ways that we could express ourselves in aggressive behavior. Trash talking just happens to be a social norm in sports circles in western culture (and probably elsewhere), but it's something that is highly atypical in gaming culture until recently, thansk to the development of accessible multiplayer to the average Joe. Now those same freaks that I disliked in college down playing or watching football are in the online games I enjoy, imposing their default behavioral standard to them, and effectively crapping all over what was supposed to be a more different, socially cooperative and friendly medium. I don't think I'm alone in that feeling; I think the main point of conflict stems from an indigenous base with its expectations of normal behavior being afflicted by this "new" (because its been a few years now) subset that is imposing its own brash and crude expectations on behavior. Thus, the reason that most people seem to either be constantly bothered by the erratic actions of others, or oblivious.

 

[Lucane]

Maybe requesting players do a non-tethered survey to thier accounts about themselves could help.
Example: Becky starts playing World of Warcraft today and she has to fill out all the normal information you normally would Name, age, billing address, & etc.,but once She's done all of that information would remain completely private between her and ActivisionBlizzard. Then afterwards a optional survey pops up asking if she would like to disclose any information for an anonymous polling of active players she could then say: she's female,In X-age group, her race, and nationality or none at all and opt not to submit at all.

That way the members could voice in part who they are(or lie for whatever reason) while not having to openly admit to everyone or anyone that they are ???? of whatever since it would only use your account to verify you're a current player on the network or at least playing extra to flasify the data with multiple accounts,of course putting a link to the stats on the main page would only help to inform people of the varity of player backgrounds exsist and that there (If at least 50% of the users have been truthful) are indeed other players like you.

Though a simple male/female Statistic like this would be a good way to test the waters of the program.

 

[DaOysterboy]

I'm enjoying this column. A definite favorite.

I think there is probably one other aspect that might not have been addressed (or that I might have interpreted differently) and that is that it's interesting to play the villain. In games like Mass Effect or Jade Empire et al, I tend to play through the "evil" way the first time. I bring back the little girl's dead cat and keep her lunch money as reward (to use Baldur's Gate as an example). This isn't because I like being evil in real life, or really need the 5 gold in game, but because it's interesting to see what the other side can be like. If you take the recent Batman movie for example, people aren't really interested in Batman (even though it's his movie) because his motivations are fairly simple: find bad guy, stop bad guy's evil plot, if possible send bad guy to prison (or if the situation necessitates, the morgue). The Joker stole the show because there was always a twist to his actions and his motivations were never quite what they seemed. He took half of the money owned by the criminal underworld and burned it, mostly just to watch it burn, and while a boat of criminals and a boat of civilians were deciding whether or not they should blow each other up, the Joker ultimately points out that his real concern is what Harvey Dent is deciding to do somewhere in one of Gotham's back alleys. So from strictly a storyline perspective, it's interesting to see what drives the villain and what the game developers will let you do in the context of the game.

From this perspective, I don't think playing evil is any more a symptom of a demented mind or even a social disorder than watching horror movies or reading murder mysteries. I try to restrict such play to my single player games though, and try to be nice (actually, nice may be a bit too strong of a word... let's go with "not a jerk") when playing something with other actual people. I realize that this may be the crux of the argument: where does that "socially acceptable" line get drawn? I'm willing to play the bad guy, but not if it will actually affect others even if it is "just over the internet." I've heard others say that they just can't bear to see the alien getting bullied by the two human kids in Knights of the Old Republic, even when they're planning to use dark force powers, and even though the game is strictly single-player. Others assume that even if you're playing with others, it's still "just a game" and nobody should get too upset about getting shot in the head, because it isn't real so team killing is just harmlessly blowing off steam. Others would further extend this line of thought to swearing, trash-talking, or using racial slurs, justifying that because the game world is fictional, their behavior within that world is likewise fictional. I may be off-base with that, but it's just what was running through my head at the time. I would however say that the reasons mentioned in the article were probably much more valid than this point, as most people aren't playing online competitive games for the storylines.

With regards to the "quest for the sex-scene" though, I would tend to group in-game relationships into my response for "playing the evil character," where really either is just meant for story purposes, and not usually intended to be demeaning of actual relationships or either gender (love and relationships make for interesting stories... just ask your wife/girlfriend). There are exceptions to this (I'm looking at you The Witcher [and Fable to a lesser extent]) where sex is just another fetch quest on the way to the bad guy, but if an in-game relationship can be weaved in with the in-game story, then it shouldn't be an issue so long as the game is rated appropriately.

 

[Olenthros]

Dr Mark

I wonder what level of raiding you may have done in WoW. I'm using that as an example cause that is something we have both played from what I have read in your columns. When I first played WoW it was with some friends who were part of a guild focused on fun and casual play, most were adults and very nice and respectful of eachother in fact many are still friends with me today through mediums like Facebook, e mail, or texting even though I don't play WoW anymore. While in this 1st guild people were nice and supportive of every little tast I accomplished and eventually I got to max level where I began to taste the end game content of raiding and learnin the different aspects of raiding which I seemed to grasp very well at since I didn't mind a bit of studying because it fascinated me. I quickly became the best in that 1st casual guild which was not very hard since many did not have much experience with raiding or did not raid that much and of course since I had a fascination with it and was good many other guilds were using me to fill spots they needed and eventually I joined one that promoted being a raiding guild as well as friendly. This 2nd guild was very friendly at first but when the frustration of raiding kicked in friendships quickly died or the moment as there was yelling at eachother vocally over ventrillo ( a voice chat program ) and via text in the game and the guild leaders spent many of their times outside of their raiding time trying to repair friendships as they spent raiding and from what I heard as rumor this is very "carebear" compared to other raiding guilds in how they handle eachother. My nitch in raiding seemed to stick with me and I even quickly excelled to one of the best and most wanted players in that guild for raiding and therefor I sought again what I thought were greener fields of higher raiding where I landed in a guild that was constantly battling for #2 spot on the server for raid progression. Here is where the real ugly began is in this 3rd guild where you saw every little mistake made by any player at any time if it was caught by the guildmaster or any of his officers deemed it's own 5 minute or more yell session not of constructive criticism but pointing out how making such a mistake was pure idiocy and can only be related to that of a 3 year old or a monkey or whatever colorful metaphor they wanted to use to help explain how stupid the person was. Funny thing is people sat there and took it cause of the desire to be in the guild in one of the top positions and to experience the latest content quickly and while someone was in the spotlight being chastised for their terrible mistake ( usually a mild mistake ) they were recieving whispers and being made fun of in raid chat it was amazing the level of disrespect one was willing to bear to hold this badge of honor being able to say "I'm number 2 raiding guild on X server" and fortunately I dodged the bullet for sometime but of coruse eventually I got hit with it too and when I stood up for myself the 5 minute yell session encompassed nearly an hour with constant backlashing the next few days as if testing my resilience seeing when I would break. This eventually led to me quitting the guild of course cause no game is worth that kind of harassment despite it's shiny loots.

I know that was a very long story there but I wanted it to be understood that there is also another level going on in MMOs I've found where people are also willing to change or sacrifice some of themselves they normally wouldn't to seek stronger rewards in the game and there are those who recognise this and will monopolize on it. We see some of this in real life but it happens even more oh for a lack of better words "in your face" in games as I found out this activity was very much the same on other servers and even other games. What is it about ourselves that makes us more willing to accept disrespect and harassment for virtual items that have no meaning to our lives in reality than the disrespect or harassment someone is willing to bear with in reality ?

 

[nuba km]

I don't know why people are dicks i mean it's not difficult to be nice if you are going to be a dick
a. to it to the computer it doesn't care
b. only to it if you would be in a room with that person

I only get aggressive to wards another player if he was aggressive to me or was a dick to me.
talking about female gamers i was playing left 4 dead and a female gamer was playing zoey and she said "come guys" then another player said "we would if you would give out more" she then said "I would but the hunters tier me out" I laughed.

I've got a question:
why do so many gamers leave you to die when they could very easily rescue you? I mean there have been so many time when it was just me and one other guy and he just left me to get eaten by a hunter even if though he was right next to me after I just saved him from a tank.

 

[randomsix]

It might be a much smaller part of the problem, but I think the lulz also have an effect. Offline, people are much less prone to aggravate each other for personal entertainment, as they would have to deal with very real consequences. Online, though, they are semi-anonymous and can avoid most of the negative repercussions.
This, at least, explains why griefers are much more prominent online than off.

 

[Grigori361]

I'm not really an avid online gamer save for two games, the original Dawn of war series of games (which is not relevant here) and the FPS Team Fortress 2, which I've developed quite an attachment to healthy or otherwise.

I bring this up because I found Dr Marks comment about a server for the drunk and otherwise inebriated interesting, specifically because I'm currently a member of "trashed gamers" a host of several servers on TF2 for people who are wasted, or people who just enjoy that sort of atmosphere.

Of which I am the second (not really being a big drinker myself), anyways I think that would be a great idea for blizzard to bring up a server for those who are less then 100% so to speak. I for one quite enjoy the half drunken banter, though overly coarse and offensive language is usually a banishable offense id the mods so see fit.. hate speech type stuff.

 

[Unesh52]

Wow there are a lot of longs posts here. Anyway, I have a friend who delights in griefing. He even enjoys watching videos on youtube of people doing it. Sometimes he even does it when we play local multiplayer (if I have to manually clean my pod in LBP one more time, I swear to God...). I don't play online that much though, so that's about the extent of my knowledge in that department. Personally, it makes me uncomfortable; I sympathize with the victims. Having someone ruin your game by spamming or cheating can be just as distressing and distracting as having someone walk into your living room and piss all over your tv while you try to play. I don't even find it that funny.