Is Trashtalk An Essential Part Of Online Games?

[QuicklyAcross]

Essential, hardly. Inevitable and unavoidable, more or less.
Then again theres the difference between just being a bit salty and of course coming across as a bit of an asshat because either of what you say or how you say it, sometimes its just sarcastic or arrogant harmless banter.
True verbal harassment and communication abuse is really only down to a small but extremely loud minority in any multiplayer environment that you will find.

Fortunately for some games we have automated report systems or ways to judge and deal with cases of excessive bad behaviour. Just look at league of legends tribunal for example.
Problem with a democratic system with these things is that you cant tell from just a report sometimes that the behaviour was intentionally bad or just someone having a bad day among their 364 other good ones.

 

[Bat Vader]

While trash talk can't be eliminated I think they should give players more of an ability to escape it. Back when I played WoW ignoring someone just ignored that character. They could easily make a new character and start their crap talk again. They may have already but if they haven't they should implement it so that when you ignore someone's character it ignores their entire account.

That should be a standard with all MMOs I think.

 

[Chaos Isaac]

No, it really isn't. In any fashion.

While some may have it as their tradition, well, rarely is someone clever or funny enough for it to be bothered with.

 

[mecegirl]

Trashtalk has its place.

That place is within private matches, groups and parties. Among friends, where its just friendly ribbing, just like if you were split screening that business.

But from one random to another? No. It never had a place, people took the spirit of trashtalking built on the foundation of knowing your competitor, and took it to an anonymous environment and jacked it up.

Pretty much. Me and my friends even get pretty vulgar with each other over Mario party games (Mario Kart is srs bns). But I could never imagine doing that to someone I didn't know that well.

 

[Demonchaser27]

With extensive experience in online gaming (Warcraft 3, WoW, DotA, Dota 2, LoL, Starcraft 2) on PC, I say: No. It is not essential. In fact, they even hurt your own team. Some funny flames however are nice to have. But there is a limit to what should be accepted.

I like stricter measures against shittalk. Actually, come to think of it, there should be a distinction between "shittalk" and "trashtalk". "Shittalk is offensive, plain dumb". Trashtalk is funny.

Mm.

Let's put it this way. I will tend to pardon a sore loser from time to time. I will almost never pardon a gloating winner.

Yeah I generally agree with this notion. Someone who is angry about losing is, quite honestly, understandable. I've gotten angry before at losses. But it's just the extent or how they portray that anger. If they cast it onto others it can be a problem. But in general, the point is for me, let them get out their anger. No need to have them suppress it. It just creates resentment.

Sore Winners? Yeah, no reason for this to exist at all. This is merely a sense of euphoria where someone might have actually been under a lot of stress and pressure during the match and when struck with the victory they seem to lose control of their mouth. It's really easy to control in comparison to anger, so yeah gloating isn't something I would see as acceptable. Especially in the ways I've heard it. It would be comparable to provoking. And it's actually possible to defend yourself in court, for example, on the case of being provoked. You won't go home scott-free most likely, but you will be reasoned with a lot more because we've all seen those people. The people who just want to start something for the sake of starting it. Just to get a rise. I mean, hell, that's essentially all the internet troll is for you.

 

[MrFalconfly]

Trashtalk is completely 100% non-essential.

There'd literally be no adverse effect to the gaming experience if people stopped trashtalking each other (discounting some immature shutins not being able to vent on other people over the internet).

I disagree, ONLY in that the method to eliminate it would be too heavy handed.

Personally, I have a thick skin, and you can call me anything and I probably won't mind. Talk about my wife or my mother, however... you get the perma-ban, ignore list, or banned from the server. Period.

However, to ELIMINATE trash talk, currently you need to eliminate talking. Look at Hearthstone. You have a few emotes, and that's it, unless the person you're playing is on your friends list. And I know several people that would love to be able to talk to their opponents, discuss tactics, ect. Can't be done. That's the cost of eliminating trash talk, and that's sad.

Well I'm relatively thick-skinned too.

I just know that there are loads of people who aren't, and I don't think they should be excluded from the experience just so a few guys can have their trashtalk.

EDIT:

BTW I only said trashtalk was non-essential, not that I knew how to eliminate it (I don't but I'd love to see an anti-trashtalk headset that tazes the user should be begin to spout less savoury comments)

 

[Thyunda]

Trashtalking does depend 100% on the context. I don't mind people insulting my skills, but then I'm a relatively high rank/level in anything I play consistently and I'm certain enough of my own ability to not only give it back, but also out-perform.
However, I'm currently playing with my girlfriend and basically getting her into the games. So she's only getting one or two kills per game. If somebody were to start abusing her for it, I don't know if her confidence will be able to handle it, and so it would really fuck me off if she felt she couldn't compete just 'cause of some piece of shit thinking he knows trash talk.

Trashtalk I think is an integral part of competitive gaming. As in, between two teams of players in high-stakes situations. Not somewhere your average newb is going to be trying to enjoy the game. And there's no excuse for just plain abusing other players. Insult their skill, not their person.

I don't think it's integral at all. Even in most sports now trashtalk is severely discouraged and often met with stiff fines and penalties. Sportsmanship is not a dead word.

The problem with trashtalking in online games is the second you say 'ok, insulting skill is fine but nothing worse' is that it escalates.

The first claim is untrue. The haka is just one very loud and dramatic trash-talking act. Second, football (soccer if you're American, I haven't seen your profile) fans would be strangely quiet if they didn't have something to sing about their team or the opposing team. Racism is punished. Abuse is punished. This is where your second point is also just plain incorrect. You can't say it will escalate. You don't know it will escalate. We can even look at the types of people who are punished for 'trash-talking' and find out what they said if you want.
Bottom line is this - If it escalates, punish them then. If you're honestly offended by somebody on the internet dissing your game, then I think you might be taking it all a bit too seriously. Maybe talk to a therapist about how that nasty man said "You're shit."

 

[kommando367]

No, but it is a grand tradition; particularly among sore losers and the immature.
Personally, I never use a headset outside of team-games and co-op, but I do enjoy receiving hate mail.

 

[Starbird]

The first claim is untrue. The haka is just one very loud and dramatic trash-talking act. Second, football (soccer if you're American, I haven't seen your profile) fans would be strangely quiet if they didn't have something to sing about their team or the opposing team. Racism is punished. Abuse is punished. This is where your second point is also just plain incorrect. You can't say it will escalate. You don't know it will escalate. We can even look at the types of people who are punished for 'trash-talking' and find out what they said if you want.
Bottom line is this - If it escalates, punish them then. If you're honestly offended by somebody on the internet dissing your game, then I think you might be taking it all a bit too seriously. Maybe talk to a therapist about how that nasty man said "You're shit."

Ah yes, the good old 'blame the victim' strategy. No - if someone says 'you're shit' it's not my fault for getting annoyed, it's his fault for being a twerp. And I don't think I should need to see a therapist because it annoys me.

I said certain sports were exempt. The haka is traditional and more ceremonial than anything else. Soccer...yeah. Fans can be obnoxious, but I don't think anyone would say that it's a good thing - and it has escalated crazily on occasion.

Where exactly is the line between acceptable and unacceptable trashtalk?

I am also not a fan of using trashtalk to try and make your opponent play worse. People have been kicked out of major sports teams for being unsportsmanlike, and in the world of martial arts that shit does not fly.

All endorsing this does is encourages people to think of nastier and nastier stuff to say to psyche out the opponent, or to rub salt in the wounds after the game.

Respect your team, respect your opponent, respect the sport.

Trust me in the world of martial arts shit talk is the least of your worries.
Personally in sparring (not competition just sparring) I had someone jump up and double foot kick me in the stomach to go for a throw (Had this happen multiple times but I only said ok to it once as it's kind of rule breaking techniques really). Or there was a story I was told about one of the other people at Judo who bit a fellow competitors leg open to get him to undo a submission hold.

Hmm. Well I'm not familiar with the scene outside of Japan to be honest, but in kendo and judo here that shit would be dealt with very quickly. I remember one guy being uninvited from a local contest because he was running down his scheduled opponent pre-match and saying that the only reason he was invited was because he knew the organizer. Stuff like you are describing would get them banned.

BTW I only said trashtalk was non-essential, not that I knew how to eliminate it (I don't but I'd love to see an anti-trashtalk headset that tazes the user should be begin to spout less savoury comments)

I think Riot has the answer with the Tribunal. Voicechat is where things get tricky, which is why so few games outside of XBL support it natively.

 

[Lieju]

Well, this depends on the community.

Especially if it's a spectator sport, you want to entertain the audience. You know, put on a show, make witty comments.
But it might not be appropriate if you don't know the people you're playing against, or aren't aware of what kind of stuff people are comfortable with.

And then there is a separate (but related) issue of racism/sexism/homophobia/etc in it.

You can trashtalk without that stuff, but a lot of people only know how to do it like that.
And if you start throwing comments, especially if you're not a white cishet man, you will risk getting all of that stuff in return, and then it's 'your fault' for starting it.

Speaking of my personal experiences as a woman, just in general, not even in gaming, if I make a joke about something, the chances are people will take it as an invitation to throw sexims and rape-comments at me.
Even if the original had nothing to do with sex or gender or anything related.

 

[Starbird]

Well, this depends on the community.

Especially if it's a spectator sport, you want to entertain the audience. You know, put on a show, make witty comments.
But it might not be appropriate if you don't know the people you're playing against, or aren't aware of what kind of stuff people are comfortable with.

And then there is a separate (but related) issue of racism/sexism/homophobia/etc in it.

You can trashtalk without that stuff, but a lot of people only know how to do it like that.
And if you start throwing comments, especially if you're not a white cishet man, you will risk getting all of that stuff in return, and then it's 'your fault' for starting it.

Speaking of my personal experiences as a woman, just in general, not even in gaming, if I make a joke about something, the chances are people will take it as an invitation to throw sexims and rape-comments at me.
Even if the original had nothing to do with sex or gender or anything related.

Spectator sports are a different animal really. Fan behavior always tends to have an antagonistic edge to it, but so long as it doesn't interfere with the game itself I'm kind of okay.

What I'm more against is deliberately attempting to rattle an opponent by saying obnoxious or abusive things, or attacking players on your own team. There will always be some degree of this, but it's good to see developers starting to take serious steps towards cleaning up online communities.

 

[Dalisclock]

Other people and their often dickhead behavior is one of the big reasons I don't play multi-player. With single player it's just me and the game, and if the game has good or crappy mechanics is something I can gauge to some extent before I buy and work with as required.

Multi-player essentially means, to me anyway, I could be playing the best game ever made, but my experience is going to be heavily dependent off the people I'm playing with and since I don't usually play the same games the people around me play, I have to hunt for people to play with. In the mean time, I have to deal with the ever present threat of my experience being ruined by the trash-talking 13 year old leeroy jenkins. I'm trying to have fun and someone else is being obnoxious, and since I'm playing with him, I'm no longer having fun anymore.

There's more then that but it's a major reason I don't play Multi-player. If a game says "MMO" or "Multi-player only" or was quite obviously designed around the multi-player which leaves the single player as a broken shell, that's a game I will never play.

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

To a point its acceptable. For example I was playing Street Fighter 4 online the other day and I kept coming up against this one guy, who usually beat me pretty handily. After every match he'd send me a personal message saying "eeeeaaaasy" or "I just made you my *****". Which eventually turned into calling me a fag, and stating how much better at life he is than me simply because he's better at Street Fighter. I really dont mind the first ones, I think its unnecessary, but I dont mind a bit of trash talk, its when he just wouldnt shut up is when I decided just to turn the game off.

 

[lordmardok]

From another thread where the devs are taking mechanical steps to stop 'teabagging' in a popular shooter.

I am always surprised to see how many people defend 'trashtalk' (varying from taunting the other team to just being a tremendous jerk to everyone) as an essential part of online gaming.

I immediately think of League of Legends and the amount of irate players banned by the Tribunal system coming to the forums furious about being banned for something that has become commonplace (if not outright expected) in competitive online games.

Blizzard and other companies have similar policies, although naturally not as rigorous. However we do see more and more companies introducing stricter measures to enforce certain standards of sportsmanship and civil interaction in their games.

Personally, while I think the 'teabagging' issue is daft, I love the idea of online gaming finally starting to clean up it's act. Taking steps to remove people who create an unpleasant experience for others by being deliberately offensive

So yeah - where do you stand on this? Why do you think this stuff is so ingrained in certain online communities? Does it just come with the territories or is it learned behavior resulting from a combination of anonymity and a lack of moderation?

Not sure if you're aware but, whatever form it takes (teabagging, smack-talk, etc.), the idea of trash-talking isn't an online gaming thing, or even just a sports thing. Anything that involves any form of competition has brought with it some kind of trash-talk dating back to basically the first competition although I doubt there was a caveman version of "I @#$%ed your mom". I'm serious though, Victorian Era England had trash-talk that straight up resulted in duels. There's trash talk in Shakespeare's plays just google 'Romeo and Juliet Thumb Biting Scene'. The trash talk is really delightful.

My point being, whether its considered an 'essential' part of gaming or not is stupid. Of course it isn't essential to the game. What it is, is 'innate'. As in it's just kind of a part of it whether you like it or not and no amount of forum threads will change that. I'm not excusing the vitriol of it, I think it's stupid too. But it isn't going anywhere.

 

[Spartan448]

Trash talk is an important part of anything competative, from a game of Apples to Apples to a full-scale war. It's simply part of how we convince ourselves (and our friends) that we're better than the other guy, and therefore there's no good reason not to put all our effort into beating them into the ground. To use a real world example, if it weren't for the American propaganda machine during WWII (functionally real-life trash talk), it is incredibly unlikely that the US would have kept up military involvement in Europe. Oh, don't get me wrong, once people found out about the German camps, we'd be sending forces over immediately, and after Pearl Harbor there were very few Americans who didn't support the war against Japan. But public opinion of Hitler among Americans at the time was not all that negative. In fact, it was even slightly positive, mostly because yeah he was an aggressive warmonger, but he hates the damn commies as much as we do and he'd be an invaluable ally against them. Not to mention the rampant antisemitism in America at the time (especially in Congress). If it weren't for the American propaganda machine's use of what is functionally real trash talk, it is highly unlikely there would be lasting popular support for a draft and a foreign war effort throughout the war. We were already supplying Britain and France, and then France capitulated (which did anger some Americans).

 

[kaizen2468]

considering i've been playing online for at least 10 years and haven't done so, no it's not essential. it's juvenile.

 

[Bellvedere]

I think lighthearted banter is fun, but that's not generally not what I've seen in online games.

I'm not even a remotely competitive person. Winning or losing, being good or bad doesn't phase me in the least. If someone wants to call me out for being shit whether it's true in a particular situation or not doesn't bother me - but it has to be in good humor. I hate playing with people that seem genuinely upset or irritable. It's a major buzzkill.

I also respect that people have different standards for what makes for fun banter as well as feeling that what's acceptable trashtalk from a stranger might be very different than whats acceptable from a friend, especially as in the case of a stranger, you have no prior experience with them and you're missing out on non-verbal cues so it can be difficult to gauge their intentions. Personally, in that situation, I'd be happier to forgo trashtalk rather than make someone else playing feel upset or abused. I would think that people who trashtalk with intention of making lightheated banter as opposed to wanting to make other players feel like shit would feel the same way.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

There's a huge difference between players trading the occasional bon mot and even the occasional bit of blue humour; I recall a memorable instance that involved a gay player getting killed with a flamethrower that had everyone (the dead player included) in stitches at a LAN party once, and just using your mic as a funnel to dump all the new words you learnt from the school's 3000 year old asshole.

 

[michael87cn]

If you're unpleasant to be around, I don't enjoy being around you. It doesn't matter if that is on the internet or in real life. Your attitude and presence come across either way.

I avoid Microphone chat like the plague. I have never met a decent human being that used it. It is used by people that need a way to vent their problems on others through. It is a horrible thing and I hope it goes away. I've been hoping that for a long time now.... I hate it so much....