Plopping down on my cushioned chair after another exhausting week of courses and schoolwork, I booted up my computer as usual to conduct my weekly ritual of self-imposed near-masochism: playing League of Legends.
Loading into the game brought me a brief spark of joy, but that spark quickly morphed into an angry flaming spree as my mid-laner — which plays in the middle of the three lanes of the map of the game — proceeded to “run it down” a mere several minutes in, essentially quitting the game. The lack of an in-game voice chat didn’t stop me from typing expletives directed at my teammate’s lack of skill. We of course went on to lose the game in a miserable fashion, and both my mood and desire to continue playing were crushed.
This is a familiar story to many — though it’s usually told from the perspective of the person on the receiving end of my vitriol, as opposed to my own perspective. I am what many in the gaming community refer to as a ‘toxic gamer’ — and if you’ve ever happened to play any competitive multiplayer game, you will have encountered many of my kind.
Gaming companies that are on top of managing player behaviour have already taken steps to curb toxicity within their games, but if they want real results, there needs to be a shift in how their systems account for the issue. Some of the people who engage in ‘toxic’ behaviour often go out of their way to target women, minorities, and those with disabilities often to a degree that goes far beyond the game itself, which makes the prevalence of toxic gamers within the community a genuine problem that needs to be addressed seriously.
Competitive multiplayer gaming has historically been rife with toxicity. Certain titles — such as League of Legends, Call of Duty, and Counter Strike — are renowned for their communities, which are filled with toxic gamers who will go as far as to threaten their teammates’ families and personal well-being in retribution for poor performance in the game. Since players often resort to in-game text and voice chat functions to vent their frustrations and threats, traditional measures to combat toxicity have focused on providing options to limit these forms of communication through mute functions or getting rid of them entirely, as is the case with League of Legends.
Disciplinary measures like temporary or permanent bans and chat restrictions also feature prominently, and these steps have been effective in limiting toxicity through player communication. But while these measures have merit, they limit a crucial avenue of in-game communication that could be vital to success in team-based games.
And hurling racial slurs over text and voice chat aren’t the only way toxic gamers express their displeasure. Tactics like ‘inting’ — intentionally playing poorly to directly undermine the enjoyment of others — can’t be caught as easily by traditional methods of moderation. It is incredibly difficult for the automated systems that communication moderation is based around to distinguish between inting and genuine, non-deliberate poor gameplay, which could just be the result of inexperience.
This can also be the case for players, who may falsely report these incidents as intentional. Human moderation is a must in these cases, but the resources available to individual companies’ moderation teams are dwarfed by the sheer volume of harassment experienced by gamers, which is why algorithms and automated systems remain a standard for moderation. It’s easy for a pundit from outside of the gaming industry to suggest a solution that asks for increased human moderation — and I’m sure gaming companies would love to implement such a solution, if they had the resources to do so.
Riot Games has already explored a potential solution to this resource issue in its former Tribunal system, where players would be given the chance to vote on moderation decisions as a group. If a punishment was deemed necessary by the Tribunal, the members of the Tribunal would be rewarded with in-game currency.
The now-defunct system could have solved companies’ manpower issues by outsourcing moderation to players, who are better equipped than machines to distinguish in-game player behaviour. That being said, though, it also came with the burden of potentially incentivizing players to be harsher in their verdicts in order to get more in-game currency. A more modernized Tribunal system that removes incentives like these that could potentially skew results, pairs player-made decisions with the existing automated moderation, and delegates the final decision in any given case to company employees could help serve as a compromise between a human moderation team swamped with reports and inaccurate appraisals by the algorithm.
Discussion about systems aside, the root of toxicity in games should not be pinned on game design or even moderation of player behaviour, but on individual maturity. Beyond corporate responsibility, there also lies the need for a change in mindset among toxic gamers like myself. We need to recognize that there are better ways to deal with anger and direct it to more productive channels.
People play video games to have fun or take their mind off other matters, and being toxic ruins not just others’ experiences, but your own as well. Inevitably, behaviours that manifest online through gaming will seep into your daily interactions with real-life people — whose opinions can have lasting consequences on your life, unlike an ingame chat restriction.
I am the first to admit that I have a toxicity issue — my friends have pointed out that my attitude toward games is something they want to see me work on — but it’s through taking a step back from the intensity of the game itself by taking a breath and reevaluating things that I keep myself in check. When I feel that familiar rush of anger, it often helps me to mute myself in chat and simply say out loud, “It’s just a game.” It may sound elementary or even silly to do this, but it honestly does help me cool down.
What works for me may not work for you, however — you should always look for something that brings you calm, specifically. Maybe take up a martial arts class to relieve your stress — or just take a break from the game in general. Do whatever it is that can help bring you back to the reality that there are other people behind the screen who just want to have a relaxing weekend, just like you.
