Regarding the behavior of players in online multiplayer games

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

This has been a sticky point in the back of my head for a while and I now want to have a conversation about it thanks to Zhukov's post [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.861430-Prove-to-me-that-the-Gaming-Community-Excludes-Women#21435057] on a separate forum about a specific study [http://nms.sagepub.com/content/15/4/541].

If the study is both true and within rigorous standards, then it is shown that sessions using prerecorded female voices get more questions, more messages and more negative responses regardless of skill or behavior than male voices or sessions with no voice.

The questions are now A) is this true to a significant degree and B) what are the causes of this behavior.

I do have some theories about why the behavior is observed though I would like you to comment and disprove if needed. The first is sadly very blunt: immaturity among younger teens due to either lack of accountability from parents or social situations. Given that the stereotype of CoD players is a 13 year old, it wouldn't surprise me if this theory applied to that age group. However, the problem then becomes why do social well-adjusted people in high school, college and onward act this way online. I have met a few idiots and fools in high school but that seems to decrease as time goes on and people, even in high school, are not that vile. The theory I have with them is anonymity enabling open disclosure of socially undesirable topics.

I'm not sure if these theories are correct or what the solutions are so I would like to have an open forum on the topic.

Afterword: I attempted to reduce incendiary rhetoric as much as possible but if I failed in that, inform me. Also any reference to age groups is only talking about members of those age groups that exhibit the behaviors reported in the study and not all members of that age group.

 

[Inglorious891]

There are a hell of a lot of unknowns with the summary of that study. I realize the full pdf is on the page but I really would rather not make an account just to view one pdf. Can anyone give me any information on the study, because I have a lot of questions.

What game(s) was/were involved? If the only game was the most recent CoD, for example, I'm already convienced this whole study is pointless.
What were the age of the gamers involved?
What type of negative responses did the voices recieved? Were the respones gender-charged or were they just insulting the player's abilites?
Did the people who were saying these negative things say similar things to other players?

I do have some theories about why the behavior is observed though I would like you to comment and disprove if needed. The first is sadly very blunt: immaturity among younger teens due to either lack of accountability from parents or social situations. Given that the stereotype of CoD players is a 13 year old, it wouldn't surprise me if this theory applied to that age group. However, the problem then becomes why do social well-adjusted people in high school, college and onward act this way online. I have met a few idiots and fools in high school but that seems to decrease as time goes on and people, even in high school, are not that vile. The theory I have with them is anonymity enabling open disclosure of socially undesirable topics.

In a nutshell, immaturity is the root cause. Most gamers aren't the women-hating pricks a lot of folks are trying to write them off to be, so I guartentee if someone goes to any gaming community where most people aren't 13 years old/have the minds of 13 year olds, most people in that community aren't going to be assholes to everyone.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

There are a hell of a lot of unknowns with the summary of that study. I realize the full pdf is on the page but I really would rather not make an account just to view one pdf. Can anyone give me any information on the study, because I have a lot of questions.

What game(s) was/were involved? If the only game was the most recent CoD, for example, I'm already convienced this whole study is pointless.
What were the age of the gamers involved?
What type of negative responses did the voices recieved? Were the respones gender-charged or were they just insulting the player's abilites?
Did the people who were saying these negative things say similar things to other players?

I do have some theories about why the behavior is observed though I would like you to comment and disprove if needed. The first is sadly very blunt: immaturity among younger teens due to either lack of accountability from parents or social situations. Given that the stereotype of CoD players is a 13 year old, it wouldn't surprise me if this theory applied to that age group. However, the problem then becomes why do social well-adjusted people in high school, college and onward act this way online. I have met a few idiots and fools in high school but that seems to decrease as time goes on and people, even in high school, are not that vile. The theory I have with them is anonymity enabling open disclosure of socially undesirable topics.

In a nutshell, immaturity is the root cause. Most gamers aren't the women-hating pricks a lot of folks are trying to write them off to be, so I guarantee if someone goes to any gaming community where most people aren't 13 years old/have the minds of 13 year olds, most people in that community aren't going to be assholes to everyone.

The game was Halo 3 on team slayer mode, three different accounts were used: one male, one female, and one voice less. Coders used to sort comments made in response to both gameplay and threatening comments. I think the responses are general

Also, you can read the full pdf without an account

I would say that the immaturity would need to be fixed but the question is how.

 

[Irick]

This has been a sticky point in the back of my head for a while and I now want to have a conversation about it thanks to Zhukov's post [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.861430-Prove-to-me-that-the-Gaming-Community-Excludes-Women#21435057] on a separate forum about a specific study [http://nms.sagepub.com/content/15/4/541].

If the study is both true and within rigorous standards, then it is shown that sessions using prerecorded female voices get more questions, more messages and more negative responses regardless of skill or behavior than male voices or sessions with no voice.

The questions are now A) is this true to a significant degree and B) what are the causes of this behavior.

I do have some theories about why the behavior is observed though I would like you to comment and disprove if needed. The first is sadly very blunt: immaturity among younger teens due to either lack of accountability from parents or social situations. Given that the stereotype of CoD players is a 13 year old, it wouldn't surprise me if this theory applied to that age group. However, the problem then becomes why do social well-adjusted people in high school, college and onward act this way online. I have met a few idiots and fools in high school but that seems to decrease as time goes on and people, even in high school, are not that vile. The theory I have with them is anonymity enabling open disclosure of socially undesirable topics.

I'm not sure if these theories are correct or what the solutions are so I would like to have an open forum on the topic.

Afterword: I attempted to reduce incendiary rhetoric as much as possible but if I failed in that, inform me. Also any reference to age groups is only talking about members of those age groups that exhibit the behaviors reported in the study and not all members of that age group.

The study is paywalled. We can't check the methodology or really the findings without access to the full text.

 

[FuzzyRaccoon]

I'm a girl, and I do play multiplayer. This is of course anecdotal, however I have certainly experienced this. It's the reason why I don't have my mic on outside of ME3 because they are honestly the only group of people who haven't been rude to me. With Mass Effect 3 Multi I just had to prove I was reasonable and no one minded what kind of bits I had.

That's certainly not the case in other places. I didn't even mind the fact that I was added a ton more when guys heard my voice than when they didn't because I often found myself adding someone with an accent or an interesting voice.

But outside of that and even there I'd had plenty other experiences that were so depressing that I never wanted to deal with them. Guys making excuses about how they were feeling when I played better than them and stupid sandwich jokes being the most banal of them and leading right up to flat out aggression and name calling.

 

[happyninja42]

I'm a girl, and I do play multiplayer. This is of course anecdotal, however I have certainly experienced this. It's the reason why I don't have my mic on outside of ME3 because they are honestly the only group of people who haven't been rude to me. With Mass Effect 3 Multi I just had to prove I was reasonable and no one minded what kind of bits I had.

That's certainly not the case in other places. I didn't even mind the fact that I was added a ton more when guys heard my voice than when they didn't because I often found myself adding someone with an accent or an interesting voice.

But outside of that and even there I'd had plenty other experiences that were so depressing that I never wanted to deal with them. Guys making excuses about how they were feeling when I played better than them and stupid sandwich jokes being the most banal of them and leading right up to flat out aggression and name calling.

I'm curious if you saw any correlation between games that were co-op (like ME 3), and more accepting players, versus more competitive games like the CoD series?

I'm male, but in my experience, I find that games where the players are all working on the same side there is way less bitchery and asshattery, possibly because we're not competing against each other, but instead relying on each other to win. So it's an Us vs the Game mentality. In larger games, with cross-team communication, the asshattery does seem to increase a lot.

Anyone else notice any trend when it's co-op versus competitive?

 

[Something Amyss]

Anyone else notice any trend when it's co-op versus competitive?

Nope. But maybe I'm playing the wrong games. I don't co-op with randoms in games like Borderlands, but I do sometimes in games like GTA.

 

[FuzzyRaccoon]

I'm curious if you saw any correlation between games that were co-op (like ME 3), and more accepting players, versus more competitive games like the CoD series?

I'm male, but in my experience, I find that games where the players are all working on the same side there is way less bitchery and asshattery, possibly because we're not competing against each other, but instead relying on each other to win. So it's an Us vs the Game mentality. In larger games, with cross-team communication, the asshattery does seem to increase a lot.

Anyone else notice any trend when it's co-op versus competitive?

You know now that you mention it, I did notice that difference. ME3, early days Counter Strike, co-oping for Dead Space 3 with someone you never met, those were all surprisingly good experiences. But playing in a competitive capacity was awful. Especially if I was better than them, that's when they started trying to crush me with a kind of fervor that's a little unsettling.

Never played Multiplayer for things like Borderlands 2 even though I'd heard good things in the past because I was always worried that it was actually going to be just as awful. Do any of you know what that scene is like?

 

[Fappy]

I'm a girl, and I do play multiplayer. This is of course anecdotal, however I have certainly experienced this. It's the reason why I don't have my mic on outside of ME3 because they are honestly the only group of people who haven't been rude to me. With Mass Effect 3 Multi I just had to prove I was reasonable and no one minded what kind of bits I had.

That's certainly not the case in other places. I didn't even mind the fact that I was added a ton more when guys heard my voice than when they didn't because I often found myself adding someone with an accent or an interesting voice.

But outside of that and even there I'd had plenty other experiences that were so depressing that I never wanted to deal with them. Guys making excuses about how they were feeling when I played better than them and stupid sandwich jokes being the most banal of them and leading right up to flat out aggression and name calling.

I'm curious if you saw any correlation between games that were co-op (like ME 3), and more accepting players, versus more competitive games like the CoD series?

I'm male, but in my experience, I find that games where the players are all working on the same side there is way less bitchery and asshattery, possibly because we're not competing against each other, but instead relying on each other to win. So it's an Us vs the Game mentality. In larger games, with cross-team communication, the asshattery does seem to increase a lot.

Anyone else notice any trend when it's co-op versus competitive?

I think there's some truth to your theory, but if it's tamer in those scenarios it is only marginally so. I have heard tons of stories about harassment and misogyny in PvE-heavy MMO's (WoW in particular). My girlfriend pretty much only ever played the PvE content and was harassed almost every time people found out she was female.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

It might be..People who feel insecure and don't have an outlet. Only wanting to lash out at anything.
Anonymity not only gives them that outlet but also have peer pressure working for them, creating a negative echo-chamber.
It's not only females they attack but anyone who don't agree with them or have any label they can attach.
(different gender,melanin count,experience,views, anything.)

The way to deal with that would be to address their insecurities, somehow.
I don't have any great solution, any single fix.
It would have to be a collaborative effort including school, parents, social structure, etc.

Then again, I could be completely wrong of course.

*EDIT*
Apologies for editing directly after posting *hrm*.

I rarely play anything in multiplayer myself.
I've had my fair share of toxic encounters that put me off it.
I don't like to compete, I prefer to collaborate when necessary.
Even then, everyone tries to draw the group in a as many directions as people..

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

This has been a sticky point in the back of my head for a while and I now want to have a conversation about it thanks to Zhukov's post [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.861430-Prove-to-me-that-the-Gaming-Community-Excludes-Women#21435057] on a separate forum about a specific study [http://nms.sagepub.com/content/15/4/541].

If the study is both true and within rigorous standards, then it is shown that sessions using prerecorded female voices get more questions, more messages and more negative responses regardless of skill or behavior than male voices or sessions with no voice.

The questions are now A) is this true to a significant degree and B) what are the causes of this behavior.

I do have some theories about why the behavior is observed though I would like you to comment and disprove if needed. The first is sadly very blunt: immaturity among younger teens due to either lack of accountability from parents or social situations. Given that the stereotype of CoD players is a 13 year old, it wouldn't surprise me if this theory applied to that age group. However, the problem then becomes why do social well-adjusted people in high school, college and onward act this way online. I have met a few idiots and fools in high school but that seems to decrease as time goes on and people, even in high school, are not that vile. The theory I have with them is anonymity enabling open disclosure of socially undesirable topics.

I'm not sure if these theories are correct or what the solutions are so I would like to have an open forum on the topic.

Afterword: I attempted to reduce incendiary rhetoric as much as possible but if I failed in that, inform me. Also any reference to age groups is only talking about members of those age groups that exhibit the behaviors reported in the study and not all members of that age group.

The study is paywalled. We can't check the methodology or really the findings without access to the full text.

Weird, I have access to it and can read the full text but perhaps it may have to do with my current university status

apologies for not realizing this

 

[TaboriHK]

I find the atmosphere in online games to be toxic or silent in general. Either people are awful, or they don't talk. Obviously, I don't know how many of the silent are male or female, but the toxicity is ALWAYS male. I've never heard a girl or a woman spouting off, trying to get under people's skin, and certainly not flinging out the expletives that would get them banned from any other service.

 

[Inglorious891]

snip

So they go to Halo 3 and are surprised when everyone's an asshole? If you go to a competitive game populated by 13 year olds of course everyone is going to act 13.

I'd love it if they tried this test with a co-op game to see if they get the same results. Payday 2, Left 4 Dead 2, etc.

I've played L4D and L4D2 since the first came out and I can't remember a single random who I've played with being noteworthy for being an asshole; the only noteworthy people are those who have been exceptionally nice. Hell, most of the online friends I speak with today I met on L4D2. And yes, several of them are women. And I've been there as they use their mics in-game in both L4D2 and other coop games. Not once have I ever heard them get harassed.

As how to solve the immaturity issue though, the only real way is to get parents to actually be good parents so they can teach their kids not to be little shits online. Stopping that when they're young is the best way to make sure they don't grow up to be just a shitty as when they're 13.

Also, as had been said before it seems like I have to make an account and subscribe to view the pdf.

I find the atmosphere in online games to be toxic or silent in general. Either people are awful, or they don't talk. Obviously, I don't know how many of the silent are male or female, but the toxicity is ALWAYS male. I've never heard a girl or a woman spouting off, trying to get under people's skin, and certainly not flinging out the expletives that would get them banned from any other service.

I'd wager most people who aren't assholes are talking to friends. You only hear the assholes because they're playing by themselves and for some reason feel the need to speak.

How many women do you hear in public chat for most games? I've only heard a few in all my years gaming, so odds are you don't hear many women being assholes in public chat because not many speak in public chat. And just because you don't hear them doesn't mean they aren't saying nasty things; I have a friend that plays quite often Smite and she always says the nastiest things about players she thinks are bad at the game.

 

[TaboriHK]

I'd wager most people who aren't assholes are talking to friends. You only hear the assholes because they're playing by themselves and for some reason feel the need to speak.

How many women do you hear in public chat for most games? I've only heard a few in all my years gaming, so odds are you don't hear many women being assholes in public chat because not many speak in public chat. And just because you don't hear them doesn't mean they aren't saying nasty things; I have a friend that plays quite often Smite and she always says the nastiest things about players she thinks are bad at the game.

Half of the people in the room being assholes is still a big number. If I were a girl, I wouldn't speak in the shark cage either. I'm glad you know a girl that's mean, for balance's sake, but that doesn't trump the thousands of dicks I've dealt with online. Most girls I know play MMOs, and aren't mean to anyone unless someone purposely wrongs them. It's a far cry from immediately dropping the n-bomb in every room until you're muted. A very far cry.

 

[Longing]

In my experience, people are usually polite in co-op and absolute fucktards in vs. I play without a mic, but my profile pretty clearly states my gender and goddamn, are some people whiny crybabies when they don't win and it seems like the highest form of dishonor when they lose to the fairer sex.

So I think competitiveness plays a large part here and I'm certain the gaming community as a whole knows it doesn't have the most mature attitude towards defeat so that's a winning combination right there. Add to that the humiliation of losing to ew girls and you have a potent potion for becoming a horrible human being.

Plus anonymity and 13 year old boys being randy little fuckers looking to make women uncomfortable (sometime older, which is when it gets embarrassing) and yada yada yada. I think we all knew the online community was not the best shining example of humanity.

 

[Inglorious891]

I'd wager most people who aren't assholes are talking to friends. You only hear the assholes because they're playing by themselves and for some reason feel the need to speak.

How many women do you hear in public chat for most games? I've only heard a few in all my years gaming, so odds are you don't hear many women being assholes in public chat because not many speak in public chat. And just because you don't hear them doesn't mean they aren't saying nasty things; I have a friend that plays quite often Smite and she always says the nastiest things about players she thinks are bad at the game.

Half of the people in the room being assholes is still a big number. If I were a girl, I wouldn't speak in the shark cage either. I'm glad you know a girl that's mean, for balance's sake, but that doesn't trump the thousands of dicks I've dealt with online. Most girls I know play MMOs, and aren't mean to anyone unless someone purposely wrongs them. It's a far cry from immediately dropping the n-bomb in every room until you're muted. A very far cry.

Most of the people in online games I play don't speak. I'd wager 5% of all the people I've played games with online actually speak, even if there is a girl in the room. Of the people who I've seen who are assholes, they're never the "n-bomb" dropping maniacs that everyone makes them out to be. I realize people like that do exist, but saying that half the people who play games online are n-bomb maniacs is crazy.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I've experienced bouts of random verbal diarrhea during online matches. I'm normally not a jackass, but overexposure to toxicity can wear down my defenses. I've a habit of adjusting language to match my surroundings unconsciously (I pick up accents, or odd verbal tones, and colloquial speak in minutes of being around people). It can be infectious to some people, they may not even realize they do it.
I had a friend who back in the days before mics would play Quake with just headphones and talk mad shit to the monitor as if people could actually hear him over the modem. I called him on it one day and he looked at me with the most confused expression I've ever seen and said "I do?" He was absolutely unaware of the things that came out of his mouth... as if he had a fire-and-forget mouth.

 

[TaboriHK]

Most of the people in online games I play don't speak. I'd wager 5% of all the people I've played games with online actually speak, even if there is a girl in the room. Of the people who I've seen who are assholes, they're never the "n-bomb" dropping maniacs that everyone makes them out to be. I realize people like that do exist, but saying that half the people who play games online are n-bomb maniacs is crazy.

Your experience is not my experience.

 

[Inglorious891]

Most of the people in online games I play don't speak. I'd wager 5% of all the people I've played games with online actually speak, even if there is a girl in the room. Of the people who I've seen who are assholes, they're never the "n-bomb" dropping maniacs that everyone makes them out to be. I realize people like that do exist, but saying that half the people who play games online are n-bomb maniacs is crazy.

Your experience is not my experience.

Out of curiosity, what games do you play online? Not trying to sound condescending or confrontational, just curious.

 

[Saltyk]

I'm a girl, and I do play multiplayer. This is of course anecdotal, however I have certainly experienced this. It's the reason why I don't have my mic on outside of ME3 because they are honestly the only group of people who haven't been rude to me. With Mass Effect 3 Multi I just had to prove I was reasonable and no one minded what kind of bits I had.

That's certainly not the case in other places. I didn't even mind the fact that I was added a ton more when guys heard my voice than when they didn't because I often found myself adding someone with an accent or an interesting voice.

But outside of that and even there I'd had plenty other experiences that were so depressing that I never wanted to deal with them. Guys making excuses about how they were feeling when I played better than them and stupid sandwich jokes being the most banal of them and leading right up to flat out aggression and name calling.

I use to play MAG. It had large groups of players fighting towards various goals on each map. Simply being the guy with most kills meant you had the most kills, but your team could still lose if you didn't bother to work on the objective. It should go without saying that the best way to accomplish victory was to join a Clan and work together. And this means we had various people, including girls in our Clan.

After all, in a match, sex didn't matter. Honestly, being the best player was less important than being a team player.

I bring this up because I only recall one instance where I saw someone give one of our girls trouble. It was just three of us at the time and we entered the pregame information screen. While there, someone volunteers, "Buddy, if I had a voice like yours, I wouldn't speak. You sound like a girl." Which prompted the reply that she is a girl.

At first, this guy seemed a bit antagonistic towards us. Then, we got into the game, and our teamwork and skill ended up changing his tune. Hell, he even made me laugh during the match. At the end, he asked if he could join us. As soon as we were away, I asked what the others thought and they instantly shot it down as he was rude to our female player and the whole thing was dropped without a second thought.

I suppose the moral of the story is that acting like a dick can end up shooting yourself in the foot. And those who respect you will always have your back.