Mute, Block, Punish, Reward? A Call to Shift the Research Focus From Concealing Toxicity in Games to Promoting Genuine Positive Behavior
Pages 282 - 284
Abstract
This work presents an argument to shift our research focus away from quick fixes for negative interactions in online communities. Providing functions such as report, block, and mute to players as a primary defense allows us to treat some of the symptoms, but does not address the underlying problem. We need to focus on how we can replace problematic behavior with fair play, collaboration, and mutual respect. Rather than convincing players through reward-based honor systems, we should inspire them to self-reflect, grow, and become the change they want to see.
References
[1]
Paul W. Andrews. 2001. The psychology of social chess and the evolution of attribution mechanisms: explaining the fundamental attribution error. Evolution and Human Behavior 22, 1 (2001), 11–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1090-5138(00)00059-3
[2]
Daniel Balliet, Laetitia B. Mulder, and Paul AM Van Lange. 2011. Reward, punishment, and cooperation: a meta-analysis.Psychological bulletin 137, 4 (2011), 594. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0023489
[3]
Nicole A. Beres, Julian Frommel, Elizabeth Reid, Regan L. Mandryk, and Madison Klarkowski. 2021. Don’t you know that you’re toxic: Normalization of toxicity in online gaming. In Proceedings of the 2021 CHI conference on human factors in computing systems. 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445157
[4]
Julian Frommel and Regan L. Mandryk. 2024. Toxicity in Online Games: The Prevalence and Efficacy of Coping Strategies. In Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642523
[5]
Kate Grandprey-Shores, Yilin He, Kristina L. Swanenburg, Robert Kraut, and John Riedl. 2014. The identification of deviance and its impact on retention in a multiplayer game. In Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work & social computing. 1356–1365. https://doi.org/10.1145/2531602.2531724
[6]
Yubo Kou, Renkai Ma, Zinan Zhang, Yingfan Zhou, and Xinning Gui. 2024. Community Begins Where Moderation Ends: Peer Support and Its Implications for Community-Based Rehabilitation. In Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (, Honolulu, HI, USA,) (CHI ’24). Article 192, 18 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642675
[7]
League of Legends YouTube Channel. 2023. /dev chat: Player Behavior | Dev Video - League of Legends. https://youtu.be/9oFXELTqRy0
[8]
Tiago G. Marques, Sandy Schumann, and Enrico Mariconti. 2024. Positive behaviour interventions in online gaming: a systematic review of strategies applied in other environments. Crime Science 13, 1 (May 2024), 14. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40163-024-00208-8
[9]
Thomas E. Page, Afroditi Pina, and Roger Giner-Sorolla. 2016. “It was only harmless banter!” The development and preliminary validation of the moral disengagement in sexual harassment scale. Aggressive behavior 42, 3 (2016), 254–273. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21621
[10]
Susanne Poeller, Martin J. Dechant, Madison Klarkowski, and Regan L. Mandryk. 2023. Suspecting Sarcasm: How League of Legends Players Dismiss Positive Communication in Toxic Environments. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 7, CHI PLAY (2023), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1145/3611020
[11]
Susanne Poeller, Saskia Seel, Nicola Baumann, and Regan L. Mandryk. 2021. Seek What You Need: Affiliation and Power Motives Drive Need Satisfaction, Intrinsic Motivation, and Flow in League of Legends. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 5, CHI PLAY (2021), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1145/3474715
[12]
Antti Pohjanen. 2018. Report please!: a survey on players’ perceptions towards the tools for fighting toxic behavior in competitive online multiplayer video games. (2018). http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:jyu-201808293951
[13]
Riot Games. 2024. League Honor system guides & FAQs. https://support-leagueoflegends.riotgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008474148-Honor-FAQ.
[14]
Riot Games and TimTamMonster. 2022. Updated Honor Rewards. https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/game-updates/updated-honor-rewards/
[15]
Selen Türkay, Jessica Formosa, Sonam Adinolf, Robert Cuthbert, and Roger Altizer. 2020. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil: How collegiate players define, experience and cope with toxicity. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376191
[16]
Ubisoft. 2022. Reputation System Beta: Reputation Standing & Fair Play Program Beta. https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/game/rainbow-six/siege/news-updates/3pf2Hhz7nKS9CiRj5XdHRv/reputation-system-beta-reputation-standing-fair-play-program-beta.
[17]
Valve Corporation. 2023. The Summer Client Update: New Armory, New Player Behavior System, and New Rendering Features. https://www.dota2.com/summer2023.
[18]
YouTube and videogamedunkey. 2015. I’m Done With League of Legends. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjzgbZL12VI
Index Terms
- Mute, Block, Punish, Reward? A Call to Shift the Research Focus From Concealing Toxicity in Games to Promoting Genuine Positive Behavior
Recommendations
Reward Systems in Human Computation Games
CHI PLAY '16: Proceedings of the 2016 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in PlayHuman computation games (HCGs) are games in which player interaction is used to solve problems intractable for computers. Most HCGs use simple reward mechanisms such as points or leaderboards, but in contrast, many mainstream games use more complex, and ...
How StarCraft II Players Cope with Toxicity: Insights from Player Interviews
HCI in GamesAbstractToxicity in the context of online interactions is understood as an umbrella term describing negativity-inducing and harmful behaviours. Despite multiple efforts, user’s toxic behaviour remains rampant particularly in multiplayer online games with ...
Toxicity in Online Games: The Prevalence and Efficacy of Coping Strategies
CHI '24: Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsToxicity is pervasive in online multiplayer games, exposing players to disruptive and harmful behaviours. Players employ various approaches to cope with exposure to toxicity; however, game designers and researchers lack guidance on how to implement ...
Comments
Information & Contributors
Information
Published In
October 2024
500 pages
Copyright © 2024 ACM.
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].
Sponsors
Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery
New York, NY, United States
Publication History
Published: 14 October 2024
Check for updates
Author Tags
Qualifiers
- Research-article
- Research
- Refereed limited
Conference
CHI PLAY '24
Sponsor:
CHI PLAY '24: The Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play
October 14 - 17, 2024
Tampere, Finland
Acceptance Rates
Overall Acceptance Rate 421 of 1,386 submissions, 30%
Contributors
Other Metrics
Bibliometrics & Citations
Bibliometrics
Article Metrics
- 0Total Citations
- 92Total Downloads
- Downloads (Last 12 months)92
- Downloads (Last 6 weeks)22
Reflects downloads up to 15 Feb 2025
Other Metrics
Citations
View Options
Login options
Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.
Sign inFull Access
View options
View or Download as a PDF file.
PDFeReader
View online with eReader.
eReaderHTML Format
View this article in HTML Format.
HTML Format