“One of the crucial insights from the research is that toxic behaviour doesn’t necessarily come from terrible people; it comes from regular people having a bad day,” said Justin Reich, research scientist from Harvard’s Berkman Center. “That means that our strategies to address toxic behaviour online can’t be targeted just at hardened trolls; they need to account for our collective human tendency to allow the worst of ourselves to emerge under the anonymity of the Internet.”
Just as Reich stated, toxic behaviour isn’t merely in the confinement of specific individuals but is accounted to the collective human tendency (Parkin, 2015). It is no surprise that most gamers had encountered toxic interactions online when playing MMORPGs games, whether that is harassment, abusive language, or any form of cyberbullying; in which such negative occurrences are only amplified in the face of anonymity.
As no gamers had to disclose their true identity prior to entering the game field, there is the incentive to abuse the feature of anonymity. However, for me, my experience with Guild War 2 is different.
Other than Guild War 2, I had no prior experience in any other MMORPG games before. As a result, I often feel my online presence in GW2 as incompetent and inferior. In times like this, I will have to rely on external resources, such as Youtube gaming tutorials, Reddit platforms, and GW websites and wiki pages to help me gain a deeper insight on how I can navigate the game better. What astonished me is that I feel more of a community and a positive reciprocal relationship through these out-of-game platforms than the actual game field itself.
For instance, under the comment section of each Youtube gaming tutorial videos, there were numerous comments thanking the content creators for their clear explanation and guidance. There is also a discussion group on Reddit, specifically dedicated for Guild War players to engage with one another. These participants recognized themselves as a community and are encouraged to share their gaming experiences and insights online. To me, this is fascinating as it opens up space for beginners to have a voice within this cyber community that in most cases, is overwhelming. It serves as an invitation for beginners to participate better, either through posing questions or asking for gaming advice. A positive reciprocal relationship is formed when the experienced gamers use their knowledge and time to respond to these threads, helping the players to better adapt to the game world that is otherwise unfamiliar to them.
On the other hand, within the actual game field, I often feel excluded. The tense and fast-paced atmosphere portrayed in the game does not provide a suitable moment or space for me to engage in a deeper level conversation with other players. Most of the time I was either busy with completing quests or overwhelmed with the given tasks in order to level up. The chat box mostly serves the purpose for short and quick phrases to signal other players to perform a certain action. In one of the instances, I was able to complete a group quest without any interactions with other players in the same quests. As we were all given instructions and guided by the NPCs, we were able to complete the group quest without instructing one another. At the end of the group quest, each player simply departs and takes on other missions. This is when I realized that the community of Guild War merely exist outside of the game. Within the game field, most players play in solitude. As the players don’t have to enclose their identities before taking on group quests, the game created this cyberspace for players to remain anonymous and in solitude. It allows the players to enjoy the game in their own preferred pace.
As a result, I would never consider the use of these external resources as cheating. In fact, I think they exist for the purpose of fostering a greater community for players to interact with one another. Cheating would refer to the act of taking advantage in an unfair way. Yet, as individuals enter the game world with a different purpose and perception, they should have the liberty to decide how they want to navigate around the game, whether that is through connecting with other players through these external discussion platforms, or through in-game designed chat boxes.
This is not to say that toxic behaviours should be tolerated. Though players should enjoy their cyber presence with as much autonomy, external measures should be set in place to eliminate toxic interactions. Reporting negative comments could be one way to punish toxic behaviours. On a slightly more optimistic note, if we could be more active on creating a positive and welcoming cyberspace, just as how GW2’s online discussion platforms have portrayed, we can progressively discourage negative behaviours online. Creating a safe cyberspace that welcomes reciprocal behaviours would mean giving little attention to abusive languages and negative comments. Just as how a collective human tendency fosters online disorder, we could also use the power of collectivity to discipline one another. Perhaps, for those who abuse anonymity to cause online turmoils, mostly indulge themselves in such toxic practices because they are having a “bad day,” hoping to seek for attention. Yet, where is the fun in that if we could simply give them no attention in the first place?
References:
Simon Parkin, “A Video-Game Algorithm to Solve Online Abuse”, MIT Technology Review, September 14, 2015.