I avoid any pvp online game exactly for this reason. if you open your mouth to call out, you just became a target. it’s so normalized now that I have sworn off multiplayer games altogether unless they’re co-op and I can play specifically with friends.
it really sucks.
It’s hard because people are a lot smarter about how they harras you today than they used to be. It used to just be a shouting match where everyone calls each other homophonic slurs. Now they dig into your profile, follow you around, try to dox you and just generally get really creative about how to fuck you. Fuck all that.
More games should just allow you to disable chat. A friend of mine used to play with a little post-it covering the chat. It allowed him to enjoy the game.
Reliable enforcement beats harsh punishment, when changing people’s behavior. I tell forum mods to hand out three-day bans like candy. It’s long enough to sting and short enough to shut up and take it.
And seriously - you are game designers. Modifying people’s behavior through expectations is your job. Your power is so immense that charging money inside the game should probably be illegal. Find better tools than a permanent boot in the ass.
So!!! Much!!! This!!! The blatant racism and transphobia that is endlessly spewed in all multiplayer games is simply disgusting. The racist and transphobic players need to be held accountable. Permaban them, hardware ban them, report them for hate crime. Simple as that.
its so annoying to play some multiplayer games because instead of cooperating we get sone kids screaming profanities at you.
I’m so happy my brain does not allow me to process the chat while I’m playing games. I really have to stop and type something.
And there I have the rule that if I don’t have anything nice to say I say nothing.
Helldivers 2 allows me to help out fellow newer Helldivers using voice…
But the times I have seen examples of the vile stuff people put in chat, I just get sad… very sad… Mostly for the people that think that stuff is anything you can say to someone else.
“No one needs to grow thicker skin… we’re building a world when everyone can be big blubbering pussies, forever.”
Though there is enough to be said about racism and homophobia, I think we should also be really careful with not overshooting in the other direction. I used to love shit talking with a small group of friends. No, I’m not a racist, I’m a minority, but we have a different kind of humor, which is not politically correct and we use it to kind of vent about real issues. I do know that we’d be banned in a heartbeat (we have been before) and for what? We never bother anyone, we never stalk or hareass anyone and typically were in our own little group.
I do think people should grow a thicker skin as yes yes a thousand times yes, racism is bad, homo/trans/bi/whatever phobia is bad, it’s all bad, but these days you need to watch every word you say lest you want to get banned. Calm down, don’t ban people over jokes that in your eyes are tasteless.
There is a wide gap between some shit talking and the vile hatred you see people spewing online.
Telling people to harden up when smack talking their mother or their gameplay might fly… but idlt does not apply when people tell you to kill yourself in Ernest, Harras you outside a game.
With gaming becoming more mainstream, the tight knit communities playing on curated servers and policed by community admins have been replaced by platforms hosted by big tech and infested by the assholes that used to be too cool for gaming and the basement dwellers that used to be isolated and are now emboldened by their fellow basement dwellers, rednecks, and other generally unlovable people.
For sure, if they follow you outside the game that is a big hard red line there, but then again, I always keep things like that very separate.
Never had anyone telling me to kill myself, but in other instances where they’d get annoying I’d simply mute them and continue playing. That is what I Mena with thicker skin.
There will always be racists and bigots, I don’t think you can stop it completely while the harder you try to control it, the more restrictive you become and the more you suck the fun out of it.
Well, the fun should be in some light banter. Someone reported for vile hate speech should get a system wide mute as a warning for some time and if they cannot behave after, take away their chat rights permanent. Why should it be tolerated? And people after that intent on ruining stuff for others, can be banned outright.
It can all be done on account/license key, IP and hardware ID.
Community servers did the same. People would just move server and do it again, enter shared banlists.
Big tech is more than able to fix this issue, they are just not willing. And the lack of consequences for the last decade just made the problem worse.
Like with corpos thinking the rules don’t apply to them, the whole system and lack of consequences spawn stuff like trump… and in the online “smacktalk” of days gone by has grown into something that needs to be stepped on.
I used to run around CS with a little spray that had a tent and “no camping sign” to smacktalk the sniping campers in their little corner. That was fun…
I think that crowd sourcing the stuff should be easy. Hey user xyz you have been added to the mutelists of 50 people now, this means your chat will be monitored by our chat monitoring system more actively. Hey user xyz you have been added to the Blocklist of 50 people, be aware your gameplay will be actively monitored by our systems and further reports could lead to a suspension of your account.
Etc etc.
Yeah and in no way would that EVER be abused. No way that the definition of what constitutes hate speech would ever be skewed or abused either… It’s not that easy, man.
“Hardware bans”
lmao, this fucking company.
Well, there is a very easy way to circumvent this… don’t be a dick to others.
What’s their policy when someone buys one of these systems from one of these dickheads?
Easier solution is to not install games that are rootkits run by a shitty company.
What’s their policy when someone buys one of these systems from one of these dickheads?
Most likely their policy is the same as the one Microsoft has for their games and consoles. Microsoft once told me, we’re sorry you purchased a banned console but banned consoles cannot be unblocked, buy a new one next time.
You’re a dick. Ban.
See the problem?
No, I really don’t. Also they probably won’t go full ban hammer over one offense.
Just don’t be a dick? If that’s too hard then maybe playing with others is too hard.
I miss the good old days where you could shit talk people and not have to worry about being banned. Just mute the other players. How hard is that.
Completely agree. People seem to have thinner and thinner skin these days. Everything is an insult, racism, attack, etc… The internet is not a friendly place, never has been and never will be. If you can’t handle it then maybe you should just not use it or learn not to care so much about what random internet strangers say to you.
Parents, teach your kids to not feed the trolls.
see I don’t understand this “take your lumps” mentality. “Don’t use the internet if you can’t handle it.”
there’s a difference between:
“lol you’re ass, bitch. you’re garbage”
and
“I’m going to rape you and I’m going to love it. cry for me. open your mouth for me, whore.”
if you have difficulty understanding the distinction between “trash talk” and straight up harassment and abuse, then I think you’re the one who might need to reevaluate your presence on the internet.
the behavior can be fixed and stigmatized, but voices like yours make that extremely difficult.
😂 people are idiots man. Mute and move on if it offends you. I dunno how anybody could get upset at anything people say in a video game.
because some people dont realize they lack the emotion required to understand why someone would get upset about something.
have you never looked at studies of the behavior of people who have empathy and those who lack it?
We’re seriously gonna get this complicated over trolls in video games? Good lord.
its only as complicated as you believe it to be complicated. people dont see the idea that clamping down on shit talkers as complicated. hell if they did something extreme like what club penguin does (which basically got you instant banned) its not complicated, its just choosing what levels are considered “normal”
There is no difference. Both of your examples are the same. It’s some dumbass on the internet saying dumb shit. Just block/mute them and move on with your life.
I also don’t agree that it can ever be fixed.
I think if you had experienced the type of harassment I’ve spoken about at length for such a large amount of time, you’d likely disagree.
I’m happy to hear your gaming experience has been perfect. And I severely hope you never experience the kind of harassment many women who game unfortunately have to.
I grew up with the internet, I’ve heard it all. My experience was far from perfect. I just learned to deal with it and not expect the whole internet to change. There’s a long list of solutions to this problem. Block them, mute them, don’t engage, log off, create a new account, etc…
At the end of the day, nobody is going to protect you from the bad things that can happen on the internet. It’s up to the individual to protect themselves and not take morons so seriously.
I think that mentality is what allowed this to happen in the first place.
But if you believe that its ok for someone to tell a teenager they should commit suicide and get raped because they’re female and playing a video game, I want no part of your level of comfort with the vitriol of these harassers.
You seem to obsess over emotions and words. Nobody in this conversation thinks it’s ok to say bad shit like that to somebody. But I also don’t care if they do. Again, it’s pretty easy to block idiots and move on. Why would anybody let some dip shit stranger who probably lives 5000 miles away in his aunt’s basement bother them
Where did I say it was ok? It’s obviously not ok, that goes without saying. You seem to be focused on what happened and missing my point. This is the reality of the internet. It’s been that way my whole life. As long as you can remain anonymous people will do horrible shit. They can ban as many players as they want, it’s not going to change shit. Trying to force people to behave will never work.
