Sebring 1

Chloe Sebring

Eric Yarberry

Comp. II

Oct. 1 2017

Bullying in Video Games

Playing video games online can be a gamble; one might play with other gamers who also

just want to play video games, other times players can be quite toxic. With the massive amount

of anonymity among players and the difficult of punishing bullies in gaming, it allows for

players to harass others for many reasons, such as those who dont fit the gamer stereotype.

While only 33% of students surveyed at University of Arkansas at Little Rock have experienced

bullying in video games, for some online games such as Blizzards Overwatch; Blizzards vice

president Jeff Kaplan explains The bad behavior is not just ruining the experience for one

another, but the bad behavior is actually making the game progress, in terms of development, at a

much slower rate (UALR Students, Developer Update).

In most video games, players are allowed to play online and interact with other players

across the world; as sixty-five percent of households are able to access video games via a device,

like a cellphone or gaming system, it allows for the majority of the world to game (Lofgren).

While most players are usually aware that they are playing with other real people, they

still bully others online with such actions such as singling out one player or name-calling. This is

due to the anonymity gaming brings with it, as players are identified with usernames or gamer

tags and not their real names, plus they do not always know who they are playing with. As
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explained by Jeff Kaplan, anonymity makes people do and say things to other people because

they dont know each other: Ive noticed when Im driving my car and theres somebody in

another car, theres a layer of anonymity there that maybe makes it okay for that other driver to

call me a jerk when they wouldnt do it to me in person if they knew who I was. And I think that

level of anonymity is even higher in video games, and it makes people behave in a way that I just

dont think they would if they were sitting in a room with somebody else (Developer Update).

By having this sense of anonymity in video games, it causes players to experience

deindividuation, or a loss of individuality when online that can cause players to act in a way

that they otherwise wouldnt because they know they will not face punishment (Madigan).

In most online video games, players can report bad behavior or bullying with the push of

a button, but reporting a player does nothing instantly; a report is filed for the admins to review,

and eventually decide on whether a punishment, such as a ban or chat mute, is needed. Until

action is taken by the admins, toxic players are still able to harass other players.

In some games like War of Warcraft, getting rid of bullying players can be difficult due

to the mass of gamers that play. With the massive number of players, even if bullies are being

reported, [c]ontrolling and preventing griefing is difficult. In World of Warcraft, moderators

attempt to ban bullies, but they cant get them all, because there are so many players

(Barvinok).

With other games, such as Minecraft, the bullying situation is not always black and

white. In Minecraft, players are able to build buildings and structures, but they, and other players

are also able to destroy their creations. This can lead to players destroying each others creations.

Minecraft players can become quite attached to their creations, especially as it takes many days,
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sometimes months, to create particularly complex or large structures (Barvinok). While some

Minecraft servers allow protection from these griefers, some servers and players welcome

griefers. Sometimes, playing against a griefer can be fun, since it becomes a competition and

the game suddenly has a villain, according to Andrew, a sixteen-year-old who plays Minecraft

(Barvinok). Other times, griefers trick their way into becoming administrators of a [anti-griefer]

server and destroying everything the players have built, which could waste weeks of work

(Barvinok).

Besides destroying other players hard work on games, toxic players will also target other

players who dont meet the mold of a stereotypical gamer, a hardcore, male player. Those who

are targeted range from newbie gamers, unskilled players, and female gamers.

For newbie gamers, or anyone in general, learning a new game can be confusing and can

take a bit of time to get used to. While most online games use a matchmaking system to sort

players with others on their level, sometimes the system can make mistakes or there is no

matchmaking system in place. In these cases, newbie players can be subjected to torment or

become the scape goat for other players. It took less than a minute of playing League of

Legends for a homophobic slur to pop up on my screen. Actually, I hadn't even started playing. It

was my first attempt to join what many agree to be the world's leading online game, and I was

slow to pick a character (Maher).

Not only can being bullied in general effect someones mood, but it can also affect

someones game play too. After being bullied, players who decide to continue playing might be

inadvertently tilting, or thinking with their emotions instead of their brain. (Hinduja). When

tilting, players generally play worse than they normally do and can cause them to be bullied
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further by their teammates for being unskilled or throwing the game. This can escalate rather

quickly, and over a period of a 30-40 minute game the situation can evolve into a brutal and

relentless manifestation of cyberbullying, especially as the attackers get more annoyed at the fact

that they are losing the game largely because of the poor play of someone else (Hinduja). While

bullied players can fight back against their bullies, it only gives them more reason to harass the

player further and makes it toxic for all players involved.

Sometimes players can automatic be considered unskilled just because of their gender.

For girl players, playing online can be a gamble at times as male players can stereotype girl

gamers as unskilled or as only causal players.

Like with newbie players, a bullied girl gamers gameplay can be affected by bullying;

this is called stereotype threat. For instance, women who are reminded of their gender identity

before a cognitive ability test (e.g., a math test) tend to perform worse than women who receive

no such reminder (Paaen). Also like with newbie players, girl gamers can be harassed by their

bullies even further for tilting while playing.

Girls may also experience sexual harassment and death threats, for this reason [i]t is

common for female gamers who play online to choose ambiguous screen names and masculine

avatar images (Williams). Bullying can also lead to girls choosing not to continue playing video

games or not to play certain classes of games (Paaen).

Another reason girl gamers are targets for bullying, is due to the way video games

portrait girls or the lack of girls included in video games. Videogames regularly reinforce and

amplify sexist ideas about women. Moreover, female characters in videogames are often hyper-

sexualized or objectified (Williams). This is completely intentional as video games use

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sexualized women to make games more appealing to their main audience, stereotypical male

gamers (Paaen). Despite just being a marketing tool, these portrayals of women can lead to the

mistreatment as the narrow waistlines to barely existent clothing, the depiction of female

characters creates a climate in which women are to be lusted after rather than respected

(Williams).

While gamers can be bullied for numerous reasons, bullies do not have to attack other

players nor should they. By being toxic to other players, not only are bullies ruining the game for

anyone they target, but bullies are also causing their teammates to tilt their gameplay and

indirectly destroying their teams chances of winning. Anyone who plays video games can be a

bully, but at the same time everyone can also spread positivity online.

Video games allow for players to remain anonymous online, but it also encourages

bullying and it can become difficult to police these players, allowing for them to attack others

outside of the gaming stereotype. With some issues that encourage bullying such as the

anonymity among players and the difficulty of getting rid of bullies, gamers must rely on admins

and gaming companies to fix these issues, but all players have the ability not to bully newbie

gamers, unskilled gamers, girl gamers, or even stereotypical gamers, instead gamers can be

positive towards each other. As Jeff Kaplan puts it, We should try to make it a fun, engaging

experience. Think about all the times somebody said something negative to you in the game and

imagine now if somebody had said something positive instead (Developer Update).
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Works Cited

Barvinok, Dmitri. "Bullies in Video Games: Griefers | The New Bullying." The New Bullying

Bullies in Video Games Griefers Comments. Http://news.jrn.msu.edu, 12 Feb. 2012.

http://news.jrn.msu.edu/bullying/2012/02/15/video-game-griefers/. Accessed 10/2/17.

Consalvo, Mia. "Confronting Toxic Gamer Culture: A Challenge for Feminist Game Studies

Scholars." Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology.

http://adanewmedia.org, 30 Mar. 2015. http://adanewmedia.org/2012/11/issue1-

consalvo/. Accessed 10/2/17.

Developer Update | Play Nice, Play Fair | Overwatch. Youtube. PlayOverwatch, 13 Sept. 2017.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnfzzz8pIBE. Accessed 10/2/17.

Hinduja, Sameer. League of Legends and Cyberbullying. Cyberbullying Research Center,

cyberbullying.org/league-legends-cyberbullying. Accessed 10/2/17.

Lofgren, Krista. "2017 Video Game Trends and Statistics - Who's Playing What and Why? | Big

Fish Blog." Big Fish Games. http://www.bigfishgames.com, 5 Apr. 2017.

http://www.bigfishgames.com/blog/2017-video-game-trends-and-statistics-whos-playing-

what-and-why/. Accessed 10/2/17.

Madigan, Jamie. "Anonymity and Antisocial Behavior." The Psychology of Video Games.

04 June 2013, http://www.psychologyofgames.com/2010/02/deindividuation-and-

antisocial-behavior/. Accessed 10/2/17.

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Maher, Brendan. Can a Video Game Company Tame Toxic Behavior? Scientific American, 31

Mar. 2016, www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-a-video-game-company-tame-toxic-

behavior/. Accessed 10/2/17.

Paaen, Benjamin, Thekla Morgenroth, and Michelle Stratemeyer. "What Is a True Gamer? The

Male Gamer Stereotype and the Marginalization of Women in Video Game Culture."

SpringerLink. Springer US, 10 Sept. 2016.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-016-0678-y. Accessed 10/2/17.

Peterson, Latoya. Gamer Girls Rising. The Women's Review of Books, vol. 26, no. 2, 2009,

pp. 57. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20476819. Accessed 9/26/17.

Students of UALR. Survey. 29 September 2017. University of Arkansas at Little Rock

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https://undergrad.stanford.edu/planning/gallery/when-gaming-goes-bad-exploration-

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