Winning Games: Part Skill, Part Attitude
If someone were to have approached me 4 years ago and told me that I would be conducting research on videogames (for a class), quite frankly, I would have politely asked them to quit playing with my emotions. Lo and behold, here I am — only a hop, skip, and a jump away from earning a bachelor’s degree — having done precisely that. Before I give away the juicy details of my interdisciplinary endeavoring, however, I feel like providing a bit of introductory context might prove fruitful in some way.
(If you are the type to skip past intro sequences, bear with me).
For just about the entirety of my consciously lived life I have been engaging with video games in some fashion. Whether that was aimlessly battering the well-worn buttons of a decommissioned PlayStation 2 controller with sticky, stubby, baby fingers, or suppressing my pint-sized outrage upon realizing that said controller had never been plugged in, I have long benefitted from the blessing of being seated in front of a game-integrated television screen. My grandparents were (and are) gamers, my mother was a gamer, my uncle was (and is) a gamer, and the vast majority of my cousins are gamers, too.
I have traversed hundreds of fantastic dreamscapes, conquered many a kingdom for the good of the people, and dealt countless decisive blows to despoil the forces of evil for good — or at least until a sequel was made. I have weathered the wilds of Xbox Live, tamed the wastes of the PlayStation Network, and trudged through the unending fray — the infinite no-man’s land — of 2000s hardcore online gaming. (For those of you unfamiliar with what defines a “hardcore” game, titles that fall under this category tend to be those of the first-person shooter, fighter, and massively multiplayer online roleplaying game genres.)
Unlike many of my brothers and sisters in early online gaming, I found my way into adolescence with my gamer identity still intact, albeit my once-cheeky countenance had hardened from the unwarranted (and unrelenting) verbal abuse I had faced throughout gaming sessions. I had become cold to insults, and as tends to be the case with many individuals who manage to maintain their position as gamers, I, too, had begun responding in kind to the toxic remarks hurdled at me on an almost daily basis. (Having a higher-pitched voice late into my teenage years was no help, either.) Years of navigating the online gaming sphere had taught me a number of unspoken “rules of play” which seemed to govern my gaming experiences, and I, by virtue of being a male, seemed to benefit from a number of these rules.
First, I had come to perceive that hardcore gaming was an activity created by males, for males, and that anyone who did not fit the stereotypical label of “male” while gaming was subject to an awful experience. This was true (McLean & Griffiths, 2013; Salter & Blodgett, 2012). Second, it seemed to me that those not considered members of the gamer in-group were more likely to experience said awful experiences, those likely consisting of (but not being limited to) extensive verbal battery and in-game persecution. This was also true (“Act like a Woman, Play like a Man,” 2019; Harrison et al., 2016). Third, it appeared to me that hardcore gaming demanded an inordinate level of aggression, nastiness, and exaggerated masculinity from all players involved. This, too, was true (Holden et al., 2020; McLean & Griffiths, 2019).
As time passed and I had gained some opportunities to conduct a bit of preliminary research on player behavior (including these rules of play), I came to realize that many of the things I had experienced while gaming reflected the findings of a growing discourse surrounding the degenerate state of hardcore gamer culture. This gave rise to a lengthy period of reflection about my own experience as a gamer, and I began to realize that I had some serious issues with gaming altogether. I found it problematic that I, like many others in this area of gaming, was expected to be toxic, and I found it even more problematic that I was expected to direct more toxicity toward women and minorities.
I had grown frustrated with the fact that the vast majority of mainstream hardcore gaming culture seemed to overlook these problems, and I, to a degree, found myself wrestling with my gamer identity. For instance, I had come to realize that nobody ever referred to gaming men as “gamer guys,” yet the same was not the case for gaming women (often referred to as “gamer girls”). I had also noticed that no one had ever gotten on my case for being a dude and playing video games — a far-cry from the lived experiences of women (and other marginalized groups) in the gaming sphere. There was now no avoiding the ugly truth marring the once gilded image of the pastime I had so come to enjoy, but I was at a loss for what to do with this knowledge.
“Contrary to popular belief, research really is good — dare I say fun.”
A return to Champlain College following a short hiatus found me smack-dab in the middle of a psychology capstone course. Admittedly, I was a bit averse to the potential workload that came with the territory of the course, but a bit of prayer led to the revelation that said course was the outlet for my frustration! I knew that it would be impossible to spark sweeping change across the whole of the hardcore gaming sphere, but I also knew that I could at least have a go at making things better for someone within a specific community by applying what I now understood. I also knew that the League of Legends community was pretty toxic (and in dire need of reforms), so, armed with an idea and the perfect demographic to pitch this idea to, I found myself knee-deep in writing a book about non-toxic competitive gameplay for toxic (or toxicity inclined) League of Legends players. The text would wind up covering a number of topics across various fields of study, and to say that I had enjoyed furiously tearing away at my keyboard for the greater good of gaming would be an egregious understatement. (Contrary to popular belief, research really is good — dare I say fun.)
Drawing from a rich gaming heritage, my knowledge of League of Legends (a 5 vs. 5 team-battler centered around using characters to topple the enemy team’s base), and a number of critical insights from the fields of psychology, social psychology, and sociology (to name a few), the book, in essence, aims to bait toxic players into behaving agreeably by promising them more overall wins — with data to support it. There exists a tiered ranking system in the game (aptly known as “ranked”) that allows players to battle each other for points known as “LP.”As you might have guessed, most ranked players place an immense value on their ability to accumulate (and retain) LP.
Getting enough LP allows one to climb up another rung on the ranked ladder, providing them with the opportunity to ascend from one ranked tier (e.g., gold) to another (e.g., platinum) after playing a few qualifying games. A higher ranked tier (for some) is indicative of a greater level of mechanical skill, competitive prowess, and being good at the game. Given the apparent importance of these values as expressed by the League community, in cases where players find their LP at risk (or perceive their LP to be at risk), toxic social interactions ensue.
Often unbeknownst to the people engaging in such toxic behaviors, making your teammates the object of your rage actually makes them do worse. Not only that, but certain toxic behaviors can actually make the entire team perform poorly. This creates a vicious cycle of toxicity and declining team performance that only breeds more toxicity, and when such toxicity is left unchecked (across a number of games), it gives toxic players the go-ahead to continue engaging in these behaviors. This leads to the perpetuation of just about every issue mentioned in this text (as they pertained to gamer culture), which in turn gives the toxic nature of this particular hardcore gaming community more time to fester.
Festering and losing are both things I personally tend to avoid, and ideally the contents of this book will allow (hopefully once-) toxic players to avoid both of those things, too — and all by being a better person. If, however, the proposed benefit of becoming a better person proves unappealing to this particular demographic, the benefit of winning more games will certainly sweeten the deal. After all, people generally play games to win.
By the way, the book is called Don’t Be Toxic (You’ll Win More).
References
Act like a woman, play like a man: How online manhood acts lead to inequitable outcomes among professional gamers. (2019). Conference Papers — American Sociological Association, 1–34. https://cobalt.champlain.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=141311686&site=eds-live&scope=site
Harrison, R. L., Drenten, J., & Pendarvis, N. (2016). Gamer Girls: Navigating a Subculture of Gender Inequality. In N. Özçağlar-Toulouse, D. Rinallo, & R. W. Belk (Eds.), Research in Consumer Behavior (Vol. 18, pp. 47–64). Emerald Group Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0885-211120160000018004
Holden, J. T., Baker III, T. A., & Edelman, M. (2020). The #E-Too Movement: Fighting Back Against Sexual Harassment in Electronic Sports. Arizona State Law Journal, 52(1), 1–47.
McLean, L., & Griffiths, M. D. (2013, July 1). Female Gamers: A Thematic Analysis of Their Gaming Experience [Article]. International Journal of Game-Based Learning (IJGBL). www.igi-global.com/article/female-gamers/95082
McLean, L., & Griffiths, M. D. (2019). Female Gamers’ Experience of Online Harassment and Social Support in Online Gaming: A Qualitative Study. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 17(4), 970–994. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-018-9962-0
Salter, A., & Blodgett, B. (2012). Hypermasculinity & Dickwolves: The Contentious Role of Women in the New Gaming Public. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 56(3), 401–416. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2012.705199
