I agree that most competitive games tend to go that way. My ex and I played a lot of League of Legends in a small friend group together (where this did not happen, thank god), and if playing with “externals” it was unbelievable what bullshit she had to deal with. and although most of the time the creeps bit off more than they could chew, it must have felt pretty bad, regardless of what me and our friends did or said.
Anyone with experience in non-competitive game settings to share?
Folks in MMOs tend to be more chill in my experience. In such a large sample of people you’re going to find a few dickbags who think they’re hilarious or the kind who will DM sexual harassment, but the majority of people just do not care and are happy to play the game. Toxicity tends to crop up around entitlement to loot and perceived performance rather than gender.
That’s what I mean about the large sample size. It only takes the existence of a single asshole to ruin the experience for a target of harassment or casual phobic comment not even directed at them intentionally. Blizzard won’t ban these people, so they’re allowed to exist in the public chat channels, and they can say pretty much whatever the hell they want.
But what I mean is most people do not side with them. An asshole will drop a transphobic comment specifically because they know most people will take offense and argue with them. The general advice is to disable public communication and stick to organizing via guilds and Discord servers which are actually moderated. If the game were a democracy, those people would punished and/or removed.
I agree that most competitive games tend to go that way. My ex and I played a lot of League of Legends in a small friend group together (where this did not happen, thank god), and if playing with “externals” it was unbelievable what bullshit she had to deal with. and although most of the time the creeps bit off more than they could chew, it must have felt pretty bad, regardless of what me and our friends did or said.
Anyone with experience in non-competitive game settings to share?
Folks in MMOs tend to be more chill in my experience. In such a large sample of people you’re going to find a few dickbags who think they’re hilarious or the kind who will DM sexual harassment, but the majority of people just do not care and are happy to play the game. Toxicity tends to crop up around entitlement to loot and perceived performance rather than gender.
Maybe in more current MMOs, because back in my WoW days (2013 and earlier), misogyny was rampant
That’s what I mean about the large sample size. It only takes the existence of a single asshole to ruin the experience for a target of harassment or casual phobic comment not even directed at them intentionally. Blizzard won’t ban these people, so they’re allowed to exist in the public chat channels, and they can say pretty much whatever the hell they want.
But what I mean is most people do not side with them. An asshole will drop a transphobic comment specifically because they know most people will take offense and argue with them. The general advice is to disable public communication and stick to organizing via guilds and Discord servers which are actually moderated. If the game were a democracy, those people would punished and/or removed.