Towards a Better Understanding of Toxicity in Competitive Multiplayer Games
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Towards a Better Understanding of Toxicity in Competitive Multiplayer Games Malthe R. Jensen Supervised by Thessa Jensen Master’s in Interactive Digital Media June 2019 Institute of Communication Aalborg University Denmark Title Page Aalborg University Interactive digital media 10. semester June 2019 Project Title: Towards a Better Understanding of Toxicity in Competitive Multiplayer Games Written by: Malthe Roed Jensen Study Number: 20147408 Supervisor: Thessa Jensen Characters: 160.473 Page count: 67 Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................. 1 Intro ....................................................................................................................................... 3 Reviewing the literature ......................................................................................................... 4 Data collection ................................................................................................................... 5 Topics ................................................................................................................................ 6 Defining the problem ......................................................................................................... 7 Problem field ......................................................................................................................... 7 Defining negative social behaviour .................................................................................... 7 Solutions .......................................................................................................................... 11 Examining the dynamics .................................................................................................. 12 State-of-the-art ................................................................................................................ 14 Defence of the Ancient 2 .............................................................................................. 15 Counter Strike: Global Offensive ................................................................................. 16 League of Legends ...................................................................................................... 17 Rainbow Six: Siege ...................................................................................................... 19 Overwatch .................................................................................................................... 20 My contentions ................................................................................................................ 21 Cyberbullying ............................................................................................................... 21 Data collection ............................................................................................................. 22 Reliance on chat .......................................................................................................... 23 The issue of intent ........................................................................................................ 24 Problem Formulation ........................................................................................................... 24 Study Limitations ................................................................................................................. 25 Autoethnography, Presentation and approach .................................................................... 27 Why autoethnography? ................................................................................................... 30 My experience ................................................................................................................. 31 My approach .................................................................................................................... 33 CMR (complete member researcher)........................................................................... 34 Analytic Reflexivity ....................................................................................................... 35 Visible and active researcher in the text ...................................................................... 35 Dialogue with informants beyond the self .................................................................... 36 Commitment to an analytic agenda ............................................................................. 36 Analytic Autoethnographic study ......................................................................................... 37 Interviews ............................................................................................................................ 45 Theme ............................................................................................................................. 45 Design ............................................................................................................................. 46 The interviews ................................................................................................................. 47 Transcription and Analysis .............................................................................................. 47 Results ............................................................................................................................. 49 Defining toxicity ............................................................................................................ 50 Participants’ reporting behaviour ................................................................................. 51 Effect of toxicity ............................................................................................................ 52 Participants own toxicity ............................................................................................... 52 Issues .............................................................................................................................. 53 The nature of toxicity ........................................................................................................... 54 The use of cyberbullying in video game discourse ............................................................. 57 Kwak & Blackburn equating toxic behaviour with cyberbullying ...................................... 57 Murnion et al. ................................................................................................................... 59 Fox et al. cyberbullying in MMORPG’s ............................................................................ 60 Summation ...................................................................................................................... 61 Where does the toxicity come from? ................................................................................... 64 Benefit of qualitative methods ............................................................................................. 73 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 74 Where to go from here ........................................................................................................ 76 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................ 78 Appendix ............................................................................................................................. 86 TOWARDS A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF TOXICITY 1 Abstract Negativ social adfærd (toxic opførsel) i online spil har været et udbredt problem i mange år, som både industrien og forskere forgæves har forsøgt at løse. I dette studie søger jeg at skabe en bedre forståelse for fænomenet toxicity i online konkurrenceprægede team computerspil, ved at bevæge samtalen over på hvad det vil sige at være spiller, samt hvordan disse selv oplever problemet. I studiet foretager jeg en gennemgang af den akademiske litteratur samt nuværende industristandarder inden for emnet. Ud fra observerede problematikker fremsættes der fire forskningsspørgsmål, som studiet sætter ud for at besvare med det overordnede formål at komme nærmere en forklaring på, hvorfra toxicity opstår. Spørgsmålene, der bliver stillet i studiet, er følgende: 1) om handlinger i spillet ud over verbal kommunikation er vigtige for at forstå toxic opførsel?, 2) om der nødvendigvis er et link mellem toxic opførsel og en intention om at skade andre?, 3) om toxic opførsel i spil kan ligestilles/sammenlignes med cybermobning?, 4) om kvalitative tilgange til forskning kan være med til at give os en bedre forståelse for de underliggende dynamikker bag toxic opførsel, end hvad der ville være muligt med kvantitative tilgange? For at besvare disse spørgsmål udføres der et etnografisk studie af mine egne oplevelser med spillet Dota 2, samt en række interviews med andre spillere. Undersøgelserne foretaget i dette studie peger på de følgende svar; handlinger i spil er lige så vigtige at kigge på som kommunikationen mellem spillere, da den, på trods af ikke at være så hyppig som toxic kommunikation, ofte ses som mere ekstrem. Desuden ligger handlinger ofte til grund for efterfølgende toxic kommunikation. Der er ikke noget i undersøgelserne der peger på at toxic spillere indtræder i en spilsammenhæng med et overlagt ønske om at skade deres