Can a Video Game Company Tame Toxic Behavior?
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. The messages started to pour in.
“Pick one, kidd,” one nudged.
Then, “Choose FA GO TT.”
It was an unusual spelling, and the spaces may have been added to ease the word past the game’s default vulgarity filter, but the message was clear.
Online gamers have a reputation for hostility. In a largely consequence-free environment inhabited mostly by anonymous and competitive young men, the antics can be downright nasty. Players harass one another for not performing well and can cheat, sabotage games and do any number of things to intentionally ruin the experience for others — a practice that gamers refer to as griefing.
Racist, sexist and homophobic language is rampant; aggressors often threaten violence or urge a player to commit suicide; and from time to time, the vitriol spills beyond the confines of the game. In the notorious ‘gamergate’ controversy that erupted in late 2014, several women involved in the gaming industry were subjected to a campaign of harassment, including invasions of privacy and threats of death and rape.
League of Legends has 67 million players and grossed an estimated $1.25 billion in revenue last year. But it also has a reputation for toxic in-game behavior, which its parent company, Riot Games in Los Angeles, California, sees as an obstacle to attracting and retaining players. So the company has hired a team of researchers to study the social — and antisocial — interactions between its users. With so many players, the scientists have been able to gather vast amounts of behavioral data and to conduct experiments on a scale that is rarely achieved in academic settings.
Whereas other game companies have similar research teams, Riot’s has been remarkably open about its work — with players, with other companies and with a growing collection of academic collaborators who see multiplayer games as a Petri dish for studying human behavior. “What’s most interesting with Riot is not that they’re doing it but that they’re publicizing it and have an established way of sharing it with academics,” says Nick Yee, a social scientist and co-founder of Quantic Foundry, a video-game-industry consulting firm in Sunnyvale, California.
Riot’s findings have helped to reveal where the toxic behavior comes from and how to steer players to be kinder to each other. And some say that the work may translate to digital venues outside the game. “The work they do is extensible to thinking about big questions,” says Justin Reich, an education researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, “not just how do we make online games more civil places, but how do we make the Internet a more civil place?”
Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-a-video-game-company-tame-toxic-behavior/
Anyone can join.
Anyone can contribute.
Anyone can become informed about their world.
"United We Stand" Click Here To Create Your Personal Citizen Journalist Account Today, Be Sure To Invite Your Friends.
Humic & Fulvic Liquid Trace Mineral Complex
HerbAnomic’s Humic and Fulvic Liquid Trace Mineral Complex is a revolutionary New Humic and Fulvic Acid Complex designed to support your body at the cellular level. Our product has been thoroughly tested by an ISO/IEC Certified Lab for toxins and Heavy metals as well as for trace mineral content. We KNOW we have NO lead, arsenic, mercury, aluminum etc. in our Formula. This Humic & Fulvic Liquid Trace Mineral complex has high trace levels of naturally occurring Humic and Fulvic Acids as well as high trace levels of Zinc, Iron, Magnesium, Molybdenum, Potassium and more. There is a wide range of up to 70 trace minerals which occur naturally in our Complex at varying levels. We Choose to list the 8 substances which occur in higher trace levels on our supplement panel. We don’t claim a high number of minerals as other Humic and Fulvic Supplements do and leave you to guess which elements you’ll be getting. Order Your Humic Fulvic for Your Family by Clicking on this Link , or the Banner Below.
Our Formula is an exceptional value compared to other Humic Fulvic Minerals because...
It’s OXYGENATED
It Always Tests at 9.5+ pH
Preservative and Chemical Free
Allergen Free
Comes From a Pure, Unpolluted, Organic Source
Is an Excellent Source for Trace Minerals
Is From Whole, Prehisoric Plant Based Origin Material With Ionic Minerals and Constituents
Highly Conductive/Full of Extra Electrons
Is a Full Spectrum Complex
Our Humic and Fulvic Liquid Trace Mineral Complex has Minerals, Amino Acids, Poly Electrolytes, Phytochemicals, Polyphenols, Bioflavonoids and Trace Vitamins included with the Humic and Fulvic Acid. Our Source material is high in these constituents, where other manufacturers use inferior materials.
Try Our Humic and Fulvic Liquid Trace Mineral Complex today. Order Yours Today by Following This Link.