Bad Manners in Gaming – Hub Post

I just decided that I wanted to work on this draft. Quite a while ago, I wrote a bad post.

The post in question was on the matter of toxicity, BM, Sportsmanship, and all sorts of intended and unintended ways to ruin people’s fun in games… and my mindset was quite narrowminded.

The topic itself is incredibly large and requires more nuance and research than I had at the time.

On top of that, I should have explained things better and clarified that I’m merely talking about my ideals and my own set of values but even those changed over time… Frankly, I goofed up and now I want to try to do a better job at that by dedicating a whole Project to this topic throughout the year.

This is basically a hub post. I’ll link to stuff over here as time goes on. I’ll also expand different Definitions and stuff that come up down below and change the wording as definitions change, noting the changes below at last.

Now, some people may believe that a whole project for the whole year may be a bit excessive but… I’ll try to show you an example in a bit that already lends itself to a plethora of topics to talk about.

1. Example
2. This Project and my Goal
3. Definitions
   1. BM – Badmouthing or Bad Manners
   2. Toxicity
4. On Bad Manners, Toxicity and Sportsmanship in Gaming

Example

I think the issue with the topic was that the matter of “BM” and “Toxicity” in games takes many, many different forms and I think it’s important to talk about different forms on their own to better understand what to do about the matter or if there even is a way to deal with toxicity.

For instance, in Dead by Daylight, a Killer is pitted against four Survivors. The Survivors have to repair generators to power the escape gates. The Killer needs to prevent them from doing so by striking survivors down and then putting them onto meat hooks. If you kill them all, you win as the Killer. If a Survivor escapes, that Survivor wins. Even if you only kill one Survivor you technically win as the Killer whereas the other three win as Survivors.

Depending on how you see it, the idea of “camping” a Survivor on the hook can be considered toxic or unsportsmanlike… but as long as it’s an option to do so in the game, it still presents itself as a valid playstyle even if it ruins the fun of one Survivor if not all of them.

Judging this specific situation would require one post of its own, probably, whereas verbal abuse and non-verbal abuse would require posts of their own.

I would love to talk to different people about this game in particular, even better if I could chat with one of the devs and some streamers. What’s even better is that this example is that you possibly have four perspectives on the matter: The Hooked Survivor who’s getting camped, the Killer who is now AFK at the hook, and the three other Survivors that just play the game without a Killer.

This example lends itself to multiple prompts/topics:

• Is it “bad” to do this?
• Should this be discouraged or even punished?
• If it’s in the game as a valid playstyle, does that mean that it’s encouraged by the developers?
• What can be done about this sort of behaviour? (DBD has measures in place already, btw)
• Is it good to remove one specific playstyle from the game?
• Is this sort of playstyle healthy for a competitive game like DBD?

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This Project and my Goal

Hence, I want to write a series of posts on the matter of “BM” and Sportsmanship in Video Games with the goal of exploring the topic and possibly even answering a series of questions on the matter. Consequently, I want to categorize forms of BM and Toxicity that I have encountered personally or that others have contributed to the posts…

…and that’s a project I have planned for the year, essentially.

I’ll link to those posts later on over here. I’ll also expand on definitions down here as we go on throughout the year.

So, the goals I’m aiming for are…

• Talk about Toxicity and BM in Gaming
• Discuss why Toxicity appears to be so rampant in Gaming
• Explore different forms of Toxicity and BM
• Explore Toxicity in different genres of games
• Discuss what matters are effective to tackle different forms of Toxicity and BM
• Explore the matter of Sportsmanship
• Discuss different types of Gamers
• Discuss whether Sportsmanship is something to strive for in every instance
• and more.

To do this, I plan on talking to various people, including gamers, developers, community managers, publishers, and professionals that are into these topics.

I also plan on reading any sort of papers on the subject on the matter if I can find any good ones.

And last but not least, I’d love it if other bloggers could also get involved and talk about their opinions, standards, definitions, and experiences. Yay Community!

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Definitions

BM – Badmouthing or Bad Manners

“BM” typically stands for “Bad Manners” but there are also people using it as a verb, as in “BMing someone”, in which case it stands for badmouthing or verbally abusing someone.

Bad Manners suggest an underlying tone of there being rules and norms in place, which is a topic I’ll try to talk about eventually.

Toxicity

As far as I know, Toxicity describes a bad attitude and behaviour that people, especially in competitive and online gaming.

Toxicity can take many forms and it can have many different reasons. Gamers may appear undervalued, stressed out or ganged up on. Some people may have been hurt and they may deal with it by being toxic. Some people just don’t know better or think it’s funny. Others could feel stressed out and may take it out on others.

No matter the reason, toxicity is bad and needs to be combated but it’s not good to fight fire with fire. I’ll try to talk about that eventually as well.

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On Bad Manners, Toxicity and Sportsmanship in Gaming

[I’ll link to the posts here]

[If you want to talk about the topic(s), feel free to shoot me a message with the link and I’ll link to it, too]

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Anyway, I wanted to tackle a new project and I feel like this will keep me busy and interested for quite a long time… hopefully. My track record with series/projects isn’t the best after all. I hope I’ll stick to this one.

Thanks for reading! Have a nice day!

This post was first published on Indiecator by Dan Indiecator aka MagiWasTaken. If you like what you see here and want to see more, you can check me out on Twitch and YouTube as well. If you find this post on a website other than Indiecator.org, please write an e-mail to me. Thank you!