How is toxicity managed within online games by their companies?

Abstract

The term toxic is a widely used term within the gaming industry, used to label behaviours and actions witnessed within the gaming community, to various articles of research discussing this topic.

This thesis discusses how toxic has several other terms often tied to the behaviour that goes against the collective norm (Erikson, 1962, Dobbert and Mackey, 2015) of the gaming community while suggesting ways for companies to combat this behaviour. Both deviant (Erikson, 1962, Suler, 2004, Clinard and Meier, 2014, Dobbert and Mackey, 2015) and transgressive (Jenks, 2003 Meades, 2015) can be used to highlight this type of behaviour.

Due to this, clearly defining what is toxic, deviant or transgressive is difficult as this relies on a subject perspective that others may not share. Thus, this thesis studies the broad rules implemented by the gaming companies to further understand what can be highlighted as toxic behaviour before observing player-to-player interactions.

From the data gathered, it is then vital for companies to continue to monitor their players to ensure the safety of the community. While the steps the companies have taken shows they have listened to the community, the report function is still vital to monitor for this deviant, transgressive or even toxic behaviour.

Overall, I believe that from my own research I encountered more deviant and transgressive behaviour than toxic.

Date of Award	2023
Original language	English