“There is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.” — H. L. Mencken.
New to dealing with disruptive behavior in games? Proceed with caution. Emotion and passion could point you to seemingly obvious answers that may be problematic — or even harmful.
The following are the top anti-strategies — common yet damaging approaches — for dealing with disruptive behavior in online games. Members of the Thriving in Games Group (TIGG), who are often not at liberty to publicly discuss their lessons learned, have generated this list based on experience. Links and examples are offered where possible.
Ban “all the bad players”
Belief: You can remove all players who are bad.
Reality: You would need to remove almost everyone.
At face value, this approach seems simple: just remove all the “bad” players and you’ll fix what’s wrong in your community. Unfortunately, “bad” is a spectrum that can only be reliably detected at the extremes. Banning the “worst” players may be possible, but banning all the “bad” players is not.
Worse yet, everybody is disruptive to somebody sometime — which means even you could be considered “bad” at some point.
Basically there’s no clear line between good and bad.
Alternative: Prioritize targeting specific kinds of behavior. Most players will reform with the right kind of feedback, so strive to nudge all players toward improvement.
Scarlet letters
Belief: Publicly shaming players will get them to behave better.
Reality: Certain players thrive on misbehavior and badges of dishonor.
At various points in the history of online multiplayer games, developers have used “scarlet letter” systems to apply visible symbols of shame to misbehaving players. A scarlet letter can be as simple as changing the in-game names of transgressors to the color red. (In this context we’re not referring to common RPG systems, which show the reputation status of a player with factions or other groups.)
The intention of scarlet letter systems is to shame players into behaving better. Unfortunately, some players like these types of badges and the special identity they create. Furthermore, players with scarlet letters have been known to form gangs that attack others as a group.
Scarlet letter approaches are not recommended.
Alternative: Do the opposite of scarlet letters: celebrate and reward good behavior. Help players build good reputations worth maintaining.
“See what you did!” methods
Belief: Showing players how they have been bad will get them to change.
Reality: Again, certain players take pride in being recognized for their bad behavior.
Some developers have tried showing transgressors the total number of reports they’ve received and / or their history of disruptive behavior. At face value, this may seem like a good idea. Wouldn’t seeing the bad you’ve done make you change your ways?
Not necessarily, it turns out.
Like scarlet letters, this information can become a badge of honor (or dishonor), a point of pride, a part of a person’s identity. This emboldens the player to continue their disruptive behavior. They essentially double-down on being bad.
Alternative: Show players what they’ve lost by being disruptive, how inappropriate behavior hurt more than helped them.
Note: Catching a player doing something bad, in the moment and in a visible way to others, may be effective to some extent.
Trigger-happy penalties
Belief: Utilizing penalties for lesser offenses can scare the community into behaving better.
Reality: This works until you can no longer fill teams.
In practicing this strategy, you will likely need to raise or lower the criteria for penalization at times to adjust to changing situations in the community. This can help snap a community back into a more cohesive state. Unfortunately, this is not a sustainable strategy.
Too many penalties can result in a cascade effect. The more players you ban, the fewer are available to play your game. The result is so many banned players that your game can no longer fill teams. Concurrently, the more trigger-happy you are with bans, the more you risk creating an environment of fear. This discourages players from wanting to play your game. To avoid these problems, you’ll want to be careful about being too heavy-handed with penalties.
Alternative: Address root causes of behavior problems. Since what is perceived as bad behavior is often due to situational factors, change the designed situations to reduce the likelihood of bad behavior and the need for penalties. Quite often the design of games can drive undesirable behavior.
Permabans
Belief: You can kick bad actors out of your game forever.
Reality: It is difficult. And you can make things worse for new players and expensive for your company.
This is a classic anti-strategy and a totally understandable one. If there are “bad actors,” just kick them out! There are a few problems with this approach:
- You might have to pay banned players — If your company is taken to court (e.g., small claims) by a banned player and you lose or settle, you could end up paying the banned player and they get their accounts back (yes, this can happen).
- You could violate consumer protection laws — Some countries have laws that prevent companies from removing access to purchased goods.
- You can’t keep everyone out forever — It’s too easy to create new accounts and hardware can be replaced (see Hardware bans).
- Your penalty lacks sting — By the time a player is permanently banned, they’re desensitized to punishment.
- You have lost your leverage — Once you have taken away everything from a repeat offender, you have nothing left to hold over them.
- You may have created a new negative normal — Permabanned players can create new accounts — bringing all their negative attitudes and habits with them — and influence all the new players they encounter.
Alternative: Keep players in the system where you can retain leverage, but reduce their ability to expose others to disruption and harm (e.g., shadow mutes).
Prisoner’s Island / Angel’s Island
Belief: Putting all the “bad” or “good” players together will protect the community.
Reality: Both paths end up in the same place: normalizing bad, excluding reformable people, and empowering the worst.
The allure of Prisoner’s Island is simple: by siphoning off problematic players you can save the rest of the community and (maybe) shock the problematic players into more self-awareness and improvement. However, problems arise:
- The middle is a gray area — “Bad” is a gradient, and there are too many complicating factors to reliably separate “bad” from “good.” False positives, which would unfairly punish players, are also a big risk.
- The bad will get worse — Prisoner’s Island creates a toxic echo chamber that reduces self-awareness, increases acceptance of antisocial behaviors, and reinforces bad attitudes.
- Good role models won’t be where they’re needed — Players on Prisoner’s Island won’t have any examples of good behavior to follow because you removed them.
So, if putting all the “bad” players on an island won’t work, maybe putting all the “good” players together will? Unfortunately, the result is the same with a slight twist:
- Culture of elitism — Being recognized as “good” takes time, so any new or average player will be left out. Many (if not most) players will always feel they’re playing an inferior version of the game.
- Prisoner’s Island by elimination — As you siphon off “good” players, you’ll eventually create a Prisoner’s Island in reverse. With no good role models, the players left in the regular game will devolve in behavior.
Alternative: Work at normalizing good behavior by making the behaviors you want to see an expectation of every player.
Note: Cheaters, however, are one category of players where Prisoner’s Island can work. This is because cheaters are easier to reliably detect and their overall psychology is different.
Hardware and IP bans
Belief: Banning their machine or IP address will keep the disruptive players out.
Reality: Does not work 100%, and may result in banning innocent players (and internet cafe owners) along the way.
Hardware bans leverage the unique fingerprint of a computer. IP bans leverage the unique number linked to the online activity a player does.
At face value, hardware and IP bans seem like perfect ways to keep out the “bad actors.” Both are ways to keep transgressors out of games and, unfortunately, have similar ramifications:
- Hardware can be replaced — Though sometimes expensive to do, players can buy new computers, phones, and consoles.
- You may ban innocent family members — In many regions, families share hardware. Banning one member of the family means banning the entire family. Innocent brothers and sisters are unfairly punished for a sibling’s misdeeds.
- You may ban innocent students — At colleges and universities, many students may be connecting to the internet via the same IP address. Banning the IP address can mean banning innocent students.
- You can hurt internet cafes — For decades, millions of players worldwide have played games in internet cafes. Banning a machine there means banning anyone who ever uses that machine. Banning their IP address also means banning innocent players.
Alternative: For hardware bans, consider nerfing any account using the hardware that appears to be the same player (i.e., smurf nerfing). For IP bans, consider targeting the computer instead (if you feel you must).
Real names
Belief: Anonymity is the problem. Showing people’s real names will get rid of disruptive behavior.
Reality: So far has not been proven to work well.
It can be very tempting to think that being anonymous leads to being bad. However, the problem is not so much that they are anonymous, but you are.
When online we don’t see people, we see placeholders. People are reduced to names in a post or avatars in a game. They don’t seem real to us because online we don’t receive all the information and feedback we normally do from seeing someone in person.
Also, using real names has and is being done. Facebook and the Republic of Korea require them. This has not stopped disruptive behavior.
Alternative: Help players develop identities through the accounts they own. The deeper their investment in their account-based identities, the less likely the player will be to risk losing their account.
Total removal of chat
Belief: No chat, no chat problems.
Reality: No chat results in less team coordination and social stickiness.
While removing chat from your game certainly eliminates the negative behavior that accompanies it, you unfortunately also remove a proven method of connection and coordination: talking to each other.
By inhibiting cooperation and coordination, you risk reducing prosocial behavior, which is crucial to digital thriving and social stickiness.
Alternative: Create scaffolding for conversation.
Now what?
If you found this article helpful, please continue your reading with 10 Heuristics for Mitigating Intra-Team Conflict.
