While digital thriving may be the ideal outcome of well-designed online spaces, contributing to that outcome may seem daunting or overwhelming to the individual. This begs the question: If everybody can benefit, how can anybody who truly cares about digital thriving help?
There are many excellent, simple, and low effort ways for individuals to help foster digital thriving. We’d like to offer a few you can do right now!
What can anybody do?
- Learn what digital thriving means — Get more familiar with the concept of digital thriving. Bookmark pages that you’d like to reference and share later.
- Play and grow — Get in a game and get good at something. Adopt a learning mindset.
- Connect socially — Find ways to engage with others online and consider trying multiplayer games for their social benefits. Schedule a daily time to be “social” to give yourself recurring mental breaks.
- Be friendly and welcoming — In online conversations, set a tone of positivity and inclusion. A simple “Hi!” can make a difference in someone’s day and help them feel they’re safe to engage.
- Leave a space for others — When in a group, keep a spot open for new people. Look for people who may seem isolated and invite them to join your group.
- Invite someone unexpectedly — Ask someone you haven’t engaged with recently to join in any online activity. Even if people can’t participate, they’ll feel good that you thought of them.
- Shine a light — Give someone else a chance to be celebrated for their accomplishments.
- Report misbehavior — Companies can’t take action on things they don’t know about, so diligently report behavior that disrupts online experiences and potentially harms others.
- Practice mindfulness — Pay attention to what’s happening within yourself and with others. Ask for help if you need it. Be ready to share links to online resources that can help others who may be struggling.
- Recognize pain — Watch and listen to those you engage with online. Don’t ignore pain, but learn to sense the suffering of others and focus on small acts of kindness. Also keep in mind that saying “be nice” to groups can actually be oppressive to those who’ve been hurt.
What can people in particular roles do?
- Players — Always try to have fun, do your best, and be a positive influence in games (especially when your team is losing). Report misbehavior, take steps to address your own well-being, and recognize if you tend to lose your cool. Stand up to harassment (if you feel you can) and reach out in friendship to those who’ve been harassed.
- Leaders — Do two related things: Establish clear values and hold people accountable to those values.
- Parents / caregivers — Set the example (whether you play games or not — online and offline behavior counts). It doesn’t matter if you “don’t get” video games, practice authentic curiosity and show your children you care by engaging with what’s important to them. Be a safe space. Set boundaries without disrespecting your kid’s interests (that will just drive them away from you and they won’t reach out when it really matters).
- Teachers — Similar to parents, be a safe space where students can talk about what’s happening online. Teach the next generation the skills for successful online interactions, such as acceptable behavior, emotional management (e.g., how not to get tilted in games), and recognizing dangers. Support clubs that focus on sportsmanship in a similar fashion to traditional sports.
What can people in specific gaming industry jobs do?
A few role-based suggestions…
- Accessibility (various roles) — You’re already helping people thrive — keep it up! Remember that there are many ways to make games better in the course of helping people with diverse abilities. And don’t skip the basics (e.g., settings).
- AI / ML developer — Watch out for biases. Recognize and mitigate the harms that come from both false positives and false negatives.
- Artist — Pursue representation, non-tokenism, and cultural authenticity in your work.
- Audio engineer — Consider how to create better experiences for the hearing impaired or sensory sensitive.
- Brand / marketing — Avoid using traditional demographics that can harden biases and instead think about audiences (e.g., players who like X, vs. male players 18-30). Demographics should be used to consider compliance and uncover bias, but not to tell players (or your developers) who should like what.
- CEO — Establish core thriving values (the values we hope to see in our games should be the foundation of companies of all sizes). Ensure you have systems in place that support accountability not just of your team, but you. Hold frontline managers accountable for ensuring values are being practiced.
- Communications — Create frameworks to ensure that healthy values and authenticity are key to communications. Be particularly concerned that what your company celebrates in the player community doesn’t create social friction and harm within your games.
- Community manager — Partner with content creators who uplift players through accomplishment and good sportsmanship. Be wary of controversial streamers may get lots of attention, while creating division and harm in the community.
- Content creator / streamer — Hold yourself to a higher standard of accomplishment and sportsmanship. Be the model players want to become. Make well-being a theme in your work.
- Data scientist — Seek insights that could lead to greater well-being, accomplishment, and meaningful relationships. Represent the underrepresented.
- Esports producer — Watch what banter is being broadcast and which types of behavior are allowed. Call out great moments of teamwork. Establish your values, set and uphold clear standards, avoid double standards at all costs (e.g., don’t give breaks to “fan favorites”).
- Game designer — Factor thriving into your system designs and seek to avoid design-driven social conflict. Seek to balance personal achievement and teamwork. And don’t forget to explore the Playbook’s growing collection of design methods!
- Game producer — Create systems of accountability to ensure the team is aligned with the values you want to uphold. Advocate upward for better, more explicit values.
- Guild leader (or equivalent) — Encourage participation. Reach out to members who may have stopped engaging to see how they’re doing. Shine a light on the accomplishments of individuals and the group.
- Head of Design — In short: accountability. Bias can be encoded in how we talk, welcome in new employees or transfers, our design patterns, and what we hold up uncritically as examples of good design. Create evaluative frameworks that require everyone to think about healthy player dynamics and thriving (this is really true in all disciplines, but it is especially true for design).
- Human Resources (HR) — Work hard to understand and support authentic diversity and inclusion efforts in both support and hiring, and learn to identify superficial efforts and underminers. Stay apprised of latest hiring best practices, and avoid outdated terms like “culture fit” in favor of “culture add”, which instead stresses the need to actively include a new candidate rather than them having to adapt.
- Motion designer — Consider how to avoid motion that may trigger some people’s sensitivities.
- Narrative designer — Avoid elements and themes that players might unconsciously absorb and weaponize (e.g., playable characters who call teammates “trash” in voice overs). Embrace themes that celebrate the outcomes of digital thriving. Avoid casual colonialism.
- Platform holders — Provide basic tooling to democratize moderation and other features that can help promote thriving. Don’t put those features behind paywalls.
- Programmer — Care about the negative and positive effects your code has on players individually and as groups. Ensure those effects are measured and push for improvements.
- Publisher — Require games that you publish to meet digital thriving-based standards that you define.
- QA / Tester — Be a surrogate player by asking: How does this feel as an individual, especially interacting with others? Test for accessibility and how marginalized groups may come to experiences differently.
- Support agents — You’re on the frontlines of the community and are in the rare position of speaking to many players directly. Be mindful of the well-being of players, as well as your own, since your job likely involves high volumes of support tickets and the high pressure that comes with them.
- Tools or Platform engineer — Make it easy for developers to adopt key behavior systems and consider social situations through their work. Do some of the heavy lifting for them by recommending best practices (e.g., reporting).
- User researcher — Seek insights about where and how players are or aren’t thriving. Tie these insights to metrics that stakeholders care about.
- UX designer — Give players convenient, low-risk ways to get out of bad social situations. Ensure players always know what’s going on with others and the system so they feel a sense of control. Care about identity and how players are seen by others (and how they want to be seen).
- Visual effects artist — Give options to people for whom too much visual flare can be overwhelming or inhibit their ability to play. Look for ways to highlight elements that some people might struggle to see or differentiate.
- VR developer — Respect the intensity of experiences in VR and ensure that personal space is respected. Incorporate concepts like biophilic design, place attachment, and spatial / social presence to foster self-expansion, relatedness, and well-being.
- Writer — Pursue representation, reflection of values, and create characters that face consequences for harmful behavior in your work.
What can you do if you’re not thriving?
If you’re not thriving and feel you may be pretty far from it, we encourage you to seek help through these amazing resources:
Now what?
Continue your journey by reading the following
