LAUSR.org creates dashboard-style pages of related content for over 1.5 million academic articles. Sign Up to like articles & get recommendations!

Feeling Good and In Control: In-game Tools to Support Targets of Toxicity

Photo from wikipedia

Game developers, researchers, and players recognize the harm of toxic behaviour in online games-yet toxicity persists. Players' coping strategies are limited to tools that focus on punishing toxic players (e.g.,… Click to show full abstract

Game developers, researchers, and players recognize the harm of toxic behaviour in online games-yet toxicity persists. Players' coping strategies are limited to tools that focus on punishing toxic players (e.g., muting, blocking, reporting), which are inadequate and often misused. To address the needs of players experiencing toxicity, we took inspiration from research in other online spaces that provide support tools for targets of harassment. We iteratively designed and evaluated in-game tools to support targets of toxicity. While we found that most players prefer tools that explicitly address toxicity and increase feelings of control, we also found that tools that solely provide social or emotional support also decrease stress, increase feelings of control, and increase positive affect. Our findings suggest that players may benefit from variety in toxicity support tools that both explicitly address toxicity in the moment and help players cope after it has occurred.

Keywords: support targets; control; toxicity; tools support; game tools; game

Journal Title: Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
Year Published: 2022

Link to full text (if available)


Share on Social Media:                               Sign Up to like & get
recommendations!

Related content

More Information              News              Social Media              Video              Recommended



                Click one of the above tabs to view related content.