1、Free to Play? Hate, Harassment and Positive Social Experiences in Online Games JULY 2019 Our Mission: To stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all. ABOUT Center for Technology comprehensive and inclusive policies and enforcement around hate and harassme
2、nt that mirror and improve upon the known best practices of traditional social media; and game ratings systems that consider the amount of harassment in specific games, among other improvements. The games industry should also reach out to collaborate with civil society, to educate civil society abou
3、t the unique challenges of their community and take advantage of civil societys expertise. Civil Society: Just as in recent years much of civil society has expanded their work to include the impact of traditional social media on their issues and communities, so too should civil society use their res
4、ources, expertise and platforms to address the impact of games as digital spaces. To aid in this, civil society should engage with and support scholars and practitioners who have been and continue to do crucial research and practice to help fight hate, bias and harassment in games. Government: Feder
5、al and state governments should strengthen laws that protect targets of online hate and harassment, whether on social media or in online games. Governments should also, as they do with social media companies, push for increased transparency and accountability from game companies around online hate a
6、nd harassment. We believe this report provides insight into the power of video games to enrich lives and also a better understanding of ways the game industry can improve. 88% of adults who play online multiplayer games in the US have had positive social experiences while playing games online. 65% o
7、f players have experienced some form of severe harassment, which includes physical threats, stalking and sustained harassment. Free to Play? | Hate, Harassment and Positive Social Experiences in Online Games 9 Introduction I n March 2019, the CEO of Epic Games creators of Fortnite, one of the most p
8、opular games in the world (especially in Western countries)spoke about the future of the game industry: “We feel the game industry is changing in some major ways. Fortnite is a harbinger of things to come. Its a massive number of people all playing together, interacting together, not just playing bu
9、t socializing. In many ways Fortnite is like a social network. People are not just in the game with strangers, theyre playing with friends and using Fortnite as a foundation to communicate. We feel now is the time and we have very large ambitions.”5 The idea of online games as social platforms is no
10、t new. Some of the earliest virtual communities, going back to 1978,6 were MUDs or “Multi-User Dungeons” where users played together inside text-based fantasy adventure games on university servers. MUDs developed over time to adapt to the growing internet, including both this kind of fantasy adventu
11、re game experience but also more general social interaction. In the early 1990s, MUDs were even being called “the first examples of social virtual realities.”7 Over time graphics were introduced, first with the game Habitat in 19858 and notably with Neverwinter Nights launching online inside AOL in
12、1991. Neverwinter Nights became a blockbuster due in large part to its social nature, with players organizing their own in-game summer festivals, trivia nights and competitions, and those with good reputations being promoted to a version of a community moderator.9 As access to the internet expanded,
13、 this model did as well with the noted successes of stand-alone massively multiplayer online games such as Everquest and Ultima Online in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In 2006, noted game scholars Constance Steinkuehler and Dmitri Williams examined the rapidly expanding ecosystem of massively mult
14、iplayer online games10 (MMOs) like Everquest and Ultima as spaces for social interaction. They found that: “By providing spaces for social interaction and relationships beyond the workplace and home, MMOs have the capacity to function as one form of a new “third place” for informal sociability much
15、like the pubs, coffee shops and other hangouts of old. Moreover, participation in such virtual “third places” appears particularly well suited to the formation of bridging social capital (Putnam, 2000), social relationships that, while not providing deep emotional support per se, typically function
16、to expose the individual to a diversity of worldviews.” Introduction 10 Figure 1. Navigating Towards the Future of Gaming: How Global Growth has Accelerated. A graphic from the Newzoo Global Games Market Report illustrating the evolution and future of the games market. Source: Newzoo Global Games Ma
17、rket Report Free to Play? | Hate, Harassment and Positive Social Experiences in Online Games Since then, the games industry and online games have experienced explosive growth, becoming a roughly $150 billion industry today. Over two billion people play games globally and projections have predicted t
18、he industry growing to over $200 billion in revenue with three billion players globally by 2022.11 This has been driven in large part by the growth of online games, online communities and publications around games and social media platforms designed specifically for the game community (e.g., Twitch
19、and Discord).12 In the first quarter of 2019 alone, prominent traditional tech and social media companies have announced major initiatives focused on online gaming communities such as Googles Stadia initiative and Facebooks adding a gaming tab to the core functionality of its platform.13 2005 Fewer
20、than 1B gamers Less than $35B spent on gaming 2025 More than 3B gamers More than $200B spent on gaming 11 According to the Entertainment Software Association, 65 percent of American adults play games and 75 percent of Americans have at least one game player in their household.14 Video games and game
21、-like experiences have been prescribed by doctors15 to address complex health issues like addiction and substance abuse, and video games developers are using their craft to tackle depression, anxiety and other mental health issues head-on.16 Video games are even being integrated into classroom curri
22、culums across a wide variety of subjects.17 Recently, competitive gaming and esports (games as spectator sports) have increased their presence in high schools as part of collegiate pathways through athletics and scholarships. Yet, as ADL Belfer Fellow Gabriela Richard and colleagues suggest, “As the
23、 legitimacy of esports increases at a societal level, we must more meaningfully attend to the variety of ways differential access may affect educational and professional opportunities for historically marginalized groups.”18 ADLs Belfer Fellow Dr. Karen Schrier has written extensively on the ways in
24、 which games of all stripesfrom big budget online first-person shooters to simple games using only shapes and colorscan be used to promote ethical decision making, empathy, bias reduction and can even be used to solve real-world problems.19 Her recent paper for ADL, Designing Ourselves: Identity, Bi
25、as, Empathy and Game Design, explores the ways in which the practice of game design can be used to encourage game developers, and people more generally, to explore their own identity and take on new perspectives.20 Introduction Figure 2. Screenshot of Overwatch. Overwatch is a team-based first perso
26、n shooter, created by Blizzard, where teams play together in order to control points on a map or play a version of capture the flag. 12 At the same time, the toxic and exclusionary culture surrounding games goes back to the early days of digital games. Dr. Richard has written about how researchers h
27、ave been studying the exclusionary nature of game design in terms of gender in various ways since at least the 1980s.21 Intersectional approaches to exploring the culture and practice of games, including analysis of how games operate in relation to race, sexual orientation, gender identity and abili
28、ty have been more recently gaining ground in the study of games.22 Games and game players have changed dramatically and dynamically from the earliest studies of gaming to present time. For example, in 2004 the average age of a US game player was 29,23 while the average age of a US game player in 201
29、8 was 34. In 2004, 39 percent of game players identified as women,24 whereas 45 percent of the US game players identified as women in 2018.25 Even so, toxic culture and exclusionary practices continue in games. A longitudinal, mixed methods study of game players, initiated by Dr. Richard, explored h
30、ow between 2009-13 a cross section of game players had experiences of harassment as a form of gatekeeping and silencing in social game spaces. For example, in the study, a 29 year old female Latina player described her experience playing games socially: “They would send me pictures of things I didnt
31、 want to see, or they would harass me, or if I were good, because I was great at Call of Duty 4, theyd say I was a guy playing under a girls name I dont talk on the mic, I just play I just stopped talking cuz theyd be like, “oh thats a girl, lets harass her or ask for her number or something.”26 Fre
32、e to Play? | Hate, Harassment and Positive Social Experiences in Online Games Figure 3. Screenshot of Call of Duty. Call of Duty is a popular first-person shooter video game franchise initially set in World War II (though branching out to other settings later). It was not included in the survey but
33、included here for illustrative purposes. 13 Her experience is echoed by a wide variety of players included in the study. This broader trend of harassing and silencing people because of their identities was most publicly evident in 2014s Gamergate eventa coordinated harassment campaign that targeted
34、women in the games industry. Gamergate also targeted individuals belonging to a wide cross section of marginalized groups who called for and were working toward games becoming more inclusive. Gamergate involved severe forms of harassment, like doxing and threats of physical violence, that often made
35、 online life extraordinarily difficult for those targeted and impossible for outspoken targets to work in the games industry and sometimes to even move freely in public. This report provides a snapshot of online multiplayer games as social platforms in the US. The games represented in this survey ar
36、e some of the most popular online multiplayer games being played in the US as of April 2019. This is important to note, as this survey does not focus on the large number of people and companies dedicated to creating and playing games beyond commercially focused mass market Figure 5. 2018 Insights in
37、to the U.S. Games Market. Source: Newzoo Global Games Market Report $30.4B#2178.7M Game RevenuesWorld RankPlayers Introduction Figure 4. Screenshot of Defense of the Ancients 2 (Dota 2). Dota 2 is a multiplayer online battle area or MOBA, in which two teams of five players compete to destroy a large
38、 structure called an “Ancient”, which is owned by the opposing team while simultaneously defending their own. games. That said, it is our hope that through this report we can encourage game designers, game players, government and civil society to consider these popular online video game platforms wi
39、th the same seriousness that surround conversations around the impact of mainstream social media platforms. 14 A DL designed a nationally representative survey to examine Americans experience of hate, harassment and positive social experiences in online games in collabo- ration with Newzoo, a data a
40、nalytics firm focusing on gaming and esports. We collected 1,045 responses from a base of adults 18-45 years old who play games across PC, console and mobile platforms, including 751 responses from people who play multi- player online games. We oversampled individuals who identify as LGBTQ+, Jewish,
41、 Muslim, African American and Hispanic/Latinx. For the oversampled target groups, responses were collected until at least 60 Americans were represented from each of those groups. Surveys were conducted from April 19th to May 1, 2019. The margin of error based on our sample size is four percentage po
42、ints. In addition to being asked about positive social experiences in online games, respondents were asked whether and how often they experienced “disruptive behavior.” We defined “disruptive behavior” as being: The target of trolling/griefing (deliberate attempt to upset or provoke) Personally emba
43、rrassed by another online player Called offensive names Threatened with physical violence Harassed for a sustained period of time Stalked (online monitoring/information gathering used to threaten or harass) Sexually harassed Discriminated against by a stranger (based on age, gender, ethnicity, sexua
44、l orientation, etc.) Had personally identifying information made public (known as doxing). In the following analysis, we refer to these forms of disruptive behavior as forms of harassment. We consider harassment hate-based when the activity or actions are clearly motivated by the identity of the tar
45、get. We defined “disruptive behavior” as being the target of trolling/ griefing, being personally embarrassed by another online player, being called offensive names, being threatened with physical violence, being harassed for a sustained period of time, being stalked, being sexually harassed, being
46、discriminated against by a stranger or doxing. Methodology Free to Play? | Hate, Harassment and Positive Social Experiences in Online Games 15 The positive aspects of digital social spaces that exist inside online games include the opportunity they provide people to connect, build friendships and co
47、mmunities and allow for learning and knowledge sharing. In fact, according to our results, positive social experiences are incredibly common in online game environments. Eighty-eight percent of online multiplayer gamers have experienced some form of positive social interaction while playing online m
48、ultiplayer games including making friends (51%) or helping other players (50%). Nearly a third of players (30%) felt like they belonged to a community in an online game, and a third (32%) discovered new interests as a result of playing an online game. Twenty percent learned about themselves and 28 p
49、ercent learned about interesting topics in online game environments. Eight percent found a mentor and 13 percent have found a partner through an online game. These findings indicate that online multiplayer games can facilitate deep social connection among players and meaningfully impact their lives. Results Positive Social Experiences Figure 6. Positive Experiences in Gaming. The positive aspects of digital social spaces that exist inside online games include the ability for these spaces to connect people, build friendships and communities and allow for learning a
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