Major Assignment #2: Inquiry-based Research Essay Draft #2

My research question is “why is the gaming community toxic towards certain groups of people?”. I have been a part of the gaming community for years and it is well known inside of the community that certain gamers are toxic to specific groups of people, usually minorities. This has been a problem that has plagued the gaming community pretty much ever since it started and the addition of online gaming has made the toxicity even worse. So then why hasn’t this problem been fixed yet, well it’s because most gamers do not find this toxicity to be a problem and just think that it’s just trash talking. Many online gamers would make “jokes” to people who did not like racism, sexism, and homophobia in the community saying that they would not last an hour in a Call of duty lobby. Women often don’t turn on the mic for fear of being bombarded with sexist remarks. My hypothesis as to why the gaming community is toxic to a certain group of people is that game companies have always targeted games to change boys. This made a lot of gamers think that only boys play video games, however that is untrue according to Christina Gough a research expert covering sports and video gaming 41% of gamers are females. But most women do not play games online and even less of them play with a mic on and when they do play with mic on the male gamers feel as if they’re taking over the space.

My first source for this research paper is “Right-Wing Extremism in a Video Game Community? A Qualitative Content Analysis Exploring the Discourse of the Reddit GamerGate Community r/KotakuInAction” By Ashley Peckford. This source is analyzing the connection with the gamergate gate community r/KotakuInAction and right-wing extremism. Gamergate is an important yet shameful period for The gaming community The Washington Post describes gamergate as “an Internet culture war. On one side are independent game-makers and critics, many of them women, who advocate for greater inclusion in gaming. On the other side of the equation are a motley alliance of vitriolic naysayers: misogynists, anti-feminists, trolls, people convinced they’re being manipulated by a left-leaning and/or corrupt press, and traditionalists who just don’t want their games to change.” since games have become more accessible to a wider group of people and not just the stereotypical gamer group young, white, male and straight there have been growing tensions between the stereotypical group of gamers and the new group of gamers which are women, people of color, trans people and the gay community, Gamergate was a symptom of a bigger problem. The gamers who participated in gamergate with congregate and many different websites three of the most popular websites they would use are 4chan, 8chan, and Reddit they would also use Twitter but mostly to attack minority gamers and journalists. This source speculates that The gaming community is toxic towards women and minorities because of geek masculinism and right-wing extremism creeping into the gaming community especially during the gamergate era. Ashley Peckford describes geek masculinity as “ Geek masculinity is aligned with geeky or nerdy interests like comic books and video games while also being entrenched in heteronormative and patriarchal ideas of gender and sexuality, and is threatened by the presence of those deemed to be “others” the gamergate supporters felt women and minorities were taking over their space and their identities as gamers so they resorted to what they knew best which was to trash talk and “troll” them. The gamergate supporters were mostly white men they did not have anything to fight for except for video games, minorities have to fight for racial equality, gender equality, and sexual equality, the white men didn’t need to fight for equality so they latched onto video games and defended it with all their might, they felt as if minorities were taking away the one thing they had as an identity. This led to us-versus-them mentality “Opinions expressed by GamerGate supporters, as shown in previous literature, often mirror those of right-wing extremists; namely, the “us versus them” mentality of feeling disenfranchised, as well as the opinion that their community largely made up of white men had been “invaded” by women and people of colour” (Ashley Peckford, 2020)

My second source is “The use of homophobic pejoratives among games critical Discourse Analysis of Slurs Within the Gaming Sphere” By Desirée Elveljung. This source investigates what homophobic slurs gamers use and why they use them. The conclusion Elveljung came that gamers often use homophobic slurs to show power and dominance “ The data also showed instances of how the concepts of power and dominance came into play when players used homophobic slurs to cause offense” (Desirée Elveljung, 2020). Elveljung goes into detail about why gamers use homophobic slurs to gain power and dominate other players “a casual conversation can derail into one consisting mostly of using homophobic slurs to gain power over others. This could also be connected to Tucker’s (2011) point on “homohysteria”, i.e. the fear of being homosexualized” (Desirée Elveljung, 2020) other players when being called gay instead of just ignoring it will attack other players with homophobic slurs to try to protect the masculinity. When Elveljung was collecting data in the world of Warcraft gaming sessions she found that the reaction towards homophobic slurs from The gamers was often mixed. Slurs were used often and other gamers would ignore or did not react. Elveljung that the liberal use of slurs and the apathy towards the slurs being used are because of the deindividuation effect which is when “a loss of sense of self that leads to antisocial behavior, including various types of online harassment. Users could, because of the deindividuation effect, be numb to such language occurring.” (Desirée Elveljung, 2020) for many gamers homosexual slurs have been normalized and they are now numb to it and expected this sort of normalization can lead to bigotry and hatred.

My third source is “Griefing: Policing Masculinity in Online Games” By ‪Staci Tucker touches upon griefing in online gaming and how big of a problem it is. Tucker says “Griefers derive pleasure from causing havoc and distress, with little or no ludic gain and often at the expense of their own in-game characters. Griefing can manifest as hate speech, team-killing, virtual rape, unprovoked violence, or theft of virtual currency or items. Griefers are often powerful players, trolls,” (‪Staci Tucker, 2011) I’ve experienced many griefers especially in online survival games my friends and I would build a base and collect weapons and food for survival, and griefers would usually come and destroy our base, steal our food and weapons and we can do anything about it. Griefers are often more dangerous than the actual enemy NPCs in the game; they have no mercy and they do this just for fun, not for survival. So why do people grief? Well, there are two different types of griefers. The first type is the ones who attack you for no reason and will attack their teammates for no reason, they do this for fun, they get pleasure from the suffering of other gamers. The second kind of griefers are those who attack specifically people who are minorities, they’re usually normal gamers but as soon as they see or hear someone who is a minority there one goal is to make that person’s time in the game a living hell. Tucker thinks the second kind of griefers are like this because video games use a lot of stereotypes for minorities “. Among the few characters of color, stereotypes are rampant, as demonstrated by Cuban drug dealers in Vice City, violent rappers in Def Jam Vendetta, Asian martial artists, black athletes, and Arab terrorists in popular war games.” (‪Staci Tucker, 2011) this can lead to “Video games promote the idea that whiteness is to be celebrated, and while color is exotic, foreign, bizarre, and often evil.” (‪Staci Tucker, 2011). Gamers will troll minorities because they think at least subconsciously that they are evil, foreigners, and invading their gaming community. Video game companies have no real reason to have good representation for people of color, women, and the LGBT community because most gamers are white straight males however that is changing more and more minorities are joining The gaming community and soon video game companies will have to face this problem.

My fourth source is “Racism, misogyny, death threats: Why can’t the booming video-game industry curb toxicity?” By Noah Smith Published By The Washington Post. This source doesn’t talk as much about why some gamers are toxic but mostly the outcomes of their toxicity. Kristen a gamer said that she was called fat and ugly and that she shouldn’t be on the internet. Valnicek a twitch streamer reported that “things got so bad at one point that she went to her local police chief over threats of swatting,” swatting is when someone makes a prank call to the police hoping that they will dispatch a large number of armed police officers to the address they want to be swatted. This is an extremely dangerous and illegal act “ in 2017 resulted in the death of Kansan Andrew Finch, 28, with the perpetrator, California-based Tyler Barriss, 26, ultimately pleading guilty to 51 federal counts in November 2018 and facing a sentence of 20 to 25 years in prison.”(Noah Smith, 2019) the harassment isn’t only bad for your physical health but also you’re mental health many teenagers and young adults have been facing the extreme amount of bullying “there have been reports suggesting a link between online bullying and increases in depression, and perhaps even suicide, noting females experience higher incidences of depression overall than men.”(Noah Smith, 2019). So how do we combat this harassment well, there are some temporary quick fixes like muting the player who is harassing you however this compromises the team’s effectiveness in the game because real teammates I’m not able to communicate their current situation so you can help them. Players can also report toxic players and they will get banned however the band is temporary and usually once the band is over they go back to the same pattern of behavior. “The challenge in eliminating toxicity, Figueiredo believes, is that it doesn’t stem from the games themselves but rather the still-young culture of communicating over the Internet, where people are connected with others from different backgrounds, cultures, languages, and interests. What’s accepted as common in one part of the world may be seen as unwelcome or negative in another.”(Noah Smith, 2019). Gamers are toxic to each other because of the difference in culture clashing with each other. That’s unfixable with banning or muting, eventually, people are going to have to get used to having people from different cultures and backgrounds in their games.

My last source is “Gaming’s toxic men, explained” By Colin Campbell and Published By Polygon. Bailey Poland explains how when video games were first being made women played an important part because they were the programmers “Programming was seen to be menial labor, like secretarial work. It was boring and repetitive, so they decided it was work for the women to do.” (Kate Miltner,2018) ,However in the ’60s when it was clear that programmers were in demand they switched the narrative to programming being a creative profession instead of a media profession and phased women out of the programming field. Anita Sarkeesian brings to light that video games weren’t always catered to boys they used to be catered to the whole family “But that shifted in the ’90s with the super-sexist advertising that took place both in print and commercials. I remember a commercial for PlayStation 1. There’s a man playing and he locks his girlfriend in the closet. He’s sitting on the couch with Lara Croft.” (Anita Sarkeesian,2018) This caused women to be devalued in the marketing of games and the actual games themselves. Instead of the marketing focusing on how great the mechanics of the game is, it was sexualizing female game characters. So in summary the toxic nature of gamers began when in the ’60s female developers were no longer welcome in the gaming industry. In the ’90s games stopped being marketed for the whole family and instead just for boys which caused the sexualization of female game characters.

In conclusion, there are many different reasons why gamers are toxic to certain groups of people. But one thing we definitely know is true is that combating the toxicity is extremely difficult and near to impossible. The game companies have realized that this is a problem however many of the gamers still think the toxicity is normal. Before we can combat the toxic behaviors we need to persuade the broader gaming community that this behavior is unacceptable and has caused a lot of pain and suffering.

In conclusion, there are many different reasons why gamers are toxic to certain groups of people. But one thing we definitely know is true is that combating the toxicity is extremely difficult and near to impossible. The game companies have realized that this is a problem however many of the gamers still think the toxicity is normal. Before we can combat the toxic behaviors we need to persuade the broader gaming community that this behavior is unacceptable and has caused a lot of pain and suffering.

Postwrite

Did this assignment remind you of any writing that you’ve done previously?  Please describe that work.

Yes it did it reminded me of short assignment four, five and six

What was new about this assignment?  Please be precise.

In this assignment we had to find academic peer-reviewed sources.

What kinds of knowledge/writing skills did you draw on to produce this draft?  Please begin to use some of the key terms that have begun to form the basis of your theory of writing.  For example,  did you draw upon your understanding of audience awareness or genre?  How so?

I drew upon my knowledge of the research paper genre and made sure all of my answers were based in facts

When drafting and revising, what choices did you make? Please explain.

I tried to get rid of repetition and my introduction paragraph and I properly cited my sources. 

What questions do you have for readers about the piece?

Did this paper inform you as to why the gaming community is toxic?

Bibliography

Gough, Christina. “U.S. computer and video gamers from 2006-2020, by gender.” statista, 2020, https://www.statista.com/statistics/232383/gender-split-of-us-computer-and-video-gamers/#:~:text=The%20statistic%20shows%20the%20gender,increase%20over%20the%20previous%20year.&text=The%20global%20gaming%20industry%20has,fast%20pace%20in%20recent%20years. Accessed 1 11 2020.

Campbell, Colin. “Gaming’s toxic men, explained.” polygon, 2018. polygon, https://www.polygon.com/2018/7/25/17593516/video-game-culture-toxic-men-explained.

Elveljung, Desirée. THE USE OF HOMOPHOBIC PEJORATIVES AMONG GAMERS A Critical Discourse Analysis of Slurs Within the Gaming Sphere, 2018, p. 48. Google Scholar, https://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/2077/57935/1/gupea_2077_57935_1.pdf.

Peckford, Ashley. “Right Wing Extremism in a Video Game Community? A Qualitative Content Analysis Exploring the Discourse of the Reddit GamerGate Community r/KotakuInAction.” A Closer Look in Unusual Times: Criminological Perspectives from Crim 862, Crim 862, 2020, p. 180. Google Scholar, https://www.sfu.ca/~palys/ACloserLookInUnusualTimes-2020-HR.pdf#page=71.

Smith, Noah. “Racism, misogyny, death threats: Why can’t the booming video-game industry curb toxicity?” The Washington Post, 2019. The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/02/26/racism-misogyny-death-threats-why-cant-booming-video-game-industry-curb-toxicity/.

Tucker, Staci. GRIEFING: POLICING MASCULINITY IN ONLINE GAMES, 2011, p. 131. Google Scholar, https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/12140/Tucker_Staci_ms2011fa.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.