Fixing online Idiocy: a second look at Douchebaggery

I am going to save us all some time and assume that everyone that has ever played a game online has at some point come across some form of douchebaggery. Be it a guy who uses some form of a map or play mechanic exploit to just dealing with overall immaturity on voice chat. The only real difference between an online gamer and someone who dabbled and decided it’s not his cup of tea is the player’s level of tolerance for such dicks.

Bill Fulton’s recent Article in Gamasutra grabbed my interest but seems only to scratch the surface of an inherent flaw in online gaming. His most important point being that with the rise of casual games or rather the popularity of games in general the responsibility creating an environment that is friendly to new players as well as the “hardcore” audience falls on the developers.

“why do I care? Because the online behavior of our customers is dramatically reducing our sales, and continues to stunt the growth of our industry.”
-Bill Fulton

But why should this be important to a developer? The answer to this is very simple, because it matters to their audience. This issue has been minimalized if not right out ignored for far too long. The idea that dickheads will be dickheads is just wrong. People who ascribe to this philosophy are really just making excuses for not trying to create impediments for such behavior. A more accurate analogy is the fake sport created in the sketch comedy show “The Upright Citizens Brigade” called Thunderball, a fantastical version of baseball which has a “Gun Circle.” Where a loaded hand gun is placed within a clearly marked circle placed ten yards behind second base. Under no circumstances is the gun to be touched at any point during the game. The rational behind this:

"We'd rather have a gun in the outfield, than under a mattress where a child could get to it."
-Joe Auxiliary, UCB Director of Health Services

The fact is if a game mechanic can be exploited it will be, if it can be used to grief someone it will be. Every time someone says “this is how this should work” someone should also interject with “yea, but how could someone exploit this.” But what can a developer do to reduce if not stop this type of behavior? First, more resources need to be allocated to play testing and more importantly to the social functions of online games/online modes of games. Developers should assign some personnel to embed themselves within the community of their games for an indeterminate time to work with them in the patching process. Now that almost every major platform has the ability to patch their games due to in model hard drives patching needs to happen to correct issues. These activities should be factored into the development cycle of a game, now granted this is from an outside perspective but at this time it seems that it is not. Working with the playing community is essential, these people can be utilized to be one of the greatest tools to post production.

Just changing basic mechanics can have a profound effect upon how a game is played thus reducing some aspects of asshatery. Lets look at what has worked in the past such as in the team-based FPS Counter-strike. Previously in CS the only way to improve your personal score was to kill the opposing team members. So ignoring the objectives each team are assigned was commonplace due to its very limited personal advantage of just more funds to buy weapons. This was changed in Source so that if an objective is accomplished the player that did so was rewarded with 3 kills and conversely with defending. This simple action drastically reduced this kill “farming” mentality. Rewarding players for working as a team is essential for games such as this to work as intended.

But the fault does not fall solely on the shoulders of developers for online idiocy. Other then the obvious douchebags themselves the platforms themselves have done very little to alleviate them. Nintendo’s stance seems to be one of restriction, such as removing features that at least western audiences have come to expect from online gaming. People being annoying or assholeish on voice chat? Don’t give it to em, BAM problem solved. This approach is simply lazy and hinders progression of the medium. Simple actions could be taken to ensure that a more civil experience could be had online. If Say Sony decided to overhaul their multi-player online gaming experience on their console by enacting a standard for all games available on their system this could take some much needed pressure off the developers. In this standard allow easy access for muting players, both the ability to find a game via a server list or match-making functionality. Create a log in function before joining a game online much like gamertags where you choose which tag is going to be used. This could be equipped with password protection, and an option to upgrade it to an adult tag. There would have to be some way of verifying that the tag is in fact owned by a real adult. Now this adult upgrade could then allow you to join adult only servers online. This simple mechanic would ensure that everyone who is playing with you is adult and looking for an adult gaming experience, or one that is at least less grief based. Thinking about using some form of punishment should also be looked into. If there are repercussions for being an ass other then having to find a new server, people might be more inclined to moderate their actions.

Now granted there will be advances on the anti-dickhead front with such things as Sony’s “Home” as well as newer iterations of X-box “Live.” But my only real message with this editorial is this: think about what new features or mechanics you are adding to the online experience and make sure that you have thought of the social implications of them before craping them out to pad your product with shiny functionality back blurbs.