Are all popular games destined to have a "toxic" community?

[ro9ue]

I have toxic in quotation marks because it's really not any worse than any other form of social media. It's just reflective of a real life scenario with a large group of diverse individuals.

When I played EverQuest for years prior to WoW, the community was generally really awesome. People went out of their way to help. It's was a 'niche' game. WoW then got huge. Really huge. And there wasn't like a very specific group of like minded individuals it catered to, it just welcomed anyone. While that might sound great, it definitely didn't feel like a better community.

Even other "small" MMOs that popped up with smaller communities felt better. Rift was amazing. GW2 was great. There will always be assholes, but generally games with a focused audience seem to play nicer together. When you just have a ton of ingredients in the pot, it gets pretty volatile.

Same could be said for CoD, LoL or any other extremely popular multiplayer game. Meanwhile it's the smaller games that seem to have better communities.

True/False?

[Echocho]

Pretty much. Final Fantasy XIV have managed to pull it off decently though, I've only encountered 2 toxic people in that game ever. People are generally trying to help people to improve rather than call them names and rage quit in that game.

Any time there is some competative nature or random matchmaking it's bound to get ugly.

[Morssoe]

It is more common now, ppl don't want to waste their time to guide ppl.

[Eleccybubb]

Played FF14 and I have to say the community is pretty much amazing. Occasional toxics but very rare. But yeah most games communities are a joke. LoL, Cod and WoW being 3 well known ones.

[Flaks]

Any game seeking a stake in the esports scene will have a largely toxic community due to the nature of competition combined with anonymity and people trying to prove how alpha they are in a game.

[Arenis]

Regarding community size, I know of a game with a very small playerbase, yet a toxicity that knows no limits: Gunz the Duel. Good Lord...

[lawow74]

I think this comic sums up the attitude some people have perfectly.

But really, it tends to be relative. Some games will seem more overrun with assholes because of the sheer number of people playing it.

[Dilbon]

Any game with a segregated playerbase will have toxic community.

[Shockeye]

It is more common now, ppl don't want to waste their time to guide ppl.

Which I sort of understand, as for most popular games, especially MMOs, there is a wealth of material on-line to which people can refer to for help. So it can easily seem that those asking for help are just being lazy and not looking things up for themselves, but would rather waste others' time. That certainly is not always the case, but it sometimes is, perhaps often enough to become an annoyance for people.

In the olden days of EQ and it's pleasant community, there weren't necessarily many online resources for reference.

Single-player game communities aren't nearly as bad as MMOs or MP games, which is interesting. There must be some sense of competition affecting attitudes.

[endersblade]

My first introduction to MMOs was Ultima Online. Other than griefers, the community was amazing. We had people who would wait at the starting point and offer, for free, to help people out. I used to give out starter packs of gear. People in general were amazing. But yes, there was the occasional asshole. I'd say maybe 10% of the whole gaming community was bad.

Next up was EQ. Like UO, I got a lot of help, and I gave a lot of help. But it seemed like there were more assholes this time around, people would do the whole childish name calling in zone chat and whatnot. I'd say a good 30% of the whole gaming community was bad.

Then was FF13. I was stationed in Japan when it released, and I started on the JP servers. I have never met a community so nice and dedicated to helping others. I never once ran across a single asshole the whole time. However, eventually the game hit the states (I had to start all over because my JP account wouldn't transfer :-(), and the influx of Americans absolutely killed it. It got so bad that the Japanese stopped accepting Americans into their link shells and even grouping up with them was a rare occasion. Because Americans were fucking assholes, through and through. I watched my beloved game fall into a cesspit of name calling and childish behavior. I'd say at least 70% of the US population of FF13 were complete asshats, and seemed to enjoy doing it.

Now, I have played almost every sub-based MMO that has hit the states, I'm not going to list them all here. Most of them I didn't stay more than a month, and so none of them were noteworthy.

Finally, WoW. Back in Vanilla and BC, and even partly into Wrath, I think the community was pretty great. But the longer this game goes, the more toxic the community gets. I don't know if it's people coming from other games (like LoL or CoD or something) that just bring their bad attitudes, or if it's veterans of the game that are just getting burnt out but refuse to quit, and thus have a negative attitude. I'm not even going to try to put a percentage on WoW, because the environment is so toxic that it CREATES bad players at this point.

I have only played a combined maybe 6 months of FF14, but in the time I've played, I actually got a lot of help from people. Someone spent almost an entire 6 hours showing me around, explaining everything about the game, what I should look for in the classes I want to play, that sort of thing. I even got invited to a guild full of veterans helping out nublets. No hand-holding, I didn't have anyone come complete quests for me or anything like that, but they answered all of our questions, and one even gave me some gil. Out in the world though, I would routinely see people bitching and moaning in zone chat. It was typically people asking a question, and getting childish responses.

[Tome]

It really depends on the game.

A lot of people here are going to argue what game is popular or not (according to their own opinions, whether the game actually is popular or not.)

Humans by nature are egoistic. Put them somewhere, where they are motivated to compete against others, and the more "true instinct" side will show. Depends whether the game have you compete directly or indirectly against others. PvP games where you actually 'kill' other players, will make the most toxic people.

Sports in general got rather toxic people, so as said, anything with competition against other people, directly or indirectly will make toxic community. Then it just depends how big the game and the community is.

[May90]

I think all games with any kind of team play or PvP are going to attract a certain amount of people who cannot handle a failure and are going to express their emotions violently. So, yes, probably all popular games with online component. Single-player games are unlikely to form toxic communities though.

[Dezerte]

Competitiveness and group-oriented game-play I think is the bigger factor than popularity.

[Heathy]

well once you get enough ppl your eventually gunna let in undesirables look at the dota 2 community.

I guess when you have a game that you have to play for a set amount of time, if you start feeling that time being wasted then your gunna get pissed off.

still learning to play dota with players is like pouring acid in your eyes or it makes you want to pour acid in your eyes i think that was the one.

just as godwins law works on threads, as does the eventual toxicity of a player base grow proportional to the growth of said base.

in other words at any point in time, there are x number of asshats in the world and many games they could be playing. I don't think you can fault a game for being enjoyable. although when you've played eve for as long as I have there is no such thing as a toxic community just different levels of salt in tears.

[Deleted]

Competetive gameplay and the ingame meritocracies are the main source for elitism and toxic communities.

[ro9ue]

I swear like 80% of threads I've opened today were created by you...

Sorry, bored as all hell today.

[GennGreymane]

All games are destined to have toxic communities

Even Nintendo Miiverse has people role playing sexual fantasy.....

[Doomchicken]

The more people your game has the more likely your game is to have fuckwits.

[Deleted]

I think accessibility has something to do with it as well. Complex games are less likely to attract the 'toxic' crowd I'd say, although I'm not sure how the EVE community is (as that game is quite complex).

Maybe complexity mixed with being 'not very popular'?

The best community I've ever been involved in was the one of Ascent: The Space Game. It's player base is small, but everyone help each other out all the time. Really nice.

Worst I've been in was LoL I guess, but that's a long time ago I played that.

[Raiju]

No, but it requires work on the devs part to foster a positive one. Most devs don't consider that relevant though. It's certainly a fair point with single / coop games.