Comment by methodover | Hacker News Reader

Comment by methodover | Hacker News Reader

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A lot of people have been talking about the evil of this one individual kid, or the irresponsibility of the police department, but there's another aspect being glossed over here:

The first thing I thought when I read this article was, "Wow, the toxic Call of Duty community finally killed someone."

I've been playing CoD WW2 online off and on since it came out last month. I have been astounded by the behavior of many people in those games. Players with racist and genocidal names who spout horrible things on chat about minorities. Threats of real world physical and sexual violence. Homophobia and misogyny. And of course just childish spamming and yelling and cheating and complaining and other nonsense.

It is a terrible, terrible community.

It does not surprise me at all to see it escalate to actual real world violence.

Yes, the kid who made this particular call should be punished. And the police department needs to be held accountable too.

But the root of this problem is the CoD community, and to some extent the gaming community at large. I don't know how to fix it, I don't know how you get an entire community to start treating each other like human beings -- but that's what needs to happen.

As much as I hate CoD and wish the issues you highlighted were limited to the CoD community, they are not.

The behavior you described fits many if not most online, semi-anonymous, young, male majority communities. CoD is just one community in that bucket.

Edit:

> I don't know how to fix it, I don't know how you get an entire community to start treating each other like human beings -- but that's what needs to happen.

Hang out around a group of young guys and you'll realize that the groups you described are just an amplified reflection of IRL groups of similar makeup.

If you want to fix this type of behavior you have to change it at a much deeper level than online gaming communities because its a mindset.

People do it mostly for the laughs - even the extreme idiotic shit like SWAT calls... just like they do extreme idiotic shit IRL like fraternity initiations that get people killed. IMO the stuff you're describing is systemic.

I haven't seen the same level of vitriol in most other games. I also play World of Warcraft (off an on, hop in every other year or so), Dota 2, Company of Heroes 2, and a few other games. I'm also active in a couple different gaming communities online. Yes, there are toxic players in each of those other games but nothing as extreme or as densely-packed as in Call of Duty. (Dota 2 is probably the worst, but most of the toxicity is just complaining about game-related issues. I've never seen physical threats or racism/genocidal chat.)

I will say that BF1 in-game text chat on PC can get pretty bad (reminds me of the old IRC days), however I don't see physical threats much (only one threat in the last 4 years) -- however when I played halo 2 online it was constant trash. Are your experiences with console or PC players?

PC, I don't play console games.

And like to be clear, I think you're right that it's a bigger problem than CoD. Absolutely. The toxicity in the other games I play isn't okay either. It hasn't been as extreme or concentrated as CoD, but it's definitely a problem too.

CoD is really the worst, most other communities aren't like this.

I've been in plenty of online, semi-anonymous, young, male majority communities that were overly friendly, welcoming and inclusive to see that CoD is just a pisshole. A bad place. End of Story.

The stuff describes might be systemic but only systemic to a subset of communities, not all of the gaming community.

There's an age factor here.

From personal experiences games with older gamers tend to have less... idiots.

They are still there, it's just they are banished from well admined servers quickly.

Games from Tripwire Interactive are a good example (Red Orchestra, Killing Floor).

---

COD is bad, simply because it is too big and "young". But again if you play on well-admined servers it is not a problem.

I took OPs point to be more about the intensity of the behavior rather than that it exists at all. We shouldn't limit the goal to the eradication of it, when the mere reduction of it would still help a lot. If the CoD community is "amplified" in some sense, then it by definition means that it is possible for them to improve it.

> As much as I hate CoD and wish the issues you highlighted were limited to the CoD community, they are not.

While I agree with the gist of your post, I can't help but feel that pointing out that it's not "special" is the opposite of helpful.

People are mostly equipped to notice problems in their ballpark, and are right to call out problems as they see them. Whether or not similar problems exist in another ballpark is beside the point. Even if other ballparks are worse it's beside the point!

I frequently play Dota 2 and it has similar problems and I don't want to see them there, either.

> I can't help but feel that pointing out that it's not "special" is the opposite of helpful.

I disagree -- I'm pointing out that the issue is not CoD or even online gaming, its a larger issue. You can't really address it on a small scale without understanding the bigger picture.

Can't you? There are lots of higher quality communities out there and if gaming ones were such it'd create pressure for people to improve or stay out. Right now, most gaming communities accept it because of the all-around "well all gaming communities are like this", which contains an implicit "and therefore it's OK and should not alarm you".

Pretty much all issues in life are systemic, this does not at all mean addressing them in a smaller area is ineffective. I'd say most people have a much better chance of addressing it in a smaller area than addressing the systemic problem. I don't see how I, as a gamer, can go modify how "young men" (assuming this generalization is correct) behave, but I can definitely discourage it in any gaming communities I'm a part of.

I don't think some other nice communities I'm in, if they followed the notion of "well, other communities are bad already and it's a systemic problem..." would have been successful.

The bigger picture is unmoderated communities, and nobody said it was limited to CoD except you in saying you wished it was.

A small (or maybe large) army of well-paid moderators who will boot people for abuse would be a good first step. Sure, it's not cheap, but it's got to be worth a shot.

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