“I think we’d do better with a healer,” I suggested to my Overwatch team earlier this week. We were in the spawn room defending the Temple of Anubis and, without a healer, we would quickly forfeit the objective. Not even the slightest pause passed before a teammate told me that, instead, “What we need is another man.”
Overwatch
This frustrating incident was sandwiched between two other matches, and in each, a teammate had snarked on my gender after I had attempted to strategise through voice chat. Earlier, I was referred to as “that fuckin’ bitch” when I asked whether we felt good about our team composition. And, in the spawn room of Horizon Lunar Colony later that night, after wishing my team good luck, I was asked: “Can you play? I just want to know. I’m so curious. Do you know how to play Overwatch?”
On no occasion did any other player on these six-person teams say anything about it.
Toxicity is on the rise in Overwatch, a game I had been enjoying for hundreds of hours since its launch last May. Since I wrote about its competitive mode’s toxicity epidemic on Monday, I’ve heard from over a dozen female players, many of whom said that they were throwing up their hands and walking away or making big sacrifices to how they play:
“The toxicity has kept me from playing the game unless I’m explicitly playing with friends. Sucks because I <3 Overwatch, but… yeah, no thx”
“It’d make the game go smoother if I could speak over voice chat, but I’ve learned my lesson at this point that letting the other players know I’m a girl means I’m going to get harassed and some jerk is going to throw the game just so they can spend the entire time making fun of me.”
“It especially doesn’t help to be a girl and still get the occasional ‘Oh we’re gonna lose it’s a group of girls’ comment (or worse) when my friend and I join the channel. We pretty much stopped joining the team channel due to that.”
“I get the usual cracks about ‘go make us a sammich’ ‘Girls only play healers,’ but some are really nasty stuff I won’t put in here… Anywhere in the outside world the lewd comments female gamers are forced to put up with and ignore would have some kind of serious repercussions.”
And so on.
This is ridiculous. Players’ rampant and unchecked cruelty and sexist commentary are preventing me and others from enjoying our favourite game, a first-person shooter with twice the female userbase as any other. And I want to be clear about something: When it comes to harassment in online gaming, silence is complicity.
As long as developers are slow to address toxicity, it is on a game’s playerbase to stomp out hatred if they don’t want it there. Frustrating mechanics and a punishment-averse reporting system — in which abusive teammates have actually encouraged me to report them, telling me, “Make my day!” — are just two reasons why I encounter targeted harassment in a third of my Overwatch matches. The real reason why players (and especially women) are dropping like flies from the game’s playerbase is the fact that shitty behaviour is now a part of Overwatch‘s culture, at least on PC, much like other online games’.
There will always be arseholes in online games. But who sanctions it are the indifferent or cowardly bystanders who stay silent while strangers harass those of us just trying to enjoy the game and play it without making big, game-changing compromises. (Overwatch, like many other online multiplayer games, is a team game with involved strategy and is best coordinated over voice chat.)
Teammates who hear hatred are the first line of defence for harassed players. Permissiveness is tacit approval of this behaviour. If there are no social repercussions for antisocial behaviour, and especially misogynistic behaviour toward female teammates, it will continue. So if you are one of these four silent teammates — who will suffer no real harm for shaming a harasser or supporting the harassed — you are complicit in these online games’ now-entrenched culture of toxicity.
Speak up. Tell that arsehole to sit down. Show your teammate that they are welcome. Be an advocate for the most basic decency. That’s all it is.
Until there is a stigma around harassment in these games, I, and many others who have reached out to me or commented on my Kotaku articles around this, will continue to bow out out our favourite games’ communities.
For those of you who would prefer to question my gaming habits as I discuss rampant toxicity and misogyny in Overwatch: I play on PC and use a microphone. I enjoy coordinating strategies and team compositions, so I consider a microphone necessary most of the time. I use the mute function when harassment is a consistent and ongoing distraction. I report players often, but have noticed no repercussions (One player who tested it estimates that it takes a few dozen reports for abusive chat to provoke a suspension, but Blizzard says they’re making changes soon). I play whomever the composition dictates is necessary, but mostly tank heroes. I solo-queue about half the time, but resist the criticism that I need friends to protect me while I’m playing an online game. And, no, I am not doing anything to provoke the toxicity I encounter in about half of my matches.
My being harassed is not my fault. It is the fault of specific maladjusted people and a culture that acquiesces to their cruelty. I will not tolerate it. And I will not be part of a community that silently endorses it. That’s why I’m speaking up. And that’s why, when your teammate is getting harassed for their gender, voice, race or demographic, you should speak up, too. And if you do not, you are a part of the problem.
This permissive culture toward harassment is why too many of my Overwatch games leave me feeling like a pariah, despite being a vocal and authoritative source for Overwatch news and criticism on Kotaku. So I am slowly backing away from this game I love.
Comments
89 responses to “If You Hear Someone Getting Harassed In An Online Game, Don’t Stay Silent”
Played a *lot* of ps4 competitive overwatch. My observations are that there are more women playing than are visible. It seems like most women who are solo stay silent. Women who are in groups with men tend to be more vocal. It seems a sad state of affairs that women feel like they don’t want to face random internet men alone, and male allies makes it better.
Also I remember one game where we were losing (not that badly yet, first round) and one guy was getting really angry about every one else’s performance, team comp. I said “hey man, lets stop being so negative and focus on how we can use what we have to win.” He started at me, stuff about me being “triggered”, and then said “you sound like a girl, talking like that. you talk like a girl.” Haha. “Thanks, dude. Women are awesome, so I’ll take that as a compliment.” There was about 20 seconds of silence (a first for this game) and then he quit. It was worth it.
The problem isn’t helped by some women marketing themselves as “girl gamers”, then there’s also that in any slight way if you defend a woman for any reason and in any regard you’ll be deemed “white knighting”. It’s an odd sort of making you out to be a villain or pathetic person, but again, in some cases it’s an actual thing that’s detrimental to discussion and society.
All in all, things just suck. Hopefully one day who we are as people takes less consideration from what parts we bare beneath our belts.
Also not helped when you have some women themselves who’ll crucify any guy who jumps to the defense of a woman for any reason.
Spiels like the typical, “She doesn’t need a man to defend her!’ etc.
I was playing Destiny the other day, lucked getting a group for a raid and immediately they were trashing talking with some EXTREME sexist and racist talk. And I was just in the right mood to go full rant at them, so here I was a stranger giving a huge lecture to a group of five friends about being really pathetic etc. Yet what happened next was instead of just kicking me or losing it at me, the leader dropped the blokey attitude and actually apologised. They didnt kick me, we raided, and since then have done about four raids without another single piece of trash talk.
I do it always in Overwatch, if I hear people use a certain anti-gay word, or even the c word, or just straight up sexism. I call them out. Most take that as permission for them to go ten times worse. If I wont stand to hear that sort of pathetic trash talk in real life, I am certainly not going to stand for it in a game. If you have to insult someone, at least expand your vocabulary and do it in an original and fascinating way and one that doesnt judge others on who they physically are. If I have the bravery to face a racist on a train I most certainly have it to someone in a game. Especially when they are really young and think it is ‘cool’
I get calling out blatant sexism and racism… But they can’t even drop the c bomb with you? Maybe you need to chill out.
Outside of the drunken drongos who would also threaten to “glass ya”, it’s still a rather crude and offensive insult. If you think it’s a fine name to call people, call you mother or father that and see what happens.
This argument is ridiculous. Context matters. If a friend or colleague were to call me that socially, I’d laugh it off. Wouldn’t say that to my parents or a stranger though – different context.
Yes, context matters. And yelling it at random people you don’t know because you’re upset, be it in the street or mid-game, is still offensive.
Hey, nobody disputes that. Saying something like ‘would you call your mother that?’ is a ridiculous argument though. It’s irrelevant.
Actually, the original commenter was disputing that fact. I think OP is very reasonable as far as standards for social interactions with strangers, and doesn’t need to “chill out”.
If I’m playing online with friends, and one of them calls me something offensive in jest over public chat, I don’t want an Internet Superhero getting offended on my behalf.
because that word is tied sharply to sexism, and because if they have to use that word to make a point, their vocabulary has to be very limited, honestly very little they have to say would be of any value. People use it for effect, not to describe something.
I think you’ll find a lot of Aussies call their mates c**ts and a c**t, mate.
If you can’t handle general adult swearing in an adult game I’d check if that headset is necessary.
Overwatch is not an adult game.
but they arent alone with their mates, they are interacting with strangers in a public space, sometimes sharing it with children of a very young age. Oh yay just because they havent got the intelligence to use a real word and completely unaware how using those sort of words, racism and sexism can seem to be ‘normalised’ to younger, impressionable generations. Especially in a game like Overwatch, if that is all they hear and its never corrected.
If you want to use that word go ahead. Just dont be surprised to be treated like a dinosaur as the rest of the civilised world has moved on.
I’m not talking about racism and sexism. Just casual swearing. But gosh you seem quite sensitive about it. How uncivilised!
in my experience in the last few weeks in Overwatch, there is nothing casual about casual swearing, especially when the word in question is one of the most misogynistic and venomous words around, and the other ‘casual’ swear word that others use harmlessly (sorry you used casual) is a equally derogative word for someone who is gay. casual swearing on the scale i am talking about, like that of casual racism and sexism, is anything but.
Hang on, so, because I live in this century and act like it, you think I am uncivilised? Yeh huh.
This century? Really?
That’s odd… Because your “We are the superior, civilised beings!” shtick is a few centuries old, at least, by this point.
Maybe some of the sexist, homophobic and misogynist players should start acting like adults then?
If I hear harassment I just kick the person from the squad. Oh right, you can’t do that in Overwatch. A game that you’re stuck with some people for the whole length of the game. Seems like a perfect place for harassment. MOBA and their variants are just a breeding ground for foul behaviour and, sorry, but I’m not going to be giving out lectures in my few hours of downtime of relaxation. I will kick them, or mute them, or avoid games where it’s a problem.
Real life is different, I don’t stand idly by as someone is getting harassed. In game I just don’t care because I can go to a game that doesn’t have this. Sorry. I’m sure it sucks when your favourite game is bad like that.
The problem is that your approach of just leaving a match and joining another one isn’t an effective approach for female gamers. You can do this because you’re not the target of he harrasemnt. If you are female, you can leave the match, but there is a high chance that you’re going to experience the same shit in the next match, or the one after that. That’s why it’s important to just take a little time and offer support.
I get that you don’t want to be engaging in unpleasant interactions when you’re tying to relax but it doesn’t take much to just tell someone they’re not being appropriate or to give the person being harassed a by of support to make them feel welcome. “Hey man, could you stop harassing her? Everyone is welcome here”. That’s 11 words and it might mean a lot to the person who is feeling targeted.
Also, I don’t think it’s the right approach to say that it’s not ‘real life’. The harassment in online games is as real and consequential as it is in any aspect of ‘real life’.
I hope this didn’t come across as antagonistic. What you do in your own time is up to you, but I hope you’ll consider it.
It is unfortunate that talented twitch / youtube / pro personalities also undermine this type of toxicity. People use the term “gril”, which I find really immature when a girl is playing.
Especially in OW, if they are on your team in competitive, then the system has them ranked around your SR or MMR to put them in team so there really are no issues. When someone rants on that type of garbage I tend to just mute them. They can complain into a vacuum.
Definitely in game people can step up more against toxic people, I also think that people who want to develop or have developed an audience need to be more mature in setting the tone for acceptable conduct.
Oddly enough Ragtagg who is probably the most offensive youtuber for his toxicity, use of language and pure hatred for Hanzo (although his anger is his schtick) is one of the more level headed when it comes to talking about interactions with people in game and treating everyone fairly and with respect.
Or…or you could set your own example. Instead of waiting on some savior in your stack to speak up in your defense, why don’t you grow a backbone and stand up for yourself? People are likely silent due to the bystander effect anyway. If you’re not willing to defend yourself, why do you expect others to?
they are kids… dont play kids team games if you want to get away from toxicity
What would you classify an “adult” team game?
many many others where kids are the minority…. such as 18+ guilds and games…. simulation games rarely have kids… space games and city builders rarely have kids….
classic games and custom servers kids get kicked out if they are trollish
get away from the fad of the fidget spinner and you will have a better time gaming
many many others where kids are the minority…. such as 18+ guilds and games…. simulation games rarely have kids… space games and city builders rarely have kids….
classic games and custom servers kids get kicked out if they are trollish
get away from the fad of the fidget spinner and you will have a better time gaming
and when it is adults who use it? because I mainly hear it from grown adults. At least when kids do it you know they are only parroting what they are hearing, without understanding the full context. Adults know better but still they do it anyway.
Ahh, so as an adult, if I wish to play a first person shooter, I’m not allowed to because they’re “kid’s games”?
be the adult and quit the game…. even if you spent money on it… kids have ruined many games and they are now a no – go area
Kinda strange… the overwhelming majority of people I hear using their mics in Overwatch (and CS:GO) are adults with only the occasional kid…
I also didn’t really play many online shooters when I was a little kid. Mostly RPGs, city builders, space games, that kind of thing.
I guess I’ve lived my whole life wrong.
You’re right though, harassment and abuse is totally acceptable as long as it’s only in kids games.
adults should take responsibility and leave kids alone when they have taken over a game… what are you going to kick kids out of their one game their dad bought them?
no adults need to move on to different games and let the kids sort it out themselves and not interfere with kids playing…
Okay. But as I said, in both CS:GO and Overwatch I hear lots of adults using their mics to co-ordinate and only hear a kid in one in every ten games or so, so I don’t really think they’ve ‘taken over’. It’s more like their parents are being irresponsible by letting them sit at a poker table with a bunch of random adults, if you want to make non-video game comparisons.
I’m guessing you don’t actually play either game in ranked mode, so you wouldn’t actually know what the demographics are like and are just making assumptions about things that you have no experience of.
No! The adults should play whatever bloody game they want!
Insurgency. Rising Storm 2 Vietnam. Day of Infamy.
If you don’t take the trouble to correct them as “kids” (and what about all the girl kids you just told to, effectively, get off the internet unless they are prepared to accept toxicity), they’ll grow up thinking this sort of thing is acceptable. Hold boys and young men to a higher standard, or create the next generation of abusers.
If you’re allowing this sort of shit rather than calling it out, you’re part of the problem.
look if you play with kids…. there is something wrong with you as a person
…or they just happened to join the server you were playing on?
no … you are playing with kids
If I queue solo, I play with who I’m grouped with.
I am downvoted and can no longer contribute to this discussion
grow up people and stop playing with immature kids
Oh you’re one of those.
You have spent an awful lot of time talking about kids in this comment section. One would start to wonder why…..
alot of 30 yo act like kids too…. get away from them dont need toxic players… the option is available to avoid
Insert “The joke, You head” meme here.
Mute/Block feature is there for a reason. Someone hurt’s your feels, then use it. Stop expecting people to be your personal bodyguards all the time.
The problem is that OW is a game that requires good team communication. If you routinely have to mute toxic players then the whole team is gonna suffer because of it.
Then you have two options:
1 – Mute the toxic players and the team suffers
2 – Deal with the toxic players for that game, then mute them afterwards
Wasting time defending offended players just ruins the experience for the whole team as drama causes a loss in focus. Either nut up and deal with it or do like these types of people do on Twitter and block people. Putting up articles about how you’re offended and everyone needs to change to suit your sensibilities is NEVER going to make things change, it’s going to make things worse.
Please explain how encouraging positive interactions between people and discouraging asshole behaviour will make things worse.
Tell someone not to think about an apple. What’s the first thought in their head: an apple.
Tell someone not to be an asshole and to be polite in a virtually anonymous setting, they’ll treat you even more like shit.
There is nothing that is going to stop people who want to be dicks online from being dicks online. There are tools available to limit your interaction with them, so use that instead. Or keep making complaint articles on the internet that no one is going to take seriously.
Have a $40 game ripped out from under you because you were being a dick is likely to teach them a lesson. Blizzard just need to be more strict on enforcing the existing rules
^^ Everything wrong with online gaming in 2017 right here
Standing up to losers like that isnt only about defending people, most times I do it is because I refuse to stay silent, it is about numbers, if every one says something. The person who is doing the abusing realises they are outnumbered, they are the fossils. and what they are doing isnt cool or fun or respected, they are just a loser bully. If no one challenges him its like saying “go ahead abuse another people, what do I care, enjoy” (sure most people who are pathetic like that wont learn a lesson there and then, but over time hopefully they will find new less pathetic ways of compensating. if only. Sigh.
Good for you. Not everyone feels the need to white knight for someone who can’t learn to mute people they don’t want to hear.
someone muting an aggressor is not an answer. that person should never be in a position to have to mute someone. in fact its one of the very points of this article. people shouldnt have to live in fear of this sort of stuff in real life, they certainly shouldnt have to put up with it in a game, just because some sad soul needs to compensate for something..
it has nothing to doing with being a white knight FOR THEM but everything to do with being a fully grown adult, and having a sense of PERSONAL morals. I am not standing up for the person who is being attack but not willing allow myself to be a passive spectator to the humiliation and bulling of someone else because of who they are by birth.
Muting someone is not a solution, just like telling woman they should wearing a longer skirt is not a solution. Muting someone is like accepting the abuse is acceptable and common place.
I cant talk for you but no part of me feels like it is acceptable to judge people due to race, sex, religion, gender. I dont passively listen to that trash in real life and certainly not going to stand for it in a game where people go to escape the real world.
Way to compare apples or oranges there mate.
While no one likes copping abuse in any situation in their lives, you cannot change the mental behaviors of others to suit your own personal morals, ideals, etc. You are not me, I am not you, we have options available to either walk away or mute each other as the tools allow. You cannot have freedom of speech without having the freedom to act like an asshole. The world is not filled with personal bubbles bouncing around, we share one big bubble. So either put on your “adult” pants and deal with it using the tools that are available and stop expecting the world to change to suit YOUR wants and desires.
we dont have a guaranteed freedom of speech as protected by constitution. That is America you are thinking of. Our Freedom of Speech is a by product of living in a democracy but ours is governed by law and constraints. So being an asshole in our countries has constraints and repercussions, by law.That said you can be whatever type of person you want to be, you just have to willing to face the fact that ‘society’ like a wave dictates what is acceptable. And these days pathetic people who act like this are the dinosaurs. Sure we cant stop people acting like this but we can most definitely put them in their place and challenge them to the point were they are no longer the dominate face of society. EG: I work in a formally large male environment now after like 20 years its 50/50 gender balance, all those silly males and their silly sexism have all (mostly) gone underground and woman in my industry flourish. All this happened because our industry evolved, by changing who WE are and not telling others to bend their ways to us and to change who they are. It didnt happen at once, but with one person at time changing how their actions impacted others. I see this in gaming all the time now, the vocal gender balance shifting, thank god.
That is what this article is about, in part. To stay silent is too be complicit. To speak up, is to show the numbers of those who have to harass are diminishing.If there is some thing missing in their life so that they have to treat other human beings with disrespect (especially merely for their own amusement) sure that is up to them, they just have to be willing to face the consequences of their actions and that they are no longer ‘cool’ or welcome.
Telling someone the only way to deal with sexism and racism is by muting the problem is just so flawed. And asking them to merely accept there are bad people in the world so hide from them is equally flawed and all kinds of ridiculous.
That’s funny, I would have said that the person sprouting abuse was the one ruining it for the other players…
The person sprouting abuse is the problem. However the problem is not solved by going “Hey, you change to suit me… and all you other people better back ME up because I’m a woman on the internet”. There are tools available to limit your interaction with these people in the future, use them instead of complaining about it on a website to get attention for your victim card.
If there’s smokers in a designated no-smoking zone that’s directly on my way to work, the answer isn’t to ignore them, it’s to remove them. There’s a reason rules exist.The wrong doers are the ones who need to change, and their refusal to treat others with respect reflects poorly on their character.
You wouldn’t use that argument for any other type of abuse, surely?
If someone decided to spray another player with racist epithets, assertions that everyone knows $ethnicity$ can’t play for crap, and they should go back where they came from, you wouldn’t act like it was the responsiblity of the person being abused to change what they were doing, as opposed to the person doing the abusing?
Or, more accurately, if you would, you are part of the problem.
Calling out bad behaviour, and reinforcing polite standards of behaviour, works in real life. Social censure is our main way of sticking up for fair treatment of people in meatspace. It’s been absent from virtual space, and entitled shitbaggery is the result. We have to start calling it out, and there have to be consequences for abuse which, if it happened IRL, could see you removed from a bus.
This is not about pearl-clutching sensibilities; it’s about respectful behaviour.
turn off voice chat as soon as in any game, problem solved
Setting aside the offensiveness of it for a second, abusing female players is totally counter-productive. In my experience, female OW players are far far more willing to play for the team (choosing healers or tanks, for instance), and they never engage in any alpha male bullshit. If I could choose to queue with 5 females I would do it in a heartbeat, for that reason. The only issue I’ve had with is them often not having the confidence/desire to use the mic that much. And abusing them is only going to make that problem worse.
That being said, I’ve never actually witnessed abuse of a female teammate on OW. Obviously it exists, but I wonder it it’s more prevalent on certain platforms or locations?
Best responses I have seen/used for abuse so far…
Player – “You are crap/team is crap etc”, Response – “You are ranked the same as us, so clearly you are just as shit”. After that response they usually shut up or go full retard.
Player – “Hero picks suck/all your hero picks suck”, Response – “What would you suggest then?”. Puts the picks back on them, most of the time they shut up after that.
Player – “What a stupid waste of an ult, you suck!”, Response – “Would you like to swap hero’s so you can show me how its effectively done?”. Always amazing when they screw up the same ult… can backfire if they are a good player but staying positive and thanking them for the assist usually kills the toxicity.
I have always found that staying calm and asking them to demonstrate their “superior overwatch skills” has shut up many a toxic player. Although, some people are just fucking arseholes….
I think it’s bullshit you have to put up with sexist crap every time someone has beef with you.
But I also would find it condescending every time someone would think I’m a damsel in distress that needs backing up.
I think if everyone used the mute function as well as the report function when these people start losing their 50 dollar game with a lot of skins attached then things might be different.
That’s reporting abuse harassment when you hear someone direct it at someone else. Not purely focused on you.
If I hear someone speaking shit to another player I’ll often mute the harasser and report on their behalf. But I’m not gonna jump in and be a white knight on every time I hear utter nonsense spew from the headset.
Yeah, this has always kind of been my attitude – I don’t expect or want teammates to jump in on my behalf when somebody is being a toxic douchebag towards me, and I tend to assume other people feel the same.
I mute and report toxic people (regardless of who they’re targeting), advise my teammates to do the same thing, and then move on with the match as best as I can.
The other issue is that my experience has been that directly confronting toxic players almost never actually helps – often they take any response as a sign that they’re getting to you and they absolutely love that.
Yes being harassed isn’t your fault. Please don’t forget that it’s also not the fault of people who don’t speak up. It’s solely on the people doing the harassing.
As to whether people who speak up will “suffer no real harm for shaming a harasser or supporting the harassed,” I couldn’t disagree with you more. In my experience, jumping in to try and help someone online only results in the harassment getting worse for the original target, or switching to you (cue the ‘white knight, SJW cuck’ rant).
The unfortunate fact is that to a lot of people, if they ever see you not standing up for anyone/anything they believe in then you’re part of the problem.
It’s the age of the bullshit “If you’re not going to condemn everything I disagree with because I say so, then you’re just as bad!” mentality.
Because doing nothing these days is apparently akin to harassing people or such. Even if you’re socially awkward, naturally quiet, etc, well that’s too bad… You may as well be the devil.
While abuse online is horrible, this is not someone getting stabbed. The game has mute and report features for a reason. Do not push your problems online onto other people, you don’t know if they have just finished a nine hour plus long shift and are tired or if they have muted players on your team.
Your entitlement is showing when you think for a moment that other people should HAVE to go out of their way to help you when you can help yourself and just mute the offending person. I myself mute people in overwatch all the time, heck my League block list was over 300 people strong last time I had a quick count.
There are systems in place to help you make the game feel safer and more friendly, it is up to you to use those systems and help yourself.
This, block and report, move on.
Exactly this. If I’m playing a game it is to unwind, not to get into a defensive argument. If I did I’d lose focus on actually playing, which would increase the likelihood of a loss, which just makes the situation even more shitty.
I’ll gladly report toxic behaviour, as it has no place in any game (unless the game is based around shit-talking… that’d be interesting). But to give a toxic player attention just fuels them. Treat them like a troll: they win if you acknowledge them.
Kids or adults, it doesn’t matter. FPS or MMO, it’s all the same. Abuse is abuse and we need to cull this sort of pathetic behaviour whenever we see it because nobody deserves to be discriminated against.
Always stand up for others or the toxic behaviour will continue.
As an adult, I dont have a headset on if I’m playing outside of a party of my friends. I don’t wanna hear randos at all. The only caveat is when I solo queue competitive, where I have the headset on to hear the rest of the team, but have myself muted. But I’ll only solo queue 1 in 100 games of comp Overwatch.
I’ve been on Live, PSN and PC brah for years and have gotten sick of the deplorables. Ain’t got time for that, usually listening to a podcast/stream while I game solo anyway.
P.s. If the thought to say that we need a healer pops into your head, switch to a healer instead of saying it. The problem goes away without making any more issues.
If anyone has posted something to the effect of “deal with it” my response to you is coward.
You are allowing another human being to be harassed.
You are the person who can have the most impact of dealing with harassment. Having faith in the report system is great and all, but that is not immediate nor is it going to have anywhere near the same impact as someone standing up for a fellow gamer.
You are the person that can make a difference in stopping gender harassment altogether.
If nothing else, do it for selfish reasons. A team free of harassment is a team that can work together which increases your ability to win.
Pretty much done with Overwatch. The community is ass and the fandom so embarrassingly cringeworthy.
No one deserves to be abused full stop, I would have done rather than suggest a healer I would have just played as one.
I very rarely play with my headset on with complete randoms, normally I’ll chat in a lobby with friends.
I’ve had an occasion were I’ve been put in a lobby with Mexicans and have said ‘cool we are playing against mexicans’ and they’ve lambasted the absolute shit out of me because the heard the word Mexico haha.
To the people that say overwatch is a kids game, I beg to differ its for everyone but the moment its played with headsets and people are unmuted its an adults game. People are harsh use the mute
Just smash that MF mute button, it ain’t nice but it will take a long time and many more articles for these kinds of behaviours to die off.
Just to take things slightly in a different direction, part of the fault here also lies with reporting mechanisms.
Overwatch’s reporting mechanics on PS4, for example, is flat out garbage.
Non existent.
Teamwork is possible people!
Edit: How derpy am I? That pink text link didn’t show up so I assumed the sentence was unfinished… *shakes head*
But you also don’t have the open voice communication that the PC version does. So it’s a bit of a different situation there.
So what? You got harassed. Guess what everyone and I mean everyone gets harassed in online games not just women. Hell kids get it the worst and the amount of times i’ve been called a faggot by people in online games is astounding. Just go play PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS, you hear worse stuff said to guys than being called a ‘bitch’ Grow some thicker skin because it doesn’t matter what gender you are in online gaming people are going to insult you. I mean first it’s sexist to defend you since apparently it’s a stereotype that women are helpless and now you want us to defend you? I wish you’d make up your minds since the flip flopping is nuts at this point.
After a 10 hour shift of dealing with real problems in society I like to have a bit of a game and switch off. If someone wants to be a tool and harass people I mute them. If the person being harassed doesn’t just mute them and instead engages then I mute them too. If I find I’m playing a game where everyone is muted well that’s fine for me because I’m pretty bad at games anyway.
People shouldn’t be harassed, that much is clear but just like how a driver is required to give way to a pedestrian on or entering a crossing, that pedestrian shouldn’t just walk out blindly and complain when they get hit by a car. People need to take some responsibility for themselves, if the person is harassing you and you have a mute/block function then use it. If the car is approaching the intersection without looking like it will stop, don’t step out in front of it because yeah you may of been in the right but will the weeks of physiotherapy be worth that smug feeling of being in the right? Will getting all flustered and angry then writing a long article about something that can be avoided and dealt with via proper channels feel like it was worth letting yourself get flustered and angry?
I assume the usual suspects will down vote me as per tradition.
Last time I had some girls on my team, one of them started flirting with one of the guys on my team.
Lots of giggling and innuendo. Sooo distracting. But they were also decent players and we won a few games without too much difficulty.
I’ve never seen any gender focused negativity in my games.
But then again I only ever did qp.
These people are maladjusted jerks who no doubt got bullied in high school and completely lack any sort of emotional maturity so they ‘pay it forward’ in abuse directed at a group of people who are in the minority. It’s really sad that a lot of young males carry on like this. I feel sorry for them.
yes, mute them all from the start… and surround yourself in decent behaved people to play with…. that is what is great about being able to do this
Depends if they’re a bad player or not :b
We all play games to derive some form of enjoyment, whether it’s the company of friends, the challenge of competitive play, or even just getting a single point, the ultimate goal is generally having fun. That is made difficult when you are on the receiving end of abuse or harassment, it can be a horrible oleaginous feeling that sticks throughout a session even if you mute the offending players, you may feel less inclined to play a particular game or engage with a community. From a bystander’s perspective seeing someone being denigrated can also be a terrible feeling, you may well conflicted, or even apathetic, about the possibility of speaking up, “why don’t they just mute them?”, “what if I become the target?”, “saying something won’t do anything”.
A rich, diverse, and strong community or player base benefits everyone who plays a multiplayer game: there are always players around, this greater player volume translates across the skill strata; a larger variety in players can lead to more and varied strategies and plays. Crucial to achieving all of this is either having a phenomenally entertaining game, which we as players can provide little to no input towards, or creating a welcoming environment, which is something to which we can all contribute.
Part of fostering an inclusive community is to set the boundaries of acceptable behaviour. Developers routinely enable player mute and report functions in their games, but those alone are insufficient. Players can participate by propagating the message that abuse and harassment of other players isn’t acceptable. This an important mechanism for the maintenance of a community and advocacy for an inclusive community is the responsibility of all players.
A simple act, speaking up in a game when you see a player being abused, for any reason, conveys simultaneous messages to every player present: to the abuser the message is abusive behaviour is not okay; the subject of abuse is informed that other players do not see the behaviour as tolerable; bystander players are told that people can and will speak up against abuse, which acts both as a deterrent to their participation in the abuse and encouragement to speak out against abuse.
The prudent response for the subject of abuse is to mute and report their aggressor when possible, everyone else on the server should be doing likewise in addition speaking up. Taking an active stance in creating more welcoming and inclusive multiplayer environments, and advocating for others to do so, will bring us closer to being able to enjoy our games. We don’t have to tolerate abusive behaviour in games.
I use to Admin Optus game servers (when they existed) and I always called people out. Although I properly shouldn’t have I always called out the people who trashed others or insulted them and I would argue with them, although I would argue them with common sense and the minute they resulted to a ‘Mum’ insult I always considered it an instant win and others on the server would love it cause I proved myself right every time.
Looking in Over watch as of late I have started doing it again, call them out when they try and bag people, (obviously within reason, to be honest, if they calling out a troll or thrower they can go nuts, but if I believe its an innocent I will call them out)
I have developed a thick enough skin now to tune it all out.
As of late a lot of my female friends will only play Over watch with me or partnered with me and one of them said they enjoy it with me and actually said they like that I jump in front of trolls for them (when people realize they are female))
Rocket league used to have quite a respectful player base, but now it’s full of trolls. I try to stop abusers where I can but it seems such an impossible task these days in any popular online game.
The day privacy is gone, and one can no longer hide behind a user name, is the only day I think you will see an improvement unfortunately, which nobody wants.
People want to be toxic and make people triggered for some sad reason.