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Week 12 [20.01-26.01.20] Hard to be a female gamer...


Hard to be a female gamer...
Some of the gamers like to play online games to compete, to test themselves against others, feel the adrenaline and emotions, but we can all agree that most of players like to play games for fun, to spend some good time and relax. Unfortunately, not everyone is having fun in multiplayer games – especially girls.
In online games most of the time you connect to match and play with your team against enemy team. I will focus mainly on Rainbow Six Siege game, where 5v5 matches are played. Everyone of us like to play with friends, but not everyone always has time, so sometimes you have to play with some random players that you don’t know. Sometimes they don’t want to talk, or even write in game chat, but some of them…
Meet Kawoo, my girlfriend, who is one of the students at our university. She plays Rainbow Six Siege quite a lot, but it’s not that fun as some think. At the beginning it’s hard to find a team to play with, so she just played solo a lot. She wanted to have fun and win games, so she had to communicate with others. When she says something in the game – it begins…
She had to deal with inappropriate comments, threats, insults, sexual harassment and many many more. „Go back to kitchen”, „girls shouldn’t play video games”, „we have a girl on our team, we lose”. That’s only few easier examples how the male part responded via voice chat. Here are some more examples:
 
It’s not easy to be a female gamer. You must either hide it that you are a girl or don’t say anything, but sometimes you have to tell teammates as soon as possible where enemy player is. Kawoo cried lot of times, because of these awful comments about her gender. Even wanted to quit playing video games. Fortunately, she signed up for our uni’s esport team – NINJA PJATK and started representing our uni in esports tournaments like TMLA. In the team she met guys, that doesn’t care about her sex, just playing together and having fun and she is playing games until now.
    So that’s a story with happy end, but I’m sure there is a lot female gamers, who left gaming, because of these kind of comments. There is also a Youtuber - Spawntaneous. She is a quite popular creator with over 250k subs, who share this problem in games like Kawoo. You can check her channel and see what I'm talking about. I wrote this article to draw attention to this problem and not be indifferent.
1. Have you ever witnessed such comments towards girls while playing video games? 
2. What should game developers do to prevent this?
3. What we can do to prevent this kind of situations?
Also if you want to check these hard comments - here is a link, but you are doing it at your own responsibility: https://imgur.com/a/PSneRvO

Comments

Maciej P s16488 said…
I've encountered this kind of behaviour but I think that it is small part of overall bad behaviour in the internet. There is a truth in that gamers (and other people in the internet) can be impolite and even rude to woman, but they will do the same to you, no matter who you are, what is your gender, age, nationality. There are people talking bad things to you for being polish, russian, for having high pitched voice, strange voice or anything they can stick to.
Obviously this kind of behaviour is wrong and should be criticized but I believe woman aren't the target for the sake of their gender but rather they are targeted like anyone else and due to their gender they encounter comments specified in that particular way to attack them on their gender.

They should do exactly what they are doing to prevent other rude comments. There should be option to report these kind of players and they should be muted/banned.

I don't feel like I should. I am trying to act polite and to have some manners but I can't be responsible for actions of others. If I'd see drunk guy on a street yelling vulgar things at me I wouldn't take it personally and I would shrug it off as it is him who is embarassing himself - not me. The best we can do is to ignore this kind of people and to remember that they are showing with this kind of behaviour who they are, not who we are.
1. Have you ever witnessed such comments towards girls while playing video games?

Yeah, unfortunately, I've been seeing such treatment of girls in computer games. Often it is also visible on streams from computer games where some chat users write terrible comments.

2. What should game developers do to prevent this?

They should be able to report this type of offense. It should also be possible to throw such a player out of the game and mute him. Unfortunately, I think that education in this case will not help such players.

3. What we can do to prevent this kind of situations?

We have to respond to these kinds of harassment and admonish these people. If this doesn't work immediately, we have to report such a player, mute and ignore them. If such a thing is repeated, it is up to the developers to permanently exclude this person from the game. Another possibility is to implement a communication system that only allows you to communicate about game situations and not directly write or talk to your own team.
1. No, I haven’t, just seen a lot of screenshots like the ones you posted or seen videos showing such behavior. I can tell you a secret – competitive games attract and/or create toxic people. The goal of those people is to offend the other person to get rid of their own stress (part of which they gain in-game, which I don’t understand) – and I think they don’t really care if the person is male or female, they just find something to use against them. One of the worst communities, in my opinion. The only place I met female gamers were MMORPGs like “World of Warcraft”, “Guild Wars” and others, and I’ve never seen this kind of situation there. I won’t say it doesn’t exist in this kind of games but it would be more of an exception to the rule – there, if a girl is a part of a guild or static group, she is seen as any other guild member – well, she sometimes can have a bit different kind of attitude but of completely different type.
2. There is not much they can do and it’s already done everything that can be: lately, competitive games don’t allow to communicate with your opponents in chat – for numerous reasons but among the others it prevents teams from offending each other. Aside from that, system of reporting the toxic teammates has been available for some time now. Developers can’t turn off the chat system completely as it helps with the coordination of team actions.
3. I think that responsibility for their time and experience lays to a large extent on the gamers themselves. They just have to know what they step into. You are a girl and you know with what kind of mad people you have to deal with? Don’t use micro to communicate – use chat. Still want to use micro? Learn to answer those offences or learn to ignore them – those players are probably just a bunch of frustrated kids anyway. You don’t have to communicate via chat or audio at all. But frankly – competitive games are not a place you want to go to have a good time.
Kgajewska said…
1. I have. I tried to play and quit, because I've seen such a comments about myself. It's sad but I think that multiplayares attracts toxic people. I mean, looking at our society, it's hard to be a girl in general and a girl trying to enjoy something not stereotypical is something that some cannot stand.
2. The same things they do against any toxic players.
3. Other players should react and mark that this kind of behaviour is not acceptable.
Anton Chechel said…
1. Have you ever witnessed such comments towards girls while playing video games?
I have seen comments addressed to girls gamers, but not so violent. In those games I play, girls are usually invited to play together or on a date. I have never encountered discrimination against girls in games I play. Even I find quite a lot of news that after such games some people get married.
2. What should game developers do to prevent this?
It's hard to say something when you're not a developer and haven't encountered such problem. You can try to introduce a system of bans for sexism in games, but I'm afraid that this will lead to more hatred and fewer players that developers would not be very profitable. Honestly, I don't know what to advise.
3. What can we do to prevent this kind of situations?
In my opinion, at the time of publishing the game, it is necessary to properly educate the game community, to prove that girls can play not worse or better than boys in this game, adequate players should defend girls and girls should treat a little easier to game critics. Those who write such things are also not saints.
1. Yes, I witness them all the time. It's quite sad how some beta males playing video games can't handle the though that a woman can play video games.

2. I think the best developers can do is creating a ban systems that would allow users to report such situations. Also such behavior should be punished by a long-time ban.

3. I think that this behavior towards women became some kind of meme. It's common and acceptable amoung gamers community, which is not good and should be condemned by the people.
1. Yeah, I witnessed such situations multiple times. I have few female friends that I sometimes play with, mostly the game we play is CS:GO . Since they are quite good at the game they often get insulted because their enemies can't stand losing against girls. This always makes me laugh and I find it quite pathetic. Personally I think women should be encouraged to play games since they are in minority when it comes to gamer community. It is sad that some men can't show respect and I think that this might be the reason why there is so few females playing multiplayer games.
2. The issue with game developers doing anything about overall toxicity in multiplayer games is the cost of such actions. I think many game developers don't want to spend money on moderating chats in their games, it costs too much. I hope in future A.I. will make it cheaper so we can have a healthier community in multiplayer games.
3. It depends. When it comes to men it is probably behaving properly. Don't treat a girl playing games like she is worse or better than others. If you view her as another gamer then she will get most fun out of the game. As I mentioned above I hope that A.I. development will help tackling the overall toxicity problem in games in nearby future. When it comes to girls themselves, sadly all they can do is ignore (mute in game) people that insult them and eventually report them after the game.

I hope you will try to come back to games and you will find better people to play with. Maybe people from our university play a game that interests you?
Well, I've been playing games since the age of six. I know that multiplayers games are full of toxic people and that's really sad. The worst thing is that these toxic players are in your team and only they can hear you in voice chat. Enemy still doesn't know who is in enemy team. And this toxic player from your team reduces the chances of winning the game.
I have to admit that girls in MMORPGs are treated better. Mainly due to the fact that there is no such competition as in FPS games. In MMO you play either solo or with the team against AI
Karolina doesn't even want to answer their toxic texts, her answer is her game when she is the best in the team, has most kills, wins clutch etc. Then sometimes these toxic players are sitting quietly. And I think this is the best thing in this!
The idea with AI sounds really interesting. I hope it comes soon!

Well, I found a girlfriend thanks to the games :D
Few months ago there was not even possible to report such toxic players. You had to make a screenshot as evidence, find correct email and write everything what happened. Fortunately, now in R6 there is an option to report player for cheating, toxic behavior on chat, even on voice chat.
No I've nerver witnessed such behaviour while playing games. Actually now when i'm thinking about that in most games for most time i have my communication system turned off as most players use it only to offend others so it makes no sense for me to use it.

They shouldn't do anything more than they are doing right now - blocking toxic players chat or microphone is usually good enough.

If anyone feels offended while using voice chat than it should be turned off manually by this person. As I wrote earlier I have my chat normally turned off as it doesn't do any good to use it. And if You are playing for the ranking than doing it solo doesn't make sense either so in my opinion - when You play solo, turn off the chat, if You want to gain ranking, play with friends who won't offend You.
There is an option to mute a player. But still sometimes they give information about where the enemy was or something like that. And in FPS like R6 it is really useful, so sometimes is better to ignore them and count that they will start play properly and say information about the game
So what multiplayers games did you play? I'm curious because communication in every game is useful in some way, better or worse, but still useful
1. I personally know gamer society as highly sexist. I am not playing in any competitive multiplayer games but I know girls that do and feel extremely mad about this. They are often hiding fact about their sex just to play in peace and focus on gameplay. Also there are farther more extremely offensive examples of behavior like this that I have seen.

2. I guess it is not direct prevention but would definitely be important point in fighting with sexist in games in general. And I mean changes that include for example appearance of female characters in games and their roles in the storyline. Also some ban system would work quite good.

3. I can't actually react often myself because as I said I don't enjoy most of the games in which situations like this can happen. I can only assume fully emotional reactions are always bad because it gives more of a satisfaction to person acting like this. You show that they actually managed to hurt you, and this is exactly what they mean to do. So don't give them this sadysfaction. However, no reaction is in my opinion even worse. When we were young people were always repeating to us it's better to not react at all and ignore stuff like this. I disagree. I think the more people will react and not make fun of it or ignore it the more likely it will be to reduce such behavior which only spoil others' fun of playing games.
Example with drunk guy is really good. But still it's hard to focus on game when player from your team is yelling at you because you are a girl. Even sometimes this girl can play better then them, but still they will do their thing...
Oh, such awful comments are very common in online games. I’ve seen a lot when I was playing the games. A lot of games banns or hide bad words or even whole sentences to prevent gamers to hurt others. But after all it’s an education. Nowadays people especially younger generation are very aggressive and rude. If we want to change something we have to start from ourselves, because I’m sure, we all sometimes think or behave rude or impolite toward others.
Anna Moskalenko said…
Yep, I did, as a female gamer myself I can totally relate. Bullying in internet and online games in particular is nothing new unfortunately, and bullies will always find a reason to bully you, whether it is your sex, race, nationality, bad English, unusual name - basically anything! However, I feel like it is actually very much depends on a game you play. There are quite a lot of online multiplayer games nowadays and some of them have just more stupid and immature children playing. I’ve also received similar comments as you mentioned, but most of the times guys in the game were very nice and surprised that a lady is playing with them. I have met some of my greatest and kindest friends in an online game!
Every online multiplayer game should have good support team available, every gamer (not only girls) is basically a customer and should be treated like one: she or he should be able to easily report a bully and some action should be taken right away - to ban bully from a game for some time or permanently (of course it should be done fairly to not allow anybody abuse this system).
Well, to educate your children to be a kind person for sure. Other players should also react when they see a situation like this.

And, hey, tell Karolina (it’s Karolina, right?) that she’s probably just better than them and guys usually hate it ;) Gamer girls are amazing and she should not give up games because of some stupid and pathetic child.
1. Have you ever witnessed such comments towards girls while playing video games?
Yes, many times. I do not get it why people write things like this. They probably feel secure because they are not face to face, but the forget that they are not anonymous in the Internet, esecially in video games where your account is checked with your Name.

2. They can only ban people like this, they are not resposible for people who are playing their games, they should develop some alrgotmical program who will search for bad words and ban this people.

3. We should turn off the chat or mute people who are aggressive. We should play but do not talk and react on it. It is better to not comment in this situation.
Paweł Hadacz said…
1. Have you ever witnessed such comments towards girls while playing video games?
I witnessed this situation a long time ago. I think the situation has normalized a bit when it comes to the approach to female players.

2. What should game developers do to prevent this?
I think that it is not game developers who should change something, only players should be stigmatized for such bad behavior towards women.

3. What we can do to prevent this kind of situations?
I think we should exclude such people from the gaming community. Nobody who wants to enjoy the game likes such situations.
To be honest I have never heard anyone flaming girls while playing games. I am a gamer, when I was younger, and I had much more time for playing I was basically doing just that. Now I play a bit less but still almost everyday and if I am being honest, I have never heard flaming someone because she is a girl. I heard flaming because someone can’t play or because of country he or she is from and all kinds of different hate speech. But every time I play with some girl everyone is more like surprised that there are girls playing this game then hate them for it. I don’t know, maybe we are playing different games, or I am just lucky to never saw that but before now I have never even known that this can be an issue. But if it really is, I think is ridiculous because games are supposed to be fun and not everyone have to be a pro-gamer.
s15052 said…
1. To be honest I have never witnessed such situations in games that I play. I enjoy playing with girls, and I dont't think that they are worse players.
2. I don't think it's devs' job to prevent this. There should be possible to report such player to someone like server administrator or moderator.
3. We should raise awareness about this problem and react if we are seeing such situation.
1. To be honest, I haven't seen such comments addressed only to girls. I often encounter a great lack of culture and aggression, but the gender wasn’t so important. There is a lot of “hate” in online gaming, but it seems to me that it's not strictly connected with person’s gender.
2. I don't know if there is anything they can do about it. The only thing that can help them is machine learning, which would automatically pick up such comments. You can still report bullying, but it’s impossible to remove them all.
3. People should react systematically to aggressive behaviour and report it all the time.
Yep, it's Karolina. Do you know her? She will definitely read the comments, so thank you! Stay strong and maybe see you in some game :D
It also depends what kind of game you play. FPS are more spontaneous, more is happening. For example, in MMOs such situations are probably less common
Mykola Suprun said…
1) Of course, I did, but according to the actual research which was done on this topic, men tend to receive a lot more verbal harassment in online games, although the insults men receive tend not to be gender-related. So even as bad as the problem is, it is not a problem of disproportionate harassment towards women in the online gaming community, and rather a problem of overall toxicity level of such communities, which is extremely high and hence it manifests itself in the craziest way possible.
2) Zero tolerance policy towards any kind of harassment of anyone, not just women. Competitive online games tend to strain the nervous system a lot, hence preventing people who obviously cannot cope with the pressure and go crazy from playing is also good for their mental health and not just for the community.
3) A very simple thing, if a game makes you so angry, you wanna say something you will never say in real-life - stop playing. It does more harm than good to you anyway.

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