Online gaming has become one of the biggest industries in the entertainment sector. It has outgrown the movie and music industry, and is not just limited to console games. It has grown to casual mobile gaming, casual desktop gaming, and of course there’s the competitive games as well, and on multiple platforms as well.

Around games there’s also different kinds, but the most popular tend to be multiplayer games. They allow friends to play together without having to be in the same room, and from all over the world as well. Now while that sounds really good, and that there’s no downside these online communities.

While I wish that was the case, unfortunately when you get into online games that are player versus player, that’s when you see the toxic culture of gaming come out to play. These kinds of games are competitive, and feature high-pressure environments. In those kinds of situations, it’s easy for people to lose their cool and lash out at people.

A person getting angry playing a video game (Credit: ACWells via Pixabay)

Because of the importance of the games, and included ranked modes that show how good you are to the other players in the game, this has led to a toxic culture in some games that feature a majority of player versus player modes. This can be private messages for getting killed, the loadout you’re using, or even your gameplay.

And it isn’t limited to just direct messages either. When you’re in game, there’s usually a text chat where people will use slurs and curse words as if it was second nature to them, to insult others and put down their gameplay. If a game has a voice chat as well, then it will bleed into there as well. The only real way to escape it is to mute them, but it doesn’t fix the underlying problem.

There has to be something that a publisher can do besides a communication ban in game if they are found guilty of being toxic in a game. Besides the game publishers, there has to be something done from the players as well. I’m not saying to be a white knight for the person facing the toxicity, but instead as if you were standing up to a bully.

There has to be something done to prevent the negativity and toxicity, especially as in today’s day and age when it is easy to find other’s outside of the game, like on social media since a lot of people will use the same username across platforms.