Communication Methods in MMO's and Their Effect on the Gaming Community

Introduction
This Wiki Project focusses on the ability of gamers to communicate with each other around the world to elevate their gaming experience. Games and platforms such as League of Legends, Counter Strike, Xbox Live and World of Warcraft enable players to work together, interact with one another, and unfortunately, attack each other. While communication in gaming has its positives, it has also lead to problems due to players abusing the communication methods that have been implemented in games. Every game has their own system to prevent toxic players, but we see time after time that their efforts are never enough.

Why is My Topic Important?
Communication methods in the online gaming world has given gamers the opportunity to never play their games alone. An opportunity to share their gaming experience with friends or strangers with similar interests.

For example, let’s focus on the most popular online video game today, League of Legends. To give you an idea of their popularity, the developers, Riot Games, claimed that in 2012, they had over 27 million daily players. League of Legends requires each player to use the in game chat system (text-based) and their interactive command system (pings) to work as a team with four newly acquainted teammates and take down the enemy’s base while protecting their own. The majority of the League of Legends community strives to work along side their team to complete their objective while simultaneously being on the same page, however, in solo queue (the League of Legends game mode that matches the player with four other random players), most players only need to spend up to an hour with their four new teammates before they find another set of teammates for the next game. They don’t have the time to spend in order to get to know one another which, at the end of the day, leads to less forgiving teammates. Players verbally abuse each other due to problems that can stem from a difference in skill level between a player and their opponents/teammates, an altercation that has risen from the in game chat service, a misplay leading to a shift in game control, or simply an external factor that is having an impact on a players mindset in game. At the massive rate that League of Legends has grown, and the way that Riot games (League of Legends game developers) have structured the gaming experience for their players, the damage that has been done to the League of Legends community is irreversible. Here we have a successful game that uses communication methods to promote teamwork, but suffers from the inevitable fate of a gaming community becoming toxic due to a popularity increase.

Game developers know that players abuse the privilege of communication, but struggle to find a reasonable way to stop it. Once a game or platform gets successful, such as League of Legends, Xbox Live, and World of Warcraft, most developers can’t keep track of how all their players react. Many of them require their users to let them know if a player crossed the line in any way with a user reporting feature. Despite the odd abusive player being punished, many get away with their actions and move onto the next game/player.

On the other side of the spectrum, some of the best experiences of gaming come from the communication aspect. Any Runescape player back in 2006 will tell you that selling their items among a screen of yellow lines of text was part of the Runescape experience. Any Halo player knows that the “teabag” taunt of repeatedly crouching and standing isn’t a crude insult, but a hilarious way of saying, “gotcha.” Any Call of Duty player knows the satisfaction of every player with a mic expressing their excitement of a skillful game winning cam kill.

Research Question
The research question for this project asks, how does the power of communication in massively multiplayer online games (MMO’s) produce a negative affect on the gaming community.

Importance of My Research Question
The importance of my research question is to bring to light problems with communication in MMO’s that game developers end up turning a blind eye towards. Games promise players a communication system to promote teamwork, that they’ll meet friends, and that they’ll have a positive experience, but often, they receive the complete opposite. Players want to interact with their fellow gamers, but at the same time, they expect a positive experience every time, which is difficult to achieve. Mark D. Griffiths and his team performed a study on the social interactions of online gaming that outlines both the positive and negative effects of online games.

Understanding My Topic in a Broader Concept
The way we interact with each other online is completely different than how we are in person. People have a different level of confidence when they are behind a screen because online video games afford them that opportunity. Maybe it’s because they can think about what they say without seeming out of place, or maybe they just feel more secure without being around people. Whatever it is, online communication, not just in video games, but as a whole, offers far less limitations than the real world. People can hold a completely different identity online, and be the person that they can’t be in reality. There’s also the fact that behind a screen, players don’t face immediate consequences for their actions, so they say and do what every they want, which in many cases, wouldn’t end well for them in the real world.