Toxic Gamers: How to Spot Them and What You Can Do to Have a Better Gaming Experience

The issue of Toxic Gamers in the online gaming community is never ending and never not frustrating.

Toxic gamers. The bane of the online gaming community. We all know who I’m talking about. Whether it’s a 12 year old kid in the midst of puberty or a 35 year old grown ass man, you better expect vulgar cursing, bad teamship, and just unsavory people to say the least.

Toxic gamers have been an ongoing issue since the launch of Xbox Live, and with the online gaming community rapidly growing throughout the years, it’s only gotten worse. These guys can ruin your experience playing your favorite game, prevent you from diving into a new franchise, and even make you feel shitty for being alive.

Today we’re diving into the belly of the beast to address one of the worst issues alive in the gaming community. No, not the companies who put out micro-transactions in every game known to man or overworking employees to the bone to get titles out in short deadlines, but the players themselves.

What is a “Toxic Player"?

Calling a player “toxic” can be a little difficult to accurately narrow down. The word “toxic” in the gaming community has been used so much that it has turned into this big umbrella term to define players with bad behavior, or to put it simply humongo jerks.

Calling someone who is constantly berating players and going out of their way to tear them down and not contribute to their team toxic can be understandable. However, people who just say their team sucks and talk the occasional smack can also be coined as toxic. So, the big question is what is the definition of a toxic gamer? Where’s the line that draws between a toxic and horrible player to someone who is just occasionally a jerk and obnoxious?

Toxic Gamers come in all shapes and sizes, but this is pretty much what the worst of them look like.

Well the term toxic player is something that is only coined in the gaming community so it doesn’t have an “official” definition from Webster or anything like that. However, there is a definition generally accepted by the gaming community that comes from a League of Legends reddit page that defines a toxic player as “someone who negatively impacts a game in an intentional way.”

That includes, berating or attacking people verbally, leaving the game when things don’t go your way, or intentionally aiding the enemy team or not supporting your own team in any way all contribute to toxic behavior, which sounds about right to me. Anyone can spot a clearly toxic player if they show any of these symptoms while playing with them.

How do Toxic Players affect the Game?

Toxicity in game players can have a detrimental effect on the online experience for players just looking to go online to play with some friends and have a good time. You might just think they’re just trolls being jerks, but the things they say and how they act greatly impact the game in several ways.

Bad Game Experience:

First off, your experience with the game can be ruined by random people being butts. Not only can the endless cursing and derogatory comments make you frustrated at the game, but when toxic players intentionally undercut your whole performance in the game that’s when you just want to throw your controller aside and throw your hands up in the air. When your teammate decides to break off and do his own thing or refuses to help you out in a situation because you’re a “dumbass and you suck at the game” they are ruining your chances to succeed in the game and have fun.

I was playing a game of Apex Legends not too long ago where I was playing with this guy who had a mic and one other player. My other teammate picked up a grenade that the guy with the mic apparently wanted he immediately said he was going to leave the game. All over a freaking grenade, something that is so common in Apex Legends, and he threatened to leave the game because of it.

I was shocked and I remember verbally saying “what the hell!?” because this guy was being completely unreasonable. He didn’t quit the game because an enemy squad came on us, but he said that he wasn’t even going to try with these guys and told us good luck. Of course, we needlessly died and I exited the match frustrated and confused.

If gamers aren't frustrated at toxic player behavior, they are deeply saddened by their experience, like I often am.

His actions clearly contributed to our poor performance, but not only that but his unreasonable frustration and cursing threw me off my rhythm so I had a hard time focusing when I needed to. Harassment can cause so much frustration that it prevents people playing as well as they should and of course threatening to leave and not trying adds onto that making a once seemingly great team collapse in seconds.

Toxic Players breed more Toxic Players:

When something is toxic it erodes. It becomes a harmful poisonous substance that eats away at itself and even spreads and hurts all around it. We know that toxic players can harm others through their harassment making them perform poorly or feel like crap, but they also influence other players to say and act in the same way they do, creating more toxic players.

Toxicity begets more toxicity. If toxicity isn’t contained, it will continue to erode and grow, affecting everything it comes in contact with. That is what toxic players do. When gamers consistently see toxic players behaving the way that they do, they think that is an acceptable way to act in the community.

People like this are the catalyst for spreading toxic behavior to other gamers.

One of the key demographics that is most vulnerable to this toxicity are young gamers (12 - 18 year olds). These gamers are still maturing and figuring out their lives and how to properly communicate with people. So, when a 12 year old hears a grown man over a microphone calling them a motherf@$&% f@#$% in a game and they play games several hours a day it’s going to be no wonder that they start to pick up on these same habits as well.

While, this younger demographic is more prone to learning toxic behavior, no one is really except. If gamers have been hearing this for such a long time eventually, they too will start to exhibit some of these behaviors. They might not be an extreme toxic player cursing at people all day long and sending death threats, but they will inevitably be part of the problem in some way.

I think one of the worst problems that comes out of toxic players is that they push people away from games that they initially love to play and prevent would be new players to join the online community in an existing game.

Toxic Players Push People Away:

Toxic Players are probably one of the worst cyberbullies out there and make a fun and friendly online community seem like a pipe dream.

The game may be awesome to play, but if the community is bad then people are going to be quickly turned off. Imagine, you are playing your favorite game and after a while some jerks get on and start talking shit about you. They curse and undermine you and make the match unbearable to the point where you just turn the game off and walk away. You don’t come for awhile or sometimes never again because the community was just so hateful and you just don’t want to deal with it.

The toxicity in some games rise so much that people feel like they need to step away from it, whether they have been personally attacked themselves or just can’t breathe in the polluted atmosphere anymore. Not only that, but the same toxic community can cause hesitation in people when they are deciding whether or not to try a new online game out.

Take Overwatch for example. I know it’s a popular game and many people say it’s fun, so I wanted to give it a shot. However, I’ve heard that the Overwatch community can be extremely toxic and I don’t really want to be involved in that at all if I can help it, so I’ve yet to pick up the game and to be honest I don’t know if I’ll ever play it all.Like I said before, the game can be great to play, but if the community is just going to tear you down then why bother?

How to Deal with These Kinds of People?

So, what can be done about these people? From those who are just occasional jerks to regular 9 - 5 hostile menaces, what can you do to get them out of your mind and instead put your mind on the game?

Ignoring:

Muting players, getting out of toxic matches, or just focusing on the game are all great ways to tune sucky people out of your virtual gaming life.

Well the simplest action we can take is simply to just ignore these poop head gamers. The occasional you suck comment can be ignored pretty easily. It’s not worth getting frustrated and vindictive over players who may just be having a bad day and are taking it out in game.

But, the sure fire way to not deal with these people is to just mute them. A lot of harassment that can come from toxic players, mostly comes in the form of voice chat and companies are making it easier and easier to achieve chatless bliss in games. One click of a button and it’s like they were never there.

Reporting:

While ignoring people typically puts an end to things, some players may take it further by sending you direct messages either in game or through your system or console of choice, which can be annoying and harder to get rid of. And, of course, they can purposely disrupt your game flow by aiding the enemy, shooting you, not completing objectives, or doing anything else that negative impacts your performance or experience. That is impossible to ignore and irritating as hell.

Game Companies are making it easier and easier to report players for cheating or harassment in games with just one click of a button.

So, the next best thing is to just report them. Now when I suggest reporting someone, I don’t necessarily mean you should report every player who looks at you the wrong way. Like I mentioned before, sometimes it’s best just to ignore them and not make a big thing out of it.

However, there comes a time when reporting is necessary. When someone is constantly belittling you or making it impossible to play the game without them purposely getting in the way then reporting them is the best way to deal with the situation.

Nothing will make you feel more at peace knowing that extremely toxic players won’t be able to make any derogatory remarks directed at you or your mother anymore and you can just focus on playing the game.

So, will doing these things exterminate all toxic players and make the online community wonderful and full of amazing potential friends? Well, no, not really. You give a guy a mic and a controller, it’s pretty much a roll of the dice on how he’s going to behave. With people being able to quickly connect online and hide behind gamer names they feel like they can pretty much say whatever they want without consequences, so, unfortunately, there’s plenty of crappy and toxic players out there for you to find.

One thing I think we should keep in mind is that we, as players, shouldn’t stoop to their level, even though it can be tempting to curse back at them and give them a taste of their own medicine. If we do, then we become part of the problem. The best thing we can do is turn the other cheek, report when necessary, and continue to express concerns to game companies. I'm sure if we do this, eventually, trolls and toxic players will dwindle in numbers over time.

But that’s about it for me. What are some of your experiences with toxic players and how do you deal with them? Comment below and I’ll see you next time!

~Dean Willms

Gamer. Designer. Friend.