Anyone who watched "The Skell" [A French video games show: Ed.] these last few weeks will be aware that we mentioned these players with consistently toxic attitudes, who only aim to ruin the game for others.
To take a deeper look into this question, I had a chat with Amalie "Proxyfox" Reisvaag, a Norwegian streamer who has has continually exposed these online harassers and trolls.
As you're well aware, It's almost impossible to play online nowdays without running into a toxic player. However, when this sort of behaviour is exposed on Twitter, many are led to believe that it's only ever an isolated incident.
When I asked Amalie about how often it occurs, she told me that she generally opts to "ignore and choose to not post every negative encounter that happens to her when she plays, because unfortunately it's become rather normal".
"Normality" is a point that is often brought up when this topic is discussed. The fact that this frequent behaviour may just become the norm is not a good thing. Amalie tells us that there's "a need to shine a spotlight on it, so that people can finally understand that it happens to a lot of people, and honestly quite frequently".
Raising awareness of these highly scandalous attitudes by denouncing them after they occur is definitely a good thing, and we'll come back to this point later. But what do you do in the moment, when you're confronted with this sort of behaviour? How does your play session not end up getting ruined? It's often said that the best thing to do is to just ignore it, even more so when you're a high-profile personality.
"Most of the time, I choose to ignore it," says Amelie. "I mute annoying players or I block them, and that's that. But that isn't always the end of it, especially if they grief by intentionally feeding or by sabotaging their own team. I don't think I should completely ignore everything, I have the right to expose completely outrageous behaviour."
Right now, unfortunately, there's no concrete solution to fight this extremely toxic behaviour. Each player has their own level of tolerance, and each developer has their own way of handling toxic players.
On this point, Amalie believes that "it's also the responsibility of people with influence to expose this kind of behaviour. This helps to put pressure on the developers to take toxicity seriously. Most notably, I think Riot Games decided to take this problem more seriously thanks to backlash on social media."
Since we've mentioned developers, they also have a significant role to play when it comes to making a friendly and safe environment for their communities. We've seen numerous attempts to punish abusive behaviour over the years (remember the Tribunal during LoL's infancy?), but reporting a player at the end of the game seems to be the most commonly employed solution currently.
With player reports, it can sometimes feel a bit like a lottery. Even if ways of punishing toxic behaviour are getting more and more precise, they are not infallible.
"Generally, I have to hope that there's enough proof of their toxic behaviour to get that player reprimanded," says Amalie.
When we talk about toxicity and harassment, the question of sexism is never far behind. The majority of Twitch clips that have made the rounds on Twitter show female streamers being harassed in-game. Incidents like these are what drove me to contact Amalie to talk about this subject.
"I know that a lot of women are shocked by the toxicity in some games. It's very different to live with that, especially when you feel targeted. Generally, my advice is to keep going and to not stop playing. I know that there are a lot of talented women who are currently afraid of playing because of constant harassment — but unfortunately, it's not only women being targeted. I know that it may look like it because of abusive players using gender as a justification — but toxic players will always find a reason to harass other players."
Through her career and her perseverance, Proxyfox has inspired numerous players — as a content creator, she is aware of her responsibility to lead by example and try to help change the way things are.
"I have thicker skin than before, and I hope that I can show that things are getting better. If toxic players in games don't get a response from you, a lot of them will just drop it, as most of them are just looking to get to you mentally."
The hope here is that it's time for online games to become a safe environment for everybody. This may seem like an idyllic concept, as some people will be stuck in their ways, and sometimes the Internet can be a harsh place. A lot of players go unpunished, and a lot more profit off the consideration that some developers show disinterest in dealing with toxicity.
"Once again, shining a light on this sort of behaviour can help us control it in the future," concludes Amalie.
It's everyone's responsibility to move things forward and make developers realise the importance of punishing players who behave badly.
To conclude on a message of hope, Amalie states that the most important thing is to not let them get to you.
"A game should be fun for everyone. If you have a negative experience, you should never forget to report abusive players for the benefit of future games. After all, you should always remember that despite some unfortunate interactions, playing online can always produce good experiences."
I don't often ask you for a response, but have you thought of any ways of dealing with toxic behaviour yourselves?
While we all work together to find a solution to this problem, I wish you GLHF in your future games!
Valorant's closed beta has been available for almost a month now. While the hype is at its highest, I discussed with Arthur "pm" Guillermet, CS:GO caster for 1PV, what makes this new game a success — and which could, in the long run, change everything.
Header image courtesy of Misfits Gaming.
Interview translated from the French by James Whitmore.
