Tag Archives: Toxicity

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Toxicity of the Overwatch City

Normally Monday’s blogs are dedicated to gaming. Typically during the Overwatch League season, it sticks to that. But the Summer Showdown ended up with a great battle that ended in a whimper between the two APAC teams: Chengdu Hunters and Shanghai Dragons. It would have been cool to see the Hunters win, but Shanghai has gone through so much that it was nice to see the back-to-back tournament wins. Plus, Fleta is just a monster and I image they might win it all in the countdown cup and Grand Finals with him getting another MVP trophy, this time for the Grand Finals MVP. As for my favorite team? I’ll just be happy to see them in the final tournaments. I’d be ecstatic for a win. But I’m a realist. Maybe if they actually keep a full roster for once, next year could be our year. If they actually keep their full roster for once.

There’s something about games that end up bringing out the worst in people. Take, for instance, when the San Francisco Shock once again failed to meet the high bar of excellence that they have set as the first back-to-back Grand Finals champions. Their “fans” turned so fast and so hard. The hate the community of gamers seems to just easily spew is a little bananas. I’m not sure that they forget that they are targeting real people with real feelings; rather, I’m a cynic that just thinks people don’t care. Maybe it’s because my oldest is about the same age as some of these kids (and they are just kids when you think about it), but I just can’t. I want to punch all of them because my protective mom instinct kicks in. Or in another instance, when a fan had a poster with a mascot sexually assaulting another mascot. Eek. Toxic.

But it just isn’t towards the pro players and anyone associated with those teams; it’s when you play the games. Normally when playing Overwatch, I stick to mystery heroes. I’ve discussed before my aversion to the other game modes, since I typically play tank or support and this will require me to talk on chat. Girls being on chat is a hit or miss. You get some people who don’t care, or the majority who decides that they are already going to lose because they have a girl on their team. Mystery heroes doesn’t necessarily require chat. It’s generally far less toxic, though my games yesterday (and lately) really test that theory. Like when this girl came on chat and kept repeating “You guys are lucky I don’t want to get angry. So lucky.” Being annoyingly passive aggressive is just as toxic as the guy screaming on chat about everyone being trash. Or this other girl who went off on this guy for seemingly no reason, trying to pull the “I’m not the a-hole, you’re the a-hole”, then making a show of throwing while smoking a bong on voice. It was a super fun match. Or the one guy that was actually so bad I blocked him. I have a very high tolerance for things, so if I block or report someone, it was something extreme.

The point is that there’s toxicity all around in the gaming world. Overwatch I feel is no more or no less toxic than any other game. At least the team behind the game tries their best to curb this behavior. They do what little they can, and I think that makes them stand out from other games that just sorta go “mad cuz bad” rather than figure out ways to address the problem. I think that’s an important distinction to make. Will it get better? Probably not. Because before the equation was exactly as the team at Penny Arcade said with their Anonymity Equation: Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Jerk (paraphrasing. I like to keep things at least PG, if not PG-13). The problem is that now people are emboldened to be the jerk even without anonymity, meaning that they get even worse with it. Maybe solve the “stop raising jerks” issue, then we can go back to normal levels of turds on the internet.

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Those Incredible People You Encounter When Gaming

I debated writing about my experience in the Shadowland Beta this week, but maybe I’ll focus on that another day this week. Today, I was inspired by my encounter playing games today in Overwatch.

I’m not the best Overwatch player. I’m decent enough. I would argue that I’m Mystery Heroes good. I play decently enough but I play because I have fun. I play Mystery Heroes because I was tired of being bullied in competitive, though I would have really loved to make at least Plat since I came so close before quitting. I would have loved to get a gold weapon for at least D.Va. Why did I quit? I primarily play tank or support. Both roles require chat, probably more than other roles. It’s insane how quickly people turn on you at the lower ranks the minute they hear a female voice.

So I don’t play any Overwatch that requires voice chat. I can have just as much fun and get the competitive experience just by playing Mystery Heroes all day long. Sometimes, on Tuesdays, the husband and I play together and he gets me to play quick play for the quicker queues since he mostly plays DPS. But I enjoy that because he can speak for me. I don’t have to worry about anything and he does the call out and I do what I’m supposed to. It’s simple. And I have the safety net of support when playing.

Usually things aren’t too bad lately. But today I played for a little bit before work and having to take my kids to their school to pick up their lunches and it was a nightmare. It reminded me of why I hate playing video games that require interaction with other people. Things were going well until we were getting held by 2 Torbs (Mystery Heroes, of course), and tanks on the final area of Dorado. Finally, we get a healer. I was Mercy. One of the Torbs on the other team Molten Core. This guy and the Rein decide to go through the fire, which would kill me. I stayed back to wait for it to go away and then went in to heal. The Rein died and this guy nearly died. Healed him up a little, then rezzed the Rein. Went back to heal him, he got focused and killed. Then someone says “Too bad we don’t have any good healers.” I didn’t engage, because I never engage. Then he said “Right Leigha?” (My gamer tag is Leighanneore.) Again, ignored it. Eventually we get a better comp, I’m back healing on Baptiste, and we roll through pretty easily after killing the Torbs. I had over 6k healing and gold and I was only healer for that last point. So, I guess super bad?

I paid such little attention that I didn’t even know who said it. I just endorsed everyone on the other team. I end up in another match. Blizzard World, again on attack. We rolled through the first point pretty easily but then started to get held on the last section again. I was Rein, trying to shield a Pharah from above and the rest of the DPS. I stayed with the payload, people were behind me, and I had my shield up to protect the team from the Pharah. The Pharah shot behind my shield and a baby D.Va died. . Same person as last time, “Nice shield, Leigha”. I rolled my eyes. I was getting frustrated because why take us losing out on me? I ended up on Torb, we destroyed through the map and again won. I even ended up with a terrible PotG where I killed a couple people, then dumped lava everywhere and killed more.

I ended up in another map with this same play, fortunately not on the same team. I felt bad for the other team because the way he was mocking me was ridiculous. And uncalled for because it wasn’t my fault we were losing. It wasn’t my fault Rein doesn’t have a dome 360 shield or that Mercy can’t heal through a dumb idea of running through lava. I know that logically, but it stung more than it should have. My team beat the other team and I got to knock him around as Brig. Then he went into another commentary about how everyone was bad at the game but him.

I didn’t want to stop the day on a bad note. A note of a reminder of why I avoid multiplayer games and social interaction in general. I get into my final match of the day and I was shocked by something: kindness. A teammate was being friendly and others joined in. We rolled and they were excited and being so awesome. I never interact, but I did comment in between rounds: “I’d legitimately like to say that this was my first positive interaction in the game today. I’d like to thank you for that.” I meant it. They were giving smiley faces and being generally awesome. I was Mercy, did moderately well, we won. They were happy and saying great job and everyone rocks and how fun it was. That one positive interaction made up for all the negativity for the rest of the day.

Just like in the real world, some people are absolutely trash human beings and others restore your faith in the other players in the community. The fact that they can be anonymous, a faceless bully makes them feel like they are powerful. But they aren’t. They are the same level of trash as people who bully in “real life”. They use their power of words to take people down because they are terrible people or because their life is terrible and they want to take it out on you or because they feel small. Knowing this doesn’t make you feel better in the moment. In the moment, you just feel small and without confidence.

It didn’t get into my head. I still focused up and played despite what will just become a minor inconvenience to my day. A brief feeling of never wanting to log on the game again because I can only block him for 7 days, so what’s the point? There’s no way to monitor someone harassing people on voice chat, so there’s no point in reporting him for toxicity. I even re-watched the moments where he acted like a fool to see if I made any mistakes. After review of myself and a second/third opinion, it wasn’t my mistake. But being right doesn’t matter. What matters is that people tend to ruin everything.

So what’s the moral of this story? For as much trash as there is in the gaming community, there’s even more good. I’ll still never feel confident enough or comfortable enough to play competitive and climb the ladder. But I can take be mostly ok with this and bring it to every arcade match. Because I don’t need to win. I don’t need to do anything but have fun and get better at the game.