Study Says 7 Out Of 10 Players Avoid Playing Certain Games Because Of Toxic Communities

In a recent game study, it was revealed that toxic communities are actively detrimental to a game's commercial and financial success.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

Whelp that is a fact I knew for years.

[badz149]

No wonder nobody buys xbox

[Abear21]

Yup, hopefully it’s better now, but back when I owned a 360 it was nothing but teenagers saying the N word like it was normal. Most of the reason I still stay away from Xbox, nothing but idiots and bigots are on it, I felt dumber by proxy listening to these people.

[S2Killinit]

I did have a horrible time playing COD back in the 360 era. They mistook my username for a muslim and man it was crazy. Little kids would say the worst things, sometimes they would scream things and log off. Lol I had people who would hear this and try to show solidarity but I would try to explain that I wasn't even muslim and by the time I was done it had ruined my gaming experience becaise now things were weird lol

[Notellin]

What? No one has ever said that about Xbox community. The downvotes clearly don't support your ignorance.

[Gardenia]

I play on Playstation in the EU and the amount of mic users is pretty low. Personally I almost never run into toxic players.

[mandf]

Cod aka child online daycare

[closed_account]

For sure.

.. and, GTA - Giant Turds Anonymous or Gangsta Teenage Assh**es. (Except most of them are like 8-12yrs old 😩)

[shinoff2183]

Fantastic lol

[Sonic1881]

I never played GTA online but COD online is definitely toxic

[Christopher]

Most MP games of the sort for me, tbh. Cod is just one of the more popular, but I find toxic/annoying people in most BR/online shooters.

[Knushwood Butt]

Yet is it detrimental to its commercial and financial success?

[ClayRules2012]

For real. It’s ridiculous.

[isarai]

I always have it set up so I never hear mic chatter, it's never useful anyways. But when Battlefield was good enough to play, I would often get harassed for sniping and recon work by my own team mates, and certainty more than a few times I passed on a sesh cause I didn't want to deal with it.

[ClayRules2012]

I do the same. I don’t wanna hear all that nonsense, no time for that.

[blackblades]

Yeah same, still do it. My account is privacy heavy and the toxic is the same level as Twitter. I can say sometimes it was entertaining listening to them getting mad when I was dominating. We can always report, maybe we should let them get mad so we get them all suspended or ban.

[JackBNimble]

This is exactly what I do. I'm not big on military shooters but I do this for pretty much every online game.

[HyperMoused]

I remember in BF there is always one turd burger screaming into the Mic,..."Play the objecive, you are all usless C*&ts....play the ooobejjeeeccctttiivvvee,, ahh errr hrrrdrrrr"

[ZycoFox]

L4d2 has some of the worst players. Usually mini hitler admins with mental issues who need some kind of control over people.

[GoodGuy09]

Cod being the biggest one ofc lol.

[Knushwood Butt]

I almost never play online these days, and if I do, I just mute all mics.
Aside from the toxic people, the ones that blast their own music down the mic are just as bad.

[ClayRules2012]

Yeah, the music playing down the mic is so annoying, I just cannot deal with that. I do have a blast in multiplayer games with friends or other teammates, but other toxic players do no doubt ruin the fun. But usually it’s just all SP story driven games with my wife and I. Just peaceful that way.

[Knushwood Butt]

Nice. Yesterday I played couch co-op TMNT with my son. Was good.

[blackblades]

Singing was worse

[Knushwood Butt]

Now that you mention it, yeah, singing along to the music they are blasting is another one.

[ClayRules2012]

Nice. I’m glad it was a good time.

[AdonisIsBeast]

Yea right. It all depends how they word the question. Who wouldn’t “agree” that toxic communities are bad. Doubt too many people are avoiding the games when you can simply mute them.

[Bobertt]

7 out of 10 people are casuals who don't know how to use the mute function.

[mkis007]

It's what keeps me from playing multiplayer without people i know.

[Flawlessmic]

I only play online games when I'm playing with freinds which means I'm always in a party chat anyway.

[ModsDoBetter]

Siege and Destiny are the worst for me in my experience. COD isn't too bad nowadays but was absolutely disgusting years ago.

[HyperCrush365]

"oh they're too mean for me on Roblox now mama. Can you write Kotaku for me?" This generation.

[Vanfernal]

To me to this day League of Legend is by far the most toxic community in all of gaming. The sad part is, 90% of that toxicity comes from your teammates...

[CantThinkOfAUsername]

League of Legends aka the only game you need a Hazmat suit to play.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

I love the phrase: "In League they yell at you, in DOTA, they yell at you in Russian".

Yeah, I've been on some teams in other games where the team mates are just bonkers, fortunately I normally mute them, but then they tend to harass you by shooting you or blocking your way on purpose.

[I_am_Batman]

I've stopped playing League in 2016 or so, once I've realized that the community is just as bad at high elo, if not even worse. Kind of insane to think how much time I've wasted on that game though. At least it taught me not to get involved with team-based f2p games anymore.

[Samonuske]

Used to love Siege, when I played with friends, after they dropped it, lord knows I’m not gonna play with the rest of the community.

[Aaroncls7]

pfffft who gives a shit

[Kayser81]

cod, valorant ,dota2, rocket league , rainbow six siege and Sony fanbase .

[CBaoth]

don't forget all the trailer park neckbeards who bought a series G. They're a nice addition to ADD Xbox community!

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

Sony fanbase?

[Resistance_lord]

There's toxic people online talking about single player games and sometimes that can affect if someone buys a game or not :/

[anast]

It's different, but yes it can happen too.

[antikbaka]

I don't play certain games because they make ME toxic, and thus I become easily stressed and anxious.
That's unhealthy

[CantThinkOfAUsername]

That's exactly what made me stop playing CoD after being addicted to it for years. Never been happier.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

This is why I stopped participating in a lot of communities including Social Media, especially when some people go out of the way to troll for fun, there's also alot of other websites that I dropped because of how problematic the community was.

[monkey602]

6 Siege is dreadful because friendly elimination is a thing.

Dead by Daylight is an awful experience too

[Workshyskiver]

Why I only player shooter campaigns and multiplayer mode has no appeal for me.

[LoveSpuds]

I recall being really shocked at how toxic gamers were when I got my 360, especially on COD and Gears.

I think my most positive experience on console was on a SOCOM game on PS3 where the chat was alway really friendly. I would generally have a great time on Counterstrike and Battlefield 1942 back in the day too, there were often arseholes, but mostly you could find reliable servers and have a fun time.

I think the level of toxicity usually correlates to the average age of the community to some degree, with younger gamers generally being quite unpleasant to deal with.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

I think the type of game too, shooters, particularly the ones that are easy to pick up and play, but take a while to master tend to attract those types of players. The more technical ones have less of those people, probably because the barrier to entry is higher at the earlier stages instead of later (thus they don't stick around). The more technical games also tend to have a more friendly community who are welcoming and willing to teach new players.

When Titanfall 2 was still pretty active on PC, the majority of players were fantastic, I only had one really bad experience before multi-player died out.

I have seen so many games and forums ruined when the community changed, it sucks so hard when a community you enjoyed becomes so toxic that you find it too exhausting to bother interacting with them.

[paulust2002]

Miss xbox 360 days where everyone had a mic provided and we're just super excited by the tech. Was a great community at the time. Now, next to no one mic's up on console and most PC games are the same of full of racism and slurs. I only play hell let loose though which is 99% an amazing community of people. Where as I found Insurgency to be obnoxious.

[WelkinCole]

What a shocker!!. People don't like playing online with toxic people. Who would have thought?

[rlow1]

Let’s see,
Ingredients: for a toxic environment
- Heaping spoonful of Humans
- Add a healthy dose of juveniles
- Add a mix of Control freaks, ill tempered individuals, and trolls
- completely sprinkle and thoroughly mix being Anonymous

Congrats, you just made a steaming pile sh**……..aka humanity.

[DarthZoolu]

Get good or stop throwing ranked matches! It’s really the developers fault for making games that are going to put a hard-core competitive gamer with a casual I’m just goofing off player. I will never play Apex again because I cannot deal with playing with the randoms.

[anast]

These games serve "The Lord of the Flies" age.

[wiegraf]

They're probably just whining noobs

[PunksOnN4G]

you guys want to see toxic just play DOTA 2 or League of legends LOL... I remeber whe nthey tried open voice chat for league of legends and disabled it under a day after the amount of toxicity took a sharp turn lol. BUT TBH ther eis no game as toxic as league of legends

[DefenderOfDoom2]

I just mute them .

[jznrpg]

Bunch of wannabe hard asses behind the screen with a squeaky voice. Xbox 360 was the worst

[babadivad]

Sure...

[P_Bomb]

I’ve had pretty good luck with co-op games the last couple years.

[Vipre77]

Nearly every online multiplayer game ever in the last 20+ years has had this problem and that's why I simply don't play online with anonymous randos and haven't really done so since the old days of playing Quake, Duke 3D, or Mechwarrior II. People too often suck, act obnoxious because they can, and just bring more annoyance to a game than they bring any kind of redeeming entertainment value. Not only that, but a lot of games have serious match-making issues in putting you into games with other people that treat the game like it's their full-time job and you simply can't compete if you're not putting in the same kind of hours into the game. I've got way too many different games to play and not nearly enough time to play any of them, so I have no hope of being competitive enough to make it even remotely fun. It sucks any fun right out of the game almost instantly.

If I play online these days, it's only with people that I personally know IRL because I know them and there's accountability for the things they say or do. They can't act like a-holes and just drop from the game and then never be seen again.

[gold_drake]

yea but its not just online games.

i can definitely name more than 4 that go apesh*t on reddit or elsewhere if you have one small criticism about something ha.

i generally stay away from those communities, especially if those involve theorising haha

[Vengeance1138]

If this were true wouldn't 70% of people avoid Call of Duty? Probably the #1 most toxic community online.

[CobraKai]

I rarely play online, but when i do, the mics are always muted.

[HectixTulip]

Yup, thats the whole reason I quit playing splatoon 3, people on cod snd and seige are pretty chill compared to lunatics we got in splatoon 3.

[HyperMoused]

This is the reason im ok with with devs taking voice chat out, no one needs to hear this stuff, you give someone anonymity and safety behind a screen, and some people become egotistical sociopaths

[ghostrider32]

Smite mage players in a nutshell.