Real and fake “toxic” behaviour in F2P video games
So many millions of people all around the world play together online in a multitude of different games. Working together in teams and/or against eachother.
So many different people with different attitudes and backgrounds clashing in a dehumanised, often competitive environment.
What is the result of this?
Rage of course. But also good friendships and most important of all, fun.
I might seem insensitive here but quite honestly, these instances of raging and swearing are natural and really not “toxic” behaviour at all.
It's human nature to not get along with every single other person there is.
Don't get me wrong, there are probably exceptions, but very few I'd say, considering you
can mute/block someone with a single click of your mouse.
And so, I deem this behaviour the “fake toxic behaviour”.
That part wasn't specific to free to play games, this next part is though.
One day, a certain unnamed free to play company was running deep into unscheduled server downtime (again) and I happened across it's forums. I read one persons post complaining about this unscheduled downtime and also the amount of bugs that had arisen from the recent patch. There seemed to be a trend in the comments in response.
“The game is free to play, the company doesn't owe you anything. Stop complaining”
I couldn't believe how many people seemed to think this. Running a big game is probably
quite difficult, and a little extra downtime perhaps isn't too bad, but it's the attitude that needs to change.
This particular game brings in enormous revenue for the company, and they don't owe
anybody anything?
That my friends, if true, is the biggest scam in gaming history to date.
For the amount of money pouring into that company, I'm pretty sure they owe their players a game and a service.
So what's the harm you might ask?
It's just some comments, what effect could it possibly have?
If everybody thinks that, then there won't be any pressure on the company from it's customers to provide a quality service. The result of this behaviour could be anything, ranging from very poor service (server maintenance time, server stability, technical support etc...) to overpriced microtransactions that took no time for them to develop.
I'll leave you at a guess as for what game and company my example was about.
If it's free to play or not, if you payed or not. They owe you something.
