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I've mentioned this in other comments, but I sat in with my nephews on a Roblox session, then stayed after to check things out on my own. There's an astounding

I've mentioned this in other comments, but I sat in with my nephews on a Roblox session, then stayed after to check things out on my own. There's an astounding number of adults on that platform saying some of the most horrible things. The games are like you say, and there's some that are indeed the model of what I expected: games that kids and amateurs made with their tools. Car jump games. Simple platforming. Basic shooters. But then there are games that seem like they're some dark pattern mobile devs side projects lol Games where you do nothing but collect stuff or pets and there's lots of gratification devices happening and suddenly there's just a literal pay wall. Just the worst of f2p gambling addiction built right into player built roblox games over and over and over again. But on to the adults, my favorite example was joining a 'shooter' game that was really just a shooting gallery of sorts but it had voice chat enabled and wtf there's some eastern european accent going off on gay people and talking about how the targets should have sombreros so 'we' can shoot "lazy" Mexicans. That experience was replicated through a few games and I just wrote Roblox off completely as infested with people trying to help kids find hate based ideologies or get them addicted to gambling. I warned their mother, she didn't listen til she got her credit card stolen.

whoknew1122 2y ago
First thing I do when playing a multiplayer game with proximity voice chat is to turn voice chat off. Makes play sessions much more enjoyable. Sure you may miss the 5% of chat that is actually tactical and relevant to the game, but it's a very small price to pay in order to avoid edgelords and other toxic people.
- mywittyname 2y ago
  This sucks because, when used appropriately, prox voice chat works really well and adds depth to multiplayer. A lot of games feel really dead without it. But finding pubbies that use it appropriately is practically impossible.
- jjcm 2y ago
  I appreciate Valve for having both an in-game skill score as well as a behavior score. Once your behavior is maxed out chat becomes an entirely different experience. Here's a chat log from a game I played yesterday: https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/7902208511/chat https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/7902208511/chat Some wholesome banter and that's about it.
  - streamfan 2y ago
    I wholeheartedly disagree as someone with 8k+ hours in game. In fact most people in dota have maxed out behavior scores. You have to try pretty hard to be muted in the game or have behavior or communication scores lowered significantly. I can assure anyone that just because you're sitting at 12k doesn't mean your experience is going to be good or an "entirely different experience"
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      Is that simply cultural? DOTA is well over a decade old. If everyone's toxic and behavior is self-moderated, then toxic behavior is not just normalized but reinforced.
    - Hearth90pBots 2y ago
      And as someone with that many hours too... Go check a 8k behavior score or below. The system is working. It's just that the depths of hell are deeper than people think. It could be more aggressive at lowering score tho, true. Used to be. They "buffed" the gain per 20 matches last December, but it was great before (And even lowered the scores of streamers that had it coming).
wredue 2y ago
Games in general have been a target of hate base voice chat. You get these people everywhere.
- consf 2y ago
  [dead]
draebek 2y ago
I struggle to understand why people are so toxic with chat in video games. I don't go to the supermarket, or even the bar and hear people just casually chatting about "who hates [racial slur]?" There's John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, which says that if you give normal people anonymity and an audience then they become (let's call them) assholes. I feel that, in order to buy this, you must accept that there are a surprisingly large number of assholes, much larger than I want to believe. Are the number of racist idiots just much greater amongst Gamers™? (To be clear, I play a lot of video games myself. I prefer to believe I am not a racist.) I'd love to say that there are a lot more young people playing video games, and they're just trying to be edgy, but I had a chat with some guy who was talking about getting his appliances repaired by "lazy [racial slur]" people. That's probably not a fourteen year old, right? I've seen that a lot. I understand that it probably just takes one or two people per game to make the chat unbearable, but if I'm on a team with six or eight people, and I consistently get at least one of these fucking idiots per match, isn't that still an uncomfortably high percentage of the population?
- dasil003 2y ago
  I suspect it's because angry and disenfranchised people are over-represented in terms of hours spent playing online games. There's also a negative feedback loop where more casual and/or sensitive gamers opt out since they don't want to deal with the bullshit.
  - unshavedyak 2y ago
    > There's also a negative feedback loop where more casual and/or sensitive gamers opt out since they don't want to deal with the bullshit. I think there's also a loop where extremes are pushed. Ie it's common to celebrate victories in games. This then tilts players. Players lean into that tilt, and teabag. Teabag eventually is mundane, so you spread verbal toxicity. Toxicity then isn't enough, and etcetc. It seems a loop without external pressures like in-person-reputation to inhibit how far it goes. A cycle of abuse that's all anonymous, fueled by the general competitive arousal of PvP/etc games. Note that i'm mostly speaking to PvP games where that competitive environment also contributes to it. However i imagine "cycle of abuse" has it's place in most of these anonymous environments.
jspaetzel 2y ago
This is nothing new or exclusive to Roblox, I recall this sort of language in every online gaming platform.
stemlord 2y ago
To be fair when I was <10 years old my siblings and I had a lot of fun in AOL chatrooms and various forums full of people of all ages saying all kinds of things. Not that it makes it okay but that particular aspect of roblox isn't really something new when it comes to kids exploring the web.

whoknew1122 2y ago

First thing I do when playing a multiplayer game with proximity voice chat is to turn voice chat off. Makes play sessions much more enjoyable. Sure you may miss the 5% of chat that is actually tactical and relevant to the game, but it's a very small price to pay in order to avoid edgelords and other toxic people.

mywittyname 2y ago
This sucks because, when used appropriately, prox voice chat works really well and adds depth to multiplayer. A lot of games feel really dead without it. But finding pubbies that use it appropriately is practically impossible.
jjcm 2y ago
I appreciate Valve for having both an in-game skill score as well as a behavior score. Once your behavior is maxed out chat becomes an entirely different experience. Here's a chat log from a game I played yesterday: https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/7902208511/chat https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/7902208511/chat Some wholesome banter and that's about it.
- streamfan 2y ago
  I wholeheartedly disagree as someone with 8k+ hours in game. In fact most people in dota have maxed out behavior scores. You have to try pretty hard to be muted in the game or have behavior or communication scores lowered significantly. I can assure anyone that just because you're sitting at 12k doesn't mean your experience is going to be good or an "entirely different experience"
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    Is that simply cultural? DOTA is well over a decade old. If everyone's toxic and behavior is self-moderated, then toxic behavior is not just normalized but reinforced.
  - Hearth90pBots 2y ago
    And as someone with that many hours too... Go check a 8k behavior score or below. The system is working. It's just that the depths of hell are deeper than people think. It could be more aggressive at lowering score tho, true. Used to be. They "buffed" the gain per 20 matches last December, but it was great before (And even lowered the scores of streamers that had it coming).

wredue 2y ago

Games in general have been a target of hate base voice chat. You get these people everywhere.

consf 2y ago
[dead]

draebek 2y ago

I struggle to understand why people are so toxic with chat in video games. I don't go to the supermarket, or even the bar and hear people just casually chatting about "who hates [racial slur]?" There's John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, which says that if you give normal people anonymity and an audience then they become (let's call them) assholes. I feel that, in order to buy this, you must accept that there are a surprisingly large number of assholes, much larger than I want to believe. Are the number of racist idiots just much greater amongst Gamers™? (To be clear, I play a lot of video games myself. I prefer to believe I am not a racist.) I'd love to say that there are a lot more young people playing video games, and they're just trying to be edgy, but I had a chat with some guy who was talking about getting his appliances repaired by "lazy [racial slur]" people. That's probably not a fourteen year old, right? I've seen that a lot. I understand that it probably just takes one or two people per game to make the chat unbearable, but if I'm on a team with six or eight people, and I consistently get at least one of these fucking idiots per match, isn't that still an uncomfortably high percentage of the population?

dasil003 2y ago
I suspect it's because angry and disenfranchised people are over-represented in terms of hours spent playing online games. There's also a negative feedback loop where more casual and/or sensitive gamers opt out since they don't want to deal with the bullshit.
- unshavedyak 2y ago
  > There's also a negative feedback loop where more casual and/or sensitive gamers opt out since they don't want to deal with the bullshit. I think there's also a loop where extremes are pushed. Ie it's common to celebrate victories in games. This then tilts players. Players lean into that tilt, and teabag. Teabag eventually is mundane, so you spread verbal toxicity. Toxicity then isn't enough, and etcetc. It seems a loop without external pressures like in-person-reputation to inhibit how far it goes. A cycle of abuse that's all anonymous, fueled by the general competitive arousal of PvP/etc games. Note that i'm mostly speaking to PvP games where that competitive environment also contributes to it. However i imagine "cycle of abuse" has it's place in most of these anonymous environments.

jspaetzel 2y ago

This is nothing new or exclusive to Roblox, I recall this sort of language in every online gaming platform.

stemlord 2y ago

To be fair when I was <10 years old my siblings and I had a lot of fun in AOL chatrooms and various forums full of people of all ages saying all kinds of things. Not that it makes it okay but that particular aspect of roblox isn't really something new when it comes to kids exploring the web.