Nottingham Trent University’s International Gaming Research Unit (IGRU) has investigated the ‘frequency, types and reasons for trolling’ in online games. Trolling, it says, spans racism, sexism, deliberately 'griefing' other users via in-game behaviors – such as persistently killing or blocking own team members – and creating false or misleading scenarios just to elicit a response.
The research found that 59.9% of gamers have also been trollers – usually for amusement, out of boredom, or in revenge; but sometimes for no reason at all. Trolling seems to have reached new heights particularly over the last year, with some girl players gender-swapping to avoid sexist comments, and regular victims suffering a lower self-esteem.
Infosecurity asked two gamers, Aramis and Portos, to comment on the research. Portos described trolling in FPS (first person shooter) games as most commonly “killing teammates or blocking their movement.” It’s vastly different in RPG (role playing games) he added, depending on the game mechanics, but “a strong character will run around, getting many monsters to follow him, which he then leads into a flock of noobs – aka low level players – so they get massacred.”
Aramis took a step back. Trolling is often described as a new development, he said, “but it’s been endemic in all forms of online gaming since the beginning.” It started as a method used to provoke a flame (a term less used these days, but originally an online and sometimes vicious argument); but its use has evolved until “most people now seem to understand the term to be virtually synonymous with bullying.” Personally, he added, “I consider this erroneous.”
But he thinks it would be a mistake to associate trolling just with gaming. “Virtually every form of online interaction without effective moderation is subject to this sort of behaviour,” he said. Moderation is what limits trolling to gaming. “This is why it's less common in forums and BBs (posts linger for any moderator to see, delete and ban the offender); moderately common in chat rooms (still moderated, but the mods can't be present in all chat rooms at all times); and the norm in multiplayer games (usually no in-game moderation – any complaints against players have to be filed by other players outside of the game itself).”
“As far as we are aware,” said Professor Mark Griffiths, the director of Nottingham Trent University's International Gaming Research Unit, “this is the first ever published study of trolling within online gaming environments so we hope it will kick-start other research teams to replicate or challenge our findings.” It’s almost a troll.