Title of study: Communication in Multiplayer Gaming: Examining Payer responses to Gender Cues in Online Teams.
Abstract: This study examines how gamers react to gendered voice in a multiplayer video game. Past research indicates that video game content typically portrays women in stereotypical roles. However, much of this research focused on the content genereated by the gamers themselves.
In order to examine this area fruther, the researchers conducted an observational sutdy with an experiemental design to play in and record mulitplayer matches (N = 245) of the video game Halo 3. The researchers played against 1,660 unique gamers and broadcast prerecorded audio clips of either a man or woman speaking several phrases that could typically be used in a game.
Gamers' reactions were digitally recorded, allowing the researchers to capture exactly what was said and heard by the experimental conditions. Indpendent coders were used to conduct a quantitative content analysis of game data.
Findings indicate that the female condition received three times as many negative comments, on average, than the male or control condition. In addition, the female condition received more queries and more messages from other gamers than the two other conditions.
Poster pictures: Sorry about the day/time stamp. If you click the pictures, they'll open up in a bigger, more readable size.
Do you have a link to the study? More data? I'm very curious to know more about it.
Something to consider is the people who would be cordial on Xbox Live - or PSN for that matter - are turned off by the more vulgar people and either mute everyone like you mentioned or stay in party chat with their friends. That only makes the vulgar people more prevalent, which causes the landscape to get worse over time.
Anonymity is the culprit; that's been proved time and time again. Like Dr. Consalvo said, when you have that guild atmosphere (one in which people know each other and rely on each other,) it gets better. Maybe if there was some sort of forced clan participation for these online shooters, that could alleviate the issue (though, of course, it would probably cause a whole host of other problems.)
Also, I find it interesting how much the Internet and online-multiplayer games parallel each other. Bitmob could be viewed as a guild: by providing our real names and having this persistent persona, our community is much nicer to each other than a site that allows anonymous comments.
Hey guys thanks for the comments!
@Daniel: no link to the study yet. It's currently under-going peer review/publishing, and I guess that stuff takes a while. I can post pictures of the posterboard, and maybe the full abstract after I ask Jeff and Lindsey's permission.
@Chase: Interesting point about the vulgar people becoming more prevalent. Anonymity does seem to be a big issue with this... Another point that Dr. Consalvo mentioned was that the anonymity issue is everywhere the Internet, i.e. even on the New York Time's comments sections there's a lot of flamers/trolls/jerks, etc. I'm a big fan of Bitmob's choice to use real names.
I hate girls coming in and messing up my Halo game!
Kidding of course. I'm actually quite surprised at this study. I would've assumed girls just got hit on more often. I saw my ex-girlfriend play Halo, and she uses her first name as her gamertag. Immediately, a guy came in and offered to help her learn the game (assuming that she didn't know what she was doing). He didn't offer me such hospitality, and I was in the same session. :)
I remember an episode of Game Night on 1UP.com where they were playing Battlefield Heroes that one of the editors said that the people who are good at FPS games tend to be jerks. Since you goal in such games is to hurt other players, and to hurt them more than the other team hurts your's, then trash talking is a natural extention of that. I believe that it's not so much that girls can't play these games (like Halo), but nice girls who would object to raping a dead player (corpse humping) as part of a victory dance can't play.
For the most part, nice people shouldn't play with jerks, whether male or female. In my experience with BF Heros, you see corpse humping, the robot dance, a silly wave, and other emotes bought through the the game. The only post kill emote players complain about is when I salute my dead opponent. That's right, they are complaining about my gesture of good sportsmanship. I suposse they would feel better about being shot in the face is a gentle humping. Some how, THAT"S normal.
Hey Meghan - did you gather all of these quotes yourself? Are some of them from the abstract? Sounds like you know the people who did the study? I'm just trying to figure out what we can do to fact check this and corroborate everything. Any idea if the study will be published or appear online any time soon? (We'd be happy to post it on Bitmob, actually....)
I'm not surprised by these results, and I'm really interested to read the study once it's published. I hope you'll update us!
I definitely agree that anonymity plays a role, but I'm also inclined to think that institutionalized sexism is a significant factor as well. I'm curious if the researchers tracked post-kill actions -- i.e., how winners treated their eliminated opponents beyond verbal communication. I know Halo players enjoy "tea bagging," which carries an obvious feminization of the loser.
Does the study address any Feminist thinking on this subject?
I thought everyone received nothing but negative comments and slurs on Xbox Live....
@Demian: I gathered all these quotes myself. None of them are from the abstract/study. I didn't know Jeff or Lindsey before I saw their study and spoke with them about it. I have their permission to upload the abstract and photos of the poster they presented at the Research and Creativity ExpoI mentioned in the article, and will post those shortly. I asked about when the full study would be out and there's no exact deadline for it, but Jeff guessed it could be between 4-6 months. He sent me an email that said: "[The study] is being presented at conference and did undergo peer review for that; however, conference peer review (which is also blind review) is not nearly as rigorous as journal reviewing. I don't know if the paper we sent to the conference will be available on some of the databases the [OU] library subscribes to, but if it is I will let you know and send the URL."
So it sounds like we could have quite a wait for the full study. I will let you know when I find out it's available. Did my answer help?
@Rob: Sorry, I have no idea ^^ We'll have to wait for the full study. Lindsey's research focuses on gender studies, so it's possible.
Last night I turned off 'mute all' for the first time in more than a year. I was playing MW2. I had a few quiet matches where nobody talked and then ended up with a group where two older guys were berating a pre-pubescent kid for using a rifle-mounted grenade launcher (Yeah, I know that's not what they're typically called. It's an experiment in resisting colloquialisms.). They were being pretty viscous and didn't let up for the three games I played with them. I felt bad for the kid but my compassion was diluted by all the full-throated 'faggots' he was firing back with. Not sure how long it will be before I 'mute all' again.
Young men are extremely competitive. They will try to demoralize you in a competitive environment. So, I wouldn't say that the insults are meant to hurt anyone, but they are meant to throw you off your game. A common question that wives ask their husbands when they are playing a game together is, "Why are you trying to win?". The answer is because he is a man. That's what men do.
I've stayed away from alot of multiplayer gaming for pretty much the same reasons alot of female gamers do. Being insulted by children and generally mistreated just isn't fun and I imagine its ten times worse when your being called things like a whore :p
Thank god for co-op games like Left4Dead, best thing to happen to online gaming ever in my opinion. Forcing team work encourages nicer behavior and less trash talk "my digital penis is bigger than yours" mentality in the younger male gamers.