Disruptive behavior in video game communities: Q&A with USC’s Dmitri Williams

More than a billion people play multiplayer video games online every day, but research is lacking on their in-game behavior. The video game-playing community is full of players with a variety of personalities: While some are there to enjoy the community generated by these in-game experiences, many gamers exhibit antisocial behavior.

Understanding what drives these behaviors and some of their in-game and real-life implications is a research focus of Dmitri Williams, professor of communication at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. A recent study co-authored by Williams explores the psychology of video gamers and what causes gamers to exhibit disruptive behaviors.

USC News recently discussed video games and their players with Williams.

Where are you seeing toxic behavior in video games?

Williams: Over the past five or so years, toxic behavior appears most commonly in games where players can be anonymous, and in games where the relationships are relatively short. A crucial factor is being able to communicate by text or voice while playing. If you hop on one of these games and are playing with a stranger, there isn’t much keeping you or them polite, other than your own moral compass.

However, when the game requires cooperation or a longer association, players can get to know each other and form real connections. It also means players are much less likely to behave badly because they intuit that they need the relationship to succeed. Sociologists call this “the shadow of the future,” and we see it in the data.

What is your research about?

Williams: One aspect of my research is looking at the behavior of gamers. People are social no matter where you study them, but the social roles in gaming are unique. In games, people are interdependent, which leads to all kinds of connections between wildly different people who wouldn’t otherwise meet.

My lab has studied players mostly in two games: World of Tanks and Sky: Children of the Light. These are very different games and studying them allows us to watch relationships among gamers develop over time. Many of the relationships are shallow, but some become as deep as “IRL” ties, and in fact can lead to real offline friendships, marriages, etc. I’ve seen this in my own play experiences and at scale in the data. My lab’s special sauce in this area is a recent discovery called “Social Value,” which lets us understand which players impact other players.

How is “Social Value” different from word of mouth?

Williams: Social Value is a direct measurement of how people impact each other. Word of mouth is just one way, and it’s hard to quantify. By using the consumer data from a company, my lab can say with a known level of certainty which people caused which other people to do a knowable amount more or less of something.

In a game, that means that a player, who maybe doesn’t spend any money, can be shown to cause others to spend thousands of dollars. Or, to prevent others from spending what they would have! We’re developing a method to expand this beyond games.

Where does your research data come from?

Williams: I’ve been working with a range of game companies for about 20 years now. What we do is get them to anonymize their data and share it with us. This is a huge step up in research quality because we don’t have to try to reach the players directly and ask them what they did. That leads to all kinds of quality problems. Instead, we can see everyone and know everything they do anonymously.

We often work with the companies to run surveys on these players or interview them, so we can add their psychology and feelings to their actions and their social ties. Seeing those things, for millions of players over years, has allowed us to produce research unlike anywhere else.

What are some of your favorite video games?

Williams: My favorites are highly social games like World of Warcraft or League of Legends, but I also enjoy a great solo indie title like Monument Valley. Experiencing social ties in all of their colors through playing these games has guided a lot of my research questions.

What’s next for your research?

Williams: I’m all in on the Social Value approach, in games and beyond.