To Punish Bad Behavior or Reward Good Behavior? That Is the Question

MOBA games, like League of Legends, DotA 2, or Smite, often have a lot of toxic behavior in their respective communities. It’s commonplace for players to single out a specific player and harass them for an entire match, or for a player to direct abusive language toward another player who makes a mistake. But how can this be combated? Do we reward good behavior or punish bad behavior?

The circled jelly bear is the singled out player.

Positivity can reward, but how?

Let’s take a look at the recent announcement that Riot, the creators of League of Legends, will be rewarding players who spent the whole of 2014 without any bans with a mysterious skin. This is for players who have not been given a chat restriction, ranked restriction, 14-day ban, or permanent ban throughout 2014. This is a reward for those players who have behaved positively enough that they have not even been restricted from the chat. Of course, this isn’t necessarily a fair reward, as players who have let their team down sometimes are given a ban because of the volatile nature of some players, but this is the minority.

Games could strive to reward positive behavior by rewarding players during matches. Imagine this: you’re playing a highly competitive match, and one player on your team cannot play as well as the rest of you. Many people in this situation would harass this struggling player. But being the upstanding human you are, you give them some advice instead. You tell them that if they watch your back, and call out if they see anything, you can help them.

You end up winning this game. Because your efforts turned the match around, your team members each give you a thumbs up in the “being epic” box. This grants you a temporary buff, and any players who help you out by assisting in kills, covering fire, or taking damage for you, get bonus XP or gold – not a massive bonus, but something. This buff also gives you a halo above your head, so other players can see how great you are. Again, this is rewarding positive behavior – not just for you, for your whole team.

This type of reward system gives very strong incentives for players to strive towards being friendly and helpful – we always like limited/one time only stuff right?

Shouldn’t positive behavior be the norm?

Well yes, but you need to consider that many players will act negatively out of pure habit. Those players need to be conditioned until better behavior is second nature.

Bad. Bad player! You shall be punished, but how?

Games often have systems where you can report players for various reasons: abusive language, sexism, racism, or trolling/griefing of others. After a specific number of reports, the player may then get banned.

In League of Legends and Smite, getting banned can move a player back to bronze rank, or in DotA 2 a player could get pushed back to level 0. You could also lose all your cosmetic items for each game – which you may only get back, if purchased with real money, when reaching that specific level again, or after a specified amount of time has passed.

While this might work for some players, it doesn’t do much to discourage bad behavior in the midst of a game. But what if there were a system implemented that penalized offending or unsportsmanlike players by causing them to gain less XP, less gold per kill, and causing each enemy member who kills that player to get a small bonus? The offending player may have devil horns appear on their character, which means players on the opposite team will target them, and teammates will avoid them.

This puts a barrier up for players so they know when they have done wrong, it pushes them towards being decent toward other players. However, this can have a side effect. Instead of teaching players what TO do, it teaches them what NOT to do. This can mean the system is teaching players to avoid negativity, but not teaching them how to behave positively. Good behavior wouldn’t necessarily become second nature, just the ability to avoid bad – which are different things.

The good, the bad, or nothing?

Which method is best to use? Do you give rewards to the epic players, or crush the mean malevolent rage monsters?

The answer to all of this is to use a mixture. If you don’t punish people at all, offending players just won’t care about their behavior, because the abuse they give out is its own reward. However, if you stop them from acting out by letting other players hold them accountable for their actions, they of course don’t want to get penalised. So they’ll start to behave better. Then you can use positive reinforcement – the act of giving constant rewards for ‘good’ – to steer them to earn the rewards. And as they behave better and better, they will reap even more benefits.

Now I hope you can venture forth so:

A new match = Time for the greatest human (you) to meet a new set of people.

Which rewards or punishments would work for you? Which game is this in?

Psychology aid given by GameSkinny writer Esteban Padilla, wouldn’t have been able to write this without his insight into the human mind! Thanks Esteban!