Leave, Mute, or Retaliate? How Young Adults Handle Toxicity in Multiplayer Online Games

Toxicity is a prevalent issue in multiplayer online games, disrupting the experience of millions of players and making such environments unwelcoming and unsafe for targeted players. Hostility spurs victims to tilt and retaliate, withdraw from communication, hide their identity in defense, or leave the game altogether. The games industry offers a variety of moderation tools, yet their appraisal and use vary among the player base. And while a significant body of research has now emerged on player coping strategies and attitudes toward the tools offered to support them, we still know relatively little about how responses to toxicity and attitudes toward in-game tools depend on bystander and victim exposure, and increased game experience, particularly among young adults. In this paper, we discuss our findings from a cross-sectional survey ( n = 602) designed to explore how cumulative exposure to toxicity and game experience impact young adults’ responses to toxic behavior, their perceptions of in-game moderation tools, and potential relationships between the two. The results of structural equation modeling (SEM) indicate that responding to toxicity is a behavioral strategy that transcends bystander and victim roles. Victim experience relates to active coping strategies, including both escalation and productive confrontation, but it also appears to increase social and game withdrawal. Game experience has the opposite effect on withdrawal, yet similarly to victimization, it is associated with active coping. Further, we find that toxic exposure does not affect players’ perceptions of the effectiveness of moderation tools; however, response strategies and perceptions of tools are related. This indicates that tool endorsement reflects individual coping styles rather than exposure history. Practical implications for game designers are discussed.