Online gaming environments have become increasingly hostile, according to research led by Constance Steinkuehler, a professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine. Steinkuehler and her team conducted a survey involving around 600 teenagers and young adults who regularly play online games. The study found that 85 percent of participants reported encountering hate speech in multiplayer games, with misogynistic attacks on female gamers and derogatory comments targeting Muslim and Asian players being the most common.
The research, published in Frontiers in Psychology earlier this year, explored several aspects of online harassment. It examined how often gamers are exposed to hate speech, their responses to such incidents, and whether certain behaviors or game-play habits contribute to normalizing toxic conduct. According to the findings, male and heterosexual players perceived hate speech as less problematic compared to other groups. Teens were more likely than adults to dismiss hateful events as jokes, reflecting generational differences in attitudes toward toxic gamer culture.
The study also indicated that males were more likely to engage in toxic behavior while females tended to withdraw from interactions when faced with harassment. A significant majority of adolescent players had witnessed hate-based harassment; over one-third reported being victims themselves. Women, nonheterosexual individuals, and people with disabilities were disproportionately targeted for abuse.
Steinkuehler noted that exposure to toxicity is strongly linked with its normalization: “You can find some lower-level correlations between the amount of game play or the length of game play – you know, how heavy of a gamer you are — and some behaviors that we would call normalizing,” she said. “But the real patterns that stand out are the strong links between exposure to toxicity and hate and normalizing it. The lesson is clear and hardly new: Harm begets harm begets harm. Game companies may not build hatred and unkindness into their designs overtly, but their lack of guardrails basically platforms cruelty.”
She added that competitive team-based games are particularly prone to abusive behavior due to high stakes associated with ranking systems: “The one place you see the worse behaviors is in those competitive brackets because if you’re trying to increase your [team’s] rank and you think someone didn’t make the right choice, players tend to go off about it.” Steinkuehler attributed part of this problem to anonymity online as well as industry reluctance toward stricter moderation policies.
Steinkuehler believes companies could address these issues if they recognized financial incentives: “We asked how much people would spend on toxic versus nontoxic games and showed empirically that it would be a 75 percent revenue gain if they would simply stop this kind of behavior from happening.”
Despite her concerns about commercial gaming environments, Steinkuehler observed positive outcomes when games are used differently—such as at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center near San Francisco Bay. There she became involved with San Quentin SkunkWorks—a nonprofit founded by incarcerated individuals aimed at testing ideas for improving daily life inside prison walls.
Kai Bannon, an incarcerated co-founder of SkunkWorks who has played Dungeons & Dragons since his youth, explained how tabletop gaming creates safer communal spaces even within correctional settings: “A lot of the people that are playing games are playing them specifically to be in a safe space… The game space is just a good neighborhood.” The group organized chess tournaments pairing inmates with corrections officers or staff members—a strategy designed specifically for breaking down social barriers.
San Quentin’s program draws inspiration from Scandinavian penal models focused on rehabilitation through relationship-building rather than punishment alone. The initiative receives support from UC Irvine’s Campus-Community Research Incubator.
Richard Kruse, a corrections officer at San Quentin involved in SkunkWorks activities, described improvements he has seen firsthand: “Personally it’s had a positive impact on my time on the job… I know for a fact that we’re seeing a reduction in issues across the board at San Quentin.”
Reflecting on her experiences both studying online toxicity and working within prison reform programs using games constructively, Steinkuehler said: “Games have this capacity for positive change… But then you look at games in this very difficult context…and what are they finding? They’re finding that it’s become the space where people will socialize beyond those divisions.”
She concluded by contrasting these two realities: “The [online] gaming world has become a space that is actually divisive… But the people at San Quentin are using games in this completely dramatically opposite and incredibly productive way.”
