RE: Reported!: My Thoughts on Online Gaming Behaviour
I think some of the games are doing good methods of dealing with toxic behaviour. I, for one, used to play League of Legends for 6 years. Daily. I saw a huge decrease in toxic behaviour; but there was also a reward system introduced for prosocial behaviour.
I am doing my thesis on Internet Gaming Disorder, and some of the research I came across did point out to the nature of the games factors a lot when it comes to aggression. Competitive games are the biggest area where toxic behaviour is apparent, and when there are rewards that are tied to ranked systems, losing a game will also affect if you will get that reward or not.
It might be the era were cooperative games can takeover. I am a huge fan of single-player games like Stardew Valley, and when they introduce multiplayer features, I know plenty of people are interested in doing that. There is something in pure cooperative that isn't in competitive. The competitive nature of many societies (and not just games) might be a source of problematic aggression.
I would love to hear more about your thesis when it's ready :-D
I also believe that one of the best methods for handling toxicity is rewarding players that behave properly rather than punishing bad seeds.
Stardew Valley is a pretty good and relaxing game, I've put many hours into in too:-D
Stardew is not relaxing when you are trying to not lose one second hahahha.
And yeah, I do agree, rewarding good players is important, although punishing the toxic ones is also necessary.
Of course punishment is required but the focus should be in rewarding long term positive behavior :-D