Online gaming has become a place where abusive language and behavior are common, according to Constance Steinkuehler, professor of informatics at UC Irvine. Steinkuehler has been studying gaming for two decades and notes that the problem of toxicity in gaming spaces has worsened over time.
Motivated by her experiences and reports from organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Steinkuehler and her team conducted a survey with about 600 teens and young adults who play online games regularly. The study, published in Frontiers in Psychology, explored the prevalence of hate speech and harassment in multiplayer online games.
The research found that 85 percent of participants had encountered some form of hate speech while gaming. The most frequent targets were female gamers and Muslim and Asian players. According to the study, male and heterosexual players were less likely to see hate speech as a problem compared to others. Participants responded to hate speech by either confronting it or withdrawing from the game altogether. The data also showed that teens tended to laugh off toxic events more than adults, indicating generational differences in reactions.
Steinkuehler explained: “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. 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 also highlighted that competitive environments tend to bring out worse behaviors due to frustration over team performance. Anonymity online allows people to express racism or misogyny without consequence, which adds to the hostile environment.
Steinkuehler criticized the video game industry’s reluctance to moderate these behaviors: “The industry as a whole is mostly just defensive, saying, ‘Well, it’s political speech, so why would we ever want to kick that off the servers. We can’t do that.’ And my response is, ‘Yes, you can.’”
She pointed out potential financial incentives for companies to address toxicity: “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, which they have the tools to do but don’t,” she said.
Despite these negative trends in commercial gaming spaces, Steinkuehler observed positive effects when games are used differently. After learning about a reform program at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center through an article featuring a photo from inside the prison’s chess club, she became involved with San Quentin SkunkWorks—a nonprofit created by incarcerated individuals at San Quentin in collaboration with outside professionals.
Kai Bannon, one of SkunkWorks’ founders who has been incarcerated for over ten years, explained: “SkunkWorks is named after a subunit at the aerospace manufacturer Lockheed Martin that was a small group of innovators working on world-changing projects,” he says. “We took that as inspiration. If you can build programs that actually work and you can prove that they work, we thought, here is a place where you can really create a lever for change.”
Bannon described how tabletop gaming provides safer spaces within prison: “A lot of the people that are playing games are playing them specifically to be in a safe space. You can think of prison like it’s a city, and there are good neighborhoods and bad neighborhoods. The game space is just a good neighborhood,” Bannon says.
San Quentin SkunkWorks organized unique chess tournaments pairing inmates with corrections officers or staff members instead of following traditional formats—an approach aimed at breaking down barriers between groups inside prison walls.
Steinkuehler noted how this collaborative use of games humanized relationships between inmates and staff: “I was blown away, because through the toxicity and harassment survey project I had just spent so much time looking at commercial games unfettered by any constraints… 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 added about her first visit: “I had no idea what to expect at my first San Quentin game event. And it was one of the most moving experiences I think I’ve ever had.”
Bannon praised Steinkuehler’s involvement: “Working with Professor Steinkuehler has been nothing short of incredible,” Bannon says. “She brings such a deep insight and perspective… She’s not just advising; she’s collaborating with our team and treats us like co-designers…”
San Quentin corrections officer Richard Kruse reported improvements resulting from these initiatives: “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,” he says.
He also observed better communication between staff and inmates even outside formal game sessions.
Reflecting on both environments—commercial online gaming versus structured play within prisons—Steinkuehler concluded: “Games have this capacity for positive change. I’ve seen it before, but I’ve never seen it in circumstances so dire… 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 way.”
