Most games have a more “toxic” side to the communities that gather around them, a vocal minority that according to research does a lot of harm to the long-term success of these titles. In a new paper published by Take That (via Circana executive director Mat Piscatella), the main takeaway from this report is that toxic gaming communities can “negatively impact” the bottom line of studios and publishers, and gaming companies should step up their moderation efforts to weed out these harmful elements.
Using data and insights from Nielsen’s video-game-tracking-service, Take This found a number of interesting facts. According to the data gleaned from 2,328 polled adolescents, 60% of players reported that they had decided to not spend money in a game because of how other players treated them in that community, 70% of players reported that they have avoided playing certain games because of a community’s reputation, and 60% of players reported that they had, at least once, quit a session or quit playing a game permanently because of harassment and hate.
There are more (discouraging) facts listed in the published report, with Take This noting that its data challenges the assumption that toxic gamers form the core demographic of a game.