Recent research has revealed a complex relationship between online gamers and the controversial practice known as "smurfing." While many gamers acknowledge that smurfing can be toxic to the gaming community, a significant number also admit to engaging in it.
The study, conducted by researchers at The Ohio State University, sheds light on the nuanced views surrounding this behavior.
What is Smurfing?
Smurfing involves players creating new accounts to compete against less skilled opponents, thereby bypassing matchmaking systems designed to pair players based on skill levels.
This practice has sparked considerable debate within the gaming community. Some defend it, while others argue it undermines the integrity of the game.
The study, led by Charles Monge, a doctoral student at Ohio State University, involved 328 participants from gaming-specific subreddits on Reddit and a gaming club at Ohio State.
These participants reported spending over 24 hours a week playing video games, on average. The results indicated that a majority of gamers view smurfing as a toxic behavior.
However, 69% of the participants confessed to smurfing occasionally, and 94% believed others engaged in it as well. Interestingly, gamers tended to view others as more likely to be toxic while smurfing than themselves.
The researchers were intrigued by the comments they received from participants, many of whom justified their smurfing behavior under certain circumstances. This feedback led the team to further investigate the reasons behind smurfing and the varying degrees of blame associated with it.
The Blaming Game of Smurfing
In a follow-up study, the researchers aimed to understand how gamers assessed blame for smurfing based on different motivations. They engaged 235 heavy gamers from Reddit in an online experiment, presenting them with various scenarios and reasons for smurfing.
Some justifications, such as playing with less experienced friends, were considered less blameworthy. In contrast, wanting to dominate weaker players was deemed more blameworthy.
The study found that participants evaluated smurfing fairly based on the reasons provided, showing a nuanced approach to blame.
According to the researchers, this response aligns with what social scientists call the "socially regulated" perspective on blame, where the context and reasons for an action influence its perceived blameworthiness.
This nuanced view contrasts with the "motivated-blame perspective," which sees blame in black-and-white terms and deems an action wrong regardless of the reasons behind it.
The researchers extended their investigation to a group of non-gamers to see if their perspectives on blame differed. Surprisingly, the non-gamers also exhibited a socially regulated perspective, suggesting that this nuanced approach to blame might extend beyond the gaming context.
Valve Bans Smurf Accounts in DOTA2
Valve, the company behind the gaming platform Steam, recently took a strong stance against smurfing by banning 90,000 smurf accounts in their game DOTA2. Despite this, the study suggests that many gamers hold a more complex view of smurfing, indicating that outright bans might not fully address the issue.
The findings of this research may have broader implications beyond gaming. Monge noted that games are valuable for understanding human behavior and how blame is attributed in various contexts.
Meanwhile, Matthews notes that virtual game environments provide a unique opportunity for social scientists to study human interactions on a large scale, offering insights that can be applied to broader social contexts.
The study findings were published in the journal New Media & Society.
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