Sep 15, 2024 4 min read Gaming Science

The Impact of Toxic Behavior: How Negative Communication Impacts Team Performance

We discuss who is affected most by toxic behavior in video games, and how it impacts team performance.

Hello everyone,

In team games such as League of Legends, Counter-Strike, or DotA2, communication is an important aspect. However, it is not uncommon for it to turn toxic. In today's episode, we discuss toxic behavior in LoL, its influence on performance, and who is affected by it the most.

💡 Highlights
• Communication plays a crucial role in team games, but it can sometimes turn toxic.
• The study examines if toxic behavior negatively impacts performance and who is affected the most by it.
• 1,963,475 matches were analyzed by the authors.
• Toxic communication decreases performance.
• Interestingly, the toxic player's team is affected more strongly by it than the enemy team, unless it is targeted directly at them.
• Teammates of a toxic player have a tendency to become complicit and be toxic as well.
• "Players who do not have significant contact with toxic players tend to be more positive, concentrating on game tactics and socialization [1]."

☠️ Toxic Behavior

When players hit the ladder, they typically want to improve their ranking. In games such as League of Legends (LoL) or Counter-Strike 2 (CS2), communication is an essential part. This is because communication greatly impacts performance since it is needed to share important information, decide on a strategy, etc.

"Unfortunately, these interactions are not always healthy [1]", but they are common.

Such unwanted behavior is called toxic. Toxic behavior includes griefing, trolling, feeding, flaming, and much more. When non-toxic communication has the potential to improve performance, does toxic behavior negatively impact it? If so, who is affected the most?

💽 2 Million Matches

The study analyzed data from the LoL tribunal. The LoL tribunal was a system where (on a website) players could judge the negative behavior of other players. Think of it as a jury that gets to look at the evidence (chat recordings) and decide if someone was guilty of toxic behavior or not.

In total, the authors selected 1,963,475 matches that contained various data about the match. For instance, performance data of each player, match outcome (win/loss), who the offender was (toxic player), the channel used (team, or /all), etc.

🧪 Breading Toxicity

"Our findings show the way players communicate is related to their performance and level of toxic contamination... [1]."

That was kind of expected, right? Toxic behavior leads to worse team performance. However, what’s surprising is that the teammates of a toxic player are much more affected by toxic behavior than the opponents' team members. That means that the team of the toxic player displays lower performance and, interestingly, has a higher usage of toxic expressions—are more toxic overall.

"... we observed that toxic players teammates become complicit in the toxic behavior, either by tolerating or replicating it [1]."

Toxic behavior is typically local to a team. It appears to be targeted first and foremost against team members rather than opponents, explaining why the toxic players' team suffers a lower level of performance.

"However, they [the players of the enemy team] are likely to be affected when they are the target of toxic expressions [1]."

🤔 What can We Learn from it?

This makes total sense. When a player gets, let's say, flamed by a teammate for something they did or didn't do, they're probably not going to just sit and take it, as it feels like a personal attack (humans don't like to be critiqued). This ruins the team's atmosphere and cohesion. Furthermore, it drains cognitive resources (attention) and makes people emotional. Being emotional is not a good state to make decisions in, so it is expected that players take more risks or do something that is likely not helpful to the team.

It is also reasonable to assume that the attacked player (or even other teammates) now engages in excessive typing or toxic behavior. All of this draws even more attention away (from farming gold, establishing vision on the map, etc.) and likely worsens the chances of victory. Some players will even "pay back" the offender by feeding or leaving the game, making them "pay" for what they did.

So what can you do? Well, in that moment, try to take a step back and not respond. It is best to mute that player and move on with your game. Or as the authors of the study put it: