Peer socialization of male adolescents in digital games: Achievement, competition, and harassment

Self-socialization and value change

Scholars of developmental psychology (see e. g., Greenfield, 2009, 2019) as well as from educational science (see, e. g., Zinnecker, 2000) argue that socialization processes are changing, particularly for young people. Due to socio-economic changes (e. g., more years of formal education) and technological transformation, peers and media have become important institutions of socialization. While the process of socialization must always be understood as an interplay of individual and society, both influencing each other, the theoretical concept of self-socialization (Tenbruck, 1965; Zinnecker, 2000) explains that young people’s own impact as a group has become stronger, assuming that to some extent, and increasingly, they socialize themselves. Above all, this is happening in environments that allow young people to be among themselves without much interference from adults. While Tenbruck (1965), who introduced the concept, clearly did not have online media in mind, Greenfield (2019) as well as Waechter and Hollauf (2018) argue that video games have become crucial for young people’s development. This is in line with theories of media socialization, which assume that media contribute to young people’s identity development and socialization. Regarding digital games, Wimmer (2017) investigates the relevance of individual practices and experiences of gamers for their socialization as gamers but not for their general personal development and socialization. However, the relevance of experiences that young people have through media use is not restricted to the specific media context, but pertains to their general personal development (Hoffmann, Krotz, and Reißmann, 2017). While Wimmer (2017) acknowledges this, he points out that corresponding empirical studies are largely missing. Combing the perspectives of media socialization and peer socialization, we may assume that spending much time playing digital games with peers and using various devices and apps for interaction and communication enables processes of peer socialization. We further assume that, by interacting with their peers on social media and in digital games, young people learn from each other and from media (partly produced by young people) about relevant social norms and values, which they internalize and make their own.^[1]

Research on social values has found a general shift from collective to individualistic values in Western societies (Greenfield, 2009). Key concepts in describing social values are competition and solidarity, which are understood as opposing concepts. A representative study of the values of German youth (aged 12 to 25) shows that in 2015, 82 % agreed that it is important to be diligent and ambitious, while only 60 % agreed that it is important to help socially disadvantaged people (Albert, Hurrelmann, and Quenzel, 2015). This shift from solidarity to competition has been explained by structural socio-economic changes. In today’s risk society (Beck, 1986), people have become liberated from social class structures and the corresponding life trajectories and are now self-responsible for employment and their careers, as implemented in the European policy of employability and national activation regimes (Lindsay and Pascual, 2009). Young people are key targets of these policies, above all in their transition from school to work (Pohl and Walther, 2007). Youth research assumes that despite a purported prolongation of youth throughout the twenties (see Arnett, 2010, 2015), adolescence can no longer be characterized as a moratorium (Erikson, 1968) where young people are free from societal pressure, and that it has instead become a period of self-responsibility, self-optimization, and preparation for one’s future in the labor market (Boehnisch, 2018; Reinders, 2016a).

Drawing on the theoretical concept of self-socialization of young people (Tenbruck, 1965; Zinnecker, 2000), in this article we question how this development is reflected in the context of digital games played by male adolescents, whose values appear to be predominant, and how they are mediated among the boys.

Peer socialization and gender in digital games

Playing video games has become one of the main leisure activities for teenage boys. The representative German JIM study (N = 1200) shows that 80 % of 12- to 19-year-old boys reported playing digital games at least several times a week, compared to 44 % of girls. Only seven percent of boys, compared to 20 % of girls, reported never playing games (JIM, 2019). A study from Denmark (N = 1560) based on a random sample of 13- to 19-year-old adolescents found that about six percent of boys and about 25 % of girls never play video games (Thorhauge and Gregersen, 2019). There is not only a gender difference in how often they play, but also in what kind of games they play on which devices. While girls prefer to play less complex mobile games alone on their smartphones, boys are more likely to be engaged in – often competitive – multiplayer online games on computers or consoles. In Germany, 63 % of girls report playing games mainly on their smartphones (and only 13 % mainly on computers), whereas boys prefer a computer (34 %) or a gaming console (36 %) to their smartphones (23 %) (JIM, 2019).

Many games can be played both online and offline, and they offer several playing modes (e. g., alone, in pre-formed teams, or in randomly assigned teams). The most popular games (see, e. g., JIM, 2019) are highly interactive, and players use in-game voice chats and communication platforms such as Discord and Teamspeak to communicate with teammates and other gamers. Communication is not restricted to the game itself, to its content, or its duration. Research shows that teenage boys, above all, prefer playing with friends they know personally (e. g., classmates), but also that they play with people they only know through the internet (Carter, Moore, Mavoa, Horst, and Gaspard, 2020; Thorhauge and Gregersen, 2019; Waechter and Hollauf, 2018). Usually, boys make appointments when to meet and play online, and when they meet, they also discuss day-to-day issues beyond the game (Waechter and Hollauf, 2018).

Thorhauge and Gregersen (2019) found for Danish teenagers that boys are much more likely to be playing in teams against others (“competitive team players”), whereas girls are much more likely to be playing alone (“non-competitive solo players”). This is in line with the results of other studies, according to which achievement is a main motivation, especially among younger male gamers (Jansz and Neys, 2015). Gamers also perform gender roles when playing and when talking about gaming. Research on young adult gamers showed that regarding actual competence, young women tend to downplay their knowledge and skills and emphasize that games are just a nice pastime, while young men claim knowledge, rationality, and authority about the game and technology and justify gaming with “objective” benefits (Thornham, 2008). As video games are predominantly designed and marketed by and for men, the gaming industry and male gamers have created a male culture (Kowert, Breuer, and Quandt, 2017).^[2] Consequently, men seem to be more likely to identify as gamers (Harvey, 2015; Shaw, 2015).

Research on gender socialization shows that peers have a major impact on the development of boys and girls regarding gender self-concepts, stereotypes, and attitudes. Scholars assume that boys experience even stronger peer influences and conformity pressure during childhood (Leaper and Friedman, 2007; Niederbacher and Zimmermann, 2011). Since masculinity and achievement are strongly connected, to develop self-esteem regarding masculinity, boys have to present themselves continuously as active and high achievers (Niederbacher and Zimmermann, 2011). While strict gender norms have become challenged in contemporary society, research leads to assume that traditional norms of masculinity, such as being successful, powerful, and competitive, are still dominant. These traditional masculine norms become intensified in environments dominated by men (e. g., in digital games), in which the majority of social interactions occur with other men (Mahalik et al., 2003). Consequently, boys and girls develop different (general) play preferences, with boys being more likely to prefer fantasy play with a pursuit-and-conquest theme. The masculine-stereotyped play activities may foster “self-assertive behaviors” such as competition (Leaper and Friedman, 2007, p. 568) and aggressiveness.^[3]

Harassment in digital games

Scholarly work has shown that hate speech, cyberbullying, and other forms of harassment are common practices in multiplayer digital games (Breuer, 2017; Fox and Tang, 2017; Kwak, Blackburn, and Han, 2015). Authors have used a variety of terms with overlapping meanings for such practices in gaming communities, including harassment (behavior) (Fox and Tang, 2016, 2017), hate speech (Breuer, 2017), hostile behavior (Kasumovic and Kuznekoff, 2015), cyberhate (Machackova, Blaya, Bedrosova, Smahel, and Staksrud, 2020), flaming (Lemercier-Dugarin, Romo, Tijus, and Zerhouni, 2021), cyberbullying (Ballard and Welch, 2015), and toxic behavior (Kwak et al., 2015). In this article, we use harassment in a general meaning as described by Fox and Tang (2017): “General harassment behaviors in games include insulting someone’s skill or intelligence, swearing at them, threatening them, or interfering with their progress in the game” (p. 1294). Harassment in online games can be more or less harmful and abusive, ranging from ironic comments on another gamer’s performance to harsh personal insults, often related to the victim’s gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, and to threats of physical violence (Breuer, 2017; Epstein, Greenblatt, Lewy, and Ingersoll, 2019; Gray, 2012). Epstein et al. (2019) add two more forms of severe harassment: stalking and doxing (looking up and disseminating personal identifying information about a player). They found that 74 % of (adult) US respondents reported having experienced some form of harassment while playing games online, and 65 % reported having experienced severe harassment (Epstein et al., 2019, p. 7).^[4]

While, to our knowledge, there are no larger quantitative studies available on harassment among young people in digital games, studies investigating any online context indicate that a majority of young people have encountered harassment. The German JIM study found that 66 % of adolescents aged 12 to 19 have come across online harassment (JIM, 2019). The comparative EU Kids Online study shows that the number of adolescents who reported having been targeted by online harassment (measured by receiving hateful and degrading messages aimed at them or their communities) varied from three percent (Italy) to 13 % (Poland) (Machackova et al., 2020). Considering the large number of adult gamers affected by harassment, we may assume that the number of young people who become victims of harassment is larger among those who play online games.

Breuer (2017) suggests that individual identification with a game or gaming is most relevant for explaining harassment practices. Players who strongly identify with online gaming and are strongly committed to a certain game might feel threatened by other players who they perceive as different (in terms of gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation), and might use offensive or derogatory terms and insults to disassociate themselves from them. Also (male) group norms may support harassment (Breuer, 2017). Furthermore, the competitive character of online games is assumed to contribute to harassment (Kwak et al., 2015). Goal-oriented team players have been found to be more likely to blame other members of the team (Kwak et al., 2015; McLean, Waddell, and Ivory, 2021), and successful players have been found to be less likely to become offenders (Kasumovic and Kuznekoff, 2015). Regarding victimization, harassing other gamers as well as witnessing peer harassment seem to increase one’s chances of being harassed (De Letter, Van Rooij, and Van Looy, 2017). Other explanations refer to the specific context of online games such as the presence of an audience and the anonymous context (Breuer, 2017; McInroy and Mishna, 2017; McLean et al., 2020).^[5]

Since male gamers tend to identify more with online games and are more likely to be competitive and goal-oriented in games compared to female gamers, we assume that harassment is also related to stereotypical norms of masculinity such as competitiveness and aggression. In this article, we investigate male teenagers’ experiences with harassment when playing online games, and we determine whether and how practices and experiences of harassment can be linked to the assumed achievement-orientation of young male gamers.

Gaming performance and peer pressure

From the boys’ narratives we learned that the main values mediated in the context of online games are performance and achievement, as well as competition. In the following, we will describe the interviewed boys’ attitudes as well as practices in which these values become visible.

The boys reported that their overall goal is winning the game (or the fight, the contest, etc.), whether playing alone or in teams and, above all, in games with a more competitive character. They associate good gaming performance with increased recognition among players. Gaming performance is not only visible during the game, but also after and outside the game. The boys explained that they learn about someone’s performance on gaming platforms as well as in discussions with their peers in online and offline contexts. Their narratives show that ranking lists are very important to them. They know about other gamers’ ranks and levels of play, and they reported that publicly visible rankings lead to a strong desire to achieve good results in games. Peer pressure on performance also appears in the processes of forming teams. The boys perceive to be more popular gaming partners if they show a good performance, as exemplified in the following quote: “If you are good at the game, then everyone wants to play with you, because then you […] are simply great to play with” (Gordon, 14). The interviewed boys also mentioned that players can even be excluded from game communities due to lack of success in the game: “For example, players who are not as good as others will be excluded. And […] the worse ones form another group amongst themselves” (Milan, 13).

Other boys told us that they prefer to quit a game session if they keep losing the game in order to keep their rank, which is visible to all players. This shows that the result of the game is not only relevant during the game, but also beyond the actual game situation itself. Since they expect to gain in status through a good gaming performance, winning in games is most important to them. However, some emphasize that winning and mastering a game is the reason they enjoy playing video games.

A player’s individual skills thus have a participatory character. In other words, there is pressure to perform well in order to avoid exclusion – pressure exerted by other players and also from the game design in some cases. For example, in a game such as Clash of Clans, also played by the interviewed boys, gamers experience a setback in rank and progress if they get defeated repeatedly: “Yes, the others also attack me, and those who attack me are given the cups, while cups are taken away from me” (Luka, 15).

In Clash of Clans gaming communities put additional pressure on their members. In these communities (called clans or guilds), players interact with each other regarding their in-game resources^[8], for example, by making “donations” (gifts) to help each other out. The interviewed teenagers emphasized that such donations among players are appreciated, but also expected. They say that in Clash of Clans the mutual exchange of resources is an inherent part of the game. Such mutual gifts imply that players must have earned resources first in order to share them with others. So again, skills, good performance, and time commitment are required in the first place. The interviewed boys point out that one is expected to give such presents. If a clan member does not meet the expectations, negative sanctions may follow, as a participant reports:

Yes, because you have to be nicer if you are in a guild. You have to be nice, because otherwise they will throw you out […] I got kicked out because my tablet was broken and I couldn’t donate, so I got kicked out. (Emil, 16)

This shows that the supposedly prosocial behavior is not only based on the individual kindness of a player, but also represents a social obligation that puts pressure on players to follow the unwritten rules of giving presents. The interviewed gamers also refer to the practice of giving birthday presents, which, on the one hand, strengthens the community, and, on the other hand, puts pressure on individual players to contribute using their in-game resources.

Related to that pressure of performing well, winning, and making progress in the game, the adolescents reported feeling under strong pressure while playing video games. The level of stress seems to be strongly related to the level of competitiveness of the game: “Well, in computer games, when you play online, like Fortnite, you’re under permanent pressure. It’s not that relaxing” (Samuel, 16).

The pressure to perform well in digital games also seems to be connected to the context of professional fields such as e-sports or streaming, which are especially popular among young people (Statista, 2021). Some interviewees mentioned YouTubers as role models, and said that e-sports or coaching other gamers are attractive career goals for them.

I would like to …, in CS:GO [Counter Strike: Global Offensive; a popular shooter game] there are tournaments played by professionals. It has always been my dream to take part in a tournament and also to play against a professional and such. And to become a professional one day so that I’ll make money with it and all. (René, 14)

While they seem to only have vague ideas about the necessary efforts and specific ways to become a professional gamer, the idea of a potential career seems to strengthen the young gamers’ performance orientation.

Summarizing our findings regarding RQ1, the main values mediated in the context of digital games played by young men are achievement and competition. Achievements of the individual and the group are closely connected to competition. As this section has shown, achievement seems to be most important in games with an overall competitive character, but there are also competitive aspects to less competitive games. Regarding RQ2, we found and presented many examples of how these values are linked to the young men’s practices, such as making donations, gaining knowledge of other gamers’ ranks, and working on their own ranks.

Experiences and practices of harassment

The interviewed teenagers reported a variety of experiences with harassment while playing online games, such as being subjected to offensive (and sometimes racist and discriminatory) insults and name-calling, stalking, or trolling while playing online games. These experiences were perceived as a “natural” part of the game, and not questioned further. Thus, they were downplayed by many respondents: “Yes, some think it’s funny. For example, I think it’s funny when someone insults me just like that, if he doesn’t even have a reason to do so. I often think to myself that he doesn’t have a brain” (Stefan, 14).

The narratives in the interviews show that both experienced and less experienced gamers may be harassed by other players calling them specific names used for both groups. The terms “noob” and “no-skin” were most frequently mentioned for less experienced gamers. “Noobs” are inexperienced players who can easily be recognized as such, for example, because they have yet to master game mechanics or reach a respected rank/level.

That he is either bad at aiming properly or when he dropshots, so he kills you and then continues shooting to make sure you are dead. Yes, that’s how you can immediately recognize a noob, or you look at the levels. (Felix, 13)

The term “no-skin” was used synonymously, denoting gamers who have not acquired or bought any additional cosmetic content (“skins”) in the game. In addition to the performance component, this also puts pressure on gamers to invest money in digital games in order to maintain their status. Thus, many of the participants state that they have already invested several hundred Euros in cosmetic game content.

Such name calling, however, was not only reported for inexperienced players. Members of a victorious team may be called “try-hards”. This term is meant to devaluate the opponent’s victory by indicating that they forgot the playful nature of the game, taking it too seriously and “trying too hard” to win.

The interviewed boys also said they were frequently subject to explicit racist comments. They explained that this was not an exception but an everyday occurrence. Racist insults are also sometimes downplayed by the victims: “Well, I get racist comments every day, but I think that’s pretty funny” (Samuel, 16).

The respondents did not only tell us about being insulted, but they also admitted to having insulted other players, above all when losing. Typically, they insulted both members of their own team and members of the other team. Members of their own team were blamed for losing the game, and players of the other team were suspected of cheating or hacking. This leads to assume that harassment has become common practice.

Our results further confirm that frustration (about failing to win a game) may produce aggressive behavior (towards other players) as originally proposed by the frustration-aggression hypothesis (Dollard, Miller, Doob, Mowrer, and Sears, 1939). As the following citation from an interview illustrates, frustration about losing a game or experiencing barriers to goal attainment (“if I run into a hacker”) may lead to feelings of anger and aggression which then may be transformed into verbal assaults or other forms of harassment when continuing the game.

And then it sometimes happens that I start yelling at others, for example, when I have lost an important game. Sometimes I do that a lot. Or I’m just in a bad mood […] And then I play the game and because I’m already in a bad mood and something bad happens to me, for example, if I run into a hacker who ruins the game, then I’m really pissed off. (Emil, 16)

When describing how they sometimes harass a fellow player (a member of their own team or of an opposing team), respondents indicated that those were usually strangers. They said insulting friends was also common practice, but in this case, they tended to call it “friendly teasing” rather than harassment. We do not know, however, whether they were just downplaying their insulting of their friends (“teasing”), or harassment towards strangers really is more severe. None of the boys wanted to reveal the exact wording of insults exchanged between friends “for fun”. Some of them do seem to walk a fine line between insulting friends ironically and making discriminatory and racist insults, however.

If I notice that insults are ironic and funny, then I’ll join in. But if someone really would say, I don’t know, black people suck or nobody likes black people … I like […] racist humor, but I don’t really mean it. (Kurt, 15)

The boys have to negotiate continuously between treating insults as offensive (severe) or funny (less severe). Common harassment of strangers and friends alike, however, seems to lead to general acceptance of harassment in digital games, both from offenders and victims.

Insults and feelings of frustration and anger were reported by players of competitive games such as Fortnite or FIFA. The boys’ narratives lead to assume that the frequency of insults is above all related to the characteristic of the games, the ranking systems, and the level of competition. Competitive games with public ranking systems – which assign players a rank based on their progress in the game – seem to foster harassment. The interviews showed that insults are mostly connected to game-related skills and the goal of winning and beating the other team.

Boy: “Yes, it always depends on what the game is about. Or as I said, if it is a five-versus-five shooter, it is clear that more insults are happening […] If you […] play a ranked game, it’s about winning. If it is not about beating the other team, it [the insulting behavior] does not happen a lot.”

Interviewer: “What is a ranked game about?”

Boy: “That you have a better rank than the others and, so to speak, it shows that you are much better.” (Sutter, 16)

Thus, the game mechanics seem to contribute to harassment by producing a player experience that is characterized by feelings of social pressure.

Due to the frequent occurrence of harassment in digital games, young gamers have to develop a number of coping strategies, as mentioned by the boys we interviewed. On the one hand, in addition to downplaying the insult, these included more passive reactions such as ignoring the offending person, enduring and tolerating the offense, getting angry about it without answering, and leaving the game in progress or muting the offending person, if the game allowed it.

On the other hand, they also mentioned active reactions such as reporting the offender, answering in a humorous way, or challenging the offender in a competition in the same game. For example, interviewees stated that insulting behavior is countered with irony and humor to defuse the situation and to ridicule the offender:

I deal with it in a very relaxed and easygoing way. If they say, for example, “Hey you, are you black?” [imitating the tone of offence], I just reply, “Yes, thanks. I prefer being black rather than being soft and white which just looks weird. Like mold.” (Samuel, 16)

When disputes and arguments are solved in a competition, the winner of that one-on-one game also wins the conflict: “But some disputes can also be easily ended with a game. (…) And sometimes, when we argue, we say, okay, we play a round of Fortnite now and the one of us two who survives longer is right” (Emil, 16).

In-game functions such as reporting players who have behaved inappropriately to the game operator are used by some of the interviewed boys, but trust in these reporting functions seems to be very limited:

Well, there is always the report function for inappropriate language or something. Only to me it seems that when you press it, it’s like you’re not actually doing anything. There’s just that button, you can press it, but that’s all that happens. So, nobody’s looking at it. (Sutter, 16)

The perceived lack of consequences may also contribute to unrestrained harassment in digital games.

Summarizing our RQ3 results, we found that in the young boys’ gaming communities, harassment emerges in a variety of contexts. This includes offensive language/insults/name-calling, stalking, and trolling – and is typically downplayed and viewed as a natural part of the game. Regarding RQ4, the narratives lead to assume that the values of achievement and competition seem to foster practices of harassment. The young men use harassment to distinguish between achievers and failures (winners and losers in the games).

The discussion further addresses the links between values and practices (of harassment). Additionally, we will discuss our results on harassment in light of previous findings and assumptions regarding influencing factors such as skills, anonymity, game content, gender, and game mode. Finally, we will address the question whether digital games can be considered as a new moratorium for young people (RQ5) and new place for self-socialization (RQ6).

Linking values and practices

The qualitative interviews with teenage boys reveal that online gaming communities have shared values and common practices. The main values seem to be achievement and performance as well as competition and success. These values are related to the personal gaming skills of the individual players and their gaming performance. The more advanced one’s skills and the better one’s performance, the higher one’s social status. An advanced player with good performance, ranked high in the performance list of the game, is a preferred teammate. The relevance of one’s performance is in line with the notion of an achievement society (Han, 2015; Verheyen, 2018), which promotes individualistic, neoliberal values such as competition, performance, and self-responsibility, above all in contexts of employment and the economy. Han (2015) argues that such values can also be seen in the use of new communication technologies and that on social media, performance has become a commodity. Our research leads to assume that the values of the achievement society are also relevant in the world of gaming.

Analyses on gendered socialization processes found that male adolescents are particularly oriented towards competition (Leaper and Friedman, 2007). This is in line with our results on the young male gamers. Our results also support the notion that traditional masculine norms become intensified in environments dominated by men (Mahalik et al., 2003). Considering that digital games are a “men’s world”, in which the majority of social interactions occur with other men, helps explain why these individualistic, neoliberal values are so prominent in digital games.

Our results show how the practices of young gamers are related to these values. The values of achievement and competition seem to produce substantial peer pressure to perform well (both as a team and as an individual player) in order to defeat the opposing team. Team members have high expectations regarding the skills, ambition, and performance of other team players. We found that these expectations, based on the values of achievement and performance, are closely related to the common practice of harassment. Our analysis shows that if expectations are not fulfilled there is little tolerance, so that inexperienced gamers may be subject to various forms of harassment such as personal, discriminatory insults, or exclusion from the team or community. Regarding male teenagers, we can also confirm that the competitive character of online games may contribute to the rise of harassment (Adachi and Willoughby, 2011; Kwak et al., 2015).

We found that the main values as described foster a number of common practices in young people’s game worlds, such as spending a lot of time practicing, becoming experts on the game, learning from other gamers by watching Let’s Plays (LPs)^[9], studying ranking lists, trying to gain status by producing LPs, or bragging about one’s success in the peer group and discussing games and gamers. In this paper, as further discussed in the following, we focused on the shared experiences and practices of harassment.

Harassment among young male gamers – what’s new?

Based on our interviews we assume that derogatory language and severe, discriminatory insults are common practice among male teenagers in (competitive) online games. This is in line with quantitative research on adult gamers (see, e. g., Epstein et al., 2019) as well as research on general online harassment among young people (JIM, 2019; Machakova et al., 2020).

The interviewed boys proved highly achievement-oriented, with little understanding of those with fewer skills. If someone’s performance is not as good as expected, they are very likely to get harassed by their teammates and peers. However, we found that more skilled players can also be subjected to verbal assaults and become harassed by an opponent after winning a game. Harassment occurring in game situations can thus be seen as a result of perceived pressure to win a game. By insulting successful players, offenders may try to overcome and cover up their frustration about losing a game. By insulting players with poor performance, offenders might try to consolidate their status. We cannot disprove the assumption that successful players are less likely to become offenders than players with a poorer performance (Kasumovic and Kuznekoff, 2015), however, our results lead us to assume that gamers may become targets of harassment regardless of their performance. Our research suggests that harassment is facilitated by a lack of trust in in-game harassment reporting and sanctioning mechanisms, by the game modes (e. g., the possibility to play against other players in teams), and by the actual game design which may in some cases (e. g., Clash of Clans) add to the pressure to achieve.

In their narratives the interviewed players paint a picture of a digital gaming culture that – at least in more competitive games – is strongly shaped by achievement, status, and power. Losses against other players represent a loss of status, and use of derogatory language and terms can be interpreted as an attempt to regain one’s status by devaluating the opponent.

Interestingly, while all the interviewed boys report having been subject to verbal abuse and discriminatory insults when playing games, they do not necessarily perceive these as insults, considering they are a normal part of interactions in their gaming community. There seems to be a thin line between friendly teasing/“trash talk” (Wai and Fox, 2016) and aggressive and insulting behavior towards other players, especially when playing with friends. That telling apart friendly teasing from derogatory or insulting remarks is not always easy may contribute to harassment as common practice in game communication.

Other research suggests that the anonymity of players fosters the emergence of harassment in digital games (McInroy and Mishna, 2017; McLean et al., 2020), and anonymity among users has also been shown to promote related phenomena such as cyberbullying (Corby et al., 2016). However, our results show that insults are common practice not only towards unknown players, but also among acquaintances and personally known teammates. This leads to assume that anonymity is not as relevant as previously suggested. However, it seems that harassment is evaluated differently when friends are involved. The interviews show that harassment among friends is likely to be downplayed and not perceived as such. This might be also due to the restrictive nature of online communication – with irony being difficult to recognize, for instance.

The interviewed adolescents’ narratives with respect to developing feelings of anger – often leading to harassment in games such as FIFA, that are usually considered “non-violent” – suggest that categorizing games into genres when investigating harassment may not be as useful as previously thought. This is in line with previous research that assumes that in-game elements of competition and comparison are more relevant for the development of aggression than the game content itself (Adachi and Willoughby, 2013; Lemercier-Dugarin et al., 2021).

Regarding game content, however, we want to emphasize that many popular digital games have stereotypical gender representations regarding primary avatars, aesthetics, and story lines (Johnson, 2010), which may impact young male gamers’ gender attitudes and beliefs, and strengthen traditional gender norms. Consequently, young male gamers may also be likely to choose playing more games with stereotypical gender representations. Early research found that men typically play men and that playing same-gender avatars increases aggression through stronger identification with the avatar (Eastin, 2006). This may also contribute to explanations of why harassment is so common among young male gamers.^[10]

From our interviews we conclude that game mode (e. g., team game play against other players or against AI^[11], a single player against other players or against AI, or a single player against AI) may be the most relevant harassment factor in gaming. Eastin’s study (2006) showed that playing against other players increases aggression more than playing against AI. Our results further suggest that games that allow cooperative team play against other players seem to be most affected by harassment.

Digital games as a new moratorium and place of self-socialization?

In this section we will discuss whether digital games can be considered a new moratorium for male adolescents (RQ5), and whether the results support the notion that they are a place of self-socialization for them (RQ6). Thereby we aim to relate our results from media research to social theories, as suggested by Krotz (2013).

While many games offer possibilities to report misconduct by individual players and evaluate these reports via an AI or with the help of the community (e. g., the tribunal in League of Legends, which was, however, discontinued in 2013), our participants stated they rarely use them, even though some games include reporting mechanisms. This is both because they are used to being harassed and view it as a normal mode of interaction, and because they do not think reporting harassment is useful due to a perceived lack of consequences after reporting offenders. The perception of missing consequences for offenders might be related to the higher volatility of communication in digital games, compared to other forms of social media. This leads to assume that young players are left on their own in digital games and gaming communities. We conclude that digital games provide young players with virtual rooms where they can indulge in explorative and experimental behavior that is not tolerated elsewhere. In this perspective, the engagement in digital games can be understood as a moratorium for male adolescents.

In contrast with such experimental behavior, the central values of the interviewed young gamers did not contradict the main values of the “achievement society” (Han, 2015). It seems that in the virtual spaces of male-dominated and competition-oriented digital games, the neoliberal values of competition and status (gained through good performance and the possession of rare objects) are reproduced. On the one hand, online games can be seen as an environment where young people are free from school and job obligations – a “protected space” in other words, which some researchers deemed to have been lost (Boehnisch, 2018; Reinders, 2016a). Young people may use the gaming environment as a space where they can (hope to) be among themselves without adult interference, where they can try new behaviors, as in Erikson’s notion of a moratorium (1968). On the other hand, many online games played by young people put a strong focus on performance, achievement, and competition (the very same individualistic values of our Western society), which requires them to invest in self-optimization and prepare for the competitive labor market – especially considering the desire of many respondents to pursue a career in e-sports or streaming. Some participants follow successful streamers and e-athletes on social networks, thus reinforcing their desire to pursue a similar, supposedly easy career themselves. A successful career in e-sports is typically characterized by enormous time investments at the expense of education, other professional career development, as well as private life (family and friends). Furthermore, reports of mental illnesses such as burnout, premature retirement, or post-career dilemmas among former e-athletes are not uncommon (Salo, 2017). However, our participants have only a vague and often idealized notion of what a career in e-sports entails, and they do not realize how huge the time investment required by such a career actually is. Their underlying goal of becoming successful and famous in e-sports corresponds to the value of achievement rather than to the notion of moratorium.

Taking into account the concept of self-socialization (Zinnecker, 2000), we may add that young people do use online games as a self-socializing platform, free from parental and educational guidelines or sanctions – but also that, by doing so, they seem to reproduce the contemporary individualistic and neoliberal values of general society. Furthermore, the internalization of these values promotes harassment in digital games, with some games at risk of turning into places of (re-)production of discriminatory or stereotypical ideas and behaviors. Even though the prevailing narrative downplays the consequences of personal harassment, individual young players may suffer from such experiences.