Cheating in online gaming spreads through observation and victimization

Abstract

Antisocial behavior can be contagious, spreading from individual to individual and rippling through social networks. Moreover, it can spread not only through third-party influence from observation, just like innovations or individual behavior do, but also through direct experience, via “pay-it-forward” retaliation. Here, we distinguish between the effects of observation and victimization for the contagion of antisocial behavior by analyzing large-scale digital trace data. We study the spread of cheating in more than a million matches of an online multiplayer first-person shooter game, in which up to 100 players compete individually or in teams against strangers. We identify event sequences in which a player who observes or is killed by a certain number of cheaters starts cheating and evaluate the extent to which these sequences would appear if we preserve the team and interaction structure but assume alternative gameplay scenarios. The results reveal that social contagion is only likely to exist for those who both observe and experience cheating, suggesting that third-party influence and “pay-it-forward” reciprocity interact positively. In addition, the effect is present only for those who both observe and experience more than once, suggesting that cheating is more likely to spread after repeated or multi-source exposure. Approaching online games as models of social systems, we use the findings to discuss strategies for targeted interventions to stem the spread of cheating and antisocial behavior more generally in online communities, schools, organizations, and sports.

The Evolution of Cooperation and Diversity under Integrated Indirect Reciprocity

“…In the model, upstream and downstream reciprocators as a donor act following the corresponding action rule as below. Our research underscores the necessity to investigate robustness with respect to the inclusion of all possible action rules and to expand to systematically encompass concepts such as negative reciprocity or forwarding 'greed' strategies [63,64]. The interplay with more complex downstream reciprocity, exemplified by the leading eight norms [45,65,66], warrants comprehensive examination.…”

The Impact of Fake News on Traveling and Antisocial Behavior in Online Communities: Overview

“…As a social system model, ref. [4] examines targeted interventions to combat cheating and antisocial behavior in online communities, schools, organizations, and sports to stop cheating and antisocial behavior in general. As online information is being consumed more widely, fake news has become a worldwide phenomenon.…”

Investigating the effects of social information on spite in an online game

“…Other forms of antisocial or aggressive behaviours (which may reflect, or be motivated by, spite) have been shown to be predicted by association with other victims or perpetrators. These include using cheating tools in online games (Kim & Tsvetkova, 2022 ), the use of excessive force by police officers (Ouellet et al, 2019 ) and violent crimes (Tracy et al, 2016 ). Nonetheless, to our knowledge, few (if any) experiments have directly assessed the spread of spite via social learning.…”