Should you hate the player or the game?
Purposeful disconnects remain the curse of online gaming. Whilst its true that for many games online lag is still sadly prevalent, there is nothing quite like ‘rage quitting’ to make the blood boil. When you have worked hard to decimate an opponent only to have them take the easy way out, there are no number of expletives that can capture the anguish of that moment. Who is to blame for this act of pure evil? Is it the fault of society for cultivating such a lack of responsibility? Can we point the finger at our morally corrupt sporting heroes who often bend or break the rules as well as violate the ideals of sportsmanship in order to win at any cost? Or perhaps it is the fault of the parents who raise spoilt brats that are unable to bear the weight of defeat?
It seems obvious that the blame should lie squarely with the person who decides to simulate an internet disconnect. Overcome with their frustration at being unable to win, they churlishly exit the game. Whether it is to prevent their perfect record being tarnished, or simply out of spite, the action is childish and indefensible. Unfortunately however, upon even a little reflection it is clear that the developers are ultimately to blame for allowing them to do so without significant punishment. Some companies have done well to attempt to tackle the issue, but for those that don’t provide consequences for rage quitting the oversight is naive to say the least. Whilst a poor net code can make a game unplayable online, a lack of rules and structure in the online community can be equally damaging.
Provide incentives for losing with dignity
Putting aside the idea of punishing people for quitting, it is also important to provide the person who is playing with a reason to continue to play even in the face of an inevitable defeat. If by losing you are just rewarded by another mark in your losses column it hardly encourages the player to keep trying. Providing a decent amount of experience points or their equivalent even for a loss would compensate the player for their sportsmanship. For online games such as Uncharted 2 it is still possible to accumulate plenty of money without winning rounds. Likewise FIFA gives points for taking part in completed games, so whilst you may not have won the match, you are provided with funds to improve your team to the point where you have a better chance of winning.
Provide in-depth matchmaking
Putting a player in a match which they will most likely lose due to a gulf in experience or ability is a sure-fire way to frustrate players to the point where they will want to quit. Once I too suffered a lapse in my sense of decency when playing FIFA 09. I was simply torn apart by a far superior player and was losing by nine goals before the end of the first half (quite disgraceful I have to admit). Although I didn’t quit I did sulk, to the extent that you can in a video game form of football, by passing the ball around my defense. I promptly received an incredibly abusive PSN message from my opponent (I’m impressed that he could type so quickly). Being a bit of a wuss I then tried to play the game in its true spirit and went on to lose the match by fifteen goals. I was to blame for my selfishness, but being destroyed so quickly rather took the urgency out of my game. Matchmaking is one of the more complicated issues in online games and there are few games which have perfected it. Halo is often held up as an example of good match making, but it is even more of a pressing issue in sports games which are usually one-on-one games that last longer.
Properly punish persistent offenders
Most online games show a disconnect percentage for players, and those with very high disconnect rates are unlikely to be welcomed into games, but when you just want to play a game and there seem to be few open matches available there is little alternative. Whilst rewarding players for losing may be the carrot, the stick should be that they lose points. By making the loss of points significant enough, the players who used to disconnect would be forced to at least bear through their suffering. Those who have very high disconnect rates could be given bans for their offenses such as weekly bans, monthly bans or for the very worst offenders, lifetime bans.
Whilst these ideas sound nice on paper there are of course a few tricky aspects to implementing them. How do you know if a person is rage quitting, or simply that their internet connection was temporarily disrupted? And whilst few cases have been successful, bans imposed on players of online games have occasionally resulted in law suits that developers are obviously keen to avoid, no matter how frivolous they may be. Seeing as gamers are sometimes vocal in their disapproval of draconian measure, the Modern Warfare 2 server issue for example, the negative press associated with a punishing online system means that some developers are unwilling to instill a sense of authority into their games.
Until game developers have taken steps that provide real consequence for purposeful disconnects, competitive online game will be tainted. Well, either that or we could wait for the time when every one who plays online games becomes mature enough not to choose to ruin another person’s experience. Hold your breath folks; I think it’s going to happen any minute now.
