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by rcthompson
3914 days ago
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Bullying is something that people do because it's easy -- picking fights with people who can't fight back. So this maybe be a fine distinction, but I think that anything that enables or makes bullying easier is not just a symptom, but is contributing to the root cause. In any communication tool, certain kinds of interactions are easier than others and are thus encouraged. For instance, the fact that Facebook has like button but not a dislike button is a deliberate choice that affects how easy it is to express different sentiments on Facebook. I believe it's possible to design a communication tool that encourages positive interactions and discourages negative ones. Other good examples: George Orwell's concept of Newspeak from 1984, a language literally incapable of expressing concepts like freedom or dissent against the government. For another example, consider Journey, a multiplayer video game where the only possible interactions between players are positive or helpful. |
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There was a GDC presentation a few years back where the lead designer Jenova Chen talked about how difficult it was to make only positive/helpful interactions possible. In playtesting even the ability to collide with another player was used against them, e.g. to push them off a cliff.
The presentation should still be online for free at http://gdcvault.com very interesting from a game-designing point of view.