Gamasutra, an online community of game developers and artists, recently ran an essay called Fixing Online Gaming Idiocy: A Psychological Approach by Bill Fulton, a social psychologist and “user-research engineer” responsible for the online matchmaking systems of games like Microsoft's Shadowrun.

The treatise, an insightful and informative read that discusses strategies that game designers can use to modify the behaviour of online gamers, quotes a Penny Arcade comic that presents the following equation meant to explain why so many game servers are populated by foulmouthed malefactors:

Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total F***wad.

This simple and amusing explanation seems accurate enough at first glance, but there's a problem with one of its premises: I'd argue that a “normal person” hasn't a hidden desire to hurl profane insults at every opportunity, spout lengthy racist slurs for no reason, and harass female players until they leave the game.

I haven't anything to back this up (other than three decades of experience interacting with people), but it seems to me that such antisocial behaviour is the hallmark of a sociopath. These individuals have simply found a medium that allows them to indulge their unsociable impulses without consequence—much to everyone else's dissatisfaction.

And while I applaud the work of game designers like Fulton who are devoted to inventing ways of limiting these scoundrels' opportunities to make trouble, I also wonder just how effective their work can ever be. So long as servers are open to the public and support voice and text communication, we'll always have nogoodnicks looking to cause grief.

For the time being, the only sure-fire way to play a game online without being pestered by people intent on ruining the experience for everyone is to play private sessions attended only by vetted players—in essence, closed, managed communities.

Unfortunately, constructing and joining these communities is still enough of a bother to keep people like me from making the effort.