Carrots over sticks: Promoting positive player behavior

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This article is part of GamesBeat’s special issue, Gaming communities: Making connections and fighting toxicity.

One of the key words that you’ll frequently hear when discussing video games and community is “toxicity.” Bad behavior in games has been around since the beginning of the industry, and developers are constantly working on ways to quash it and punish the players who behave this way. However, we hear less about the inverse: Encouraging and rewarding positive player behavior in games. In the never-ending battle against toxic players, should developers be using carrots instead of sticks?

Positive behavior, or “prosocial behavior” consists of garden-variety wholesome interactions in games — complimenting other players, socializing with them and sharing in-game rewards and activities. Sometimes it can be simply showing up and playing the game well without being unkind or disruptive to your teammates. If that sounds like a low bar to clear, it’s because bad behavior — insults, harassment and cheating — often gets more of the attention, for good or for ill.

Does it benefit gamers at all for developers to reward positive behavior, in addition to and sometimes more often than they punish negative behavior? Negative actions have negative consequences, but sometimes games don’t often have obvious positive consequences for the reverse.

One of the challenges of marking the differences between rewards and punitive measures is that there are far more of the latter than the former. Almost every game with a community has measures in place to punish bad behavior — how effective those measures are may vary, but their