Vocal Malevolence
Valorant is a free-to-play game that came out right after the covid-19, a very strategically timed release date, which helped secure as many players as possible. In a way, it was a balanced combination between Overwatch, a massively popular abilities-based shooter game as well as Counter Strike, a 5 versus 5 tactical first-person shooter; both multiplayer games. I think this is what allowed Valorant to appeal to a wider audience and grow in terms of players. The Valorant community exists to maximize fun and pleasure through gameplay, as well as encourage competition in the game through ranked modes. Though sometimes, the fun and pleasure aspect is negated by everyone in competitive modes, and the environment turns toxic. It’s player base is massive, but I want to focus on something majority of the player base shares, almost like a hivemind, and something I observed as well when I sat down to play it again on March 9th, 2024 at 12 am: the increasing onset of misogyny.
To explain the onset of misogyny rapidly taking over in the virtual space, we need to dive into the complex relationship between gaming, psychosocial health, and substance use among adolescents. The gender disparity of players in the online multiplayer hemisphere and their psychosocial health also plays a role in their behavior. The overarching negative stereotypes and attitudes towards online gamers, particularly female gamers, affect their performance and implicit attitudes. There is blatant proof of how badly female gamers are treated in the virtual multiplayer gaming space, as well as how that affects their performance, leading to more stereotypes and a never-ending cycle.
After players are paired up with others in a team of 5, they’re put into the character selection screen, giving them a 90 second window to pick characters to play as. This is extremely important and sets the stage for how the rest of the game will play out because different characters have different abilities; some are suited for defense, some for offense. Therefore, a discussion about who to pick is important as well as creating a variation of different characters and roles to play as; hence the standard is to use the in-game voice chat to communicate to your teammates. This is why “Insta-locking” is frowned upon, because insta-locking is picking a character immediately after loading into the character selection screen, skipping that discussion and variation. In-game, the hierarchy is established based off who scores the highest, and because offensive characters have skills most suited for that task, and because players want to be at the top of the hierarchy, the offensive characters get “insta-locked” the most often, but is also a frowned upon activity due to skipping the discussion phase. Moreover, Valorant is a 5v5 tactical shooter played in a map with limited time rounds and limited area available on each side, picking a character without discussion can lead to the loss of a game.
Even then, Insta-lockers in general are more frowned upon, but it’s especially the case when it’s a woman. When a woman insta-locks, she doesn’t usually use the in-game voice chat because often times, people would already start saying “we lost the game”. I can draw firsthand accounts of this from my personal experience. Kaye mentions something extremely important in her text: “research which has examined voice-based communication in gameplay has revealed that multiplayer gamers make three times more negative comments towards a female voice compared to a male voice” (Kaye, 2016, p. 203). Moreover, passive aggressiveness like that just causes more and more friction between the teammates and flow of the game, so women usually choose to stay quiet than engage in that. Also since communication’s important in-game to be coordinated as a team, women usually prefer being shunned for being an “insta-locker who doesn’t communicate” rather than being attacked for their gender. Sometimes, you’ll have players, regardless of the gender of the insta-lockers, players will say things like “you’re not talking cuz you’re a female aren’t you” followed by something quite offensive. In fact, I often notice a lot of male voices trying to make their voice sound deeper than it is through slurring or relaxing the throat muscles, often making it hard for me to understand the “callouts” (meaning, the communication of important things). I think this is reflective of the way people in a virtual space hold the voice as the definition of what a person is and can also be used as a tool to attack you. As Kaye said: “This research highlights the harmful effects of negative stereotypes on females’ gaming performance” (Kaye, 2016, p. 202). Stereotypes and discouragement are interlinked with performing bad. In other words, a lot of times a woman performs badly not because her skill level is lower compared to others, but because a lot of it is a mental game and the negative comments get to her and she starts playing bad because of it. Even in my game, the female player wasn’t performing as bad as the next male player. However, soon as we lost one round, she was the object of scrutiny and negative comments, hence started performing worse.
Next, I want to focus on why this might be. See, I started playing Valorant during covid, and, as such, had all the time in the world to play it. As the days went by, I eventually got addicted to it, where I would make excuses to avoid doing anything else. This is a shared feeling among a lot of gamers, as explained by Rooij’s text of what happens when playing games for extended periods of time: “a large effect was found for increased depressive mood, medium effects were found for loneliness, social anxiety” (Rooij, 2014, p. 162). All they do is play and hence, can’t comprehend a life outside of it. They rarely see the sun, don’t have a lot of close friends and hence “lack the support system, and have a lack of social skills” (Rooij, 2014, p. 162). My teammates in that game, for example, when I asked, was playing for around 8 hours without interruption. A lot of the agitated behavior comes from internal struggles, feelings of loneliness and isolation, and a lack of social support. In order to cope with that, they start lashing around at things around them and since all they’re around is the game, they start to go off the rails in their virtual world, which was originally intended to be a form of escapism for them Women have also been the historically oppressed group and since they’re a minority in this virtual space, they’re the easiest demographic to pick on. The impatience and over aggression of players online exists as both a moment of reprieve and outlet for them. The online faceless nature of the interaction also plays a part in this.
This is not to say that there aren’t good people in the Valorant community, because there are. But there are a lot of common and reoccurring factors in the game that contribute towards this agitation and rage culture: like the commitment aspect in the competitive mode, leaving no space for casual players, the narrative of women being bad at the game when in fact it’s the negative comments that cause it, and most of all, the fake pressure and there not being anything going on in a player’s life other than the game itself, which fuels their depression. In order for Valorant to be a good time, you have to have things outside of Valorant that you enjoy.
