Massive multiplayer games say they have done what most social networks haven’t – built kind and civil online communities

The Australian government did something no other country has even tried when it banned the use of social media for all children under the age of 16, citing the social harms of uncontrolled online interactions.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the policy was “world leading” and sent a clear message about the harms of these platforms.

“We don’t argue that its implementation will be perfect — just like the alcohol ban for under-18s doesn’t mean that someone under 18 never has access — but we know that it’s the right thing to do,” he said on the day after the bill was passed.

But there is another model for online social communities, one that isn’t replete with the same harmful behaviours seen on other forms of social media: Massively Multiplayer Online games, or MMOs.

Unlike other video games, groups of hundreds of players in an MMO share an online world and can chat and interact with each other, working on big goals like defeating bosses, or small goals like designing houses.

Real-time reporting and gaol time

Millions of players each day are joining these digital worlds, which have strict rules and reporting tools that are enforced.

Naoki Yoshida — the producer and director of Final Fantasy XIV, who was in Australia for Melbourne International Games Week — said he wanted to build a world players could happily live in, so his team works hard to keep the community safe.

“I think the FFXIV community is the best in the world,” he said.

He said the team communicated with players directly if they had a problem, with the community ‘game masters’ available to investigate around the clock.

“Real-time consultation from players is immediately accepted; if there is a problem between players, we check the logs and investigate,” he explained.

“If a certain player does something wrong, we have them come to the ‘Gaol’, we check what happened and what they shouldn’t do. Of course, penalties are also applied. We are very thorough in that regard.”

Rehabilitate but be ready to remove them

Rich Lambert is the game director of another MMO, The Elder Scrolls Online, and says there are many similarities between social media platforms and these types of video games.

Players pay a fee, which incentivises them to behave, but the developers who are part of the community team also want people to learn from their mistakes.

“Ultimately, it’s people getting together and socialising. It doesn’t matter if that’s at a bar, if that’s on social media, if that’s in a game — I think there’s a lot of similarities across the board,” he says.

The reporting mechanisms are vital, he adds, and the customer service group really focus on rehabilitation, “teaching people that, ‘Hey, this is not the right way to act'”.

“The community focuses on that a lot too — if somebody acts out and does things, they police themselves, which is really, really awesome for us.”

While they work with players who show remorse after other players report their bad behaviour, Lambert says the studio is also happy to kick out people who don’t play by the rules.

“All of this [enforcement] comes in through player reports, so players have tools to report bad actors, bad behaviour, bad language, that kind of stuff.

Rules of the road that apply to everyone

Naoki Yoshida said a common set of rules that everyone abided by was important for keeping the community safe, even if some people thought it might not apply to them.

“I’d like to use a real-world example: I’m Japanese, and I love driving, but the speed limit in Japan is quite strict,” he said.

“When I’m out of the city and it’s so wide and so empty and no-one is driving, [I wonder], ‘Why is the speed limit 50km? I think 70km is fine’.

“Of course, when something happens at 70km, the scale of the crash can get bigger, so you have to think about the overall situation and make it 50km.”

Yoshida said encouraging a good community not only made it more fun for players, it was also good business sense.