I recently had a very toxic unpleasant experience while I was playing an online game. I usually stick to single player games and mostly play multiplayer games with friends or ones with minimal communication like Mario Kart.
So I was playing Fortnite not really a big fan of the game but I do play it from time to time with friends. I had to do a specific daily challenge and it required me to play a Squads game. For those that don't know this means playing with 3 other people.
I didn't have anyone online so I just decided to randomly join a group with other people. I have played many multiplayer games in my life so I know what to expect. The general trash talking and rudeness, the insults etc.
So the game starts and its 1 person with no mic, then 2 other people including myself with a microphone. One person is very young obviously around 10 years of age because he was mistaken for a girl initially by our 3rd very toxic teammate.
Right off the bat I guess its because of my username, voice or something but this person begins just calling me the N word out of nowhere. I didn't even talk to him and this person just went on a tirade. Just to make it clear this was not a kid trying to be cool and saying 'nicca' no this was full blown N word right in my face over and over coupled with bitch, bitch ass, fucking trash clown, monkey ass and lots of even worse stuff I forgot now. Then this person begins to play racist meme clips in the background mixed with sounds I'm not really sure it was like a soundboard like those YouTube trolling channels.
This guy sounded like he was 15-16 years old. I have no idea if he was trying to be an edgelord kid or what but he was laughing to himself like he found it hilarious to just keep calling me this stuff.
Next my teammate that was a younger boy started talking saying "stuff like that is rude." "Don't say stuff like that its bad." you know kinda innocent kid stuff and the attention shifted from me to this kid. The toxic guy just started saying "hey are you a girl gamer?" "Is this your friend?" and then he started making very sexual remarks and began playing loud porn clips mostly of an abusive screaming nature in the background and laughing. The kid then started saying "I'm a boy not a girl" and after repeating that a few times the guy then started calling him gay slurs, making disgusting jokes all to this kid because his voice sounded feminine.
I did not mute him yet because I was busy reporting him to Epic Games because thankfully Fortnite has a report feature and I blocked him on PSN and reported him to Sony as well.
I was going to argue with this guy but didn't want to give him any reaction because he was looking for that. I think he might have been a YouTuber that makes videos being toxic to people because of how he acted. I just muted him and shortly after intentionally died and left the match.
I take getting called the N word extremely seriously because of how insulting and degrading it is. I never ever want to hear it or get called that when I'm playing games to have fun. Even after I was out of the game I was still shook up for the rest of the day because I remember most of the times when I have been called that in my life and its just not good to think about. To all the people out there that think some of the reports of toxicity in online gaming is exaggerated or the harassment isn't real believe me it is and even I had a wake up call because it was even worse than I remembered. This guy basically checked everything. Racism check, homophobia check, sexism check and he found it funny and he seemed to know what he was doing like he does this a lot.
I assume this guy probably will not be banned and nothing will happen. I won't share his username or give out any details about him of course.
Something really needs to be done about this. I would like to see developers of online games but also console companies with online networks like PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo take a zero tolerance policy for any racism, homophobia and sexism from any individuals on their platforms. If there is proof and a report is made, the first time you get a warning. If it happens again they should block you from ever playing online on the account or console ever again. You will still be able to play your purchases and buy games from the store but will not be able to send messages, join voice chats or play any online games whatsoever.
I think this would severely curtail a lot of the toxicity, force people to be more careful in what they say and just make the online space a better place for people that actually want to play and have fun.
So this brings me to the thread title. What do you all think? Should developers have stronger punishments for toxic users? What could be done to really help fix this problem?