Good game: The old-school rules of sportsmanship for gamers

You’ve heard it before: The more things change, the more they stay the same. That’s especially true when it comes to playing games. As a kid on the playground, you likely tried to live by some rules of sportsmanship to keep the fun alive.

Online gaming presents a unique problem though. On the playground, poor sportsmanship might be pulled aside by a teacher or other adult who could encourage fairness and respect. Online, the other players might be strangers, and there can be very little adult oversight.

This is why it’s essential to talk with kids about sportsmanship in online gaming—especially as they need to understand some ground rules prior to being allowed to play with others online.

Set the ground rules like it’s game day.

First up, create a contract with your kids that spells out various gaming sportsmanship rules—along with rules about never giving out personal information online—that you both sign, and then hold them accountable if or when you find that rules have been broken.

Remind them there’s a real kid behind that avatar.

Help your children understand that there are people on the other side of those usernames. It can be difficult for a kid to understand this concept. Help them figure it out by asking them to picture some of their school friends playing the game with them. If they wouldn’t say or do something directly to a friend’s face, maybe they shouldn’t do it online either.

Keep it clean—on comms and on the game board.

Gamers come from all walks of life. Good sportsmanship means keeping the swear words out of the conversation so gamers of all ages can enjoy the game. That includes your gamertag, too. Even when adults are playing the game, they might be playing with their children nearby, and they might not want their kids exposed to offensive language. Keeping the cursing out allows everyone to have a good time, regardless of how they feel about swearing.

Play fair—or play solo.

You might think that cheating could be kept to a minimum when there’s a computer involved, but in some games cheating can be more rampant than ever. Mods can be installed on gaming systems to give a player an unfair advantage over others. A “mod” is essentially a modification to the game. When users are able to manipulate the game or otherwise modify the underlying components, it can give them extra abilities, items or even unlimited life. Just like when someone cheats in real life, it’s not a good sportsmanship experience for the other players. If you want to play around with mods and other ways to give your character a boost, just make sure you aren’t playing with others online when you do that.

Squad up, but don’t gang up.

Even in games that have an individual winner, friends can team up and fight to the death among the remaining friends. This behavior is definitely acceptable and can be a lot of fun for friends to enjoy together.

Where this takes a turn to the shady side is when players gang up on a single individual and bully them or otherwise pick on them until they leave or lose the game. The golden good sportsmanship rule applies here: You wouldn’t want everyone in the game to gang up on you, so don’t do it to someone else. If there is a genuine problem with a user, like they’re cheating, report the player and move on.

Use the report feature like a referee, not for revenge.

Since online gaming can connect people from all over the world, there will be some bad actors. Those people might break every rule on this list, or they might engage in inappropriate behavior, like asking others for private information or sharing inappropriate content.

Reporting these users can get them banned from the game. It’s important to report actual bad behavior, but don’t report people just because you don’t like them. Getting banned can be permanent, and if you do it just to get revenge, you might get banned yourself once the admins investigate the issue.

The best players leave a good impression, not just a high score.

The game has changed, but good sportsmanship rules remain the same: Play nice and play fair.

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