Author Julian Dibbell reported on a community-wide prank that was orchestrated by an anonymous New York University student by the name Mr.
The Origins of GriefingĪ story titled " A Rape in Cyberspace" published in The Village Voice in 1993 is perhaps the oldest account of griefing on record.
Regardless of attempts to stop it, these infuriating pranks have become so commonplace in online games that and Google have added as a secondary verb definition to “grief.”īut griefing is so ingrained in gaming culture that griefing-like behavior was taking place in early online communities long before the word was even coined. Most codes of conduct for online games consider griefing a punishable offense and will restrict or outright ban players who partake in it. Griefing is a far more chaotic behavior that aims to completely ruin a game for the griefer’s teammates. An example of trolling would be trash-talking your teammates in Overwatch while you’re steamrolling enemy players, and in Overwatch, a player might "throw" so as to lower their Competitive rank so they can re-enter a tier that's more manageable. These actions shouldn’t be confused with “trolling,” which is simply trying to get a rise out of someone but still trying to win the game - or "throwing," which is to intentionally lose for selfish reasons unrelated to spreading misery. Even as new games - like Valorant - are released, griefers are constantly in search of new ways to mess with their fellow gamers for their own perverse gratification. Countless other types of griefing have been immortalized through memes and cruel YouTube videos. This kind of online troublemaking includes stuff like purposefully blinding your team with a flashbang in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (known as " team flashing") or constantly building walls to block your teammate in Fortnite. In every case, it's about sabotaging the core gameplay experience for others. Griefing can vary widely from game to game but always involves someone deriving more pleasure out of irritating other players than winning outright. Not to be confused with “grieving,” griefing refers to when a player forgoes any intention to win a game and instead focuses on annoying other players by manipulating aspects of the game in unintended ways. Instead of being used as a word to describe sadness, “griefing” has become a specific form of harassment that anyone who’s ever played a cooperative online game, like Overwatch or Counter-Strike, has probably experienced before. Online gamers have given “grief” a second definition.