Comments on: Why do Griefers Grief?

By: Connor Edwards

Connor Edwards — Mon, 09 Dec 2013 14:21:24 +0000

I grief b/c it`s damn funny to watch idiots rage about how “IT TOOK MAH HURS TA BILD DAT AN YOU JSUT GRIFED IT!!!!!!!!!! WAAAAAAAA!” (On some games, the griefed player spells it THAT badly) Also, I sometimes do it just because I need materials, and people build their houses and junk out of INCREDIBLY valuable things sometimes.

By: vegna fouroux

vegna fouroux — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 18:31:54 +0000

for the lulz.

are you retarded?

By: Lurdan Huszar

Lurdan Huszar — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 10:58:13 +0000

Ask the Alliance Navy why they grief and then accuse US of griefing. No, go ahead, ask them.

By: Anon

Anon — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 02:36:26 +0000

What’s funny is almost all of those reasons are why people play video games in the first place. And you left out entertainment. As for fixing the problem, it can’t be done unless the very mechanics of the game are restricted to that which cannot be used to grief. As for who griefs is as follows: anyone who already, or has a moment of either not caring about in game reputation, or lack of a serious attitude toward the game. Seriously, lighten up and laugh at it, it happens to EVERYONE.

By: bob

bob — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 08:39:09 +0000

Why I grief? Because there are people out there who pay more attention to this than their real lives. They need to switch off the computer and go back to their families and friends.

By: Urizenus

Urizenus — Mon, 31 May 2004 12:53:04 +0000

Sorry, I guess I meant you should email the guy and see what he has.

On the question of why non-griefers don’t grief, I think this is really part of a more general question about the emergence of cooperative behavior, and there *is* a lot of research on this using Game Theory (in the Von Neuman/Nash sense of game theory). There are models in which you do a spatialized prisoners dilemma and then see which strategies are successful over numerous iterations. In many models the cooperative behavior is the most successful.

Another factor, which I’ve seen in game theory work by Joe Epstein at the Brookings Institution is simply that the strategy employed by most people is immitative, so that if the people around them behave they do to. It might be as simple as that.

Didn’t mean to be dismissive of your questin earlier. It really is very interesting.

By: Docosa

Docosa — Mon, 31 May 2004 10:56:40 +0000

Yes, I followed the links from Tera Nova, as I stated earlier, but even Chek Yang Foo’s phD website only gave some abstracts about his research, not the full study (as expected, since it appears he’s not quite done yet). And based on that, I came to the conclusion that it focused mainly on why people become griefers, not why some don’t.

But since you don’t know where to find the study online either, or even to a spot that discusses the side of why some don’t become griefers, I guess I should probably just ask Chek Yang Foo himself, if I’m that interested.

By: Urizenus

Urizenus — Sun, 30 May 2004 21:08:20 +0000

You should follow the Terra Nova links to Chek Yang Foo.

By: Docosa

Docosa — Sun, 30 May 2004 20:34:26 +0000

Other than the trail of links I could follow from this article and Tera Nova, no. Care to provide other links where they looked at all sides of the issue? I could only find unsupported facts (we are talking about human motivation, so it would be nice if I saw some statistically sound surveys, rather than people just flapping their mouths of what one person perceives) of why griefer do it. I found nothing approaching it from all angles, such as why the other side doesn’t grief.

By: Urizenus

Urizenus — Sun, 30 May 2004 11:58:04 +0000

well, first of all, have you read the study? Or even seen it? Asked for it? Know how to get it?