Absolutely. I enjoyed playing a bit of Smite at one point in time (mostly that big open area map) and some Heroes of the Storm, but I'm not a big MOBA guy. Decided one day to give League of Legends a try, why the hell not ya know?

I have never been called a 'fucking fag' and been told to kill myself more times in a 5 minutes period of time in the entirety of my 40 years on this flying shitball of a planet. Not in public school, not on Xbox Live while playing Halo, not from my abusive family, never.

Uninstalled that shit 10 mins later and went back to TF2 where I get called that only once an hour.

I have the misfortune of being a woman, so I play absolutely zero things with voice. And when I was younger, I'd pick the most 'bro' username possible just to avoid the bullshit.

Now that I'm older I just refuse to play competitive games at all. Life is too short to be constantly insulted. (Like the above user, I played LoL maybe twice before uninstalling.)

I avoid online games all together for this reason

They need to run peoples text through a sentiment analyzer and categorize players based on toxicity and group tiers of toxicity together. Maybe include tips on how to be a better human.

Big part of the reason why I enjoy cooperative games nowadays like Risk of Rain 2, Helldivers, Deep Rock Galactic, etc.

You can occasionally come across a toxic person, but the broader communities in said games are amazing on the whole.

I prefer to play the old school way- in my living room, disconnected from the internet. I'd go back to Sega Genesis and old NES any day.

I like playing paid MMORPGs. When Age of Conan came out I was excited and was really getting into my character and having fun. One day, the game was suddenly swarming with with white supremacists and stayed that way. I remember partying with people who kept trying to recruit me into hate groups while playing. The global chat was full of their dog whistles. I remember folks trying to recruit from everything neo Nazis to Nordic cults.

At one point I made a dark skinned character from the dark skinned race in the game and instead of them yelling about my faction, they hurled insults directed at my character’s race. All the classic insults for blacks and dark skinned Arabs were included. I left that game disappointed. I love sword and sorcery but could not deal with the constant race obsession of the other players.

Nah, the devs are better at making me want avoid certain games than toxic players. I can't stand predatory mechanics, they are worse than toxic players (or maybe I am too good at not giving a shit about what random kids yell to me)

I only play PvE

I avoid any fast-paced competitive game designed to appeal to 13 year olds with no attention spans and inferiority complexes.

I enjoy Smash Bros. Both in playing Ultimate and watching Melee. But I never want to go to another smash tourney, or hang out with other smash fans again. I used to be part of my university's smash group, and looking back I only got a long with a few of the people there, and everyone else was a fucking toolbag, or an incompetent manchild. I remember having an enlightening conversation with someone who tried to convince me women were incapable of playing melee competitively due to the shape of their heads and motor skills. I remember the smell being soo bad at one tournament, that I ended up forfeiting one of my matches so I could go home cause I couldn't take the smell anymore. One of my best friends, who was a brilliant Robin player in Smash 4 was called the "N" word multiple times cause people couldn't handle losing to him, and the tourney organizers would do nothing about it. I main Ness in both 4 and Ultimate, and almost got a controller thrown at me cause the guy kept running into my pk fires. and a local game store stopped hosting smash tourneys cause people wouldn't stop breaking shit after losing, and shit kept getting stolen after tourneys.

Exactly why I never bothered to play league

I'm really looking forward to Starfield. One of the most compelling selling points: no online play.

Smite: During my third game I've never been insulted like that in any other videogame.

DOTA2 advise new players to turn off communications. How did it come to that?

Not game-specific but those types of games certainly were a big factor.
I used to love playing with my school friends. Yet slowly but surely they became very toxic to play with as they became bitter in adulthood. Now I only play single player and stick to text chats with them.

Pick out one headline that kept me from picking up COD type games.

I’m looking at you overwatch, and really any mp I don’t actively play on a regular basis.

Albion Online: I've seen (what I thought was) a good deal of toxicity in games before, but the public chat in that game was by far the worst in recent memory. Uninstalled.

No they don't! You absolute moron!! /s

Unpopular opinion I guess but I just play with mic and voice disabled.

i have a lot of fun playing valorant, but in order to preserve my sanity i immediately mute everyone and disable text chat whenever i join a game. if something is important, they can ping it. it makes me sad, because in my experience the valorant lobbies are a coin toss between the sweetest and goofiest people you'll ever meet online, or the most unhinged sociopathic 16-year-olds letting their life frustrations out on you.

i want to meet those sweet and goofy people and have fun with them, but i just can't be bothered sitting through 3/4 lobbies of toxicity until i find one with mentally stable people

Definitely, I avoid online playing as the plague. Except with friends. I enjoy couch coop with my wife a lot!

At least Siege now they get the spicy dorito so you now they’re toxic and can mute them right away

In a way, I can understand.

That's why I play Fromsoft games offline

Eve online...those guys are toxic AF