In the last two years, game developers have learned that public relations in the video game industry is about far more than customer service. With heated conflicts arising more and more between different groups of players, many game makers are finding themselves in the uncomfortable position of mediators, trying to put out the fires that flare up over divisive topics such as misogyny and racism.

In a session at Game Developers Conference 2015 in San Francisco, Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies alums Richard Vogel, Raph Koster, and Gordon Walton shared their experiences with managing volatile game communities.

Koster explained that one of the key issues dividing communities is the tendency for people to self-segregate by surrounding themselves with like-minded people, creating a “filter bubble” that functions as an echo chamber. Conflicts arise along the boundaries of where the different groups interact.

“When you have groups that strongly identify with that group and then refuse to communicate across boundaries, what happens is almost exactly like inflammation in the body,” Koster said.

Koster credited internet communities like Reddit with making it easier for people to divide themselves into these groups thanks to policies that encourage group think and discourage dissenting opinions. Comments that restate popular opinion frequently receive a high number of positive votes, pushing them to the top and making them more visible. Comments that do not conform to the popular community opinion are often downvoted to the point that they are no longer visible unless a user specifically clicks on the button to view them.

According to Koster, removing the ability to downvote comments on sites like Reddit while retaining the ability to upvote would make the communities better. While Reddit does have an option for individual subreddits to remove the downvote button from their posts, the feature does not work on mobile devices and it can be easily circumvented on web browsers.

Koster also mentioned the tendency for groups to form mobs online, which make it much more difficult for sites like Twitter to prevent abuse since each user might send only one hateful message that together can add up to thousands.

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