Flame and Fortune: The Connection Between Toxic Behavior and In-game Purchasing in Multiplayer Online Games

The extant scholarship on player toxicity in multiplayer online games has focused on the harms that it causes to players, communities, and developers, and has assumed, that it is in the interest of all key stakeholders to mitigate such behaviors. Both research and practice have developed measures to combat and curb toxicity, yet these actions appear insufficient since negative behaviors persist. In this paper, we examine the relationship between players’ propensity to engage in toxic behaviors and their in-game purchasing behavior. For this, we collected data from 204 League of Legends players and performed a multiple regression analysis using demographics, controls, and toxic behavior as independent variables to explain the dependent variable purchase behavior. This analysis revealed a positive relationship between self-reported toxic behavior and purchase behavior. This finding suggests that while developers may wish to get rid of toxicity, it is not in their financial interests to ban toxic players altogether. This, in part, may explain the persistence and prevalence of toxicity in multiplayer online games. Future research may look into characteristics such as deficient self-regulation as potential explanations for the positive correlation between toxicity and purchase behavior.