What is Griefing?

I previously asked what is Smurfing and got an explanation that it was a subset of griefing. So now this begs the question....

What is griefing? Is Griefing really the major classification of harassment to be used in all of gaming? I thought it got started in Second Life but it seems to have become a larger part of the lexicon used to describe all other forms of 'gaming douchebaggery'.

3 Answers

Griefing is the deliberate, indiscriminate and repeated harassment of other players - with generally little actual benefit to one's own character.

It is essentially a "play style" where the player derives satisfaction from the discomfort he causes others instead from the accomplishments provided by the game itself.

This stands in contrast to unintentional bad behavior resulting from inexperience and also in contrast to harassment of specific players as can be part of a personal feud.

Some examples:

• Repeated killing of significantly less advanced characters
• Denying other players access to important resources by looting them aways immediately after they reappear.
• Denying less advanced players experience by out damaging them and claiming the kills for yourself
• Stealing the fruits of other player's labor by looting their slain monsters before they get around to it
• Convincing less experienced players to do things that will harm their progress.
• Training monsters to areas populated by player that cannot defend themself from them.

Like Mechko said: Bullying in the gaming world...

4

Griefing is definitely not a term that originated in Second Life. It's a form of trolling.

Wikipedia describes a griefer as

a player in a multiplayer video game that purposely irritates and harasses other players.

The most common form of griefing is exploiting certain game mechanics to disrupt other players in your team, like team-killing or blocking other players. It can also be someone who harasses other players, verbally or otherwise.

6

Griefing is intentionally acting in a way that annoys other players in a multiplayer game. This can both be targeted actions (e.g. always irritating the same person) or generally against everyone/anyone in the game.

Someone who performs such actions are often labelled as a griefer.

Some common methods include:

• Friendly fire, whether to kill or injure members of your team
• Spawn killing
• Blocking, such as standing in a doorway to prevent others from passing
• Spamming communications, such as playing loud music through a headset

Targeted griefing can also be labelled as bullying.

Is Griefing really the major classification of harassment to be used in all of gaming?

Yes, I would say so. Server admins (for games that offer it) will often have rules against such actions, and will be on the lookout for such actions.

Other forms of harassment may exist (bullying, racism, sexism) but many of these require functionality such as voice or messaging. Griefing can be pulled off using only the in game mechanics. From a griefers perspective you would assume they would get satisfaction from their harassment.

I would also say that there is an argument for too many examples being labelled as griefing, such as kill stealing or looting in general. Sure, it may annoy a player if someone steals their kill... but if the player who performed the kill is playing the game as it is then it shouldn't be claimed as griefing. However, it can be treated as griefing. This will vary per game, server admin, general tolerance of the available players etc.

You will also have different degrees of griefing. Whereas some players will spend their entire time annoying other players intentionally, others may perform an occasional tease such as stand in the view of a friendly sniper.