Smurfing, creating new or secondary accounts to compete against less experienced gamers, is regarded as toxic in many online gaming communities. However, many gamers still engage in this behavior.
A study by Charles Monge and Nicolas Matthews at the Ohio State University gathered data from gamers whose average weekly game time is slightly more than 24 hours. The results showed that the participants viewed ‘smurfs’ as more likely to exhibit toxic behavior compared to other players. Despite this, 69 percent of the participants admitted to occasional smurfing, and 94 percent thought others did so too. The participants often defended their smurfing, claiming valid reasons for it and believing others who smurfed were more likely to be toxic.
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The authors conducted a second experiment to evaluate reasons behind smurfing, with 235 heavy gamers participating and tasked to fairly assess the blame based on reasons. The response from the participants aligned with what is called a “socially regulated” perspective on blame, which means that there is a requirement for evidence to justify blame. This is in contrast with “motivated-blame perspective,” which lacks a nuanced approach on blame and views all wrongful actions as equally blameworthy.
The authors then repeated the second study with a group of non-gamers, and the results showed that non-gamers also had the same nuanced approach on assigning blame. Based on the results, the researchers suggest that many gamers may have a more nuanced relationship with smurfing, and simply stating that smurfing is unwelcome might be an oversimplification.