BACKGROUND

China is the largest mobile gaming market in the world.

It’s also the most toxic.

According to research (Tencent 2021), over 70% of all gamers have experienced toxic bullying.

As an industry leader, Samsung wanted to tackle this toxic behaviour head on.

IDEA

TOXIC BACKFIRE. Making gaming bullies face their own toxic behaviour.

INSIGHT

When gamers bully, they poison the experience for everyone involved.

STRATEGY

So we flipped the script.

And made gaming bullies face their own toxic behaviour.

EXECUTION

In collaboration with NetEase, one of the country’s leading game developers, we hacked ‘Condor Heroes’—a ground-breaking MMO-RPG* that captivated millions across China.

Since bullying happens on voice chat during team play, we used the game’s ‘Abusive Language Detection System’ to identify toxic language.

We then made bullies face their own toxic behaviour, quite literally.

Every time the system detected any sign of bullying, it visualised the behaviour as a toxic mist, temporarily obscuring the bully’s gaming environment.

The more they bullied, the thicker the mist. Making it increasingly difficult for them to see and play.

All in real-time.

All within the game.

Disappearing only once they stopped their toxic behaviour.

* MMO-RPG = Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game

RESULTS

The hacked game sent a strong message to gaming bullies.

In just three weeks, over two million bullies faced their own toxic behaviour.

Reports of in-game bullying dropped by 35%.

Making this one of the most effective anti-bullying campaigns in China’s gaming history.

The message was clear:

Toxic behaviour can backfire.

The more gamers bully, the more unplayable their own game becomes.