Griefing

A griefer is a player in a multiplayer video game who deliberately irritates and angers other players within the game, often using aspects of the game in unintended ways. A griefer derives pleasure primarily or exclusively from the act of annoying other users, and as such is a particular nuisance in online gaming communities, since griefers often cannot be deterred by penalties related to in-game goals.

The term was applied to online, multiplayer computer games by the year 2000 or earlier, as illustrated by postings to the rec.games.computer.ultima.online USENET group. The player is said to cause "grief" in the sense of "giving someone grief".

The term "griefing" dates to the late 1990s, when it was used to describe the willfully antisocial behaviors seen in early massively multiplayer online games like Ultima Online and first-person shooters such as Counter-Strike. But even before it had a name, griefer-like behavior was familiar in the virtual worlds of text-based Multi-User Domains (MUDs), where joyriding invaders visited "virtual rape" and similar offenses on the local populace. Julian Dibbell's 1993 article A Rape in Cyberspace analyzed the griefing events in a particular MUD, LambdaMOO, and the staff's response.

In the culture of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) in Taiwan, such as Lineage, griefers are known as "white-eyed"—a metaphor meaning that their eyes have no pupils and so they look without seeing. Behaviors other than griefing which can cause players to be stigmatized as "white-eyed" include cursing, cheating, stealing, and unreasonable killing.

Methods of griefing differ from game to game. What might be considered griefing in one area of a game may even be an intended function or mechanic in another area. Common methods may include but are not limited to:

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