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Tech

Slay Internet Trolls in Social Justice Warriors, the Game

Just like on the actual internet, there’s no winning in this game.
A Social Justice Mage in fierce battle with an Internet Troll. Screengrab: Kari Paul/Social Justice Warriors

The depressing, endless war against internet trolls has now been immortalized in a video game.

The new medieval fantasy style game Social Justice Warriors is a satirical, role-playing saga where you battle an endless horde of internet trolls. Released in May of 2014 and on Steam at the end of February, the game has you choose from four "Social Justice Warrior" (SJW) characters and fight five different categories of trolls, gamifying the depressing internet reality many people face each day.

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Eric Ford, the game's designer and programmer wrote that he first heard the term "social justice warrior" during an internet controversy surrounding gaming culture. An image circu​lated called "Social Justice Warrior journalists to avoid," listing writers at prominent gaming sites like Kotaku and Polygon who should be avoided.

"After learning more about the phrase, it struck me as a strange label intended to unilaterally invalidate someone's opinions and silence them," Ford said in a ​post about the creation of the game. "The words 'justice' and 'warrior' are too empowering to be wasted in a pejorative label so I decided to respond the best way I know: with a video game."

Exacting justice, one tweet at a time. Kari Paul/Social Justice Warriors 

The Social Justice Warriors a player can choose from include one character whose main power is countering attacks with the Block button, and another that occasionally summons an activist organization or writes a scathing blog post.

The trolls range in levels and complexity of their insults. The level 1 trolls are the most basic, spouting out generic offensive comments like, "If they'd go back to their own country, we'd solve the unemployment problem." Other times the troll will reply with long-winded, pointless essays that you don't read.

Ford said he wanted to show the futility of the eternal stream of internet arguments. Depending on which SJW character you choose, the retaliation options include tactics like "riposte," tweeting a counterpoint to the troll's attack, "counterattack," retweeting the troll's tweet to your followers, and "lunge," tweeting a list of the troll's character flaws. The goal is to maintain your sanity and reputation levels while depleting the sanity and reputation of the trolls.

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Like battling trolls on the actual internet, Social Justice Warriors is a losing game. There is no victory condition, Ford says, so the only possible outcomes for a player is that their sanity or reputation is worn down until they lose. Either that or they "ragequit."

"I hope players become more cognizant of the personal cost of engaging caustic individuals relative to what society will gain from the argument," Ford said in a post.

The game's title was controversial, Ford s​aid, adding that the internet seemed split on who he had set out to insult with the game. But he wasn't choosing sides when he created it.

"It's not a pro-SJW game or an anti-SJW game, it's a human game," he wrote.

Ultimately, Ford wants to alter people's perspectives and make them rethink how they spend time on the internet, no matter which camp they hate more, trolls or SJWs.

For $8, you can see if this game changes ​your perspective too.

Correction: An earlier version of this story said that Social Justice Warriors was released last week and inspired by the Gamergate controversy; in fact, it was only released on Steam recently and originally came out before Gamergate.