The research, framed in the European project Play your role, proposes the study and analysis of the state of the art in video game panorama, focusing the tendency to the use of hate speech by the young players.
The immersion of the player in the symbolic arena of the game, where everything becomes possible, raises moral questions about the relationship between video games, in the virtual world and the player’s behaviour in the physical world. It is shown that the use of anonymity and the creation of communities and game groups can lead to exclusion and attacks to the minorities; chat communications can facilitate the sharing of interests and game techniques as well as insults in times of tension between players, leading to reflection on the role of gaming platform in the control of the shared content.
Taking into account the possibilities of video games, this article also reflects about game literacy and how games can become powerful learning tools.