Introduction
Video games are increasingly becoming a fertile ground for exploitation by criminal and extremist networks. A comprehensive report from the Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) highlights that criminals, extremists and terrorists, often at the forefront of exploiting digital vulnerabilities, are active on these gaming platforms.
Meanwhile, across the Nordics in general, and Sweden in particular, adolescents are being drawn into criminal networks at unprecedented rates. Swedish law enforcement and social services have reported an increase in youth gang involvement, with children as young as 12 being drawn into criminal activities such as drug trafficking and even violence. Within such context, and towards this demographic, virtual environments are increasingly being harnessed both for active recruitment and the advancement of illicit agendas. The accessibility and anonymity make them particularly attractive tools for illicit actors to reach and, accordingly, influence a broader audience.
In Sweden, for instance, games like Roblox and gaming adjustment platforms such as Steam are used as recruitment tools, where criminals first engage young players casually before introducing them to illegal activities. Recruiters in these virtual spaces are particularly adept at identifying and manipulating vulnerable individuals, often those who feel alienated or face challenges at home or school. The ease of access and anonymity provided by these platforms, combined with a youth culture steeped in online interaction, creates an ideal environment for recruitment into organised crime, with many adolescents unaware of the real-life consequences until they are already deeply involved.
With just over 3.22 billion active gamers worldwide, extremists and other criminal networks have a particular incentive to use the available digital infrastructure to disseminate propaganda that fuels recruitment. This precipitates a steady supply of potential targets and is characterised by a comparably low level of risk.
As certain gaming platforms–such as Steam and Discord—continue to enable users to engage in extremist and criminal ideological narratives and recruit others, a lack of effective mechanisms risks exacerbating already severe circumstances. Police involved in these matters have shown increasing concern for young people who receive communication from online extremist communities, as this directly increases the risk of recruitment. One notable example is the far-right Nordic Resistance Movement, which has actively attempted to influence young people through online gaming experiences such as Roblox.
Despite a seeming agreement on the importance of the subject, there remains a paucity of research on the gamification of illicit activities online and the misuse of related technologies, presumably due to the early stage of its development. Nevertheless, it is possible to develop a hypothesis based on available trends, demonstrating the manipulation of online spaces and how illegitimate usage of game mechanics may actively fuel criminal and extremist recruiting. This Insight seeks to highlight the benefits of applying gamification to serve a greater societal purpose, which is one of many countermeasures suggested in confronting extremist communities in games.
Trends
- Recruitment of Vulnerable Youth
It has been well-established that multiple extremist movements operate within the digital environment. However, the influence of criminal networks within gaming spaces has remained unclear. Recent trends in violent crime perpetrated by increasingly younger individuals, especially in the Nordic region, have led to a proliferation of studies that apply a similar framework of analysis concerning game-adjacent platforms’ role in recruitment, group formation and mobilisation. Their accessibility, along with the shortcomings of current moderation strategies in identifying and controlling deviant digital behaviours, makes it easier for young gamers to be openly invited to join criminal groups, often presented as providing an appealing lifestyle to more socially disadvantaged groups. Examples of such deviant behaviours include glorifying violence, promoting hate speech and normalising illegal activities like drug dealing within gaming chats. Such behaviours can be triggered by in-game experiences that reward aggression, to name only a few. Recruiters exploit these emotional triggers by framing criminal involvement as an empowering escape or a way to achieve a rapid increase in status.
Perpetrators, including both criminals and ideologically motivated extremists like far-right groups, use popular platforms such as Steam, Twitch and Discord, along with games frequented by those they seek to influence. Games, in general, provide a clear focus on the specific demographic that criminals and extremists want to target, typically younger individuals or adolescents on the neurodivergence spectrum, who may be more impressionable and susceptible to influence. First-person shooters (FPS) such as Call of Duty and Counter-Strike have historically been mentioned as high-risk communities due to their violent graphical content. However, Minecraft, Fortnite and Roblox also enable access to a younger demographic and have shown even higher levels of illicit attempts at contact. Consequently, digital game spaces seem to be particularly vulnerable to recruitment efforts. This even includes the recruitment of individuals with little-to-no prior experience of extremist or criminal activities.
According to Linda Schlegel and Rachel Kowert, this sort of recruitment is a gradual process that often begins subtly. Recruiters tend to start by building rapport with the young players by engaging in casual conversations during gameplay sessions. Gradually, they introduce criminal or radical ideologies, often masked as jokes or in-game narratives. Vulnerable individuals, especially those facing personal or social challenges, are drawn in by the camaraderie and validation they receive. Once trust is established, recruiters invite them to private channels where antisocial content is shared more explicitly. Incrementally, the exposure deepens, with players being encouraged to participate in real-world criminal acts as a means of proving loyalty. This process is quickened by the emotional and psychological immersion gaming environments offer, making the transition from virtual to real-world engagement straightforward.
- “Malevolent creativity” and Gamification of Violence
What is striking with the most recent developments is not only the extent of its severity but also how the process of violence has come to adhere to the rules of the environment it inhabits. Elements commonly linked to games have started to play a significant role in real-world actions. Gamified features such as points and rankings are being applied in recruitment efforts and the execution of other criminal activities.
The term ‘Malevolent creativity’ is a relatively new concept for explaining such phenomena, commonly referred to as “[stressing] a dark side to creativity, asserting that certain groups use creativity to fulfil their aims towards conducting acts that have intentionally harmful consequences for another group”. In this sense, criminal and extremist subcultures that operate in the digital realm employ game design elements outside gaming contexts, a concept called gamification, to incentivise violence. For example, they use virtual leaderboards to track ‘high scores’ of killings or acts of violence, and rank individuals based on their criminal activities. On platforms like Discord, this means users can earn badges or ranks for committing violent acts, creating competition and rewarding engagement in real-world crime. By tapping into the psychology of achievement and competition, these tactics make recruitment more effective, especially amongst the youngest audience, who are drawn in by the allure of status and recognition.
These tactics foster deeper engagement and reinforce commitment to a shared violent antisocial agenda by integrating game-like elements such as rewards, challenges and progression systems. By doing so, these networks make their ideology more appealing and immersive, effectively motivating individuals to participate and remain committed to the cause.
- Infiltration of Online Communities
If it is assumed that gaming-adjacent ecosystems can be exploited to propagandise, recruit and mobilise extremist actors, which contemporary research suggests, extremist organisations may seek to continue to infiltrate online communities. Such concerns are increasingly relevant in the Nordic context, where criminal and extremist groups have been active in leveraging online platforms to groom and recruit young people across regional borders.
These actors forge relationships with specific gamer profiles, supporting real-world political or criminal agendas. Interestingly, this process often starts with seemingly innocent friendships based on shared interests and grievances. By leveraging game mechanics, they conduct trust-building exercises, fostering emotional closeness and a sense of camaraderie with potential recruits. These include in-game chat functions, the use of gameplay elements that shape audience behaviour, astroturfing tactics to create the illusion of widespread support, and gameplay footage as a means of showing and gamifying their intended goals. By leveraging these mechanisms, games may inadvertently promote illicit activities by satisfying certain psychological needs such as “feeling competent, feeling autonomous and experiencing social relatedness”.
Thus far, the experience from the Nordic region has shown that the recruitment process has evolved. Historically, recruitment into extremist or criminal groups has been slow and resource-intensive, requiring multiple in-person contact opportunities. Today, game-adjacent platforms allow for faster, more efficient recruitment without the need for geographical proximity. Rather, by infiltrating existing communities, recruitment becomes functionally different from more traditional forms of off- and online procedures. Essentially, players may be groomed to trust other users considerably faster than they would in traditional, non-digital relationships, in the presence of a shared, sometimes even stressful activity.
Recommendations
The gaming industry should prioritise systems, services, and support to reduce the risk of recruitment into criminal gangs or extremist groups. Crucially, any and all countermeasures should be devised as strategic partnerships between the industry, players and governments. The tools should aid the standardisation and transparency of Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) in digital crime prevention. Multi-stakeholder initiatives like The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) are considered a good start but are currently nowhere near their full potential due to a lack of many prominent game member-companies (Roblox and Epic Games are crucial absentees here).
By leveraging the expertise of various industries and actors, proactive measures can be implemented to safeguard against misuse without compromising the core gaming experience or alienating players. According to the European Crime Prevention Network, “[s]uch framework should include potential funding mechanisms, advisory channels, basic standardised procedures and agreements, analysis plans and evaluation models.” More transparency needs to be encouraged between institutions, researchers and industry stakeholders about how physical and psychological harm manifests in the digital sphere. This should include large-scale empirical studies, which are needed to understand the nature and magnitude of extremism and illegal activities on gaming sites. This data can then be used to intervene before an individual fully engages with extremist networks. Access would not be without legal precedent either. Several governments are already drafting and implementing legislation that mandates access to social media company data for crime prevention. By doing this, games can get the required data to design features that help detect early signs of radicalisation, such as radical changes in behaviour or language.
It should also be acknowledged that while rogue actors have successfully used gamification in online communities to recruit and radicalise, governments and industries have yet to fully apply gamification to prevent digital crime. Gamification could be used to engage both users and specialists in crime prevention by harnessing interactive tools to serve a broader societal goal. Gamified design allows users to take action in the digital space and influence outcomes in the real world. By integrating gamified approaches, it is possible to change behaviours and attitudes by making users more engaged. Interactive scenarios could expose the manipulative tactics of criminals or extremists, while promoting problem-solving and independent thinking in a safe online environment. By simulating real-life decision-making in high-stakes situations, without the real consequences, these gamified elements can help build resilience and critical thinking. Experiencing the outcomes of crime and violence in a virtual world can inspire players to become part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
Gamification can be a reasonable approach to tackle the issue of online recruitment, and be used to teach gamers about digital literacy, online safety and signs of criminal recruitment. Examples of this already exist on the market. However, the end-user should not be expected to be held solely responsible for curbing criminal recruitment online. The industry needs to implement safety measures from the initial stages of development. By shifting from a reactive to a proactive approach when addressing antisocial behaviour, games and game-adjacent platforms should be promoting positive narratives and counter-messaging. This can be achieved by encouraging positive social values, critical thinking, and empathy, which help counter the narratives used by illicit networks to recruit members. To this end, gamification can be used to develop targeted interventions through top-down and bottom-up designs.
Per-Albin Johansson is a project manager at the Safer Sweden Foundation. He holds a Master’s degree in Conflict Transformation, a multidisciplinary field that addresses conflict resolution and societal resilience. With extensive experience researching militarisation, extremism, and societal vulnerabilities, Johansson currently specialises in online safety, security, and mitigating the impacts of cybercrime on adolescents. His work explores the intersection of technology, crime, and societal risks, contributing to a deeper understanding of the challenges posed by digitalisation.