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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteIn a survey of 328 gaming-oriented participants, 69% said they smurfed at least sometimes, even as participants described smurfing as a potentially toxic practice. In a separate experiment, they judged smurfing less harshly when the stated reason was playing with less-experienced friends than when it was to dominate weaker players. The results reveal how the recruited participants weighed motives—not how all gamers behave or feel.
What smurfing means in this study
The study describes smurfing as using a new account to enter matches against less-skilled opponents by evading skill-based matchmaking. It examines how people judge that behavior and the reasons players give for it. That definition does not make every alternate account, or every use of one, cheating by default.
What participants said about smurfing
The baseline survey included 328 participants recruited from gaming-focused Reddit communities and an Ohio State gaming club. According to Esports and the Law’s 2024 summary, 69% said they smurfed at least sometimes, while 94% thought other people did so at least sometimes. Participants reported playing slightly more than 24 hours of video games per week on average.
- 69%: participants who said they smurfed at least sometimes.
- 94%: participants who believed other people smurfed at least sometimes.
These are two different self-reported measures: one asks about participants’ own behavior, the other about their perceptions of other players. Neither measures account activity directly. Because the sample came from gaming-oriented communities and a gaming club, the figures are not population estimates for all online gamers.
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Why the stated motive changed blame judgments
A subsequent experiment involved 235 heavy gamers recruited from Reddit, according to the study summary. Participants judged scenarios that gave different reasons for smurfing. Playing with less-experienced friends was considered less blameworthy than smurfing to dominate weaker players. The contrast suggests that participants did not judge the act in isolation; they also considered its stated purpose.
The publisher’s abstract describes an initial exploration of smurfing and its perceived effects, an experiment involving player-generated reasons and manipulated game stakes, and a replication with a new sample. It confirms the broad study design, but the publisher record does not provide the detailed results needed to quantify the effects of each experimental condition. The study summary also reports that a third study with non-gamers found a similarly socially regulated view of blame; it gives no sample size or effect magnitude for that study.
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What the findings do—and do not—show
The apparent contradiction is that participants could report smurfing themselves while regarding it as potentially toxic. Their judgments also varied with the motive presented: playing with friends was treated differently from seeking to overpower weaker opponents. That is evidence of nuanced blame attribution in these scenarios, not proof that participants approved of smurfing or that a sympathetic reason excuses it.
The study is by Charles K. Monge and Nicholas L. Matthews, titled “Blaming the smurf: Using a novel social deception behavior in online games to test attribution theories.” SAGE lists it as first published online March 12, 2024, and in volume 27, issue 7, pages 4181–4204, in July 2025. The publisher record is access restricted, so the detailed statistical tests and study-by-study results are not available there.
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