Griefing
Etymology
From “grief” as in giving someone grief, the term arose in late-1990s and 2000s multiplayer games to describe players who sabotage teammates, destroy shared creations, or block progress. It named a behavior the game’s rules did not forbid but its spirit clearly did. The concept later informed how designers think about anti-social play generally.
noun · /GREE-fing/
Deliberately ruining other players’ experience in an online game purely to cause frustration.
What it names
Spoiling-for-its-own-sake inside virtual worlds, where the goal is others’ misery, not winning.
Example
Instead of playing to win, he spent the match griefing — blowing up his own team’s base for laughs.
Related idea
Griefing is trolling transplanted into a game world, where the medium is spoiling play rather than provoking argument.