
Riot, Blizzard, Twitch and others are teaming up to fight toxic gaming behavior - thg
https://kotaku.com/riot-blizzard-and-twitch-are-teaming-up-to-fight-toxi-1823941488
======
WA
Man, I wouldn't want to be a community manager in those games. Trash-talking
is one thing – and I'm quite quick with the mute-button (and usually let them
know), but something that is incredibly hard to spot/punish is _behavior_ in
competitive games. Once you reach a certain skill level, a single guy on the
team makes or breaks the entire match.

With League of Legends, the problem is that a match lasts at least 20 minutes
(not sure if this is still the case) until someone can surrender. A while
back, I then played Heroes of the Storm, where most matches aren't longer than
20 minutes.

Nowadays, I played a lot of Rocket League, where each match is 5 minutes (or 7
at most, depending on the amount of "goal cams"). But still, they can feel a
bit like an eternity, if your mate decides that "you're a fucking noob,
because you missed the ball 10 seconds into the game and we certainly can't
win in the next 4:50 minutes" and just plays like an idiot. Sure, you can
report those players, but ultimately, someone has to review the games and I
suspect this is quite impossible to achieve.

So, what's the solution? I don't know. Maybe the solution is on an individual
level – stop playing "for the win", but try to enjoy the ingame moments (like
"I hit the ball mid-air" or "I achieved a pentakill"). Or only play with
friends on your team and mute the other team.

After all, in most competitive games, you achieve about 50% win rate anyways,
once you reach a certain mid-range skill level and don't play with your
friends, because the match making algorithms will sometimes give you good team
mates and other times bad, or toxic, ones.

~~~
jotm
The solution is to block the person you don't like, never having to see or
hear from him again. Seems pretty fair. You'll be matched with less "toxic"
people, they'll be matched with similar minded people, which they may or may
not like. No need for suspensions or bans, imo.

~~~
philipov
That is the most obvious solution, and completely wrong.

If you give people the ability to block others from being matchmade with them,
they will use it to keep themselves from being matched with players who play
poorly, but aren't at all toxic. At higher skill ranks, where the player pool
is small and there is a high chance of being matched with the same players
repeatedly, it has huge opportunity for abuse.

It is a good demonstration of why it is a hard problem, because you can't just
implement the most naively obvious solution: you have to design against the
abuse-case.

~~~
Joe-Z
I'd much rather have a system which may fail for a small subset of players,
than having a game company tell me what constitutes good or bad behaviour.

This is a problem which _can't_ be solved by a central authority. That's like
asking the police to go around making people be nice to each other:

Yes, they can control the most blatant abuses (IRL: violence, theft, etc. ->
Online: Cheating, DDosing, etc.), but they will never be able to - and should
never have the right to - control for every possible sub-optimal
communication. You yourself have the tools to do that (IRL: go away, call
someone out, etc. -> online: Mute, Leave the game, etc.)

~~~
philipov
I'm not sure whether you're agreeing with me or not, because, while I don't
think it's possible to solve this problem using a central authority, it is a
problem that affects a very large portion of the playerbase, so your dichotomy
is false. It is not a problem that affects a "small subset of players"

~~~
Joe-Z
No the "small subset of players" was referring to top players that would be
affected by people misusing blocking other players.

As for all the players "affected" by this problem: People should learn to
chill out. In a virtual, anonymous setting, some people will use the
opportunity to be mean to you. That's why muting and block was introduced. I
don't get the big deal, even though a big number of people seem to be
"affected".

Actually, one of the wort statements in the whole article:

"There’s no IRL and online anymore. This is just all reality now."

WTF? That is the _point_ of creating virtual spaces or play per se. If I want
a dose of reality I might as well watch the news and do some bookkeeping.

------
mehlmao
I miss games that allowed players to host their own servers. Players could
find a server with a community they like and play there. Ultra-competitive
players, people who wanted to mess around on weird custom maps, and people who
didn't want to see or hear any swearing could all find a server that fit them
and enjoy playing.

In the past 10 years or so new games have mostly stopped including this, in
favor of matchmaking systems. I guess having a single, official server makes
easier to enforce "progression" systems and sell microtransactions. I'd also
suspect the the disappearance of community servers has to do with the rise of
online multiplayer on consoles, which never really had that as an option.

~~~
089723645897236
This to me shows the biggest problem with games. They aren't made by gamers
anymore. It's Yet Another Media Outlet so it's been cash cowed to death.

Split screen is gone too. It used to be mandatory in the 1990s-2000s for FPS,
now your lucky if a current gen title has split screen at all. This ruins one
of the primary fun things to do with a game which is couch play.

Both of these things make it harder to microtransact and make games RPG like,
so I get it. But I hate it really. The games are worse.

~~~
crysin
While not the sole or even probably a significant reason for the decline in
split screen; I think split-screen has really suffered because of the need for
consoles to be both somewhat affordable but also not terribly behind in terms
of horsepower of what PCs can do at the time of the console's release.
Depending on the game, the split screen can double the load on the cpu and
gpu, and with consoles the way they are now their fps would plummet. A lot of
games still are locked in at 30, some 60, which by most PC gamer's standards
is already horribly behind. Now of days the vocal crowd of PC gamers say the
only way to game is by playing games on 144hz monitors. While I would love to
see the return of split screen, I don't think it will with the push to have
games be on every platform now and run decently on all those platforms as
well.

------
scrollaway
I'm cautiously optimistic on this. I don't know what they can actually do, but
I'll take anything at this point. Toxicity really ruins the gaming experience.

Game devs and designers nowadays go out of their way to prevent people from
being assholes to each other in games, but it still happens. Even games such
as Hearthstone or Clash Royale, that are entirely limited to emotes, still
develop a language around telling the opponent "fuck you".

I'd argue that in games, it's worse than around the web. If someone's being a
jerk to me on HN, Facebook, Twitter etc I can just choose to ignore them,
block them, not mind them, etc. But in games you are forced to interact,
either as co-op or opponent.

Being matched up with respectful people (either as teammate or opponent) is
one of the most rewarding things in gaming. And being matched up with assholes
is one of the worst experiences. So every match you roll the dice on whether
you're going to feel great or feel like shit by the end of the game, and it
usually has nothing to do with winning or losing. I find that whenever I start
truly enjoying a game, regularly being paired up with toxic people impacts the
experience to the point of quitting. Both Overwatch and Rocket League, two
delightful, fantastic and rewarding games, were completely ruined for me
because of that.

~~~
resonanttoe
I think you've hit on the core of the problem but the solution is always
skated around.

"But in games you are forced to interact, either as co-op or opponent."

The typical response here is to give players a greater degree of blocking and
selection, which I find to be particularly unappealling as it becomes a case
of "whack-a-mole". Similarly muting toxic players works the same way, you have
to expose yourself to it to find out if you want it blocked.

For me, I'd opt for an option that is muting/deafening myself. Allow me to say
I don't want to interact or be acted upon and have that apply globally. There
is never an instance where I'd turn this back on and have these set throughout
the duration of the game (I.E, I can't turn it back on, just to emote my fuck
you and block the opponent from replying.)

My ideal scenario in multiplayer games is to have the skill and randomness of
human players without any of their personality. Games that do this reasonably
well are games like PUBG, where I can mute the mic and there is no text chat.
Similarly the game is frantic enough that taking the 20 seconds to emote your
way to some obnoxious point backfires more routinely than not. (However I'm
not a fan of the fact they have just introduced emotes... it bodes not well.)

I think because of this there is a class of "not-multiplayer" online game
players who want all the game play aspects that multiplayer has to offer, but
none of the interactions. I'd sacrifice the respectful people matching rewards
(and you're right, it's awesome when that happens) if it meant getting rid of
dickheads. But that is up to the individual.

~~~
throwaway2048
Blocking is massively abusable in competitive games, just block everyone
better than you, instant rank up against people you can beat every time. This
can be, will be, and has been abused.

~~~
always_good
Dunno, seems like suggesting that PageRank is impossible because you could
just spam a link thousands of times on your site to pump its ranking.

That seems like the weakness in someone's naive weekend-ware implementation,
but is there a reason it cannot be improved?

~~~
throwaway2048
Google has abandoned page rank for pretty much that exact reason

------
ManlyBread
From what I heard Blizzard is already overdoing it, going as far as punishing
a professional player for posting a meme on Twitter or muting people for
"toxicity" and then punishing them again for lack of communication.

For me, this isn't a problem to be solved on such a high level. After all, a
mute function exists already and can be applied to anyone and the best thing
is that it's a power within the hands of a player.

~~~
crysin
Part of the thing with Blizzard is they have the Overwatch League which
they're trying really hard to legitimize as a true spectator sport. I don't
know the specific person you're referencing in your post but there are players
like xQc who have been banned as they're official league members who have
agreements about their public behavior and repercussions if they break those.
Blizzard does go pretty hard on the ban hammer in Overwatch overall, but most
of the news worthy bans have been about Overwatch League players, who have a
bit more of intimate relation with Blizzard than regular professional gamers.

~~~
s73v3r_
People say they go heavy now, but when Overwatch came out, they didn't really
do anything, and it was a pretty toxic cesspool. From what I've heard, most
people are happy that they've started to clean it up.

------
AndrewUnmuted
Reading all this controversy over poor behavior really surprised me. I have
played online games on and off in a highly casual fashion for about two
decades now - the quake series, counter-strike since the beta days, starcraft
1/2, warcraft 3, etc. - and I have always seen these antics as mostly
miniscule and harmless.

Someone writes hateful/immature messages in the chat? Ignore them. Someone's
audio-spamming the voice chat with their stupid music? Mute them. I mute voice
chats by default these days because I am not interested in hearing other
peoples' voices when I'm immersed in a game. I rarely use the chat, often
removing it from my HUD altogether. It's a distraction and I think it gets in
the way of the gameplay.

Are we so easily offended that we'd rather be overly-sensitive towards the
immaturity of others? Do we all need to remember the sticks and stones rhyme
our parents taught us? Aren't we better off by learning how to be unbothered
by this stuff?

~~~
mto
Well, I usually don't care for some time. But if you play a lot and you see
this crap every evening for hours... it just starts to dampen the mood. For me
at least. I can not ignore the chat, from time to time there's useful stuff in
there.

Actually when I was a teen it didn't bother me at all. I so played
counterstrike when it was a HL mod, Ultima Online when killing, cleanlooting,
horsekilling, resskilling, notokilling, blocking and cleanlooting, house raids
etc were still the norm. Didn't bother me.

Actually the older I get the more I don't have the nerves anymore for all this
crap.

------
ABCLAW
Developers are very quick to level the finger at players for the emergent
behavior that their game systems create.

Frustrating game experiences where players feel like they've had no agency in
their loss lead to people being upset, which leads to people venting, which
leads to people avoiding communication unless they vent. Most games that have
this cycle start off fairly pleasant, and become increasingly angry places
over time.

I'd be exceptionally surprised if this initiative actually deals with the core
issues of frustration and poor skill conveyance rather than improved methods
of having people suppress their anger while playing.

------
muse900
Where is Valve... cs:go is the most toxic game i've ever played... and its one
of those games which has no support team behind it, once you report something
noone from the company gets to see your report... The amount of racist names
etc that goes unpunished in there is unbelievable.

~~~
jelly
Valve have traditionally taken a hands-off approach to the communities
surrounding its games; I would be surprised to see their name among the list
and I like how they do things currently. Though I have experienced toxicity in
CS:GO, it has been no worse than in other competitive games.

~~~
fenwick67
It was better when people hosting their own servers was the focus (CS:S and
CS1.6). This way you could find a nice community, with good moderators and
rules that you liked, and settle in.

Nowadays you are just thrown in a blender with every other player.

~~~
jelly
That's exactly my feeling as well, a less-friendly player base is one of the
unintended consequences of matchmaking

------
sergiotapia
Noble goals, I hope they don't lose their way and try to overextend their
influence by silencing non-"progressive" behavior or "wrongthink".

I hope everybody wins.

It seems like they're going to heavily censor popular streamers:

"This is just all reality now. So streamers are ambassadors of culture bigger
than just League of Legends or whichever game. They’re ambassadors of online
life."

~~~
NTripleOne
>I hope they don't lose their way and try to overextend their influence by
silencing non-"progressive" behavior or "wrongthink"

Blizzard already do.

------
TACIXAT
I think a large problem is people often attribute their loss to their team's
lack of skill rather than the excellent performance of the other team.
Sometimes you get stomped. Sometimes you're playing against a really cohesive
group or against some outstanding individuals. If people complemented more
often than they criticized games would feel amazing to play. I have no clue
how to change that besides slowly calling it out as you see it.

Edit: The only thing that makes me sad about these changes is you can't mess
around any more. It is sometimes fun to grief. It's fun to learn new
characters or play shitty ones. Everyone is so hyper competitive now and if
you don't look like you're giving 1000% effort and getting mad at your
failures you're called toxic. It's a game though, have fun, mess with your
team a little.

------
iooi
I would love to be optimistic about this, but I don't think the solution to
this is going to be "creating a consistent set of standards and rules across
multiple multinational companies".

In my opinion, some of these games are bound to create toxic situations when
playing with randoms. Take a game like League, where a single player that's
underperforming can cause the entire team to lose. This dynamic is core to the
game, and it's the root cause of toxicity.

Compare that to a game like Counter Strike, where an underperformer might not
drag their team down that much, and there is an option to kick the person from
the team. The game is still winnable -- it will be harder, but it would not be
impossible like in League.

Also, surprised not to see Valve in this list. Dota 2 and Counter Strike are
still pretty big titles, even if they haven't made a game in a while.

------
dandersh
Yea I don't see this working.

For starters the problem isn't the games, or the enforcement mechanisms, it's
the gamers. There are plenty of other competitive activities with "randoms"
that do not result in this type of behavior.

Another issue is that there will be those that get punished/removed that will
play the victim and attribute it to politics, etc. You can see this beginning
already in some of the comments in this thread about "dictating morality" and
"silencing non-progressive behavior."

~~~
empath75
Bad players drive out good players. If you had a game that had zero tolerance
for shitty behavior and an enforced code of conduct, you’d have a better
community.

~~~
dandersh
Sure. As long as you:

Throughly and clearly defined shitty behavior that had wide agreement. Had an
effective form of zero tolerance that was both deterrent and enforcement. Had
a clear code of conduct that was neutral to all. Correctly identified players
and prevented false positives. Was willing to remove anyone, no matter how
popular they were. Was willing to remove anyone, no matter how profitable they
were.

You know what else would make for a better community? Better citizens.

------
swarnie_
Maybe i'm too old for the communities now. I gave up playing Arena games due
to the toxic communities and now stick to arranged teams in Rocket League.

A far more enjoyable experience even if i do meet a shockingly large number of
my moms sexual partners.

------
piahoo
Toxic communities is the strongest reason why I am not playing online games at
all.

~~~
mattbeckman
I miss the days when I used to play DotA/LoL etc., but I don't miss the
toxicity.

------
danharaj
Maybe I'll be able to play Overwatch again! I aged out of that environment so
suddenly after I took a year long break from gaming, but to be honest it was
never good for me to begin with.

------
justicezyx
I thought China is the only one want to regulate their people's everyday
behaviors...

It turns out the whole idea of freedom is nothing but a degree of how alone
one can live. The more alone the more free, but that isn't what freedom stands
for...

~~~
wnevets
I wish people would stop comparing policies of governments to the policies of
a private company's online community.

~~~
fein
Why?

The management of an online community is just a pocket sized version of a full
blown government. There's no reason to not make a comparison due to
lolbertarian rationales.

~~~
wnevets
It's a lot harder to quit the NK government than it is to quit LoL

~~~
fein
Sure, but that's not what we're looking at.

The behaviors of community moderation are comparable to those of a government.

~~~
wnevets
Perhaps but the consequences of breaking the rules are nowhere near as
devastating. It trivializes the human rights abuses by those governments by
putting them in the same category as a video game chat

------
allthenews
I'd really rather not have video game designers and video game journalists
dictating their versions morality to me.

I'll bet this will turn into the usual identity politics nightmare that
ultimately caters to a tiny fraction of gamers while worsening the experience
for the majority. If this were such a massive problem, millions of people
wouldn't be spending billions of dollars and hundreds millions of man hours
playing these games.

This is about politics, not gaming experience.

~~~
scrollaway
> _I 'd really rather not have video game designers and video game journalists
> forcing their versions morality onto me._

You know what, I would.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't want these same people regulating speech or
whatever. But I do want them regulating their own userbases. I do want
moderators on HN enforcing the HN guidelines, just like I want Blizzard to
enforce the "Blizzard guidelines" in their games, whatever they may be.

And honestly, the fact you think this "ultimately caters to a tiny fraction of
gamers while worsening the experience for the majority" tells me you're part
of the problem; you're probably often toxic to other players (even if you
don't notice it), get your account muted/locked out/whatever, and then think
that you did nothing wrong and everyone's in the same boat as you.

You wouldn't believe how many times I've seen this. People who think their
behaviour is OK, who think they're not making the experience worse for other
players. Then they wonder why they got banned. They go on the game's forums,
subreddit, etc and complain "[studio] is banning people randomly!". And then
some fed up dev from the studio pulls up chat logs and reveals some disgusting
behaviour.

> _If this were such a massive problem, millions of people wouldn 't be
> spending billions of dollars and hundreds millions of man hours playing
> these games._

Thousands of companies are spending millions of dollars fighting that problem
because it's affecting their players' experience, which ultimately affects
players' willingness to buy and play the studio's games. Once again, that you
think they'd willingly cater to a "tiny fraction" of their base, is absurd and
gives a glimpse of your true nature.

~~~
allthenews
>And honestly, the fact you think this "ultimately caters to a tiny fraction
of gamers while worsening the experience for the majority" tells me you're
part of the problem; you're probably often toxic to other players (even if you
don't notice it), get your account muted/locked out/whatever, and then think
that you did nothing wrong and everyone's in the same boat as you.

Sorry for having the wrong opinion, but personal attacks are uncalled for.

Ironic.

So, to illustrate my point, would you prefer that heavy handed mods step in to
censor you according to their definition of toxicity, or would you rather have
the freedom to continue this discussion to possibly reach some resolution?

I prefer to put faith in peoples' ability to resolve conflict without vague
rules regarding inconsistent notions of toxicity, especially in the context of
gaming, where I can leave and join another game more or less any time.

~~~
krageon
If you prefer to put faith in people's abilities (at this point in time)
you're being intentionally headstrong in the face of overwhelming proof that
that doesn't work. It's been a very long time since the games in question have
launched and they're filled with toxicity.

~~~
allthenews
>overwhelming proof that that doesn't work.

Like billions of dollars and probably billions of man hours worth of gaming in
an industry that is only growing?

Have you considered further that some degree of so called toxicity is inherent
to the fun of gaming?

Why stop there? Why not set standards for content as well? You're talking
about games that simulate violence, killing, war in general, but you demand
that the playerbase act in accordance to your personal sensibilities?

What proof do you have that the majority of gamers aren't fine with the status
quo? Why are you so convinced that arbitrary rules against toxicity don't
lessen the experience for the majority?

~~~
openasocket
> Like billions of dollars and probably billions of man hours worth of gaming
> in an industry that is only growing?

Post hoc ergo propter hoc: just because the industry is growing doesn't mean
that people don't mind toxicity. It's possible the industry would be growing
even faster if there was less toxicity, for example.

> Have you considered further that some degree of so called toxicity is
> inherent to the fun of gaming?

Maybe some people enjoy being called a faggot by randoms on Xbox, but I don't.
I'd go so far as to say the majority of people prefer not to be called slurs
by random strangers. Can't we do something to stop that?

> Why stop there? Why not set standards for content as well? You're talking
> about games that simulate violence, killing, war in general, but you demand
> that the playerbase act in accordance to your personal sensibilities?

Why is any attempt to prevent any form of toxicity a slippery slope that can
only lead to some sort of Orwellian nightmare of censorship?

