Toxicity in video games is brushed off by many as a foregone conclusion. “That’s just how video games are,” you’ll hear many people saying. Whether it’s an excuse to act like a jerk in an anonymous online capacity, or it’s just people giving up on what seems like an unwinnable battle, the idea that toxicity is an inescapable part of video games is something that Blizzard is remiss to accept.
The studio has been putting a number of measures in place to identify and punish toxic behavior in Overwatch. Until now, that process has relied on reporting by players and then manual review by an actual person. Blizzard wants to make that process more automatic by utilizing machine learning and algorithms that would detect toxic language and behaviors without players have to report incidents themselves. “We?ve been experimenting with machine learning. We?ve been trying to teach our games what toxic language is, which is kinda fun. The thinking there is you don?t have to wait for a report to determine that something?s toxic. Our goal is to get it so you don?t have to wait for a report to happen,” Kaplan told Kotaku in an interview.
This is the next step in a process that is already yielding fruit. In January, Kaplan announced that with the new reporting and punishment systems in place, abusive chat dropped by 17% and people are using those same reporting systems 20% more now. While Blizzard is currently teaching Overwatch toxic language...