Blizzard Sees an "Incredible Decrease" in Toxicity in Overwatch

Blizzard Entertainment (the guys who are criminally underpaying their own employees to the point where they can't eat and have lied repeatedly about offering raises) announced last year that they were going to start cracking down on in-game toxicity in Overwatch, which just about everyone can agree is a good thing to crack down on. In their effort to quell "gamer rage", Blizzard tried many things, including making it easier to report offenders and giving people a way to "reward" people who behave well.

But that wasn't all they were doing: they were also using Machine Learning to identify bad behavior, which could help verify reports and smooth out the process of banning or punishing problematic players. And in a new fireside chat, Blizzard president J. Allen Brack had nothing but glowing praise for this new system.

"Part of having a good game experience is finding ways to ensure that all are welcome within the worlds, no matter their background or identity. Something we've spoken about publicly a little bit in the past is our machine learning system that helps us verify player reports around offensive behavior and offensive language."

"This system has been in place in Overwatch and in Heroes of the Storm. It allows us to issue appropriate penalties quicker, and we've seen an incredible decrease not only in toxic text chat, but an overall decrease in re-offense rates. A few months ago, we expanded this system into World of Warcraft's public channels, and we've already seen a decrease in the time disruptive players stick around by half, and we're continuing to improve the speed and the accuracy of this system."

If you recall, two years ago Blizzard joined a coalition of studios who were dedicated to working together to end toxicity in their games, called the Fair Play Alliance. One has to wonder if Blizzard would be willing to share this Machine Learning technology with their former allies... or if that alliance is even still maintained.

Either way, it's good that there's less toxicity in Overwatch, even if there's still a whole lot in the Activision-Blizzard payroll.