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When you play a multiplayer video game online, negativity can be an all too common occurrence. Due to its popularity, Overwatch is currently having a big problem with this. The game’s director, Jeff Kaplan, has spoken out on the matter, explaining that the developers attempts to expand on the game’s features and maps are being delayed because it’s spending so much time trying to ‘make people behave better.’
In a new Developer Update video, Kaplan goes into great detail on the matter, discussing the prevalence of toxicity in the Overwatch community, and outlines the steps Blizzard is taking to try and resolve this. Prior to this, Blizzard had taken disciplinary action against over 480,000 accounts as a result of 340,000 complaints, according to Kaplan, who said, ‘I wish we could take the time we put into having reporting on console and have put that toward a match history system or a replay system instead.’
Kaplan had also written a forum post, saying that, ‘we’re looking to completely ban repeated Competitive offenders, meaning, if you’ve been banned for more than X seasons, we will ban you from ever playing competitive again.’
Unfortunately it seems to be a mammoth task, and something the developer cannot do as well as creating content for the game. Clearly the time spent policing the community will continue to have an impact on the development of the game going forward, but Kaplan is keen to stress that solving this problem is only possible with the help of the community and the continued use of the Overwatch reporting tools.
‘We need to take a step back, and realise we’re all here to have fun. We want Overwatch to be a really great place and each of us can play a very important part in that’.
