'Overwatch' forms strike team to focus on fighting toxicity in game
Over the weeks, Blizzard's first person shooter "Overwatch" has increasingly become more toxic because of the racism, sexism, and match throwing that comes with its players. Due to this, the company has formed a dedicated "strike team" to deal with toxic players.
The game's director Jeff Kaplan spoke about the topic during the recently concluded BlizzCon. Keplan said that dealing with toxicity is now one of the top priorities of the team behind the title.
"We're not sitting here with our heads in the sand," Kaplan told Kotaku. "You have concerns, and your concerns are now one of our top priorities. If that means the thing we're going to focus on as much as Moira and Blizzard World is toxicity, then we're going to do it."
Just like how teams in "Overwatch" are composed of players with different roles and specializations, the anti-toxicity strike team that Blizzard has created consists of people with different roles. The team is comprised of support staff, game designers, analytics specialists, and a group called Risk that deals directly with hacking and cheating.
As of now, the team is setting up "short, medium, and long-term plans" to fight the current problems and improve the "Overwatch" community. Kaplan did not provide further details about the team's plan of action, because the information may be used by people to counter their plans.
The game has faced criticisms on being too soft on its punishment of players with bad behavior, who often only face chat silences and brief suspensions before being able to play again.
In response, Kaplan said they will be emphasizing more suspensions moving forward. "We're starting to action less toward silences and more toward suspensions," the director said. "If somebody's doing bad behavior, just silencing them can sometimes convince them to do things like throw matches and grief in other ways. If you keep exemplifying bad behavior, we're going to have you leave the game [permanently]."
