Quote from: Aether on January 29, 2018, 12:49:43 PMI got turned off from Overwatch when Blizzard decided to start monitoring people's social media for the ever so vague scourge of online gaming, "toxic behavior." That shit sounds ripe for abuse.Shit talk and banter has always been a part of competitive play, and I don't have faith that video game devs are capable of understanding the nuance and context of every situation with the potential to offend someone.This seems like a bit of an overstated issue. Seems to me like they're just going to look at controversial gameplay on YouTube and Twitch to pick up on abusive behavior that might not have been reported. I'd be very surprised if they'd care about your everyday banter. Blizzard will likely just focus on the people putting out blatantly abusive content or being in those recordings, and there's plenty of them out there. I recently saw a video on Reddit where some guy constantly harassed female players in voice chat until they stopped talking completely and followed them around as Mei to put icewalls in front of them every few seconds. We don't know enough details yet, but I'd applaud them for going above and beyond their game to pick up on that stuff and put an end to it. Cautious props to them for raising the bar of in-game moderation.
I got turned off from Overwatch when Blizzard decided to start monitoring people's social media for the ever so vague scourge of online gaming, "toxic behavior." That shit sounds ripe for abuse.Shit talk and banter has always been a part of competitive play, and I don't have faith that video game devs are capable of understanding the nuance and context of every situation with the potential to offend someone.
I'm actually planning on getting back into it. I recently played a few games with a friend and it was surprisingly fun. Also, you can always PM a mod and ask one of us to unlock an old thread.
Quote from: Aether on January 29, 2018, 03:23:15 PMI'm not accusing them of being abusive yet, let me just clarify that. I'm turned off by their decision mostly out of principle. Toxicity is arbitrary and the idea of a person being excluded from a game, possibly permanently, because of a decision made by a game developer taking the position of a moral arbiter for the community. . . in fact the idea of a developer taking the position of moral arbiter to begin with. . well it just isn't something I feel comfortable supporting, and abuse is absolutely a possibility with this new policy regardless of whether or not you believe it's an overstatement.Blizzard makes games, I don't trust them to decide on what ultimately is or is not offensive to players. I don't trust any developer to decide that. I'm willing to compromise at the level of developers banning words like 'nigger' from gamertags or taking action against players for throwing games, cheating, preventing other players from playing properly etc. That level of moderation is basically essential for online games to function well. But if some kid just generally shit talks to the other team indiscriminately when he plays and makes videos then I don't believe any action should be taken against him. That, I would say, is overreaching. Blizzard can certainly do whatever they want with Overwatch, it's their game. We'll just have to wait and see whether or not they take it that far, and I probably won't be playing again until I know how this plays out.I see where you're coming from, but how is it any different from just about any other online platform or service? The issue you have with this is that the developers are being a "moral arbiter" of sorts, but I don't see how that differs from what Blizzard and hundreds of others have already been doing for years. Webhosts, social media, forums and marketplaces do it. Microsoft, Sony, Bungie.net, Facebook, Twitter and even this very site all act like a moral arbiter and decide on what's essentially a moral code of conduct that involves the exclusion of people who don't abide. And as is the case with any kind of rule or law, this needs to be sufficiently vague to be applied to practical situations which naturally involves a certain amount of discretion. This is nothing new and companies setting and enforcing a code of conduct for their platform / service by acting as a "moral arbiter" has been around for decades, more often than not without solely relying on a report function to bring abuisve behavior to their attention. You say you're not comfortable with a developer being a moral arbiter, but many of them already are. And while not technically a developer in this instance, Valve also has its own rules of conduct for Steam and has been sanctioning toxic people in its community for years. So I'm not really sure if we're on the same page about what their new policy is, as I don't really see how you're fine with using these other sites and services then. The only difference here is that Blizzard doesn't just rely on reports but also monitors what happens in-game through other means, which is something that happens elswhere just the same. To my knowledge, Blizzard hasn't changed their actual policy one bit. They've just made it so that they're better equipped to pick up on behavior that would have already been breaking the rules before.
I'm not accusing them of being abusive yet, let me just clarify that. I'm turned off by their decision mostly out of principle. Toxicity is arbitrary and the idea of a person being excluded from a game, possibly permanently, because of a decision made by a game developer taking the position of a moral arbiter for the community. . . in fact the idea of a developer taking the position of moral arbiter to begin with. . well it just isn't something I feel comfortable supporting, and abuse is absolutely a possibility with this new policy regardless of whether or not you believe it's an overstatement.Blizzard makes games, I don't trust them to decide on what ultimately is or is not offensive to players. I don't trust any developer to decide that. I'm willing to compromise at the level of developers banning words like 'nigger' from gamertags or taking action against players for throwing games, cheating, preventing other players from playing properly etc. That level of moderation is basically essential for online games to function well. But if some kid just generally shit talks to the other team indiscriminately when he plays and makes videos then I don't believe any action should be taken against him. That, I would say, is overreaching. Blizzard can certainly do whatever they want with Overwatch, it's their game. We'll just have to wait and see whether or not they take it that far, and I probably won't be playing again until I know how this plays out.
Blizzard decided to start monitoring people's social media