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Part of the sometimes unspoken problem here is that there seems to be a basic level of toxicity that enough people are willing to accept. Even if you could get the most of Obligations If players agree that using certain phrases in voice chat is wrong, you’ll start to lose people when you suggest increasingly stringent measures designed to prevent such things from being said in the future. That’s when you start hearing complaints about free speech, censorship, and the idea that this is all coming from people who can’t handle “junk talk.”
So there seems to be a “floor” for this type of toxicity that just isn’t going anywhere. Even in Leonard’s statement, there is an implication that if it had been toxic to another player rather than racist and toxic then there would have been no problem. He says “don’t run away from something like this that is so hurtful to someone else,” but he has the feeling that what he means is that he is more interested in learning what words can get away with it and not hate it. Ignorance and anger that made many of those words so hurtful in the first place.
In regards to that, a large part of the problem here is what is not being done. ObligationsThe player reporting system has gotten more robust over the years, but by some developers’ own admission, there were long periods of time where not enough was done to really combat the issue. For example, War zone/Modern war Developer Infinity Ward acknowledged and attempted to address certain issues stemming from racism (around the time of the Black Lives Matter protests) by revealing additional steps they are taking to combat racist behavior / language in their games:
Have these actions helped? Usually doing something is better than doing nothing, and there are certainly those who would say that they have seen improvements here and there. However, as evidenced War zoneThe constant cheating problems, the massive bans only go so far. With a free game like War zone, it’s pretty easy for someone who was banned from creating a new account and continuing to do what they were doing to get banned in the first place. Very similar to how CodThe cheating problem is partly based on the game’s lack of a unified and universal anti-cheating program, there is a feeling that part of CodToxicity problems are based on the lack of underlying systems and philosophies designed to truly combat it.
Additionally, of all sponsors, teams, individuals, and platforms (including Twitch) that have issued statements and prohibitions regarding Leonard’s actions, the Obligations The development / publishing teams are not (at the time of writing) among themselves. This has led some to say things like “Well, you can’t expect them to tackle every instance of racism in their games.” When you turn to that argument, you must ask yourself what exactly you are advocating.
This is part of the reason so many of us have simply chosen to mute video game chat or rely on Discord’s private servers to chat with friends. It may be effective, but like many elements of modern society, it is an example of how we have had to give up a piece of social technology that could be beneficial because it is riddled with racism, ignorance and hatred. Every player who is silenced Obligations The racism and toxicity chat is a player who could have used that chat to offer something more productive. People say we can’t eliminate junk chat (why bother?), But it seems like we’re doing a good job of removing constructive chat from multiplayer video games.
