It’s not a secret that online games often struggle with how to deal with certain types of behavior, namely bigotry. Gaming companies are consistently fighting against the negative influences of racism, sexism and the like within their communities. And even the most influential of gaming personalities aren’t immune from being toxic.
The gaming space has long been a domain for reactionary politics, and lots of gamers and companies want to fight back against that toxicity. Starting this week, Ubisoft comes out swinging by making it clear that players could be permanently banned for overt bigotry.
In a post on the game’s subreddit, the developers said that these new consequences, including permanent bans, will only apply to Rainbow Six Siege players on PC. Players on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One will continue to be subject to Sony and Microsoft’s own codes of conduct. So Ubisoft can’t really interfere in those cases.
“We will be tracking the frequency at which language that violates the Code of Conduct is used by individual players,” Ubisoft said, referring to published guidelines that have been in place for some time, “and will apply the appropriate ban on a case-by-case basis.”
The guidelines highlight certain “forbidden behavior” as no longer being tolerated:
“Any language or content deemed illegal, dangerous, threatening, abusive, obscene, vulgar, defamatory, hateful, racist, sexist, ethically offensive or constituting harassment is forbidden.”
Rainbow Six Siege already has a automated reporting system, and it seems Ubisoft is simply making their stance on the issue clearer and more proactive, good on them. Ubisoft has said that the ban process can be appealed, so false positives shouldn’t be a major issue with these new rules, cool.
The reaction to this change is what one would expect. The majority of users seem happy with the enforcement of more stringent rules, and those that want to be toxic are remaining silent.
Now let’s just hope that the likes of Sony and Microsoft are the next ones to pick up the ball and kick it directly into the faces of these toxic idiots.
