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Blizzard is thinking about the well-being of its players, and wants to improve everyone’s experience by all means. Overwatch is one of those games that is full of toxic players which ruin anyone’s play. This is why Jeff Kaplan, the vice president of Blizzard, is thinking of unusual methods to get rid of them. He is pondering the AI alternative to fight game toxicity.
Blizzard declared war on game toxicity
Most online games are full of players that ruin the experience of others. However, the levels of game toxicity are extremely high in Overwatch. Since picking out all of them manually takes a lot of time, Blizzard thought of automation as a solution against toxic players.
At the moment, the game developers aren’t aware if artificial intelligence can really work against game toxicity. They have been trying to develop algorithms and teach bots how to recognize toxic language within the game. This way, everything will be quicker.
The game company will try to use AI to spot toxic language
Blizzard can take action against toxic Overwatch players only after they receive a report. This means other players will have to suffer unpleasant incidents in the game. If an automatic system can label toxic language and behavior, it will take action immediately, and players won’t have to report others.
This is not the first time when the game industry is thinking of using AI algorithms. Last year, IBM and PlayFab used machine learning to generate player data, and then offered it to game developers. Also, Electronic Arts considered using artificial intelligence to generate more powerful backstories for its games.
However, what Blizzard is trying to do is on a whole new level. Its algorithms will seek to identify game toxicity, namely toxic words and phrases in different languages. However, according to Kaplan, this will apply only to in-game language. Direct messages between players seem to be out of the scope of the algorithms.
Image source: Wikimedia Commons
