Blizzard is planning to record all voice conversation and ban players based on transcription analysis carried out by “chat review tools” as part of its aggressive new measures to combat toxicity in Overwatch 2.
Like many other shooters, Overwatch has battled with poor player conduct almost from the beginning. In October 2017, a little over a year after the game’s release, we stated that Blizzard’s failure to control toxicity undermines the game’s inclusive ethos.
When Blizzard discussed using machine learning to stop abusive chat, it had a noticeable impact: President J. Allen Brack, who was in office at the time, claimed in November 2020 that the technology had caused “an incredible decrease not only in toxic text chat, but an overall decrease in re-offense rates.”
These capabilities will be enhanced by the upgraded system, which is anticipated to be live soon after the release of Overwatch 2, by including automatic transcriptions of voice chat records when disruptive behavior is reported. After the transcription is finished, Blizzard’s internal tools will be used to check it for wrongdoing. Beyond vaguely claiming that the new transcription tool “will enable the team to act on abusive voice conversation,” Blizzard didn’t specify what would happen in the event of good results.
Importantly, neither recorded or transcribed data will be preserved for an extended period of time, according to Blizzard: Audio files will be wiped “immediately” after being converted to text, and transcribed text files will be purged 30 days after being created.
This method depends on players reporting disruptive behavior in-game as soon as they encounter it because it doesn’t preserve voice chat data for extended periods of time. This means that reporting them as soon as they happen will improve your ability to identify, apprehend, and stop disruptive players. Your reporting is crucial since it’s one of the best methods to spot disruptive conduct and act as promptly as possible to address it.
I find it a little dystopian that machines will be everywhere, listening in on my voice chat and making judgments. The game Overwatch 2 is not the first to make use of this innovation. Valorant, which started testing its “Voice Scoring System” in July, deserves the distinction.
Although the initial response to the news was not entirely positive—many players expressed worry about the company’s intrusion and the actual outcome of the data gathered—it had a significant impact on the game and the number of players. It doesn’t seem that way. Riot has actually recently announced plans to strengthen its protection against harm by extending the study of disruptive in-game behavior.