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Overwatch Developer Update Tackles Rising Community Toxicity Problem
The Overwatch developer updates are a good way to take Blizzard's temperature on where they feel the game is going and should go, but this week it strikes a tone more like an after school special as game director Jeff Kaplan discusses the increasing problem of player toxicity.
As a multiplayer game, Overwatch has a lot of people who take the game seriously and take it out on other players, or people who harass others just as a matter of course. In the video, Kaplan announces that a reporting system has finally been implemented on consoles, and most of the 480,000 disciplinary actions they have taken on accounts has been because of player reporting. He also explains that they're working hard to have in-game notifications for when a player's reporting has lead to action, as the current process is just through e-mail.
Kaplan acknowledges that the key to fighting toxicity is the player base and the developers working together to fix it and acknowledges his own failures in online behavior in the past. He also assures fans that the developers working on these solutions are ones working on other features like Replays and aren't removed from the core staff.
Check out the developer update below.
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