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Blizzard claims Overwatch’s latest social systems are already improving in-game behaviour

Blizzard claims Overwatch’s latest social systems are already improving in-game behaviour

Blizzard’s recent efforts to improve player conduct in Overwatch appear to be paying off.

Last month, Blizzard implemented an endorsement system  aimed at encouraging more positive behaviour in Overwatch. That update also included a “looking for group” feature that allowed more control over who players teamed up with.

In a quick post on the Overwatch forum, game director Jeff Kaplan revealed that the system was already having positive effects on player conduct. The data provided shows that in competitive play, abusive chat has dropped 26 per cent in the Americas and 16 per cent in Korea. The number of “daily players being abusive” has dropped 29 and 22 per cent in the Americas and Korea respectively.

“We’re really pleased with the community’s efforts to make OW a better place,” said Kaplan in the post. “We’ll keep working on iterating on these features to make them better as well as exploring other systems to improve the gameplay environment.”

One notable omission from the data provided was European region stats. When questioned on the missing information, it appears Kaplan may simply have been so excited by the data that he jumped the gun, announcing before having a complete picture.

“We don’t have all the stats reported yet, sorry. I was just sharing what progress we had.”


Staff Writer

Natalie Clayton is an Edinburgh-based freelance writer and game developer. Besides PCGamesInsider and Pocketgamer.biz, she's written across the games media landscape and was named in the 2018 GamesIndustry.biz 100 Rising Star list.