Ubisoft has implemented a new system in Rainbow Six Siege that bans players for using toxic language in the text chat, according to PC Gamer.
Yesterday, a number of players started whining about being temporarily banned from the game after using a racist or homophobic slur in the text chat. The first offense results in a 27 minute ban. Second and third offenses will cost players 2 hours of game time, and any following toxic language will result in an official investigation and potentially a permanent ban from the game.
Like most games, Ubisoft’s Rainbow Six Siege has a Code of Conduct that forbids “any language or content deemed illegal, dangerous, threatening, abusive, obscene, vulgar, defamatory, hateful, racist, sexist, ethically offensive or constituting harassment.” However, most games do close to nothing to enforce these rules, which has led to an overwhelmingly toxic gaming community overall.
This new banning system doesn’t come out of the blue. Ubisoft has been talking about removing toxic language from the platform for a while. In fact, the dev team wrote in April that it has plans to add new features to limit the use of offensive language on the game.
From the April post:
Our team is working on the creation of an automated system that will censor text chat in game based on a chat filter list. This will replace words that have been identified as offensive and provide players with a notification that their language was found to be unacceptable. We will also be tracking the number of times players trigger this filter and will take action as necessary for players that are intentionally having a negative impact on other player’s gaming experience.
The current iteration of the banning system doesn’t censor the offensive words in text chat but rather goes straight to the 27-minute ban.
The gaming world has grown into an increasingly toxic environment, as there has been little to no policing of users’ behavior and communication. But eSports and Twitch are putting gamers in the spotlight, and brand endorsements are a huge piece of the upward trajectory of esports. But no brand is going to get behind a gamer that uses homophobic or racial slurs.
Ubisoft says on Twitter that the ban system is still being updated and the team is taking feedback from the community to continue refining it, as well as punishing players who are cheating.