toxicity
MMO Business Roundup: Embracer Q2 2024, Steam toxicity, and GOG’s game preservation program
Welcome back to another roundup of MMO and MMO-adjacent industry news. Business business business!
Embracer
Embracer - the failson megacorp we keep an eye on because...
Working As Intended: The Fridge Poetry game is the latest distillation of MMORPG PvP
This morning, MOP's Sam busted into MOP's work chat with a link to the Fridge Poetry game.
"It's more like an art project than a...
Second Wind: Final thoughts on returning to World of Warcraft in 2024, from community to dragonriding
At long last, we've reached the fourth and final part of my series detailing my experiences returing to World of Warcraft after six years...
MMO Business Roundup: Activision owned cheatmaker EngineOwning
Welcome back to another quick roundup of MMO and MMO-adjacent business news! Business business business and all that.
EngineOwning got owned - File this one...
Activision announces rollout of AI-assisted voice chat mod tools for its Call of Duty series
Keeping toxic voice speech under heel in FPS games might sound like a Sisyphean effort, but Activision is giving it the old college try...
Studios working on Battlefield would like players to stop harassing its developers, please and thanks
The gaming community can often be described as "passionate" primarily because "frothingly and needlessly acidic about things that ultimately do not matter" is too...
The Soapbox: Hating on the competition is no way to promote an MMO
Recently, RIFTÂ was back in the news, offering free subscription time to new and returning players. While I salute Gamigo's generosity here, whenever the topic...
GDC’s State of the Games Industry survey once again demonstrates dev skepticism for metaverse and blockchain hokum
This year's State of the Game Industry from GDC - its 11th since beginning the project - delivers a range of insights from the...
Voice chat software dev Modulate partners with the ADL to improve its ToxMod tool and fight online hate
The topic of toxic and hateful online gaming communities has risen in the headlines in recent weeks, particularly as the matter earned governmental attention....
Albion Online seeks feedback on everything from toxicity to content
A lot of MMO studios talk a big talk about listening to player feedback, but whether or not they put out surveys to solicit...
Ubisoft attempts to curtail toxic behavior… by using a voluntary self-training course
To be fair, some effort is better than no effort, but one also has to raise their eyebrows at Ubisoft's Fair Play Program, which...
US Senator calls out Steam’s lax moderation of neo-Nazis and hate
The fact that Steam is extremely hands-off in regard to moderation isn't really news. Readers will recall it was referenced in a video report...
Members of US Congress send letters to game companies about combating extremism in online gaming
According to a December report from the Anti-Defamation League, extremism in online gaming is on the rise for the fourth year in a row....
Riot Games sponsors design challenge centered on making online spaces safer
Riot Games is not a gaming company most folks in our industry would consider a paragon of community in or off the court. The...
Roblox removes games depicting the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but only after a BBC inquiry
There are plenty of shooter games out there in the discovery page of Roblox, but some creators of these kinds of games saw fit...
Rapper T-Pain goes to bat for Apex Legends devs who are facing harassment
Earlier in the week Apex Legends developer Respawn Entertainment openly spoke out against the toxic portions of its playerbase, outlining a zero tolerance policy...
Someone hijacked Wizard101’s in-game alert feed to spam toxicity
Wizard101 is normally associated with kid-friendly fun, but over the past weekend it got decidedly more adult in terms of its language as someone...
EVE Online addresses community safety and promises more action to police community behavior
There's been some drama unfolding in EVE Online recently, the kind of drama that is at once not surprising when you see the cast...
Guild Wars 2 team vows ‘better context’ for controversial class changes following death threats
Ideally, an MMO patch day should be filled with delight and exploration. Sometimes, however, there's a sense of dread, especially when the developers start...
Valorant’s voice recording features arrive to NA on July 13 but won’t be used to fight toxicity – for now
Last May, Riot Games confirmed that Valorant would begin recording portions of in-game voice comms for the purposes of fighting back against toxic behavior....
