Video games are increasingly entering homes around the world. According to Statista, there are just over a billion online gamers across the globe, a figure that could climb to 1.2 billion in 2027. This growing increase results in increasingly large online gaming communities. And then there is the problem of moderation. If a limited number of users can be regulated manually (like on forums), this is not the case at the scale of games like League of Legends Where Rainbow Six Siege, which bring together several million players. Publishers must therefore use artificial intelligence capable of detecting toxic behavior online.
It is in this perspective of automated moderation that Ubisoft and Riot Games are joining forces within the framework of the Zero Harm in Comms – Zéro nuisance dans les comment en français project. This is a “technological partnership to develop an anonymous database, in order to better train artificial intelligence systems”, reads the press release from Riot Games. Indeed, if the AIs are able to identify toxic behavior, the players are also able to circumvent the systems in place.
The actors in the middle must start the machine
This association is also motivated by the desire to stem the toxic environment linked to online games and the various forms of harassment that result from it. The two companiesbelieve that improving the social dynamics of online games will only be possible through communication, collaboration and the combined efforts of all players in the gaming industry”. In other words: the sanitation of virtual communities must first come from the creators of the games.
Behind Zero Harm in Comms hides an ambitious artificial intelligence project “able to understand the general meaning of an online game in its context”, as Yves Jacquier, Executive Director at Ubisoft La Forge, explains to BFM Tech&Co. An artificial intelligence that would be trained to perceive different abusive and toxic behaviors based on databases. The project aims to be altruistic, since the objective is to develop tools and share them with other players in the sector. Ubisoft and Riot Games are also committed to sharing “the lessons of their first phase of experimentation with the entire industry next year, whatever the outcome.”
Knights far from white as snow
This laudable project, which results from the association of big names in video games, could show the way for other players in the industry. It would still be necessary that the heads of figureheads show themselves exemplary on this subject, in particular on the side of Ubisoft, which has within certain studios employees known and condemned for abusive behavior. This is for example the case at Ubisoft Montreal, which has seen many departures of developers working on the next Assassin’s Creed after the appointment at the head of the project of Jonathan Dumont, regularly accused of harassment since 2020.