Electronic Arts’ social engineering program known as EA Game Changers was the topic of discussion at a summit designed around talking about reducing “toxicity”, “inequality” and “bad actors” in the world of interactive entertainment. They gathered together 200 content creators, influencers, and streamers at the summit to discuss how they can help reduce bullying and harassment in order to build a “safe” and “fair” environment for gaming.
If this all sounds like some sort of megalomaniacal speech given at the Ministry of Love, well you’re not alone.
There were multiple threads by various content creators and EA employees covering the summit, including Westie, a verified YouTuber who was live-tweeting during the event. On June 7th, 2019 Westie tweeted out some of the info from the stage presentation to get things started.
Key points to start with:
▶️ 57% of gamers say they’ve been bullied
▶️ You should be able to play without fear
▶️ EA needs to play a role— Westie ▶️ EA PLAY (@MrProWestie) June 7, 2019
Westie linked over to a lengthy thread from Electronic Arts’ international manager of community engagement, Lee Williams, who broke down more of what was taking place at the Game Changers summit, and provided links to organizations like Ditch The Label, which is an activism group aimed at removing “prejudice” from the world by reducing “trolling” and “bullying”.
Boss just asked the room to raise their hand if they’ve experienced bullying online in their communities…
… yeah it was the whole room.
Raise your hand if you have 🤚
— Lee Williams (@justbiglee) June 7, 2019
This is one of the biggest problems we want to tackle, we’re going to be getting to talk about the tools we’re building this afternoon toohttps://t.co/sDWiRlUKDs
— Lee Williams (@justbiglee) June 7, 2019
“As a result of bullying 1 in 10 people have considered suicide”
… shit, that hit hard.
— Lee Williams (@justbiglee) June 7, 2019
The @DitchtheLabel team did some research on twitter over a four year period and found
7.7 million racist tweets
3 million sexist tweets
1 million homophobic/transphobic tweets— Lee Williams (@justbiglee) June 7, 2019
The panel just raised a good point, in that one if the ways to combat everything we’re talking about today is that we all (you guys too) need to become role models in our communities, standing against bad behaviour and leading by example.
This is something we can all do.
— Lee Williams (@justbiglee) June 7, 2019
In response to all this I’ve been posting today somebody in my replies (won’t call them out) just said…
“Its just human nature not much can be done about it🤷♂️”
There 👏 is 👏 everything 👏 we 👏 can 👏 do 👏 about 👏 it 👏
— Lee Williams (@justbiglee) June 7, 2019
Williams moved over to his own panel discussing the tools and systems that Electronic Arts are apparently working on in order to combat “toxicity” and “bad actors”.
Westie once again provided live-tweets and some brief commentary about the panel, stating that EA needs to work with Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo to create more a more centralized format of draconian policies for gamers to abide by.
Now listening in on a Safe & Fair Play talk about how EA is starting to build tools and systems to implement into their games that will help reduce toxicity & bad actors.
It’s not an issue EA is going to solve on their own however – I think an industry-wide push is needed. pic.twitter.com/om7pE6UmBf
— Westie ▶️ EA PLAY (@MrProWestie) June 7, 2019
With several policies to abide by (Terms of Service etc.), already gamers have different rules to remember. If an industry-wide push is made, with a central set of rules perhaps, gamers would instantly know what goes and what doesn’t.
— Westie ▶️ EA PLAY (@MrProWestie) June 7, 2019
The whole thing reads like more authoritarianism being passed down onto gamers.
It makes sense to have online parental control functions for ‘E’ through ‘T’ rated games, but beyond that there is absolutely no reason why ‘M’ rated games need corporations stepping in to baby grown adults playing multiplayer titles.
Provide people with a mute button and a block button, and call it a day. That’s it. If you aren’t intelligent enough to know how to mute or block people, then you don’t deserve to play online. It’s really that simple.
This idea that corporations need to start overstepping their bounds in what could only be described as engineering systems for behavioral influence is way outside the boundaries of what any video game maker needs to be doing.
The fact that Electronic Arts is holding a summit to essentially socially engineer through software a means to reduce “toxicity” and “bad actors” is nothing short of despotic. As far as multiplayer interaction is concerned, the only tools they should be working on is matchmaking discovery so people of like-minded skill can team up or square off, and improved mute and block lists so players have control over who they do and do not want to hear or see in chat. That’s it.
Unfortunately Electronic Arts is fully converged, and now they’re trying to foist their agenda on everyone else whether they like it or not.
(Thanks for the news tip YellowFlash)
(Main image courtesy of Ninidan)