
GamesBeat Special Issue
June 28, 2023
Gaming communities: Making connections and fighting toxicity
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Gaming communities exist everywhere. For online titles, you’ll find them in the game themselves. But they also exist on social platforms like Discord, in both official and unofficial channels. Engaging with these communities is key for today’s developers and publishers.
That can prove a difficult task. How do you effectively connect with a game’s community without sounding out of touch, insensitive or too corporate? How do you deal with toxic users and comments? What tools can help studios better connect with their players?
This special issue is dedicated to these topics. We’re looking into the ways that modern companies are communicating with their players while battling toxicity, and we’re hopeful that we can help others build better bridges between game makers and consumers.
— Mike Minotti
Managing Editor
We’re probably never going to stamp out toxicity in online games. But it’s always interesting to see how we can fight the good fight.
As an example, game developers often fight a cat-and-mouse game against cheaters in video games such as Valorant and Call of Duty. While toxicity encompasses a lot more than cheating, it provides a window into the cat-and-mouse game. And cheating itself caused a lot of fights and led to a lot of toxicity.
A blueprint for game developers: How to manage upcoming internet trust and safety regulations
Today, regulators and consumers are looking for evidence that the studios are taking the problem seriously, with a focus on harm reduction. In other words, game studios must now proactively minimize any harm on their platforms since they could be liable for such harms even if they were never reported by users.
Sponsored

Making the gaming industry more emotionally intelligent — and bigger as a result
By bringing emotional intelligence to the game industry, gaming’s thinkers believe we’ll be able to deal with the negative elements. And we should also find that the game industry’s revenues and prospects will grow bigger as we get rid of the parts of the culture that stop people from playing more.

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