Game publishers Ubisoft and Riot Games have today announced the ‘Zero Harm in Comms’ research project, which aims to improve AI to prevent harmful player interactions.
This research initiative aims to ‘create a cross-industry shared database and labelling ecosystem that gathers in-game data, which will better train AI-based preemptive moderation tools to detect and mitigate disruptive behaviour’.
Both active members of the Fair Play Alliance, Ubisoft and Riot Games say they believe that the creation of ‘safe and meaningful online experiences in games can only come through collective action and knowledge sharing’.
The cross-industry research project will explore how to lay the foundations for future industry collaboration and create a framework that ‘guarantees the ethics and the privacy of this initiative’.
“Thanks to Riot Games’ highly competitive games and to Ubisoft’s very diversified portfolio, the resulting database should cover every type of player and in-game behavior in order to better train Riot Games’ and Ubisoft’s AI systems,” reads a press release.
Ubisoft and Riot said they are committed to sharing the learnings of the initial phase of the experiment with the whole industry next year.
“We believe that, by coming together as an industry, we will be able to tackle this issue more effectively.”
Yves Jacquier, Ubisoft
The news comes as the Valorant Game Changers Championship has this week been mired by sexist and transphobic comments posted in Twitch chat, and follows many years of harmful in-game chat, with publishers not doing enough to stamp down on such behaviour.
It also comes after Riot said it issued 40,000+ Valorant player bans and 400,000 chat restrictions in January 2022 as part of a clampdown on toxic behaviour. And in League of Legends, Riot recently made an update that saw toxic League of Legends players automatically muted in chat.
“Disruptive player behaviours is an issue that we take very seriously but also one that is very difficult to solve,” said Yves Jacquier, executive director at Ubisoft La Forge, the publisher’s R&D arm. “At Ubisoft, we have been working on concrete measures to ensure safe and enjoyable experiences, but we believe that, by coming together as an industry, we will be able to tackle this issue more effectively.
“Through this technological partnership with Riot Games, we are exploring how to better prevent in-game toxicity as designers of these environments with a direct link to our communities.”
“Disruptive behavior isn’t a problem that is unique to games – every company that has an online social platform is working to address this challenging space,” said Wesley Kerr, head of technology research at Riot Games.
“That is why we’re committed to working with industry partners like Ubisoft who believe in creating safe communities and fostering positive experiences in online spaces.”
To learn more about the “Zero Harm in Comms” research project there’s more info at http://www.ubisoft.com/r/Ubisoft_RiotGames_Join_Forces and https://www.riotgames.com/en/news/riot-games-ubisoft-tackling-toxicity-in-games-with-new-project
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
