And if you thought, “Heck, at least the text chat will be left alone,” there’s a surprise for you too. Going forward, players will be able to mute specific words, meaning any message containing those words won’t be shown to them.
While this approach is arguably the best and most reasonable of the bunch – promoting personal responsibility, letting players tailor their own experiences, allowing those who don’t mind foul language in a video game to enjoy it as they please, and so on – all of its advantages are for naught, with Guangguang noting that commonly muted words could eventually be added to the official filter list, once again introducing a blanket restriction on everyone’s experience.
As questionable as NetEase’s approach is, it is by no means new. A similar system was introduced at launch in Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 to moderate derogatory language in voice chat and analyze text chat traffic in near real-time.
In the lead-up to release, Activision faced criticism over its priorities, with many arguing the studio should focus more on fighting cheaters than policing player speech, condemning the moderation system, noting that players could easily bypass it with personalized insults rather than regular slurs, and objecting to the broader concept of having their voice and text chat monitored at all.
So, what’s your take on all this? How do you feel about the end of the “Wild West” era of in-game voice chats? Share your thoughts in the comments!
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