Ubisoft has revealed that it’s cracking down on hate speech in Rainbow Six: Siege, saying that they’re implementing an upgraded system for banning players (via Kotaku). The new upgraded system will ban players who use hate speech in the game.
The game developer will now track how often players are reported using hate speech and will issue bans accordingly. The bans will range from 2 days for the lightest uses of hate speech to permanent ban for repeated offenders. If you do get the ban, Ubisoft will give you a direct reason, which is “toxicity.”
The company says that this is a “first step” toward controlling toxic behavior in Siege, and there’s more upgrades and actions coming in the future for the game. Mind you, Ubisoft has always forbidden sexism, homophobia, racism and harassment in its games, but the developer hasn’t done enough to make life better for the overall player base. That’s a problem in any game really, but it’s particularly bad for Siege because this problem has continued over the past 2 years since the game launched.
At this point, if the developer hadn’t done anything to handle the issues, they risk losing newcomers and limiting audience for the game to those willing to put up with the abuse.