Online toxicity has forever haunted the world of multiplayer gaming. Cyber-bullying is not a new thing in hardcore games like CSGO, where it’s easy for people to heat up in the intense competitive environment and vent their frustration on other players playing the game.
According to a recent study, it was discovered that CSGO ranked #2 among the popular esport titles of the world in terms of the most foul-mouthed community, just second to Dota 2.
With the CSGO update which Valve has released on June 12th, it appears like they’ve given players the freedom to set up a text filter for the in-game chat.
Upon enabling the newly implemented ‘Text Filtering’ features, the system will automatically detect swear words in chat and block them for the player. This feature will be enabled by default and if a player wishes to disable it they’ll have to do it manually using the in-game settings.
This sort of ‘Text Filtering’ feature is also being used by games like League of Legends, where toxicity is a very common problem.
While today’s patch is extremely tiny, here’s what the official blog of the update reads:
– Added a new game communication setting “Text Filtering” which is enabled by default and blocks profane words used in text chat.
– Fixed a trigger_bomb_reset regression.
However, no restrictions on abuses through the microphone has been set as of yet. It’s also true that identifying profanities through the microphone is a much more difficult task than filtering a set of swear words in the chat, especially due to the possibility of triggering false positives. For now, fans will have to hope that Valve comes up with a solution to the microphone abuse and till then, the option of blocking communication will have to do the task.
