Ubisoft partners with UK police to fight toxic players — unprecedented move in games industry

Ubisoft has gone even further in its fight against toxic player behavior. The company has signed a first-of-its-kind deal with the UK police to address some issues with online gaming.

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As reported by the BBC, Ubisoft recently established a partnership with Northumbria Police. “We want to be on the right side of history,” Damien Glorieux, senior director of Ubisoft’s Customer Relationship Center in Newcastle, said.

Here is how the deal will work:

• Officers will share their expertise on “harmful online interactions” with a 200-person team at Ubisoft Newcastle, who then will apply this knowledge to their work;
• Ubisoft workers will be able to report information on toxic behavior to the police in some “extreme cases” (e.g. if there is a potential life threat).

According to Ubisoft Customer Relationship Center, less than 0.01% of cases (or just a “handful of cases a month”) require police intervention. The company will still be able to ban player accounts for policy violations.

Ubisoft believes that online toxicity goes beyond gaming, and “there’s a real appetite to make the whole ecosystem a better place.” So the company wants to take the real steps to fight dangerous and threatening behavior.

A Northumbria Police representative noted that law enforcment should not only protect people in real life, but members of online communities as well: “Policing changes continually, demands evolve and we have different challenges all the time – our job is to evolve with it.”

For more information about video game moderation, online harassment, and toxic behavior, read our interview with Utopia Analytics‘ Sharon Fisher. She discussed the challenges the industry is facing in this field and explained why the old-fashioned approach to moderation needs to be rethought.