CVP of Xbox Player Services David McCarthy has posted on Xbox Wire about the new moderation system the company has put in place.
To sum it up quickly, Xbox now has an eight strikes system, with a variety of enforcements at play. Microsoft is quite serious here, they make it clear that they reserve the right to take away a user’s chance to even play their purchased games.
That may seem harsh, but that worst case scenario is in place for what Microsoft describes as ‘illegal activity.” I’m sure most gamers saw that and wonder if that means running emulators on their Xbox. But, it’s more likely, this is something Microsoft has in reserve in case a person did crimes that led to harming other people, or getting involved in a grand conspiracy that they are getting prosecuted for.
For the rest of us, getting a strike leading to a suspension won’t stop you from being able to access your purchased content, particularly on single player experiences. The strike system can also be appealed before Microsoft enforces a strike. And unlike preschool, Microsoft isn’t making a permanent record; most strikes go away after six months.
But if you do end up on the wrong end of a strike, that will translate to getting suspended from Xbox’s social features, with the duration dependent on the strike and its severity. And if you get strikes that stack up, you have to complete the total duration of each strike suspension, by order of date.
Fortunately, Xbox users can see and review their own strikes. That does mean, for example, if a player is saying a word or using language they didn’t realize was harming other users, they can confirm that this is the issue, and change their behavior accordingly.
Microsoft knows that their systems are working, and they shared some data to prove it. They revealed that less than 1 % of all Xbox players were suspended in 2022. Of that 1 %, only less than 1/3 of them received a second suspension. They claim that this is proof that they are successfully discouraging Xbox users from violating Xbox Community Standards, and these changes will improve that rate even further.
As the pioneer in online console gaming, Microsoft also turned out to be the pioneer in online gaming moderation. While they didn’t always make the correct or most popular choices, that accumulated knowledge has led to them building among the most sophisticated systems for moderation of any game company.
If this new system won’t completely eliminate bad player behavior, it may limit to such a degree that it’s almost equivalent to doing so.
