About — Chat Systems in Games
As of January 2019 video games in the US by order of the FCC must include accessible communications. You can read more about it here. I started thinking about the implications of this new legislation on chat systems. It will change not only how we make video games, but also provide us as game developers an opportunity to improve game chat systems.
According to the legislation, text chat systems will now require voice chat and/or voice-to-text features, in addition to the chat system being easily accessible by all people. This only applies to traditional messaging systems, meaning that interactions such as emotes in games will not be affected by the legislation. With these changes we can expect to see more accessibility options for existing chat systems in games, as well as a possibility of fewer chat systems being prioritized. Either way, chat systems and how they are designed are both going to change.
Accessible chat features can be anything from increasing the size and position of the text box, or playing an audio cue when a message is posted, to even making sure that your game supports third party controllers for players who don’t use keyboards.
In most online games, especially those with competitive multiplayer, one of the most polarizing features is the in-game chat, as it can often be a source for aggressive trash talk. Toxic gamers, or players who use the chat system to abuse other players, whether it be to their detriment or not, have been the topic of numerous online game discussions. Only since the advent of MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) games did developers really start to tackle the issue. Recently the Fair Play Alliance was founded with a mission to develop practices that encourage positive community and player interactions in online games.
The Fair Play Alliance is a coalition of gaming professionals and companies committed to developing quality games. We provide a forum for gaming professionals and companies to work together to develop and share best practices in encouraging healthy communities and awesome player interactions in online gaming. -Fair Play Alliance Mission Statement
Fair Play Alliance focuses on what they call “disruptive behavior.” Toxicity and in particular toxic chat interactions can certainly be a large part of negative and in some cases traumatizing game experiences. Even in games where communication is boiled down to simple emotes, players still find ways to misuse the chat system. Even in multiplayer games where text chat is non-existent, players still find ways to communicate using whatever tools they have. This usually ends up being emotes, but even online fighting games have developed crouch spamming to taunt their opponent.
In online games, players want to communicate with each other. If players want to, they can find a way to negatively impact other players’ experiences. So as game developers that want an accessible and inclusive experience, this is a problem. Thankfully companies have already tried their hand at solving the problem, and have come to some interesting realizations.
Enter Hearthstone, a game without in-game chat. Instead players can select pre-recorded voice lines that are different depending on the character they are playing as. This takes the privilege away from the player to write their own lines, limiting the chances of toxic interaction while still providing a way to engage the other player. In addition, players can mute or ‘squelch’ their opponent just as easily as they can talk to them. Initially during alpha testing there was a ‘Lucky’ emote, but according to Ben Brode and Eric Dodds (the game’s designer and director, respectively) it was removed because “it was used for evil more than good” (Source). A study on the misuse of emotes in Hearthstone led to nearly every arguably respectful use of emotes being misunderstood by the other player. Here are a few comments:
I don’t mind emotes if you don’t spam them. But I hate when people use “Well played” after every game, even if it was not a good game. You won, no need to rub it in. (Source)
I hate people spamming emotes. I just say “Hello” and squelch everyone at the beginning. If I could permanently squelch everyone, I would. (Source)
It seems that everything I do is BM. If I play all my cards, I’m overkilling the opponent. If I play only the exact amount of damage needed to kill the opponent, I’m giving them false hope. If I don’t concede, I’m wasting my opponents time. If I concede, I’m robbing them of the opportunity of killing me. If I emote, I’m a spammer. If I don’t emote, I’m being rude. (Source)
So emotes are very subjective to the play experience. Personally when I play Hearthstone and am trying to win, I will actively emote on every turn, I like the Warrior character Garrosh’s extremely rude voice lines. To me, it makes the game more enjoyable, but funnily enough if I’m playing against anyone else doing the same thing I will probably end up muting them.
On rare occasions after losing a game in Hearthstone players will go out of their way to add the winning player as a friend and then insult them in a private message followed by a de-friend so the other player can never respond. The trend I’m seeing is that players want to interact with each other and know they are being heard, but when another player becomes annoying they don’t want to deal with that player anymore… kind of like in real life.
There isn’t an easy solution to this problem but if players are going to misuse communication the least game developers can do is to make these interactions entertaining and relatively benign for both players. In Hearthstone the voice lines help to do this tremendously, but that still doesn’t seem to be enough. It would seem that teaching players to be better people is something game developers should add to their list. Either that or find a way to detect and hide overtly hostile interactions from the victim, but that is another rabbit hole to explore in a different article. Although most games now have a section in their terms of service agreement concerning proper player chat etiquette, a permanent mute or suspension is only a band aid solution to the problem.
Overall, I think that Hearthstone’s emote system is a great middle ground for developers who don’t have the resources to spend on a high quality accessible chat experience. Sure, it isn’t as robust as a chat box, but emotes can be an easy and accessible system that still lets players interact with each other.
Maybe one day we will figure out how to cultivate amazingly positive chat experiences for players. Accessible chat options seem like a good first step towards this goal.
