Video Games

Activision says Call of Duty toxicity is down ahead of Black Ops 6’s release thanks to new tech

Activision’s efforts to combat Call of Duty’s toxicity problem in voice chat has, reportedly, paid off just in time for Black Ops 6’s release in November 2024

Josh Broadwell

Activision

Activision’s efforts to combat Call of Duty’s toxicity problem in voice chat has, reportedly, paid off just in time for Black Ops 6’s release in November 2024. Activision published a brief report of its accomplishments in a new blog post, though it’s worth noting that Activision has no other entity outside of itself to verify the accuracy of the statistics presented in that post.

Activision says they implemented ToxMod in June 2024, and since then, the publisher noted a 67 percent reduction in repeat offenders involved in toxic behavior in chat across Call of Duty Warzone and Modern Warfare 3. 

“The Disruptive Behavior team is continually making improvements to reduce our community’s exposure to disruptive behavior as well as enhancing our moderation effectiveness across all types of social interactions in Call of Duty,” Activision said in the post. “These improvements include improved messaging to players, Code of Conduct updates, and enhancements to our enforcement strategies.”

“In July 2024, 80% of players that were issued a voice chat enforcement since launch did not re-offend. Exposure to disruptive voice chat continues to fall, dropping by 43% since January 2024.”

ToxMod is a piece of moderation software that uses machine learning AI to understand how developers expect people to behave in their game, then examine context, listener reaction, and other factors to determine whether a player committed a violation, and it’s not shy about handing out lifelong bans.

Rockstar adopted ToxMod at the end of 2023 for GTA Online, widely regarded as one of the most toxic multiplayer games around, and it’s used in other games as well, including Among Us VR and Poker Stars VR.

Presumably, that means Call of Duty Black Ops 6 will launch with less toxicity, or at least fewer repeat offenders. Considering Black Ops 6 lets players take others hostage and speak to them directly while doing so, that’s the least Activision can do to keep players safe.

Call of Duty Black Ops 6 launches for PC, PS5, PS4, and Xbox on October 25, 2024.

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Josh Broadwell
JOSH BROADWELL

Josh is a freelance writer and reporter who specializes in guides, reviews, and whatever else he can convince someone to commission. You may have seen him on NPR, IGN, Polygon, or Rolling Stone shouting about RPGs. When he isn’t working, you’ll likely find him outside with his Belgian Malinois and Australian Shepherd or leveling yet another job in FFXIV.

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