Sony has shown it won’t hold back to send a very loud message to the millions of players on the platform against toxic behavior. To promote “respectful communication” on the PlayStation Network (PSN), Sony asked people to keep it civil so that “PSN would remain the best place to play.” And that is quite a good point.
This was not an imposed message, given the constant trash talk, rage quitters, and sometimes just plain madness in voice chats. But, with multiplayer titles such as Call of Duty, Fortnite, and Overwatch 2 gaining momentum, Sony seems intent on pushing the friendly side—or at least less of a death zone outside of the matches.
So, what’s respectful communication for Sony? The guidelines go over everything from not harassing or hate speech, to not spamming or sharing obscene content. Just be somebody that doesn’t mess up the game’s fun for anyone else. While most gamers know this, it’s never bad to remind them—especially with the threat of bans and suspensions for repeat offenders.
While Sony wants to help to clean some of the stain off PSN, this is not the first time it has attempted to regulate online behavior-the PlayStation has had mechanisms for reporting and moderation systems for quite some time. With cross-play becoming mainstream, it’s becoming harder to monitor. Microsoft and Nintendo have their own policies, but this Swift movement from Sony on its own proves its seriousness. But, is it enough? Well, games being games.
Interestingly, the tweets backed the emergence of healthy discussions on online toxicity. The industry essentially went into overdrive from harassment cases with streamers to developers tightening chat filters. Even League of Legends and Valorant have implemented AI-assisted voice chat monitoring systems for flagging detrimental behaviors. Could PlayStation be next? Perhaps.
For now, it was a pretty clear-cut message: Play nice or get booted. Really, there’s so much pretty good multiplayer-gaming and Helldivers 2 is one of them-there is no reason to trash-talk and get banned for it. Next time you get the urge to fire off some nonsensical rage-typing, stop. Better yet, just hit mute-one finger is enough-and move on.
Because, at the end of the day, gaming should be about having fun. And if this little push from Sony helps achieve that goal, then there are no objections. Notwithstanding, if they could do something about the disconnects… but that’s a story for another day.
