Amazon Patents Method To Group Toxic Players With Other Toxic Players

Ah toxic players. It is the bane of the gaming community. It’s not an uncommon sight to see gamers being turned off from certain games due to its high level of toxicity amongst its community. Either from cheaters, bad-mouthers or from players who are generally bad sports. I myself have been in situations where I completely stop playing a video game because of its negative and toxic players. Amazon seems to have an idea on how to combat this though.

How does Amazon plan to deal with toxic players?

According to a recent patent filing, Amazon is working on a method to address the toxicity issue by making toxic players play against other equally toxic players. Spotted by Protocol, the patent details a method of grouping these toxic players together by using a “Behaviour-aware Player Selection for Multiplayer Electronic Games.”

Amazon’s patent notes that multiplayer games typically group its players by matching their rank or skill levels and while players may enjoy playing with other players of similar skill levels, other factors must be taken into consideration for a better playing experience.

The patent further explains that the behaviours of other players which they have been paired with also factors into a player’s level of enjoyment and that players with undesirable behaviours may bring that level of enjoyment down. The players who engage in such behaviours are often labeled as toxic players. The patent then proposed one method of dealing with this is to isolate all ‘toxic’ players into a separate player pool such that one toxic player is paired only with other toxic players.

Amazon does acknowledge that it is difficult to come up with a clear definition for the term “toxic” and that categorising players based on either “toxic” or “non-toxic” ignores other important differences in player preferences. Some players might not mind profanities as much as others but feel strongly that leaving a game prematurely is toxic or undesirable behaviour.

Part of Amazon’s patent

Thus, the filing proposed that there be a system where players can choose their own preferences on player behaviour which in turn will group them in rooms with other players of similar preferences. For example, if a person doesn’t mind the other player swearing a lot through the game then they will be paired with particularly foul mouthed players.

It remains to be seen if Amazon will be successful in implementing such a method but it does give an interesting option for players to avoid toxicity in video games.

Pokdepinion: While I like Amazon’s idea, I don’t think this is a really efficient way of dealing with toxic players. I think it needs a little more fine tuning and maybe some AI assistance.