Ubisoft, Riot Games plans “Zero Harm” project

Ubisoft and Riot Games have parternered on a new project that aims to leverage AI technology against toxicity in online gaming.

Riot Games, developers of League of Legends, recently announced a partnership with Ubisoft to create the “Zero Harm in Comms” project, a technological venture to reduce toxic and harmful player interactions in games.

Both Ubisoft and Riot are part of the “Fair Play Alliance,” a coalition of gaming professionals who aim to reduce toxic behaviour in online gaming. Most online games have a stream of negativity stemming from members of the community, with League of Legends having one of the most notoriously toxic player bases.

The Zero Harm in Comms initiative plans to “lay the technological foundations for future industry collaboration” to use AI to reduce negativity and toxicity in online play. The “AI-based pre-emptive moderation tools” would reduce or mitigate disruptive behaviour in-game.

The goal is to cut down on response time between incident reports and actions taken — as it stands, players have to report an incident and wait several hours to days before an administrative action is taken.

League of Legends has one of the largest gaming communities in the world — and as such, has struggled with some of the most toxic communities as well. Picture: AFP

“Disruptive player behaviours is an issue that we take very seriously but also one that is very difficult to solve. At Ubisoft, we have been working on concrete measures to ensure safe and enjoyable experiences, but we believe that, by coming together as an industry, we will be able to tackle this issue more effectively.” said Yves Jacquier, Executive Director at Ubisoft.

“Through this technological partnership with Riot Games, we are exploring how to better prevent in-game toxicity as designers of these environments with a direct link to our communities.”

While the program is still in its early stages, both Riot and Ubisoft hope that other companies and organisations will contribute to the project following a short experiment in 2023.

In other gaming news, Activision Blizzard has announced the suspension of most services in China, following a failure to renegotiate contract deals with NetEase, the publisher of Blizzard games in the region. The suspension will take effect January 23, and the only game that is unaffected by this change is Diablo: Immortal.

Written by Junior Miyai on behalf of GLHF.