From ‘bad’ to ‘absolute bad’: Xbox inventors on toxic behavior in online gaming

Playing online can be fun – or it can be hell.

Seamus Blackley is a co-inventor of the original Xbox and a pioneer in the video game industry, especially in online gaming. So his word has weight. Correspondingly impressive are the harsh words Blackley chooses in relation to a recent incident in Halo Infinite’s multiplayer. He damned toxic behavior in the strongest possible way and demands more initiative to get the problems under control.

What happened?

Grenade Queen played a round of Halo Infinite on her Twitch channel. After things didn’t seem to go too well for the streamer, she was gutted by her own team members. Here is a small selection of the offensive comments:

• “Just get out of here, play Fortnite or what do I know.”
• “Show your pussies on Twitch.”
• “Please don’t play halo, you don’t belong here.”
• “Ever notice that Master Chief is not a woman?”

This is what Blackley says: The Xbox inventor shared the clip on Twitter with the comment: “This is not what we envisioned for Xbox Live. As a community and with the help of Microsoft, this behavior needs to be made aware and we need to stop it. “

Link to Twitter content

Of course, the problem is not exclusive to Microsoft or Xbox, but affects the entire industry. However, Seamus Blackley and his team made online gaming socially acceptable on console. Accordingly, he apparently still feels responsible for the development of services like Xbox Live.

What can we do against it?

Opposite to Axios Blackley continued on the subject:

First approaches: These are harsh words from Blackley, but he also has specific suggestions on how the situation can be improved. First, according to Blackley, the platform and service owners must clearly address the problem and make it aware of it. These things couldn’t be resolved in a boardroom. Instead, those affected should be given the opportunity to participate in the process.

Blackley with Bill Gates at the Xbox presentation.

Only real names on the net? It is of course unrealistic to change the behavior of everyone who is online. Instead, the best solution for Blackley would be if the online reputation were tied to real life – for example by using real names. And it must be prevented that the account can simply be changed after a punishment.