Overwatch penalties become harsher for bad behaviour

Playing online with other players can be a wonderful thing. Sometimes you have fantastic teammates and other times abuse is being hurled left right and center. Blizzard has now decided to issue “increased penalties” to Overwatch players who partake in bad behaviour and it covers all the common problems found when playing online.

The increased penalties appear to be longer bans and quicker action being taken by Blizzard. The fact that players who report abusive players will soon be notified if Blizzard has taken action against an abusive player is also a good move. This will let players who report abusers know that their reports are being taken seriously.

The full statement from Blizzard reads:

We believe that our in-game reporting and player penalty system is one of our most important features, and it’s something we want to invest in significantly over the next year. To this end, effective immediately, we will be issuing increased penalties to players in response to verified reports of bad behavior. In Overwatch, that means anything from abusive chat, harassment, in-game spam, match inactivity (being intentionally AFK), and griefing. If you see someone engaging in any of these types of behaviors, report them. Players in violation will be silenced, suspended, or even banned from the game as a result.

We know that making Overwatch a truly welcoming environment is an ongoing process, and this is only the first step. Over the next several months, we have plans to make additional improvements based on your feedback, including scaling competitive season bans, a notification system that will alert you when a player you’ve reported is actioned, and functionality that will allow us to more aggressively penalize players who attempt to abuse the in-game reporting tool.

We also remain committed to bringing a reporting system to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. As console players ourselves, we know it’s been frustrating to not have this functionality on your platform. We are actively working on the feature and have many elements of undergoing internal testing right now. Our goal is to implement similar reporting options as are currently available on PC, and any improvements made to PC between now and when it’s available.

Thank you for your vigilance, passion, and commitment to building a welcoming and enjoyable community and helping us make Overwatch the best game it can be.