Blizzard versus the hostility of MOBAs

[Administrator]

MOBAs - or "online team brawlers", as Blizzard likes to call them, because every developer seems to feel the need to invent its own blanket term for these games - are the biggest games in the world, with one big problem. League of Legends and Dota 2 are fast-paced, skilful competitive games with great tactical depth, gigantic followings and a thriving eSports scene that can turn young players into stars. But they're not very nice places to be, especially for newcomers.
Of course, high tension and aggression go with the territory in a team sport, but MOBAs suffer in particular because they require coordinated teamwork across long, complex scenarios, yet they also encourage showboating and intra-team competitiveness. Combine this volatile mixture with the general standard of manners on the internet and you get a poisonous online environment where less skilled and experienced players - or even skilled and experienced players who are just having an off day - are cussed, humiliated and browbeaten with dispiriting relentlessness.
"We're not shy about this problem," says Dustin Browder down a crackly phone line from California. "I've joked with the team about removing team chat altogether - that was a less than popular idea! But we will keep attacking this problem until it's gone, or as gone as we can get it."
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