Dota 2’s charm school

Sometimes, your fellow players can be a real pain. The players chatting in all caps, using profanities and racial slurs, or just generally being unpleasant can kill a multiplayer community faster than actual gameplay errors. Valve noticed that one of the most cited reasons for leaving a Dota 2 game was due to the behavior of other humans. Since they had a vested interest in keeping players happy and playing the game, they instituted a ban policy that would block all communications from a player that received enough negative reports.

Valve released some statistics of their Dota 2 communication bans and the early results look quite positive.

Since the ban system has been implemented, there’s been a 35% drop in negative communication interactions.

Less than the 1% of the active player base (players who have played Dota 2 in the last month) are currently banned.

60% of players who receive bans go on to modify their behavior and don’t receive further bans.
Total reports are down more than 30%, even after accounting for the reduction in the number permitted per week.

Dota 2 is currently available and it can be purchased from Valve’s Early Access program.