Psyonix looks to automate banning of foul-mouthed Rocket League players

Staying on top of player-filed harassment and misconduct reports is a never-ending struggle for developers that maintain a competitive online game, especially one with millions of players.

In an attempt to trim down some of that workload and make the process more effective, Rocket League dev Psyonix is rolling out a system that will automatically resolve reports if offending players uttered certain words or racial slurs.

Psyonix says that its receives thousands of reports from Rocket League players a day, most of which deal with in-game abuse and harassment. The ‘Language Ban’ system rolling out this week automatically assesses those reports and records players that frequently use language from an internal list of words and slurs. 

After a certain amount of repeated offenses, the system automatically doles out bans to offending players, starting first at 24 hours and escalating incrementally until a permanent ban is issued.

While the system itself is automatic, Psyonix notes that it is paying close attention to the effectiveness of the new system and will tweak both its ban policies and system logic as needed down the road.