Game Industry Leaders Come Together to Fight Toxcitiy

As you may or may not be aware of, the Game Developers Conference, or GDC, has been happening all week, from March 20 to the 23. And during that time, developers have been coming together to chat about the industry, make a few announcements, network, and give each other prizes. A lot has come out of this year’s GDC so far, but I think the coolest so far is the announcement of FPA, otherwise known as the Fair Play Alliance.

“The Fair Play Alliance is a coalition of gaming professionals and companies committed to developing quality games. We provide an open forum for the games industry to collaborate on research and best practices that encourage fair play and healthy communities in online gaming. We envision a world where games are free of harassment, discrimination, and abuse, and where players can express themselves through play.”

The Fair Play Alliance consists of 30+ developers and companies who have a history and a problem with toxicity within their communities. Listed members range from Blizzard Entertainment to League of Legends developer Riot Games, Fortnite’s Epic Games, Xbox, and even smaller studios like Two Hat Games, the developer behind Building 37.

Their purpose, it seems, is to tackle the issue of negative game spaces together, combining and refining their data and their experience to create solutions that actually matter. It was spearheaded, perhaps unsurprisingly, by Riot Games, which has a long history of toxicity with League of Legends, but also has the longest history of trying to curtail that toxicity, making them uniquely qualified to lead such an initiative.

So far all they’ve done is host an all-day workshop at GDC, but they have a website that promises future action. So we’ll have to see how well they deliver on that with crossed fingers and high hopes, won’t we?