PUBG Introduces New System to "Deal" With Toxic Players

Multiplayer games of every genre and style have something in common: almost all of them wrestle with the issue of toxic gamers. Some games have bigger problems than others, but any time you team up with a stranger on the internet, there's a decent chance you'll eventually have to deal with a total jerk. And to date, different games have tried different things: Overwatch has an "Endorsement" system that has reduced toxicity by 40%. League of Legends has an "honor" system that gives loot to players who are especially nice. And now, PUBG has unveiled its own system for combating toxicity.

PUBG's system, so far called the "reputation" system, is a lot less nuanced than the systems I mentioned earlier. Starting in the next patch, every player will have a number, from 0 to 5, next to their profile name. If you play normally, that number will slowly rise till it hits 5. If you get reports, quit mid-match, or are super disruptive, the number will drop. So it's less a system that encourages good behavior and more a system that encourages you to not be a jerk.

Which would be fine, except it doesn't seem to encourage that either. There's no reward for hitting 5, nor punishment for reaching 0: it seems PUBG is hoping that the social stigma of having a 0 next to your name would be enough to discourage bad behavior? A bit of a forlorn hope, I should think, considering how many people wear their butthead status on their sleeves: heck, a lot of famous streamers are loved because they're jerks.

So if you think about it, it's not so much a "punishment-reward" system as much as it's just a warning system: if you cue up with a 0, you know you're in for a rough time. That's all this system does.

Probably needs revisiting.