Publisher Electronic Arts, after "Black Lives Matter" and its stated commitment to racial equality, is now addressing player toxicity more broadly. The company has announced its "Positive Play" charter. This is the company's latest set of guidelines for player behavior across all its games, services, forums, and other platforms. The charter itself is fairly basic, in fact, so basic that it is a bit surprising that it includes something that did not exist before. The guidelines include "Don't be a jerk," "Provide useful feedback," "Think before you post," etc.

The charter also outlines what content is considered inappropriate and what language should be used when playing with others. Violators of the rules will be banned for a short period of time, and users who are banned will receive an email explaining the reasons for the ban. Repeated offenders may be permanently banned.

None of this is unusual, but it is still nice to see EA setting out the ground rules in clear language; the news article on EA's official website is a bit more interesting, describing specific measures to ensure that harmful behavior is curbed.

"We have created new ways for players to report abuse, improved our internal escalation policy for dealing with harmful behavior in our games, and created a new training program for our internal teams that work directly with the community. The report also mentions that EA has established a Player Council to make the gaming community more comfortable.

It appears that work has already begun, with EA's team having "removed over 3,500 player-created assets (such as inappropriate and hurtful names and language) from the game and addressed players who posted content." The post also emphasizes that these measures are a long-term effort and that measures will be evaluated and adjusted as needed.

The Positive Play Charter can be found on the EA website.