For many people, the biggest turnoff to online play is the community at large. The Internet can be a denizen of toxicity, where players can be flamed for any number of reasons.
Recently, developers have been looking into improving the community that surrounds their games, to varying levels of success. A few years ago, Blizzard attempted to impose the rule of having players tie their Battle.net accounts with real names in Blizzard's online forums. Blizzard's hope was to foster a better gaming community by denying their players the privilege of anonymity. This decision was quickly repealed after fans expressed their outrage. More recently, Riot's implemented the Tribunal, which presents cases of problem players to a jury of random League of Legends players. These random players judge whether or not these players ought to be pardoned or punished. The community is then empowered to self-police with the Tribunal. Whether or not this has really relieved the player toxicity in League of Legends remains to be seen.
Microsoft is now trying its hand at dealing with the toxicity in Xbox Live play. However, it's sparing the rod, and instead offering players with good reputations rewards. Frank Savage, Partner Development Manager at Microsoft, discussed a potential reward system at GDC. "Thanks for being such a good member of the community, here's a reward," explained Savage.
This reward system is still in its infancy. According to Polygon, Savage explained that it was still in its "brainstorming stages." As a result, Microsoft doesn't have any set rewards for well-behaved players.
Whether or not this more positive-reinforcement system will work in curbing bad player behavior remains to be seen, particularly because these rewards have to be alluring enough to make Xbox Live players want them in the first place.
