How EA’s Positive Play Initiative Wants to Move From Banning Toxic Players to Creating Positive Experiences
We’ve known for years that online gaming can be a minefield of toxicity and bullying especially for women. And while moderation tools generally have been a thing for almost as long, it hasn’t been until recent years that we’ve started to see major gaming companies really acknowledge their responsibility and power not just to stop this behavior, but to proactively create positive spaces.
Just last month, we saw Riot Games and Ubisoft partner on such a project, and Xbox has recently begun offering data on moderation topics as well. But one company that’s been publicly promoting this strategy for a few years now is EA, via its Positive Play program.
The Positive Play program is spearheaded by Chris Bruzzo, EA’s chief experience officer. He’s been at the company for eight and a half years, and stepped into this newly-created role after six years as EA’s chief marketing officer. It was while he was still in that old role that he and current CMO David Tinson began the conversations that led to Positive Play at EA.
“David and I talked for many years about needing to engage the community in this, and address toxicity in gaming and some of the really challenging things that were happening in what have been rapidly growing social communities either in or around games,” Bruzzo says. “And so a few years ago [in 2019], we held a summit at E3 and we started talking about what's the collective responsibility that gaming companies and everybody else, players and everyone involved has in addressing hateful conduct and toxicity in gaming?”
EA’s Building Healthy Communities Summit featured content creators from 20 countries, EA employees, and third-party experts on online communities and toxicity. There were talks and roundtable discussions,
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