SOE will ban players for vile behaviour on any social network

Abusive behaviour on Twitter could see the perpetrator banned from playing Sony Online Entertainment’s online titles.

That’s the message from SOE’s director of global community relations Linda Carlson, who told Games Industry that ensuring their games offer a friendly and welcoming environment is one of the company’s top priorities.

"Not only will we ban your forum account, but if it’s serious enough we’ll call up customer service and have you banned from all of our games,” she stated. We do not need those individuals as customers.

A very influential player, high up in a huge guild – we’ll still ban them. In our games, if you are an exploiter we don’t care who you are, how big your guild is, how many people you threaten to take with you when you go. We can control anybody who’s playing our games…[but] if we know who you are and you’re abusing somebody on Twitter, we will ban your game account and we will not accept you as a customer ever again.

"I don’t necessarily like humanity, or the fact that human nature so often trends towards the negative – just because that’s how we’re wired – but understanding that makes this whole field of study very fascinating to me, and I do consider community management to be a field of study.”