Xbox to begin giving out strikes to accounts breaking the rules

What you need to know

• Xbox's enforcement system tracks the reported behavior of players and punishes them accordingly for repeated community guidelines violations.

• On Tuesday, Xbox announced a sizeable update to this system to make it more transparent and easier to understand.

• Now, all community guidelines violations will result in strikes added to your account; the more strikes you accumulate, the longer a potential online suspension.

• Xbox is also rolling out a new enforcement history page every player can access to track their strikes and appeals.

Xbox has long been committed to making the Xbox ecosystem a safe and inclusive platform for gamers of all ages and backgrounds. Part of this has been an enforcement system that sees a dedicated Xbox team evaluate player-submitted reports of community guidelines violations, and then dole out punishments (usually in the form of temporary suspensions) to those players. On Tuesday, the Xbox team announced a sizeable update to improve this system for players.

Now, each time a player is found to have violated Xbox's community guidelines in online multiplayer, Party Chat, messages, and beyond (violations including bullying and harassment, inappropriate sexual misconduct, cheating, hate speech, and more) after another player reports them, Xbox will add strikes to that account proportionate to the severity of the violation.

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As strikes are added to your account, the length of the punishment (online suspension) will increase. For example, your first and second strikes are just for one day, but 6 strikes will earn you a 21-day online suspension. If you earn 8 strikes and lose your appeals, your account will be suspended for a full year. Xbox stresses that these suspensions only apply to online features (multiplayer games, Party Chat, social features, and more), and that even suspended players will still have full access to their single-player and purchased content (although Xbox can still permanently revoke account access for illegal activities).

This adds a sense of consistency to the Xbox enforcement system, which was previously vaguer in its punishments. Additionally, Xbox is adding a new enforcement history view, which will allow players to track how many strikes their account has, any pending or previous suspensions, when strikes expire (after six months), and ways to appeal strikes if a player believe it's errant. As always, Xbox encourages players to report community guidelines violations whenever they're witnessed, including using the new Xbox voice reporting tool introduced earlier this year.

These updates to the Xbox enforcement system make it more transparent and easier to understand for players, with clearer punishments for community guidelines violations that can be easily tracked. Xbox is committed to making playing the best Xbox games as fun and safe as possible for all players, and this is a part of that mission. Xbox will be monitoring the success of these changes and will, as always, provide that data to players through its bi-annual Xbox Transparency Report. Xbox's data shows that less than 1% of Xbox players received even one enforcement in 2022, and less than 1/3 of those players received a second enforcement.

Analysis: Positive changes to a necessary system

The vast majority of Xbox players are good people that just want to enjoy their time with video games, either on their own or with friends and family. There are a small subset of toxic players that attempt to ruin the fun for everyone else, even going so far as to actively hurt or affect the safety of other players. The Xbox enforcement system has been working diligently to punish those players according to the Xbox community guidelines (via player reports), but it has admittedly been vague in the kinds of punishments players can expect and how severe their current enforcements are.

I believe these are positive changes to a necessary system. It gives players more transparent information they can use to avoid future strikes and be a more positive force in the Xbox community. That's exactly what Xbox is hoping to see, with even its above graphic showing the example player improving their behavior to avoid future strikes, and then showing those strikes fall off the account after six months. It's good to see Xbox continue to make strides in this area, and I'm sure we'll see even more new features in the future.