Blizzard recently introduced the new Report System in the Overwatch PTR. The revamped feature basically provides intricate ways to penalize griefers and hackers which have plagued the game since its release. While many are already expecting for its launch on the live version, it's still vague if the feature will be released on both PS4 and Xbox One platforms. Is Blizzard intentionally ditching the console over the PC variant? Or is there actually a reason behind the poor implementation of the feature on the console platforms?
Overwatch : Online Griefers
A thread from the community forum has sparked the attention of many, especially from the console community after one player has contacted Blizzard about his problem. The topic was about one online griefer who explicitly asked money in exchange for his cooperation. According to the poster, prior to the actual game, the user bluntly said: "Hey guys, I only play if people pay me, either send me $5 on PayPal before the start of the match or I throw." At first, they've taken the statement as a joke but later on into the game, they realized that the player was indeed serious as he brazenly feeds on the enemy team.
After the incident, the poster utilizes the PS4's feature of saving pre-recorded footage and saved the entire match. He then immediately contacted Blizzard Customer Support only to find out that there was no way for them to punish console griefers and proceeded in telling him that he [the poster] should take it up with Sony.
Why Sony?
The real question is that, why can't Blizzard do something about console griefers? Why should the company forward the issue to Sony? Clearly, Sony won't sanction bans on players for griefing over one game, unless the individual messes up with Sony's properties directly. Shouldn't it be on Blizzard's end to fix these issue(s)?
These were the questions that filled the entire thread. But as of the time of this writing, despite how the thread reverberates in the entire community thread, Blizzard hasn't provided any response yet. And so, why exactly is it hard for the studio to ban these griefers? One guess is that Blizzard has no direct influence over the console networks (i.e. PSN and Xbox Live). And even if they could ban the perpetrators, on PSN for example, they can simply make infinite accounts using PSN+.
Bottom line is, there's a disparity between the console and PC version of Overwatch. It's not just a question of imposing the new Report System on the console but rather, how to implement the said feature.
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