Amid the ongoing protests about racial injustice in the US, Call of Duty developer Infinity Ward has admitted it "needs to do a better job" at eliminating racist players from the video game.
The hugely popular first-person shooter has countless examples of racist slurs and Nazi-related player names, along with a reputation for players using offensive abuse over voice chat in the game.
Now the studio behind the latest Call of Duty release is saying sorry.
"We apologise to our players. There is no place for racist content in our games," Infinity Ward stated.
"We need to do a better job. We're issuing thousands of daily bans of racist and hate-oriented names. But we know we have to do more."
Infinity Ward is committing to the following measures to mitigate racism on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare:
- Adding additional resources to monitor and ID racist content
- Adding additional in-game reporting systems to increase the number of bans by hour
- Adding filters and greater restrictions on name changes
- Evaluating in-game improvements to make it easier to report offenses
- Increasing permanent bans to root out repeat offenders
Not everyone is happy with the increased policing of racism on Call of Duty, with some saying it's an attack on free speech.
"Yay more censorship," tweeted one person.
Others have pointed out that sexism is also a problem in the game, while others showed screenshots of player names that didn't include racial slurs but were still offensive, such as: "FloydDeservedIt".
Taking credit for Infinity Ward's move is a Call of Duty fan account Modern Warzone which ran a #EndCODracism campaign on Reddit and Twitter.
Infinity Ward's announcement comes days after the company delayed its latest season of Call of Duty multiplayer due to the protests.
Another way the gaming industry has responded to the protests following the killing of George Floyd is with a rare display of unity between rivals Xbox and PlayStation.
Both companies have issued their own statements in support of their black customers and employees. But Xbox took the message of unity a step further and retweeted PlayStation's post with the message "we stand together", along with a blue heart and a green heart representing each brand.
