How To Create a Secure But Immersive Space for Gaming
Can gaming experiences continue to get more immersive and safer at the same time.
The gaming market is massive. With multiple moving pieces, the risks to players’ safety have (also) never been more complex, discusses Vitalii Vashchuk, senior director and head of gaming solutions at EPAM Systems, Inc.
Thanks to the rising penetration of internet services, greater availability of games via the internet, and the proliferation of smartphones, the market is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 12.9%, reaching USD 583.69 billion by 2030. At the same time, the gaming industry, one of the earliest adopters, continues to drive the metaverse’s development. Advancements in AR and VR technologies will provide immersive 3D experiences for gamers while cryptocurrency and blockchain allow them to interact within Web3 economics. And with 2.9 billion gamers worldwide, the gaming community has never been more connected.
Game developers and companies have the difficult task of securing the gaming ecosystem, which consists of an enormous and ever-growing library of user-generated content containing inappropriate and harmful materials. Sifting through this mountain is a herculean feat, yet gaming companies must also walk the tightrope of providing immersive, next-generation experiences while observing consumer protection laws. One tool which can help companies solve these evolving challenges is content moderation services. Game developers can utilize these services when designing and implementing a trust and safety strategy, empowering them to protect online communities without restricting engagement and creativity.
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Five Building Blocks of a Good Trust and Safety Platform
A content moderation tool that fosters trust and safety for the gaming community and metaverse should be built upon several things, namely data for informed decisions, the welfare of moderators and the throughput of moderated content. Moreover, as the tool continuously collects and analyzes data, it should be flexible enough to change when introduced to new and different product policies and content toleration levels.
While there are various other considerations, these are five main building blocks every good content moderation platform should have:
- Policies and regulations: Community rules will serve as the cornerstones of any platform.
- Human moderators: While artificial intelligence (AI) continues to become more powerful, labeling, verification, and solving edge cases still necessitates the ingenuity and intuition of people.
- Automated moderation pipeline: Despite the need for human moderators, AI, at the end of the day, can filter and label the bulk of incoming content far more efficiently than people. By automating the moderation process with AI, companies can minimize and sometimes outright prevent humans from interacting with harmful content.
- Data analytics: This element will help uncover a deeper understanding of the content, including performance and accuracy metrics.
- System management: A centralized hub where game companies can control and configure the whole system and derive operational insights.
Likewise, it is helpful for game developers to determine which of these three trust and safety levels they align with based on how far along they are in implementing those principal building blocks.
- Starter: At this level, the company has only basic human moderation and no recognition tools to detect harmful content. Its policies and regulations are also very new, and users can readily find inappropriate content.
- Medium: This game developer has basic AI recognition tools in place. There may (or may not) be a degree of enforced community policies, including the presence of mature tools.
- Advanced: Once at the highest level, this organization likely has its own platform and mature policies. It also has a large staff of moderators, supported by trained AI models, which find and delete problematic content before most users get exposed.
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Leveraging AI and Humans in Content Moderation
As mentioned above, the sheer volume of user-generated content necessitates that gaming companies incorporate AI-powered automation into their content moderation platform. However, AI is insufficient on its own – it needs to be deployed alongside human moderators. Should a company recognize that its platform is missing any of the five building blocks or has other shortcomings, it can use humans to fill in the gaps to perform manual labeling or serve as the final say for ambiguous decisions. Of course, a company at the advanced trust and safety level will be mindful of its employees’ well-being and avoid exposing them to highly graphic material. Gaming brands can use AI solutions to enhance metadata, preventing unwanted exposure to human moderators while allowing for automated routing so that the most qualified agent can review questionable content.
Additionally, gaming companies must place rules and guardrails around their AI solutions to help them operate ethically and responsibly. If left unchecked, AI could undermine human rights or reinforce harmful bias against marginalized communities. Nevertheless, even when companies design their AI with good intentions, biases have the habit of creeping into algorithms. Game developers must recognize that achieving responsible AI is an ongoing process of constant testing and monitoring. Those companies that deploy their own AI-powered moderation technology should strive to make it transparent and ethical, using existing social policies as a reference. And for the ones that need to look at the solutions available on the market, be sure to evaluate the developer and their values thoroughly.
A Platform Ready for the Future
The unique ways gamers can connect and share memorable experiences are unlike any other time – with the continued development of the metaverse, community interactions will take on an additional dimension that combines the virtual and real world, going beyond pure gameplay into Web3 based-interactions. However, allowing the gaming ecosystem to police itself survival-of-the-fittest style is irresponsible.
Game developers face the unique challenge of letting online communities engage and interact with user-generated content while protecting them from toxic material. This responsibility of providing a secure ecosystem goes beyond entertainment and into moral and legal obligations – yet, with the right mix of community guidelines and responsible AI, companies can build a successful content moderation platform fit for the future gaming landscape.
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Image Source: Shutterstock
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