Valve forces Dota 2 players to pay to avoid toxic players

Dota 2 is no longer free to play if you want to have the best experience. This year, Dota 2's "Battle Pass" – a premium subscription that typically offers beauty and other optional curiosities – is one of the most important elements ever created by Valve. Players who buy the Battle Pass can now use an "experimental" feature, Avoid Gambling, which is supposed to keep toxic players away from you. Here's a different way to say it: Valve now charges players a minimum of $ 9.99 to avoid stalkers.

I am pleased to see that Valve is finally taking more action to tackle its toxic gambling community and to protect Dota 2 players from the worst. But it is telling that society sees this as an addition, and not as part of the basic experience that should be offered to all players for free. Solo play continues to be a wild bet. Just last night, I played a few rounds of Dota, and while I was placed with a group of teammates perfectly friendly in the first round, in the next match, I was subjected to a team of players Toxics who fought for 40 minutes and who launched a racial racial campaign and homophobic insults to everyone in the match.

And yes – it's easy enough to mute others – but Valve did not even take the basic steps to protect players in a game that's been around for six years. I still regularly meet players with racist words and other offensive words in their player names. It is inconceivable that leading developers and publishers like Valve do not have the trouble to implement the most basic player security features in their games. No big company seems immune to this blatant breach of responsibility; in my first few months of Battlefield VEvery day I witnessed outrageous amounts of racist harassment supposed to be handled by AE's supposedly crafty artificial intelligence. (The system could not even seem to block the n-word, and EA never returned my requests for comments explaining why it was so down.)

Of course, Valve's new premium 'avoid the player' feature is probably not worth paying in its current state. Players report that the feature simply allows you to express a preference do not play with someone – this does not guarantee that you will not see him again. What is the purpose of a feature to avoid players that does not allow you to avoid the players? Why this lame feature costs $ 9.99?

Players who purchase the Battle Pass also have access to a new premium feature that they can upgrade over time. But until Valve repairs his disorder in the community, I suggest you let them hang.