Here are some illustrative examples of how the ECE (encouragement, consequences, environment) framework can be applied in different game genres and situations.
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Method
Healthy Communities via the ECE Framework
A balanced approach to environment, consequences, and encouragement to help developers think strategically about promoting healthy communities.
While these are high-level starting points, they demonstrate the versatility of the approach and can help in starting deeper discussions at your studio. Note that none of these are obvious wins — each should be approached in the context of your game and audience and with awareness of the constraints and opportunities you face.
Applying ECE to different genres
Player expectations for social experiences differ across genres. Tailor your ECE strategies to align with those expectations for the best results. Here’s how this might look in different game types:
Battle royales (e.g., Fortnite, Apex Legends, Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout)
Encouragement
- Turn spectator mode into a support role to keep players invested and productive. Let “ghost” players spot resources, scout dangers, or offer limited buffs to remaining teammates.
- Introduce challenges with rewards for assists, revives, strategic plays, and surviving without kills. This validates non-lethal playstyles.
- Provide ways for players to showcase their standing in the community that reflect the game’s tone and player atmosphere. These should focus on good behavior, not the absence of bad behavior (the latter can cause players to intentionally try to avoid these as a pseudo label for being “rebellious”, for instance).
Consequences
- Be clear about what’s unacceptable in lobbies and matches. Have robust moderation and varied penalties, from warnings to temp bans from specific modes. (While escalation is important when necessary, warnings can help curb recidivism by educating players both on what’s acceptable and the possible consequences.)
- Excessive early-game quitting may be curbed by limiting ability to join future matches, progress, or XP, encouraging players to finish a game.
- Track rage-quitting and reckless deaths and add a delay when queuing (similar to League of Legends‘ Leaverbuster penalty for match leavers).
Environment
- Limit emotes / sprays that can be used for taunting. Instead, offer ones focused on cooperation (pointing, “help!” icons, etc.) or lightweight fun.
- Introduce unpredictable elements that force temporary cooperation. Sudden resource spawns that require teamwork to access, or environmental hazards that endanger everyone, shift the focus away from purely adversarial play.
MMORPGs (e.g., World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XIV, Black Desert Online)
Encouragement
- Highlight guild or clan features that facilitate mentorship and support, not just raiding. This sets a prosocial tone early.
- Feature crafters who make essential gear, community organizers who host events, or mentors renowned for their helpfulness.
- In-game events that require varied roles (crafter, tank, etc.) highlight interdependence. Don’t just highlight top raiders or PvP champions.
- Design encounters that require a mix of classic roles (tank, DPS, healers) alongside puzzle-solving, environmental interaction, or other setups that value diverse skills.
Consequences
- Temporarily restrict disruptive players from guild activities, housing features, or cosmetics.
- Publicly marking bad behavior can backfire. They might become badges of pride for trolls, or demoralize those who genuinely want to improve.
Environment
- Ensure a robust code-of-conduct is in place and showcase role models in the community, whether guilds or influencers, who demonstrate these values consistently.
- Provide safe havens to learn without experienced players dominating the space, such as dedicated crafting towns, level-restricted trade zones.
- Clearly mark zones as PvP / non-PvP. Let players opt into the amount of risk they want, reducing resentment from those who dislike open-world ganking.
- Raids shouldn’t be the only endgame. If they require niche skills, scale rewards to match, so non-raiders feel their path is equally respected.
Cozy social games (e.g., Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Stardew Valley, Palia)
Encouragement
- Instead of server-wide goals, consider smaller-scale, shared building projects. Groups could design a park, customize a guild house, and so forth, for a sense of camaraderie and pride.
- Enable players to easily craft small gifts for others or offer assistance with routine in-game tasks (watering crops, etc.). Normalize acts of generosity.
- Provide players with avenues for creative expression, like in-game storytelling tools, that encourage both individual creativity and social interaction. (Be mindful of avenues for abuse — consider how you can establish strong social community norms and effective moderation.)
Consequences
- Support player reputations known to the server, or helpfulness scores that unlock cosmetic rewards but don’t block play. These will lean into the social consequences, which can be especially impactful in cozy games that center on community first.
- Instead of bans, consider “time outs” that temporarily prevent disruptive players from joining group activities or limit their chat to pre-made phrases for a period. They may revert to a basic presentation, disabling all cosmetics.
Environment
- Create helpful NPCs who praise generosity, or cozy spaces that visibly react to players working together (flowers bloom, etc.).
- Offer lightweight, “opt-in conflict” — low-stakes, clearly marked areas for optional competition — to channel those urges into designated spaces (e.g., a game room for small competitive games).
- Emotes, stickers, and contextual actions for communication reduce the potential for misunderstandings and hurtful language.
- Positive or prosocial emotes should be the easiest to access, negative ones a bit “hidden” or even unavailable to nudge players towards the right choices.
Shooters (e.g., Call of Duty series, Hunt: Showdown, Destiny 2, Back for Blood)
Encouragement
- Reward actions that help the team even if they don’t directly result in kills, such as spotting enemies, sharing resources, reviving teammates, or strategically holding objectives.
- Design satisfying micro-feedback for teamwork, such as a sound cue when you save a teammate, temporary visual effects that highlight assists, or even mini-XP bonuses for good plays. (Just be careful that it doesn’t get annoying after 10, 100, or 1000 times.)
- Avoid end-of-game setups that make it easy to spot who might not have done as well. Consider highlighting only a few top performances — that keeps recognition special, while ensuring you’re still part of the majority if you’re not selected.
Consequences
- Extremely disruptive players might be temporarily locked out of competitive modes or lose the ability to use voice chat, forcing them to rethink their behavior.
- Make it clear to players that reports aren’t ignored. A simple “thank you for helping keep the game welcoming and fun” message after a report can go a long way to encouraging players to keep reporting.
- Reporting and assessment need nuance as someone yelling in the heat of the moment is different from targeted harassment. Take the time to identify the nature of disruptions players may face and appropriate consequences that take into account shielding players as well as decreasing recidivism.
Environment
- Monitor for areas that become frustrating choke points or that encourage spawn-camping, as this breeds negativity and often retaliatory behavior.
- Consider “hold-out” areas that allow players to set up before an encounter (whether manually triggered or just awaiting the enemy’s arrival). This can give players each a chance to place defense items and position themselves, which helps increase a sense of contribution and teamwork.
- If feasible, short non-combat social zones in lobbies or between matches can help reset the mood and encourage casual interactions. These could include leaderboards for non-combat stats, like longest survived, supplies shared, etc.
Applying ECE at different scales
For small teams, ECE offers a focused framework to prioritize community health initiatives that make the greatest impact with limited resources. For large teams, a robust ECE approach mitigates both reputational and legal risks that come with neglecting a healthy player environment.
Indie studios / small teams
Encouragement
- Identify visible role models, such as mentors, and look for ways to highlight them, such as in dev blogs or community boards. The aim is to make prosocial behavior feel aspirational.
- Pick mentors based on in-game helpfulness observed by you, not just leaderboards. This helps ensure that what is rewarded reflects what you want to see in game, not just what has become popular or perhaps sensationalist.
- Simple rewards, such as titles, chat colors, or minor cosmetics can be enough. Big rewards are also more likely to attract players who may prioritize those over the social recognition.
Consequences
- Since you can’t track everything, focus your reporting on the behaviors that ruin the game most (scamming, hate, harassment vs. insults, nuisance behaviors). This makes moderation manageable.
- Start with clear in-game reporting prompts based on your most disruptive issues (e.g., “report hate speech here”), which then feed into a prioritized review queue.
Environment
- A well-run Discord can be your early “community hub.” This can help you focus developer time on making the game itself a space conducive to what you want to see in game. (Ensure you still create a code of conduct and set expectations for any external community you manage.)
- Be open with players about being a small team and explicitly ask for help. Honesty builds trust and compassion more than overpromising and helps manage expectations. The reality is that failing to act sometimes is not a lack of care or tacit approval, but bandwidth or resource constraints.
- Start minimal, but track what social features players actually want as you grow. Avoid building what you think they need as this only takes time away from what matters. Be sure to consider a holistic and mid-to-long-term view of the possible outcomes. Only focusing on what players want can lead to short-term thinking as well as emergent problems that can be hard to address later.
Large-scale teams / AAA developers
Encouragement
- Analyze frustration points in the new player experience. Don’t just reward “good” actions, design systems to prevent the frustration and other sources that breed disruptive behavior in the first place.
- Go beyond UI rewards to make prosocial behavior feel powerful and satisfying. For example, helping others could trigger unique visuals or temporary ability buffs.
- Budget time and resources specifically for things like animation, sound design, and other delighters that reinforce positive actions. These can seem like late-stage, optional polish, but these touches can make a difference in the overall pressure to behave a certain way.
Consequences
- A moderation plan is a necessity. Whether you choose to work with a third-party vendor, build a system in-house, or combine with player initiatives, ensure you have some form of monitoring in place. Keep in mind that ignoring certain behaviors can open you up to lawsuits, not just bad PR.
- Spend time on your penalty plan. Include what behaviors you expect, how you will validate them (to detect when players are using reporting to harass rather that legitimately report someone), and how you will establish and apply any penalties (including duration and cases of re-offense). This will inform early on what needs building so you’re ready for launch and help you prepare your support team.
- AI flagging is necessary at scale, but human review is vital. Train staff to spot nuanced harm, and have clear pathways for escalating sensitive cases such as child grooming, threats of extremism, or threats of self-harm.
Environment
- Translate core values into testable design goals (“Our game should minimize opportunities for griefing.” or “Our new-game experience should be inclusive of players with marginalized identities.” ). Hold teams accountable to these values at all levels of the company and be transparent around what being held accountable looks like.
- Devs closest to the game’s systems often see ECE issues first. Give them channels to raise concerns without fear of being ignored or minimized. Similarly, your player-support team can be a vital assist early in the design process of new features or future games given their experience at the front lines.
- Ensure that the worlds you create are actively built upon the principles you want to see in game. Do not invest in moderation systems, while also investing in problematic streamers, for example. Or create in-game systems, visuals, or narratives, that expressly counter your values, even if they are considered amusing or ironic.
Keep in mind
- Don’t try to remove all conflict from competitive games. Focus on channeling it into healthy rivalry.
- Don’t be afraid to rework heroes who enable griefing, even if they aren’t overpowered in a purely win / loss sense.
- Partner with influencers who embody the kind of community you want. Their content can be more persuasive than any rulebook.
- New players are easy targets. Features like scaled protection or newbie-only zones are essential for long-term health.
- Bans should be a last resort. Warnings and annoying restrictions (temp loss of features, etc.) leave room for learning and reduce recidivism rates.
- You can’t fully prevent misuse of in-game tools. Have robust moderation to mitigate the fallout, not suffocating restrictions upfront, and instead design for prosociality and strong community norms.
- Data analysis is an important part of your ECE toolkit — tracking what triggers bad behavior lets you target your efforts.
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