Safety principles and the user experience are closely intertwined. Safety isn’t just about enforcement and content takedowns, it’s also about encouraging prosocial interactions. Doing this is not an easy task. Games are meant to bring people together in fun and engaging ways, and leveraging gameplay features to facilitate that goal while considering the ways those same features pose safety risks is difficult.
If you build features that allow for the exploitation or abuse of others, your players will do that. But, when you design a game that incorporates trust and safety principles and build in expectations for socialization, you set a precedent that your players will emulate.
Getting started
It starts with the people that design the features — you are the ones who set the standard for behavior within your game. And putting safety first goes a long way in having your players do the same.
So how is this done? How do you design for safety? The first principle to keep in mind is that safety should never come at the cost of user experience. Reporting systems that aren’t timely shouldn’t be used in time-based games. Without messaging that chat was filtered or blocked, players will wonder what happened. The core gameplay consideration of ease of use has no exception in safety features — they must always be formed in line with the game’s design and must do as little to impede and as much to enhance the player experience as possible.
Here are some ways to include safety principles in your gameplay design and set expectations for socialization in your game:
1. Warning and strike systems offer an opportunity for players to reform
Rather than focusing on suspensions and bans, look for ways to prevent players from even getting to that point. Ask yourself:
- How can I focus more on education rather than punishment and action?
- Do players even know if they are doing something wrong?
- Is there a way to let them know when they are going down the wrong path?
For example, XBox introduced its Enforcement Strike System to better inform players about their behavior and actions taken against them:
Additionally, Minecraft’s Warning System will remind players of the community guidelines when offensive language is detected in chat:
2. Elevate community guidelines everywhere you can
Ask yourself:
- Do I have content out there for educating players about good online safety practices?
- Most players don’t spend time sorting through lengthy community guidelines. Are there ways to elevate them in a digestible way in game? Think about promoting them at server join or title launch.
League of Legends elevates the community guidelines on first-time launch with a code of conduct that all players must acknowledge:
Call of Duty does something similar:
3. Error messaging around the game experience should be clear and consistent
Ask yourself:
- Do players understand enough about their violating behavior to do better next time?
- If their messages get filtered or they get suspended, do they understand why? This also goes a long way to help reduce appeals by players who don’t understand what they did wrong.
- Can the evidence used against the player be offered?
For example, Among Us offers clear messaging around safety controls so that players understand what behavior led to a violation:
4. Offer different experiences for adult, consenting players versus younger players
Offering autonomy (to the extent that you can) for an individual’s game experience helps build trust and a sense of control for a player. Standards for acceptable behavior can vary for different audiences, so features like profanity toggles, friends systems, or content restrictions allow for more curated game experiences.
For example, Fortnite offers parents the option to control access to certain features like chat and friend requests:
Minecraft has a profanity toggle that allows most profanities, with the exception of some potentially harmful content, to be unfiltered for only the players with the toggle off. In alignment with safety-by-design principles, the toggle is on by default and cannot be changed for child accounts or players not signed in:
5. Connect with players over the safety issues they care about most
Players care about safety. They don’t want to be harassed or see objectionable content on your platform. Ask them what features or experiences could be improved and in what ways.
6. Access to safety features should be clear and easy
If safety standards are buried under screens or clicks, how do players understand that they are an important priority for you? Safety is only as important as you make it — and if it is important, it must be visible.
For example, it’s common to send notifications back to reporting players about the status of their report. Closing the loop like this builds confidence and trust in the reporting system and raises visibility of moderation practices and expected behavior.
A common misconception is that safety features are at odds with gameplay features. But safety, at its core, is really just an inclusive mindset. Inclusive of risk, inclusive of game design, and inclusive of the player. Safety isn’t an afterthought — it’s not something you add because you waited to see what could go wrong. It’s not something you add after the design is done, it’s something you build for. Safety should be thought about in the same way as accessibility, usability, and functionality. The goal is not just mitigating risk, it’s creating a space where players feel comfortable bringing their most authentic selves to your game.
Now what?
Once you understand a bit more about designing safe user experiences, the next step could be expanding your understanding of safety as a game design practice or what some tangential considerations for the design might look like:
