Today, it is quite common to encounter players who shout, rage, and use profane language when playing online multiplayer games. This behavior can very easily to ruin the experience for others and it has been a major concern for many online gaming companies. Companies like Xbox have tried to combat this issue by implementing profanity filters, and now it seems that Steam is also catching up.
Earlier today, Steam announced on its Steam Community Blog that it has introduced a new chat filter that can be accessed across the platform through the experimental Steam Labs. Profanity filters were originally created for Dota 2, Destiny 2, and CS:GO. Now, the feature is being expanded to the rest of the Steam client, and any game that wishes to support the feature is welcomed.
In the blog post, Steam stated that the inclusion of profanity filtering should allow for an enjoyable online gaming experience. Steam has two lists of words that are either considered strongly profane, racial, ethnic, or religious slurs. If a player doesn't want to use the filter, but wishes not to see a specific word, they can add it to their personal filter in their Steam account preferences.
It has yet to be seen how players will respond to this feature, but all in all, profanity filtering seems to be really good move on Steam's part. Although the feature will not avoid offensive language, it will enable players to dodge it as much as possible. It is also great news for those players who want to enjoy their favorite games without having to deal with a potentially toxic player base.
The profanity filtering feature will prevent Steam from facing the same issues that games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty Mobile had to face with their profanity filters.
Nonetheless, it's important to know that Steam's profanity filtering feature only applies to Steam chat and supporting games.
You can try Steam's chat filtering feature by heading to the Steam Labs page here.
