Blizzard will be upping penalties on Overwatch players committing “bad behavior” effective immediately

Overwatch, like pretty much every other multiplayer game there is, is subject to adverse effects of stupid people. Unfortunately, since there are many such individuals in the world, Blizzard has revealed that they will be enforcing stricter penalties on violators going forward. Their objective, according to a new forum post, is to invest "significantly" in their in-game reporting and player penalty system over the next year.

Here's the most important snippet of the post:

To this end, effective immediately, we will be issuing increased penalties to players in response to verified reports of bad behavior. In Overwatch, that means anything from abusive chat, harassment, in-game spam, match inactivity (being intentionally AFK), and griefing. If you see someone engaging in any of these types of behaviors, report them. Players in violation will be silenced, suspended, or even banned from the game as a result.

Blizzard also revealed that they would be scaling competitive season bans and introducing a notification system to alert you when a player you have reported has received subsequent action as well as additional features that will let Blizzard lay down the law against players abusing the report system.

It's worth noting that the reporting system is currently only available on the PC version of the game, but Blizzard says they are "actively working on the feature" for consoles.

Overwatch is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.