Spamming Voice Lines in Overwatch Could End in Silencing

Blizzard continues to dominate the competitive shooter market with Overwatch. In fact, they recently hit 35 million players across all platforms. With so many players, it comes as no surprise that the game has gotten a bit… loud.

It has been stated by the developer that if a player uses the in-game voice lines in Overwatch excessively, an action will be taken against their account. This started a debate when an Overwatch player on PlayStation 4 complained that he was silenced (he couldn't use voice chat) three times, despite not even using a mic the third time.

Principal designer Scott Mercer (unrelated to McCree's voice actor Matthew Mercer) has since chimed in on the ruling. He explained that the player in question was reported for abusive chat when he was using a mic and was separately reported while not on-mic for poor teamwork and griefing. Upon further investigation into the comments submitted by others who reported, it seems spamming voice lines was the reason he got silenced.

This is where the real debate began. This feedback sparked a heated discussion, with many believing an innocent act such as spamming voice lines warranting a penalty was overboard. "Any form of hateful, discriminatory, obscene, or disruptive communications. Threatening or harassing another player on either team is also unacceptable, regardless of the words used," Mercer explained in the blog post regarding the incident.

“So YES [emphasis his], if you spam character voice lines in a way that is either disruptive or would be considered harassment, then you could be actioned.”

It's a shame that it's come to this, because, unfortunately, griefers will grief. But hopefully, context is heavily considered when initiating a penalty. Because what else are you supposed to do while waiting in the ready room for a match to start beside mash voice lines and shoot random items in the room? See this totally real example below: