First ever Xbox transparency report shows bot bans on the rise

Microsoft releases its first ever Xbox Transparency Report constantly hunting down bots and toxic players.

If you’ve been having trouble with fake Xbox Live accounts lately, you’re far from alone. Microsoft released its first Xbox Transparency Report, and it was clear that the company was on a serious bot hunt. The Redmond-based firm explains that in the first half of 2022, it took 4.33 million “preemptive actions,” meaning no user reporting, on accounts. This represents 57% of the total number of actions during this period, and this figure is multiplied by 9 compared to last year.

Microsoft releases its first-ever Xbox transparency report

Microsoft has so far focused mainly on responsive action, monitoring user reports and taking less proactive action. Thus, in the second half of 2021, the American giant initiated 2.24 million response actions and only 461,000 active actions. Other rule violations are much more minimal. Adult content, for example, resulted in 199,000 proactive actions, while fraud, harassment, and other abuse accounted for less than 100,000 actions.

Not surprisingly, most of the 33.08 million actions taken by Microsoft through Player Reports are related to toxic players. These actions are evenly divided into deceit and other misconduct (43%) and aggressive communication (46%). Only 11% of measurements were related to content such as offensive nicknames or screenshots. Fortunately, there have been fewer such incidents. In the second half of 2020, Microsoft received 59.65 million reports.

Constant hunting for bots and toxic players

And don’t expect too much from Microsoft if you think the latter made a valuation error. Of over 151,000 calls made during this period, only 6% (approximately 9,250) resulted in account recovery.

This Xbox Transparency Report is now required to be published every six months. There doesn’t seem to be an equivalent for Nintendo and Sony online services. Either way, this is very good news if you’re interested in the quality of online gaming on Xbox Live and Microsoft’s appeal to fight bots.