Xbox One Reputation System Rewards Good Behavior

Not much has been spoken about the new Reputation system coming to Xbox Live on the Xbox One to this point, but Microsoft has broken the silence this week.

Senior product manager Mike Lavin discussed how the five-star system currently in place will evolve when the next-gen console arrives, and what that means for people who play nice and those of you who treat your fellow players with little respect and regard.

"What we're looking at doing is creating a very robust system around reputation and match-making," Lavin told OXM UK. "If people are in your friends list, we're not touching that, we're just making it easier for you to come together. It's really the anonymous side of things where we're making these investments. Ultimately if there's a few per cent of our population that are causing the rest of the population to have a miserable time, we should be able to identify those folks."

For the more anonymous gatherings, Lavin added there would be some sort of positive reinforcement for playing nice. "There are industry best practices we've looked at, about giving kudos and props to people who behave well," Lavin said. "We've learned from everything we've seen, and we're trying to take it to the next level. So there'll be very good things that happen to people that just play their games and are good participants. And you'll start to see some effects if you continue to play bad or, or harass other people en masse. You'll probably end up starting to play more with other people that are more similar to you."

Lavin also stressed there was no way for a person's Reputation to be exploited, meaning it will be nigh impossible for players to rally against you to lower your Rep. That said, how you act online will be measured much more closely than it is on the Xbox 360, and your Rep will be as visible and important as your Gamerscore on the Xbox One. "Reputation is just like Achievements - you want your Reputation score as high as you can get it. There may even be opportunities where if you participate in some of our community programs, your reputation can even get higher," Lavin added.

While it'll be a while until we see just how this all works in the real world and not just practice, Microsoft is clearly trying to elevate the importance of good behavior on Xbox Live. Whether or not this new Rep system actually works in that regard? Let's just say we won't be holding our breaths.