Nintendo’s Splatoon Won’t Have Voice Chat

Splatoon

Splatoon, Nintendo’s newest and first real entry into the shooter market, will not have integrated voice chat. While some people, like this author at Kotaku, find the decision shortsighted and wrong, I think it’s absolutely the way to go.

Voice chat in online games is toxic. It’s full of belittlement, vulgarity, and trash talking. While I agree that voice chat contributes to cooperative play, and can be fun and in many ways a great tool, it’s not necessary — especially in a game like Splatoon where the goal is to cover a map in ink and introduce people to a competitive yet docile ‘shooter-esque’ game.

Serious competitors, should there be any in Splatoon (I’m goin’ all out, personally) can find other means of communicating. Skype and other voice chat options are prevalent, and even our phones these days have wifi enabled voice apps. There are ways to work around the lack of integrated chat.

A few ideas that might help to improve the experience would be if Nintendo allowed friends who have friended each other to communicate with voice. Another option is for Nintendo to integrate voice chat into the Wii U itself so that we can communicate via an app running behind the scenes. Players needn’t be forced to disable it or be exposed to that kind of unnecessary stuff in any game.

I applaud Nintendo for doing things their way. They know their brand and what they want.

  • I agree. Nintendo caters to a younger crowd. Not allowing a child easy access to the creeps on line adds a layer of security for parents. If your older and want to talk with the other players, there are ways around it. Well done Nintendo.

  • I totally agree, Nintendo caters to a less than 18 crowd. While they make plenty of games that can be enjoyed for ages past that. If I’m a parent and I want my kids to be safe when they play online until they are mature enough to have proper online interactions. I would like it if this next generation of gamer wasn’t as toxic as the current.