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“Far from the first time. A very frequent occurrence from what I’ve seen, though less in the higher divisions,” Veillette told Postmedia News.

Players can report other users who are using offensive language, but Veillette called the process “convoluted.”

Offensive language has to be reported to either the game’s community manager — or another person who works at EA Sports — or they can report it to EA-connected community volunteers, who EA terms “game changers.”

Game changers are members of the community who provide feedback on both the current game and future titles to EA’s development team. Sometimes they travel to EA’s Burnaby campus to test and provide early feedback on new games. (They get paid if they arrive at an EA event by plane.)

There is a single “community manager” employed by EA Sports to supervise NHL 20. It’s believed more than one million people have played the current edition of game on PlayStation 4.

Veillette said the reporting system needs a major improvement.

“It’s not good for anybody. These community rep-type volunteers shouldn’t have to be investing their time into screening offensive names, the community themselves often don’t know that this system is in place and it makes it so much harder to enforce the rules upon players,” he said.

“The game should have a built-in report feature, they should have staff dedicated to moderation, and there should be explicit, likely zero-tolerance punishments.”