Seattle-based social gaming company Rec Room is beefing up its safety efforts as the company continues to grow.
Yasmin Hussain is at the forefront of that effort.
She was hired in January 2023 to make the game welcoming for players and address the small group of players that can be disruptive. Rec Room is using artificial intelligence to broadly address safety concerns, but the game will work with law enforcement for more serious issues, such as child safety.
"Just like in society, we have a vast majority of great people. We have good players," Hussain said. "We have a small minority who are not in that cohort who are doing things that vary on the type of harm they could be doing, but are doing things to disrupt a positive community."
Rec Room says it has more than 100 million lifetime players, and one in five players are using the company's creation tools daily.
Players can create an avatar and hang out virtually with friends, and they can also explore and create virtual rooms. The game is free and available on mobile, PC, game consoles and VR headsets.
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Rec Room's enhanced safety measures include temporarily muting players when they do something disruptive. In the past, Hussain said, the company would just temporarily ban players, but the players wouldn't be able to easily pinpoint the offending behavior. By muting them on the spot, players can learn what they did wrong.
She said the company has seen a reduction in reports of toxicity over the past six months.
Hussain was previously a deputy director for online harms and public safety for the U.K. government, as the company's head of trust and safety. When she took the role, which she held for more than two years, she was based in the Bay Area. She talked with Rec Room a couple of times in that role and eventually the company convinced her to join.
Hussain plans to stay in the Bay Area for now but will visit Seattle about once or twice a quarter.
"Every summer we do a big thing up in Seattle with the entire company getting together, and every summer I am tempted," Hussain said.
Rec Room, founded in 2016, now has about 310 employees and was last valued at $3.5 billion when it raised $145 million in late 2021. The company has raised $294 million to date.
According to the company, more than half of its employees are based in the Seattle area, where Rec Room has its headquarters in Seattle's Uptown neighborhood.
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