What does it take to build multiplayer experiences that are not only fun, but healthy? During our first monthly community webinar 0f 2026, Dr. Kimberly Voll (CEO of Brace Yourself Games & Co-Founder, Thriving In Games Group) joined Matt Soeth (Executive Director, Thriving in Games Group) to explore the complex challenges of matchmaking, community health, and inclusive game design.

The Matchmaking Challenge

Arc Raiders’ new matchmaking system has captured the attention of critics and fans across the industry. Addressing this case study, Dr. Voll broke down the fundamental tension every developer faces:

“We want it to be fair, fast, and low latency. So fair you can think of as a measure of quality… we want…fast matching times. So I don’t wanna sit and wait in queue for 20 minutes ideally. And then of course, low latency… matters a lot for the quality of the play experience.”

The challenge? “Typically you can tune two of those three things well at the expense of the other.”

Even with large player pools, adding constraints quickly thins the available matches. Region, input type, cross-platform settings, skill bands, play styles, each filter reduces options dramatically. “You could be looking at a five, six, ten minute wait if you tune enough of those knobs.”

Why “Prisoner’s Island” Doesn’t Work

One approach some games have tried is isolating problematic players into separate pools. Dr. Voll cautioned strongly against this:

“What you’ve done is you’ve created a space that is now a holding pen for all of the most problematic human traits. And those just tend to concentrate and bubble over… what you’re really doing is hardening these behaviors. You’re hardening these patterns. You’re normalizing things in a way that then shows up in other games, may show up in other game modes.”

The better path forward? Understanding the root causes and designing for healthier outcomes from the start.

Designing for Prosocial Behavior

Rather than focusing solely on punishment, Dr. Voll emphasized the power of thoughtful design to encourage positive interactions:

“Where can we make it more fun to be a team, to be good to each other, to be prosocial? How can we incentivize those behaviors?” she said. 

Small design choices can shift community norms at scale. “When you do this at scale, what happens is the dominant norm shifts in favor of these more charitable interpretations, and you can shift the environment of a game.”

Moving Beyond Demographics

When it comes to representation and inclusion, Dr. Voll advocated for player typologies over traditional demographic categories:

“If you identify one gender and you market to that gender, guess who you sell more to? We create these self-fulfilling prophecies when we use demographics as our fundamental measure.”

Instead, she recommends segmenting players by motivations, social preferences, and play context, creating tools that “…hold space for traditionally underrepresented communities in a very meaningful and design-centric way.”

Looking Ahead

Despite industry challenges, Dr. Voll expressed optimism about the future:

“More than ever we have some of the strongest foundations on which to do this work… based on all of the hard work of many of you and many more people… that are allowing us to be more successful in these endeavors, to have the conversations at the levels we need to, with the decision makers to bring change into our games.”

Her closing message to practitioners in this space: “This work is so hard and we often face such incredible constraints and that you show up every day because you care about players… that is phenomenal and you deserve to be celebrated in every way.”