Stephen "Stepto" Toulouse was the former Xbox Live policy executive.
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Stephen Toulouse obituary: Game industry remembers Xbox Live’s crusader against abuse

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 2 min

Stephen Toulouse, a popular member of the gaming community, passed away on Thursday. He was fondly remembered as “Stepto” and sometimes as “Banhammer” for his tenure as the Xbox Live policy executive, when he sought to make the online community more civil.

Toulouse’s brother, Jeff Toulouse, tweeted about his passing yesterday.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.