Xbox 360 Game News, Reviews, and Columns - XboxFocus

Xbox LIVE's Dark Side

by Dick Ward May 28th 2008 10:25 PM CDT8 Comments

“The Xbox headset is the stupidest thing you can hold to your head other than a shotgun barrel”. These are the words of Shaun Elliot, formerly of Games for Windows magazine. I don’t mean to call him out, I’m actually a big fan of his writing, and his sentiment really got me thinking about the subject of gamer perception and how it relates to Xbox Live. How are Xbox players seen by the outside world? What steps, good and bad, are being taken to fix up the image? What can we do?

Anyone who has borne witness to the media coverage of games in the last few years will have noticed a not so surprising trend. Rather than cover the new technology and games in a positive light, television news is oh so eager to point out any negative aspect they can find. The Nintendo DS was the target a few years ago, showing how a sex offender could easily capture a child using a Nintendo DS. The PSP was next, as the same amazing news people exposed its ability to play pornographic movies. Of course, always looking for a new target, the focus in recent months seems to be the Xbox 360.

This won’t come as a surprise to many readers, though it apparently did to WSLS-10 news in Roanoke, the news team that recently covered this. The language on Xbox Live tends to be a bit foul, and many of the people cursing on Live are children. No matter what game, or in what setting, there seems to be a constant torrent of insulting language, racist speech, and of course, the homophobic banter that seems ever present in nearly every online game.

Of course the coverage is one sided, not citing that the average game player is actually 33 and instead relying on shots of children screaming “Die fag!” over their microphone. It doesn’t go to mention that the user who curses can be blocked, reported, and even banned for their behavior. The most glaring error of all is that the coverage seems to blame the Xbox for the child swearing without taking other considerations into account.

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Children often pick up language like this from the schoolyard, teachers, television and movies, but the main source of such behavior is, as usual, completely ignored. Though it is true that, as in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, good wombs have borne bad sons, it is usually the parents that are responsible for behaviors learned by children. Children learn nearly everything, good and bad, from their parents.

Of course this language and behavior is reprehensible and certainly violates cultural taboos, but the assertion that the Xbox Live service is the cause of 13 year old boys’ swearing problems is ludicrous at best.

There are several measures that have been taken recently to help stem this tide of vulgarity, and Gamertag bans have unfortunately become a regular part of the process. In the last week alone, several gamers have complained of unfair bans including TheGayerGamer and RichardGaywood. Having the word ‘gay’ in their tags earned them a ban, though neither of them was derogatory in nature. In the case of RichardGaywood, this is actually the account holder’s name. Of course, since this could easily be interpreted as sexual innuendo by the community at large, his account was banned.

A recent post by an Xbox Live rep has stated that including the word ‘gay’ in a Gamertag is against policy and that if they had seen a Gamertag such as TheStraighterGamer, it would have been up for a ban as well.

Compared to many of the Gamertags on Live, these are quite tame. The banning of these two accounts brings forth many questions about just what is and what isn’t okay on Xbox Live. For an openly gay person not to be able to call themselves TheGayerGamer because the community in general finds it offensive, or it is assumed that he is insulting the gay community is a bit depressing.

It’s easy to get a bad impression of the Xbox Live community, and assume that there’s no joy to be had from engaging in games with unknown players. These players though, seem to be a part of the not so silent minority. Though it may seem that every Halo server has a kid screaming into a mic, that’s just one person out of ten. One person that can be very easily muted.

The solution to the problem of the constant harassment and obscenity bombardment of course, is to ignore, and not stoop to their level of the miscreants. Swearing back at these people just feeds the fire and makes it worse, trying to reason with them results in a flurry of curse words, homosexual accusations and old age jokes. So the first and simplest step is to mute the offending player, encourage other players to do the same, and then enjoy the game.

Gaming responsibly is a subject that I tend to bring up, as I feel that it’s incredibly important. For the medium to be treated as anything more than it is now not only must the games advance, but so must the players. I have no evidence to support this claim, but I feel it’s safe to say that no one ever stood up during Citizen Kane and shouted “That’s right, I’m gonna fuck you right in the ass!”

Xbox Live is an amazing service, but a night of playing online can be easily sullied by some loudmouth with a mic. Remember, the easiest way to make it stop is to mute, report, and move on with your life.

If you are one of these people, sit down and think about what exactly you’re getting out of it? Is it really worth alienating every player you come in contact with? Oh, and welcome to my ignore list.