So dear reader, when was the last time you were on Live? Now, when was the last time you were on Live and did not encounter some form of asshat? However long ago it was, it was definitely too recent, and word is starting to really get around. In an article at Gamasutra, Fulton, a Microsoft employee who worked on Shadowrun, writes that: "the online behavior of our customers is dramatically reducing our sales."
And that's just the beginning of an excellent four page article on social design and the future of online gaming with regard to social interaction. The assertion that Live is generally filled with annoying idiots has been widely held among the more hardcore gaming community since the inception of the service, but this is the first that we've ever heard anything out of Microsoft about it affecting them in any manner. In the article Fulton posits that we know and love games so we're willing to work around it or put up with it, but for newcomers to the medium, the fun/annoyance ratio could just be too high. Readers, what do you think?
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 8)
4-03-2008 @ 9:28PM
SharpBlade said...
Ah yes, the 360 isn't selling as well so it must be the community. It couldn't be the draconian DRM, the absolutely ridiculous hardware failures and the poor line-up of a REAL exclusive games for the system?
The 3RLOD is mainstream now, people are staying away because MS let this go too long without really jumping out in front of it(no the 3yr warranty wasn't enough). People know that you have the potential of spending more time talking to Customer Service rep's than actually gaming on the console.
To the topic, I've heard adults and children act like asshats on Live, yes more so than not it is some prepubesent girly sounding child. Mute is the best option and if you want set your privacy settings to only accept voice from friends that works too. I just avoid ranked public matches all together and just play with friends. Either way, this is a social, maturity level and respect problem that is a problem with society in general. A racial slur should get you banned from Live forever with no recourse but I don't know how MS would ever be able to listen to everyone at the same time. Maybe get some software that monitors all public games and if it picks out offending words matches it to a gamertag and logs it?
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4-03-2008 @ 10:16PM
bonzai said...
You bring teh ghey.
4-03-2008 @ 9:32PM
Konchu said...
This is really a complicated issues. Partially I think alot of people single out that this is an xbox issue when it is clearly not and alot of those that spread this evangelism are Fanboy's of the the other consoles or simply not seeing the big picture. As someone who has played all the consoles and PC I can say there are undesirables on all the systems but I really think the issue seems magnified on Live due to its success(the bigger the city you have the more potential for crime is live so different). I really feel PS3 will be in the same boat as more and more people buy one. Wii does not have this issue for obvious reasons but there solution is a bit radical.
Other examples of such bad behavior I have personally seen in a PS2 game was in Socom(imagine how bad it would be if everyone had a broadband adapter). And anyone who has heard Barrens Chat in World of Warcraft know there are some real winners out there (not to mention the immature people spamming of begging for money). And there are many more.
Now I'm not going to say MS cant do anything about this and to the contrary I think they implemented a solution from the beginning that really needs some tweaking. I personally don't think the rating stars work well enough they need to move more based on possitive and negative remarks. But I think there needs to be some sort of actual validation on complaints maybe not on every complaint but on people with large amounts of complaints or even some spot checks. Additionally they made zones for different player types and maybe this is due to the network not being big enough now but there should be a option where one can select and not get players of the other zones. But for this to work as well there has to be enforcement. This could be as simple as you get too many complaints its validated and you are forced into underground(or another more silly zone)with no other options. The other consoles will have to cross this bridge too as more people play online and have headsets. But maybe Sony was wise not to include a headset it puts a tax out there to talk that at least distracts some of these winners(but then there are also some great people not talking).
PC does have an edge cause you can find private servers to play on that have passwords etc would be nice if there was say a server on a 360 or PS3 game for www.xbox360fanboy.com or PS3fanboy.com and they could set passwords and have there own moderators that ban undesirables.
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4-03-2008 @ 9:38PM
Robert said...
one idea that comes to my mind is to count how many times a user is muted each time they play, rate them and add an option to automute people with higher values, maybe with a few different levels, hey MS and Sony, use my idea I will not sue :-) anything to stop the annoyance
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4-03-2008 @ 9:47PM
Chris said...
That is BS, I own a PS3 and a 360 and I get just as much trash talking on the PS3, the only reason why everyone says 360 is because there are 5 times as many people playing a 360 console then a PS3.
I don't even know how statisticly that employee can say that asshats are causing a hurting sales figure...I think everyone is forgeting that the person who wrote that piece worked on SHADOWRUN, what does making a cappy game have to do with marketing/economics? Nothing....
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4-03-2008 @ 9:48PM
edward camp said...
I set your privacy settings that you only hear and talk to friends and the problem is solved. honestly, I gave up on xbox lives society when I really started playing gears of war.....it all originated in halo 2.
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4-03-2008 @ 9:50PM
xX FearHAVOK Xx said...
that is huuuge bs.
who cares if people swear or are anoyying
you wanna know what you can do about it?
be a man and suck it up
or do the same thing back
its not that hard
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4-03-2008 @ 9:50PM
Stephen said...
My problem is that in RSV2 (and 1), you will get kicked if you dont use your mic, so if i try to mute people or take my mic out i end up getting booted.
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4-03-2008 @ 9:55PM
Scott Summers said...
@ Stephen-
One thing I would suggest? Pop on the comms enough to just tell them that you really don't wanna talk, or your mic's broken or something. I can totally see where you're coming from there(lord knows I've done it too), but man. You get those silent people and it feels like you're talking to a brick wall.
4-03-2008 @ 10:09PM
Stephen said...
saying my mic is broken might work if i really dont want to talk. normally i do, especially in a game like Vegas where it is important to coordinate attacks and know whats going on, but sometimes there are just annoying idiots(and clans) that i just dont feel like dealing with.
4-03-2008 @ 9:51PM
JUICED said...
No one has never heard of xbox live police I guess.
http://kotaku.com/362810/the-xbox-live-police
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4-03-2008 @ 10:06PM
ericdrum said...
Yep and don't forget to review players that are using racial slurs and generally ruining the game by their activities (kicking, threatening, TKing). Anonymity is a funny thing. I used to play at lots of LANs where you'd meet the dudes in person that you would play with online. A lot of them were jerks when we played on the server hosted by the local gaming center. When they met me at LANs (I'm 6'4" and 250 and 32 years old) they'd be really nice or just not talk. I can take a lot of abuse but it's annoying knowing that in person these people would have their mouths zipped tight. So yeah, I mute when I'm sick of hearing the singing or the f-bomb being used for every other word.
For those here just saying "suck it up", get a life. People are just saying what they don't like. If you don't mind the behavior, good for you, but don't criticize them for saying how they feel.
4-03-2008 @ 9:52PM
Scott Summers said...
Yeah, the average age of gamers on XBL's insane. It's really bad in Halo 3, usually. I stopped playing it altogether because of it. Most of the garbage on there is "VETOVETOVETOFUCKFUCKFUCK" or something to that effect. I've even seen some bad people on Rock Band. The first time I signed onto Rock Band online to play, some kid joined the band and just started repeatedly spamming the mics with "HIGHWAY STAR HIGHWAY STAR" over and over. I got pretty annoyed and told him to shut the hell up, and if he wanted to play Highway Star, take his ass back to solo player and have a ball.
COD4, it really depends, for the most part. Later it gets at night, the cooler the people become. I've met some really cool people on the COD4 servers at about 3AM in the morning. But during peak hours of say..5.30PM to say..Midnight? Not a chance. You'll get the white supremacists or the children on there who like to hide behind a mic and just flame away. And before anyone goes "o hai Skot u probably flame too sometimes".- You're right. I have. However, it's always been a counter-flame to someone who's just being so annoying that you cannot stand it anymore.
Rainbow Six Vegas 2...ehh. It's a mixed bag, really. The majority of people I've encountered on there either just join the game and stay in absolute silence the entire time(which is kind of annoying when you just wanna shoot the breeze- makes you feel like they're just using your team for XP), or they've got a ridiculously high rank already and they'll lord it over your head about how good they are and how they should just leave, but invariably never do.
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4-03-2008 @ 9:55PM
horngreen said...
It wasn't this bad during the BETA but it didn't last long. I guess it's just the ability to hide behine a gamertag and say whatever you want. The best thing to do is get a decent friends list but that's tough to do if you don't use the headset. It is bad and it will easily keep the Wii crownd off LIVE. Could you imagine Mom,Dad and little junior hooking up to Halo 3 on LIVE only to have "SUCK MY $%#" and "SHUT THE F&%$ UP YOU STUPID N^^@#" blarring out of the TV speakers?
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4-03-2008 @ 9:55PM
Adam said...
Asshats are obnoxious, but when you find some random strangers who you can play games with online, that are fun and can joke around and have a built-in level of respect for each other, it's amazing.
I've met some really cool people over Xbox Live. People I normally wouldn't have ever had a chance to meet.
You gotta weed out the bad apples, to mix some metaphors.
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4-03-2008 @ 10:02PM
Preston Crawford said...
I won't repost what I recently wrote on the subject, but I recently sold Halo 3. And I considered not renewing Live because a lot of the fun of Live has been killed by people who act this way. This is a real problem, imho.
http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/38385
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4-03-2008 @ 10:22PM
Rurik said...
BTW, I'll agree that it's not just an Xbox issue. After reading some of the comments on here, it looks like there's the same ratio is idiots posting comments here. I guess they're in every community.
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4-03-2008 @ 10:40PM
Mal F4cti0n said...
You win some you lose some.
I was on the other day playing COD4, and after the match (I joined one already in progress) ended I hear three kids on the other team yelling and swearing with the normal homophoic, racist swears and tirades at eachother.
Then, after that, I got on a game of the demo of Army of Two for the first time and the person playing co-op with me was the greatest. I had never played before and he was very patient and helpful in filling me in with what was going on.
You just never now what kind of person you will run into.
Multi-player is still why I game on the 360.
Question to Activision/Infinity Ward. If I mute people during a game (one of the new features of an update on CoD4) why would you not mute them for as long as I am in the same game with someone. After I mute and a match is over I get back into the lobby and I can hear the same homophopic, racist tirade going on. MUTE THEM FOREVER!
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4-03-2008 @ 10:45PM
Arno said...
I'd have to agree, I canceled my Xbox Live account because it's just so stupid being on there with racist, homophobic 12 year old and not to mention Live usually sucks for me.
Yep, Microsoft has a problem on their hands with this stuff.
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4-03-2008 @ 10:46PM
Ronix said...
While I don't enjoy meeting idiots online, If worse comes to worse I just take off my head-set or quit and join another game. I'm not going to miss out on games like Halo 3 or COD4 just because I MIGHT meet someone who says mean things. That's just plain cowardly. Grow a pair, geez.
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