There's a story been doing the rounds regarding an Xbox Live subscriber who recently had her account banned for identifying as a lesbian in her GamerTag. The Consumerist first followed the story, and Ars Technica recently went a step further and contacted Microsoft directly for comment. In case you're unfamiliar with the story, this woman has been the victim of harrassment and baiting online, but she's been the one to have her account banned for inappropriate and offensive behaviour. And this is Xbox Live we're talking about here, the place that makes the smack-talk in your average game of CounterStrike sound tame by comparison. Here's what Microsoft had to say to Ars on the subject: "As stated in the Xbox LIVE Terms of Use, a member may not create a gamertag or use text in other profile fields that include comments that look, sound like, stand for, hint at, abbreviate, or insinuate content of a potentially sexual nature. Profiles that do are asked to change the language and suspended until changes are made. In regards to sexual orientation, for gamertags or profiles we do not allow expression of any type of orientation, be that hetero or other. Players can, however, self identify in voice communication where context is more easily explained to all players involved." Oh... I get it. The letters L E S B I A and N are heinously misunderstood in raw text, but when spoken everything's fine. Can I get a WTF? I don't know where to start on this topic. To begin with, it just makes me plain angry. When Microsoft made a big hurrah about its new Xbox Experience, one of the big selling points was how it was going to turn the Xbox into a social hub. Take this from one Microsoft's blurb's about the new Avatar system: "Your avatar is your game face throughout the New Xbox Experience and represents your personality, whether you are serving as an Xbox LIVE Party host, playing a game of Scene It? Box Office Smash, or chatting with a friend." So, it's meant to be an extension of you, so you can talk to people and find friends? A social network of sorts... but not for gay gamers who might be interested in finding other gay gamers. Then of course there's the fact that with the NXE you can happily access films via the Netflix service. All kinds of films, like Brokeback Mountain, or Go Fish, or Chasing Amy... but you still can't identify as gay even if you're watching films about gay people. Finally, don't get me started on the fact that the chat in many games features some of the most offensive homophobic crap you'll ever find. Xbox Live is well known for its at times offensive nature; yet here's what Teresa, the banned woman, had to put up with: "They followed me into the games and told all the other players to turn me in because they didn't want to see that crap or their kids to see that crap." So, these people are happy to call me a camping fag and teabag my corpse, but if I actually call myself a fag, I'm the one in trouble. Hell, I can even be playing a game that allows me a same-sex hook-up (hello Fable), but Microsoft says the actual identification of same is off-limits. The hypocrisy is mind-blowing. Fuck you, Microsoft. Gaming is an increasingly social space; look at games like World of Warcraft, where people recruiting for their openly queer-friendly guild is not at all out of place. If gaming is going to keep up with the rest of the world (bar California, which seems intent on living in the dark ages), restrictions like this need to change, and soon.
Issue: 133 | February, 2012