No one can debate that Xbox Live has brought the medium of gaming to unprecedented levels. As the current frontrunner of gaming communities, Microsoft has done wonders with the ability to unite gamers from around the world into a single common goal: play games and enjoy doing so. The current state of Xbox Live has degraded to a racist, hate-fest so fast, that the hardcore gamer is getting a little fed up.
This may be utopianistic, but wasn’t there a time when you could join a gaming lobby, tell everyone,”What’s up?”, and have a good time? The current state of affairs prevents this entirely. Every single time you enter a room of an FPS multiplayer lobby, you are greeted with screams of racial epitaphs, curses, death threats, and God knows what else. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not phased by someone threatening to burn my house down over a game of GTA IV, but the fact that these types of exchanges have become so epidemic that it’s downright scary.
Anyone who was on XBL from its humble beginnings remembers when you could actually communicate with people during a match. Now, any independent thought is greeted with a swift response of unprintable dialogue. Just the other day, someone in a GTA IV asked the room about the multiplayer rankings and probably four people called him a noob and screamed at the guy. Since when did video games become a closed society to self-claimed know-it-alls and experts?
As a hardcore gamer, if you read this far or this site, you most definitely are, I’m sure you share the same sentiments. I cannot bring myself to put on the expensive wireless headset I bought unless I am in a private game with friends. That’s it. No more joining up on a random team or even listening to a lobby because the novelty has completely worn off.
The most disconcerting fact here is that I have no solution to the problem. Is there anyway to monitor close to 10 million gamers? Reporting someone or giving a bad rating is like shooting spitballs at a tank. I know MS has addressed this and other journalists have tackled the issue, but no one can think of a way to stem the tide.
My concern is that once PSN Home launches, which I think will be a great, great community, will also descend into the same muck that XBL is mired in. PSN promises more freedom for the gamer to interact.The same people mentioned above confuse more liberty as the right to do whatever they want no matter the consequences. Gaming is finally becoming a mainstream media that is respected and if the current path that online gaming is on continues, we can expect drastic measure and a painful de-evolution of a pastime we all care so much about.
True… Most rooms i join on gears,halo, and cod4 are full of a**es who just wont stop with the N***** this S*** that. The only cure is muting them. I might have 3k of the people on xbl muted… lol
O by the way… Loot-Ninja FTW!!!
“Every single time you enter a room of an FPS multiplayer lobby, you are greeted with screams of racial epitaphs, curses, death threats, and God knows what else.”
God I hate racists
I only recently have had this problem on COD4 on PSN but it was only one ignorant kid yelling the N-word and we all muted him so he left. I hope this does not become as big problem on PSN as it has become on LIVE but I can’t see it not happening.
Although as long as you have a good friends list with a diverse group of gamers you can always find someone to play with wichever game you are in the mood for and you can just mute the A-Holes. Let them scream and swear thier pre-pubuscent little heads off. If I can’t hear them I don’t care.
It’s always those immature kids that need to drop their balls already, most of those flaming gamers don’t get anywhere in the game so I don’t really play public games. People who scream at someone for asking a noob question is just as ironic and dumbfounded. They were once noobs and they should just ignore the question if they plan on yelling at the innocent guy for asking a noob question. Luckily I play private games with my friends or join leagues where its less screaming and less use of [inserts n-word or racial slur].
GTA4 has been by far the worst for me, and I’ve played a ton of multiplayer on both systems. The 360 is hands down the worst in GTA 4 for assholes in the rooms. I’ve heard such jems as “What you live n***a I’m gonna come kill you give me your zip code”. Yeah, it’s bad.
If only we could go back to the glory days of XLB Beta Testing. Everyone was extremely pleasant and it was by the far the best online experience I’ve ever had.
Im afraid is getting a lot like this now and it has been for quite some time. I don’t really think there’s anything we can do about it either and i feel the the PSN is going to be/is just the same with home or not. However because a lot people on the PSN don’t have a headset the problem may be slightly less.
I simply have the option set to mute everyone thats not on my friends list.
not practical when you have a decent player on your team but, i usually travel in a pack anyway so its not that big of a deal.
i would like to see a option that matches you with people in the same age group. i’m sure it would be hard to do and you would still get those few that pick the wrong age group but i think it would at least help.
It’s really just about being internet tough guys. I’ve gotten called every thing in the book on Live from nigger to mexican to spic to wop to kike, etc. etc. It’s really disgusting but you can’t blame Live for it. I’m sure if Home catches on, you’ll see the exact same thing. the more people you attract, the odds increase of getting more and more assholes.
The solution is simply to do something about it. It takes 3 button clicks to file a complaint about someone, so do it! Lots!
Sadly this is not about XBL, this is about the state of people in this country.
It seems that racism is still pretty huge in our nation, in a community like live it seems you can engage in it and no one knows who you are. This allows people to express their true feelings about people of color and other groups they secretly hate. Perhaps racism has not gone anywhere, but rather it is just practiced differently.
no u
with that aside. The only problem I see are the 5 year olds, and if you say “but I ‘m 12″ you all sound alike. on the racist part, sometimes it’s so damn funny.
I’ve got to agree in part with Jackson. As an American living overseas I’m frequently connected to UK and EU servers/games in which I end up playing with Scots, English, Irish, Welsh, French, Italian, German, American, etc. Most of the occasions of racism, hate, or just plain idiotic actions are from pre-teens of any locality. The majority of those pre-teen gamers I’ve encountered are sadly, Americans. Why these kids feel the need to spew this crap? I don’t know. I’d like to know, but I’d prefer it much more if it would just stop. Most of other media and communication formats manage to restrain themselves and present topics in a relative civil manner that is much more friendly to digest for the masses. If this genre/industry doesn’t learn to contain itself and that just because you can say/do something it doesn’t mean that you should. I agree with Steve, I don’t know of any simple solutions, or complex ones, but I do fear someone else will think they have the best solution and draconian measures will be taken, which will probably not be very healthy for this industry. I think it is a fair assumption that MS, Sony, Nintendo, and the many developers, advertisers, and other stakeholders in this industry do not want to be associated with savage kids running amok like monkeys from Lord of the Flies, ejaculating and flinging crap at anything that moves just because they can and it feels good and might be funny when mom and dad aren’t looking. Look at the in-game fixes/controls that have been applied to spawn team killers and frequent team killers in FPS like COD4 and Halo 3 and the Xbox Live limitations on name selections for what has been deemed as offensive names. Actions have already been taken to resolve issues and offensive material in the past to make this industry more reputable, what is going to stop it at that level?
Control yourself and your children/monkeys/mistakes.
Two years ago there were very few racist and just general jerks. I would pop in Burnout3, and race for hours online hanging out with dozens of people.
Now, Xbox Live has just become a gateway for attention starved people to scream out whatever they want. Its nearly enough to make one want to quit the service.
As the author said, i no longer even join random matches. I almost always find some friends online and play with them. And Sadly, there are no real fixes for this problem.
If i had to place blame, I would say alot of the racism and hate started after COD4 came out, and then the major live outage in December.
It wont matter much soon anyway as Cable ISPs will be starting to charge for bandwidth usage…
well said, well to be honest i’ve been lucky enough not to be playing with anyone always saying anything racial, just cheater or hacker haha, well i don’t cheat nor do i hack, and FYI play around a certain time of day or night when those annoying kids are sleeping or at school
It’s not about racism, it’s about some teens / kids wanting / getting attention.
Clearly shouting “shocking” words achieve that goal moreso than others.
As Keith says, simply play outside the US of A…in the UK for example, our delinquent kids don’t have Xboxs and have to make do with drinking and stabbing each other, which leaves the 30 generation free to play TF2 and so on with little, if any, of the histrionics….so long as we don’t get stabbed on the way back from the shop…
While i do hear the typical racist remarks and “flaming”, for me, its never really a big problem. I mean it doesnt happen every match, in fact most matches i play, there is good, positive team communication. The “flaming” will NEVER stop, if the PSN ever grows to the size of XBL, theyll hear it just as bad. Behind a computer screen or TV, little kids and self conscience gamers turn into the individuals they wish they could be in public. This will NEVER change. So the best thing you can do, is grow a think layer of skin and just get over it.
I am a British person living in the UK. When I play games that are limited to more European players, there is still the hate being spluttered out by many people but when playing against USA players I definitely have found that there is a higher percentage of Americans that are willing to have a dig at anybody they come across. But racism and name calling and general hatred is always going to exist on something like Xbox Live etc.. Unless Microsoft do something drastic like banning people for say 50 negative feedbacks, it will always be here. You just have to think that these people would never say this to your face or make themselves known as they are cowards. They get a big kick form upsetting people and using expletives only as they struggle to make decent conversation the everyday person can understand. Later.
Who ever wrote this article is a fool, examples of what i mean,
“Since when did video games become a closed society to self-claimed know-it-alls and experts?” – since games first came out you moron, it has always been elitist because the idea is to get good at the game.
“The current state of Xbox Live has degraded to a racist, hate-fest so fast” – well yea, when you have a anonymous open forum for freedom of speech. When some faceless person from another country starts making alot of noise or starts playing like a retard then what do expect but for people to start making comments about their country or origin.
The only simple way of putting it is “If you cant stand the heat get the f**k out of the lobby” stop being a retard and get to grips with what online gaming is about.
as an aussie playing live im sick of the shit i get kicked out of game lobbys at least 30 times a day just cos how far i live away from the worlds largest gamin country
“Every single time you enter a room of an FPS multiplayer lobby, you are greeted with screams of racial epitaphs, curses, death threats, and God knows what else.”
Either you’re exaggerating just a.. lot, or we have completely different experiences. I can honestly say that happens less than 1% to me. Can’t remember it ever happening in CoD4, Gears, or Shadowrun. It has happened a *few* times in Halo, but that’s hardly “every single time”.
Living in the UK I have found this to be irritating to say the least for the last couple of years so much so that I pretty much stopped playing in public rooms altogether. I then joined a mature online community of which there a few now which allows members of over a certain age and has strict rules about behaviour, this encourages like-minded people to join and therefore you are guaranteed a good online experience in a private room full of people. I can see these communities becoming more and more popular as more people try to escape from the tirade of abuse from the Xbox Live and PSN public arenas, maybe this is why people are noticing it more now, as more people join these communities the number of polite gamers in the public rooms starts to decrease.
[...] LIVE no longer the place for hardcore gamers? It’s sad, and just like him, I’m worried the PS3’s Home will lead down the same road. [...]
IMO blaming Live is very stupid. That’s denying the fact that the internet breeds these sorts of people.
Log into game, ask question like where something is what happens? 5% give a helpful answer, 45% give sarcastic answers, 30% call you a noob, 20% tell you to press alt f4.
The anonymosity (dunno if thats even a word) of the internet means people speak their mind a lot more than in real life, feel like they are invincible and think that swearing and using racial slurs is cool. Only now you get to hear the voices along with it.
I personally have been in tons of games on live and not had many incidents, but when i do it is always teh americans. no idea why, but americans seem to deserve their bad rep. Went into one game in CoD4 that was lagging and told this group to stfu because i didnt want to hear their rascist comments (maybe something more people shoudl do), saying how the hosts internet was mexican, racial slur racial slur, beans, blah blah blah.
Doesnt matter what platform its on they will follow. Is prob not as bad on PSN because they dont have standardised voice chat(?) or supply headset/mics(?).
Well… I play on Live, But most of the people I do match up with are pretty friendly, and not a-holes.
However, I do run into sexism, being a girl gamer. My favorite being some dbag singing to me the you are a c*nt song on Halo 3. I don’t really let anything phase me though, I just kicked his booty. But this is hardly every game.
I think that Live is still good, and fun. The random racists and sexists aren’t gonna ruin it for me when I can just push ignore.
I actually played a game of COD4 yesterday with 6 10th prestiges (gold cross) and they did not offend anyone. Usually those guys are asshole who take the game way too seriously that they should be in halo, but these guys were laughing and having a good time with everyone. I wonder if it was just drugs.
I can see it coming, probably by Fox news – headline: “gaming promotes racism because kids feel safe behind their computer” LOL…
Its mainly Americans they either shout or complain,stop moaning and crying welcome to real world and get out of that virtual world you all live in grow up or get a girlfriend.
No arguments it happens on XBL, but in your “story” one is supposed to believe that PSN is devoid of such behaviour. I was booted from a Tekken game (unranked) for being a beginner when I just bought the game that day. I was called any number of names and told how much I suck in the short amount of time it took to boot me from the room. I would have left willingly but they beat me to the boot. Besides that I don’t know if your just hard of hearing or what but this type behaviour has been around since multiplayer gaming went online and in no way is specific to XBL. In fact I’d be willing to bet that if you experience it more on XBL it’s just because you play it more often than PS3’s crappy network system, and if your to lazy to mute some nerd then who’s problem is that anyway. Yours for being lazy. Don’t respond to this comment I am not a fan of this site and I won’t be back to see it, I have no need for one-sided deflated arguments like these.
@ Silthos – being good at something doesn’t make you an elitist. It’s the attitude and presentation that you carry about yourself. Even if you are good at something, don’t be a prick about it. And the expectation is to have a community in which people play and act appropriately, not hack, glitch, teamkill, etc.
@ Will – you live in Oz, your winters are warmer than many countries summers.. go outsides… unless you live in broken hill, then i’m sorry.
@ All – Good points on noting a lot of it is probably attention starved individuals, not actual issues of racism or hate. But I would like to point out these actions can help breed hate and racism, somethings which if looked at realistically you will acknowledge can never be completed eliminated, unfortunately.
Social issues aside, why has Xbox Live become such a breeding ground for these attitudes/actions? I would hope this community can wise up and self-police before someone else enforces regulation. 50 complaints to get a boot? for a service people pay for? tough sell with clan mentality. I think MS, who bans the word Linux from Xbox Live, would crack down pretty hard if this environment begins to hurt their profit margins or reputation.
Social commentary, keep you kids in line, pay attention to what they do and say online and act like an decent human being yourself.
When XBL was in beta, it was a simpler, more civilized world. Now it has gone to hell in a hand basket, thanks to people who say the stupidest things on XBL. That has pretty much turned me off to online play.
@Keith – I think XBL has turned out the way it has because kids on XBL have no fear of retribution. Maybe if Microsoft would be a little more proactive on complaints and ban these kids without refunds, then they would clean up their act.
Possible solution of XBL moderators perhaps? Sponsored or employed by MS to enforce policy? Maybe this is better for a forum topic?