Homophobia in Halo 3

November 27, 2007 9:41 AM

"I want to hang you because you're gay." [nsfw audio]
"That's not very nice." But that is what player xxx GayBoy xxx heard on while playing Halo 3 on Xbox Live. Gaygamer.net explains that other than his provoking name, he did nothing to call for the prejudice attacks. As most gamers will tell you, this sort of language is common in game. [more nsfw audio] Thank god for the mute button. It's nice to know there are still heroes. [Previously: 1, 2, 3]
posted by patr1ck (144 comments total)

Aaand in the YouTube comments:

Take that, you gay boy. I hope you people die from AIDS. All you people are a disease. This world will be a better place without you things. God made a mistake that you were born. I believe in a world that GAYS need to be killed. Ever heard of the holocaust? I believe it should be resurrected to attack on GAYS like you. The next time I see a gay, I will harass him/her and spit on them.
Gays are not humans.
posted by xmutex at 9:49 AM on November 27, 2007

I've said it before, but sometimes you wish for zombies.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:53 AM on November 27, 2007 [12 favorites]

It's a weird mix. Half blatant vicious homophobia, and half just people saying "GayBoy!!"

I don't think saying someone's gamername counts as homophobia, does it?
posted by Bugbread at 9:54 AM on November 27, 2007

Actually, he comments further down the page:

xxxGayBoyxxx said:

Yes, not everything in this video was said with hate.

So, yeah, I don't really get his editing decisions.
posted by Bugbread at 9:56 AM on November 27, 2007

if my name was garlicboy they would deride me for being smelly. its xbox live.
posted by flyinghamster at 9:57 AM on November 27, 2007

Inappropriate, uncouth language over Xbox Live? Next you'll tell me is that Apple made a cell phone.
posted by Smart Dalek at 9:58 AM on November 27, 2007

[NOT SEXIST]
posted by Smart Dalek at 9:58 AM on November 27, 2007

Ugh.
posted by cowbellemoo at 9:59 AM on November 27, 2007

Vocabulary of most people who play 360 games online:

1. Gay
2. Nub
3. Pwned
4. Cock
5. Ghey
6. Newb
7. Pwnage
8. Kok

And that's about it.
posted by WolfDaddy at 9:59 AM on November 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

The times someone would call me gay in a game (not that often, since I don't play consoles) I would just roll with it, agree with them re: my homosexuality, and start describing all the gay sex acts I would like to perform with the idiot taunting me.

[NOT ACTUALLY GAY]
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 10:01 AM on November 27, 2007

It's been a long time since I played a pvp shooter, but this sounds about right. I wish I could say I'm shocked, it's kind of a locker room culture for people who have never seen the inside of a locker room, or a book for that matter.
posted by nola at 10:02 AM on November 27, 2007 [2 favorites]

if my name was garlicboy they would deride me for being smelly. its xbox live.

Inappropriate, uncouth language over Xbox Live? Next you'll tell me is that Apple made a cell phone.

Just because it's routine doesn't mean it's ok.
posted by atrazine at 10:02 AM on November 27, 2007 [2 favorites]

just because it's not ok doen't mean you don't need prospective.
posted by nola at 10:04 AM on November 27, 2007

Just because it's routine doesn't mean it's ok.

I can just imagine...

"Sir, I do believe you have been camping the respawn spot. Would Your Excellency care to change locations?"
posted by nasreddin at 10:06 AM on November 27, 2007 [6 favorites]

You know how I know you're gay? Your Xbox Live name is GayBoy.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 10:09 AM on November 27, 2007 [17 favorites]

I like my Xbox 360 but Xbox Live is a bit of a joke, really: you check out gamer profiles and you see people who have played like 360,000 games of Halo 3 or 177,000 games of Madden. For someone older than, say, 14, who has a job and significant others and, in short, a life, what's the point of playing online against some preteen freak who spends 16 hours or more a day glued to their Xbox, and pay for the privilege?
posted by matteo at 10:10 AM on November 27, 2007 [2 favorites]

(and yes, I'm play Stranglehold on "casual" and progressing quite nicely, thank you)
posted by matteo at 10:11 AM on November 27, 2007

Kids can be so cruel.
posted by mr_roboto at 10:13 AM on November 27, 2007

and by casually scrolling the kotaku link in the fpp, there's a guy who commented

People like that are why I'm cancelling my Xbox Live when it runs out. I don't enjoy playing online with the cheaters, the homophobes, the little kids shooting your own teammates, the overachievers who get mad if you die, you know, the usual suspects. There is no escaping these morons, they're everywhere.

that kind of settles the argument.
posted by matteo at 10:14 AM on November 27, 2007

You are playing Leviticus 20: Combat Devolved
[Gay] o hai
[Jehovah] wtf r u a gay 4rls
[Gay] yeah y?
[Jehovah] zomg i hop u get stoned n die
[Jehovah] fagt
[Gay] wtf this is bs
* Gay was fragged by Jehovah's grenade.
[Jehovah] pwnd fagt n00b
[Jehovah] kekeke
[Gay] im telling admin
[Jehovah] i am admin lol
[Moses] lol
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 10:15 AM on November 27, 2007 [63 favorites]

I wish I could say I'm shocked, it's kind of a locker room culture for people who have never seen the inside of a locker room, or a book for that matter.

So guys in locker rooms are always shouting about gays and cocks?

What YMCA is this and how can I get a membership?
posted by Avenger at 10:15 AM on November 27, 2007

This sort of thing (as well as, and perhaps as a result of, MS's encouragement of idiot 'trash-talking' culture) is why you'd have to pay me to spend my leisure time on Xbox Live. The vast majority of my game-playing friends who do use it play exclusively within their friends lists, and regularly bemoan this stuff on the rare occasions they venture into public games. I'm seeing more and more once-staunch believers in online multiplayer being the future getting increasingly disillusioned with the unpleasant shit they have to expose themselves to in order to get a game.

I actually think Nintendo are moving vaguely in the right direction (albeit for different reasons) by keeping online games strictly anonymous and communication-free. I've certainly had more fun playing things like Mario Kart DS online because I didn't have to connect with the (potentially) child-minded morons on the other end in any way.
posted by terpsichoria at 10:16 AM on November 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

XBOX Live is like an audiobook version of YouTube comments.
posted by jonson at 10:17 AM on November 27, 2007 [46 favorites]

Hehe well Avenger yes, I'd say right now some locker room is full of young studs all calling each of gay, and really just unable to stop talking about cock.
posted by nola at 10:21 AM on November 27, 2007

This is why you File a Report, in conjunction with a negative reputation rating. I don't imagine it actually does anything, but it helps me feel like a staunch old curmudgeon planted firmly on my couch wandering a loud what is wrong with the children these days... right before I go check my goddamn lawn!

I can handle the elementary school "fag" and "queer" tossed about in a carefree fashion, it's so generic as to be meaningless. They might understand it as "semantic satiation" if they weren't such illiterate degenerates to begin with, but when people get into hate speech or start making threats things get off the wire for me... that's when the mute goes down, and the report is filed. Racism and misogyny are not acceptable forms of expression, especially to strangers in a video game.

Once I was in a game of H3 where I had two teammates who realized in the pregame lobby that the enemy team had a female member, they spent the entire game consumed with "finding that bitch" so they could "teabag her over and over" and "rape her face" when they were done...

Imagine who had the lowest scores at the end of the game, as well as bonus filed reports to boot?

For someone older than, say, 14, who has a job and significant others and, in short, a life, what's the point of playing online against some preteen freak who spends 16 hours or more a day glued to their Xbox, and pay for the privilege?

Nothing, which is why you avoid those people like the goddamn plague. My friends list is populated with working individuals who have SO's, a mortgage, etc, for the most part. It's fun to get together and "teach the kids a lesson" every now and then but generally when you hear the chipmunk voices chanting "pwnd faggots" in the pregame lounge you turn and run as fast as you can. On the flip side, the only "random" friends I have made (limited to the sphere of XBL) are from the group who collectively vocalize their amazement in the post game lobby at the abysmally retarded shit that consumed the last match.

It's a small price to pay for next generation gaming, which unfortunately does not automatically exclude those with a mindset vested in generations long since passed...
posted by prostyle at 10:22 AM on November 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

This sort of crap in on-line games is easy to ignore when you realize 99% of the people saying it have never driven a car or kissed a human that wasn’t their mom.
posted by bondcliff at 10:22 AM on November 27, 2007 [7 favorites]

Reminds me of this classic story about the emergent linguistics of online games:
Bow, Nigger.
Makes a lot more sense if you played any Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast.
posted by autodidact at 10:22 AM on November 27, 2007 [3 favorites]

I knew a gay guy in college who went by the name Homofagqueer (or something similar) and just absolutely delighted in destroying these kids in Counterstrike. He'd be totally lecherous and the kids'd freak out. I remember watching him ream one of our editors at the newspaper over network play, and after each kill he was shouting "I give you AIDS DICK!"

It was pretty funny.
posted by klangklangston at 10:31 AM on November 27, 2007 [3 favorites]

as well as, and perhaps as a result of, MS's encouragement of idiot 'trash-talking' culture

Er... what? How is this Microsofts fault all of a sudden?
posted by Artw at 10:32 AM on November 27, 2007

There are some oases in the vast wasteland of online gaming:

http://www.2old2play.com

http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/

http://www.maturegamingworld.com

It's not too hard to populate your friends list with enough mature gamers to make online gaming fun again.
posted by de void at 10:32 AM on November 27, 2007 [15 favorites]

A girl the other night, must've been in her teens, asked me, quite randomly, if I "would have sex with a girl that had a green coochie". I replied that if she was hot and the rest of her was green, like that alien girl in Star Trek, I'd be all about her like Captain Kirk.

She had no idea what I was talking about. And she got 4 times as many kills as me.

I feel old.
posted by LordSludge at 10:33 AM on November 27, 2007

so...given this...WHY do people play online games....

and, if you can give me an answer then....

culturally, we've sort of hit the bottom, haven't we?
posted by HuronBob at 10:35 AM on November 27, 2007

Reminds me of this classic story about the emergent linguistics of online games:
Bow, Nigger.

That was the last ("heroes") link. I have no interest in these games and didn't read the rest of the links, but I read and enjoyed that one even though I haven't a clue about Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast.
posted by languagehat at 10:36 AM on November 27, 2007

This is silly. Everyone knows Nerdity trumps Gaiety every day of the week.
posted by Reggie Digest at 10:36 AM on November 27, 2007

Man, this has nothing to do with Microsoft. 14 year old online gamers were wankers before XBox Live, and they'll continue to be wankers when Live is long gone. You are pretty much the dumbest you'll ever be in your entire life when you're a Teenager. People expect too much.
posted by chunking express at 10:40 AM on November 27, 2007

given this...WHY do people play online games

Because it's fun to play against human competition and theoretically, there's some way to find opponents who don't match matteo's spot-on description (I haven't plugged the headset in since getting a 360-- the first go-round on X-Box Live was enough to teach me that). It wouldn't be that hard to provide an online (i.e., web browser-based, not in-console) tool to manage friendships and grab contacts from anywhere. Unfortunately, MS decided to try to do this all via their Passport and Messenger dead-end of an approach.

Look at our profile pages here at Mefi: they can link to other sites we belong to. Sites like Flickr allow third-party tools to come in and use your account if you authorize it. Why can't I say: grab all my contacts from MetaFilter who implement an xbox live profile widget on their account (or some variation)?

Of course, that's a technical work-around that ignores the actual problem. But I don't want to pretend I know how to fix the hate speech on an anonymous network: they're just cubs without an alpha leader to keep them in line, so they sit there and bite everyone who comes by. I can't even get excited over it.
posted by yerfatma at 10:43 AM on November 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

I've noticed a lot more TF2 servers with "No racism/homophobia" in the server info. That always makes me happy.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:43 AM on November 27, 2007

itym Gaylo 3
posted by 29 at 10:52 AM on November 27, 2007

De void has it -- Xbox Live is great if you can float above the stinking cesspool that is the average loudmouth fuckwad. http://www.2old2play.com is a great site.

I'm sure the fellow's tag name was chosen to elicit the response he gets -- if it helps enlighten someone, that's great, but should it generate shock and surprise? Not really. That's sad, but there it is.
posted by Pantengliopoli at 10:58 AM on November 27, 2007

This is why I play computer games instead of Xbox. It's also why you should play TF2 on the MeFi server instead of Halo with a bunch of 14 year olds and frat assholes. One man's opinion.
posted by absalom at 10:58 AM on November 27, 2007

languagehat: that was the article that inspired the New Games Journalism manifesto.
posted by empath at 11:00 AM on November 27, 2007

And one of the single best features in Halo 3, that many games lack, is an easy, fast way to mute the other players either in the lobby or during the game. It's protected my delicate sensibilities many times.
posted by Pantengliopoli at 11:00 AM on November 27, 2007

There are some oases in the vast wasteland of online gaming:

I'd like to chime in and suggest GamerDad as well. Good articles, good forums, and some relatively straightforward guarantee of maturity.
posted by thanotopsis at 11:01 AM on November 27, 2007

Are you people seriously suggesting: If you don't like it, don't play?

Seriously?

So if people started yelling nigger, nigger, nigger at black people trying to say, eat at a diner, they should just go somewhere else?

What the fuck is wrong with you people?
posted by empath at 11:02 AM on November 27, 2007 [8 favorites]

...saying it have never driven a car or kissed a human that wasn’t their mom.

I'm pretty sure I've never driven a car that WAS my mom.
posted by DU at 11:02 AM on November 27, 2007 [2 favorites]

What yerfatma said - XBL is just as much fun without the headset. I only use the headset when I'm playing a 2 player game with someone I know.
posted by neilkod at 11:04 AM on November 27, 2007

I've certainly had more fun playing things like Mario Kart DS online because I didn't have to connect with the (potentially) child-minded morons on the other end in any way.

Only problems I've encountered with Mario Kart DS are the alarming amount of crude penis drawings used for avatars. This VGCats cartoon sums it up nicely.

Who needs a jumbo penis avatar when you can kart around with Luigi and a yellow-on-green 'BUSH SUX' icon?
posted by porn in the woods at 11:06 AM on November 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

Obligatory
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 11:10 AM on November 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

Inappropriate, uncouth language over Xbox Live?

The first time I played Top Spin Tennis 2 on XBox Live, the thirteen year old it randomly selected for me repeatedly told me he was going to "Rape my ass" in tennis, in a my-balls-haven't-quite-dropped-yet semi-falsetto tone...

It was awesome! Like being sexually assaulted by a Chipmunk...
posted by SweetJesus at 11:11 AM on November 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

I think I just associate Live with the trash-talking American locker-room mentality because the early advertising and positioning for the service really pushed that angle. But yeah, it's not MS's fault.

It's irritating that this attitude's come to define online gaming, because I'd probably have a great time if there was some sort of 'Live premium' service where I could pay a higher subscription and get access to moderated servers where there'd be a reasonable expectation of decent behaviour.
posted by terpsichoria at 11:12 AM on November 27, 2007

Since everybody's throwing out the sites for the older gamer: Adult Gaming Enthusiasts. Awesome group of folks and if I hadn't found them, I'd still play on XBL, but I'd be having a lot less fun.

COD4 is a great great game
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 11:15 AM on November 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

It was awesome! Like being sexually assaulted by a Chipmunk...

That shit is not funny. If it hadn't been for the red nose, the bastard might have gotten away with it. Ruined a trip to Disney anyway.
posted by yerfatma at 11:20 AM on November 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

I'm pretty sure I've never driven a car that WAS my mom.

There’s a joke here somewhere that involves the word “driving” and “mom” but being as I don’t know for sure you’re not the type to hunt me down and kill me for talking shit about your moms, I’m gonna pass.

I hope you appreciate the willpower involved in this.
posted by bondcliff at 11:22 AM on November 27, 2007

For a second I read the first line as "I want to bang you because you're gay."
posted by oddman at 11:24 AM on November 27, 2007

What the fuck is wrong with you people?

We're probably coloured by our experience with how things actually work as opposed to how we would like them to work.

XBox Live is to 14-year-old homophobes as the men's golf club is to racist, sexist white men with names like Worthington. Sure, you can try to change the system. You can sue so that the sistahs can have a drink after shooting 18 holes. But, y'know, in the end, you're probably better off going somewhere else.
posted by ten pounds of inedita at 11:26 AM on November 27, 2007 [2 favorites]

I don't get why every post about online gamers has to deride everyone as 14 year old losers who've never left their parent's basement. That stereotype hasn't been true for a long time, and it's just a ridiculous thing to trot out in this context. Yes, there are those kids. I got destroyed last night by some kid who couldn't have been more than 12. But gamers are not all shutins. This is not to say they're not racist, homophobic assholes. But racist homophobic assholes can be found in all walks of life, not just 14 year old boys who live at home.

Halo 3 does a great job of letting you group up with reasonable people like you and continue playing with them. Plus, you can just play ranked games with your friends on your team and then your interaction with random people is limited to post-game chatter which you can easily opt out of. I play pretty regularly and assholes almost never ruin a play session.

Part of why this happens so much in games like Halo is the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. You don't see this kind of behavior in MMOs like WoW nearly as much because you spend a long time with the same group of people and violently racist or misogynistic people tend not to last because they have to interact with the objects of their hatred in a team situation so frequently. A lot of what happens on Live is a performance – the kids are talking smack like they think they're supposed to. But if you put them in a situation where they need to interact and play with someone not like them over a longer time period, they can get over it. At least, I hope that's true.
posted by heresiarch at 11:27 AM on November 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

This is what happens when you define certain words as hate speech and make them the highest level of taboo. They become the go-to trash talk. Then you get kids who miss the memo and think "gay" just means "stupid."
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:28 AM on November 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

as well as, and perhaps as a result of, MS's encouragement of idiot 'trash-talking' culture

Yes youre right this is completely microsoft's fault. If only Microsoft would make it easy to disable this stuff, like through an options menu or by unplugging the headset. If only.

Wait! It works. Wait, so youre telling me that the life lesson here isnt that little boys say nasty things, but adults are all too lazy to disable a feature they dont like and prefer to publicly complain than take some basic responsibility. They also like to blame big faceless companies. Interesting.

Also, how is this a MS or a 360 issue? Every online game populate by kids and immature adults is like this. Is MS now responsible for counterstrike and BF2? Is this truly an MS issue? What if someone released a 360 Chessmaster game with VOIP. I imagine the chats would be completely different.
posted by damn dirty ape at 11:31 AM on November 27, 2007

If it hadn't been for the red nose, the bastard might have gotten away with it.

But..the one with the red nose was Dale!
posted by bink at 11:34 AM on November 27, 2007

At least back in the day when they had to type this shit you could creep up on them and waste them while they were doing it.

I'm pretty sure they write 90% of the comments on YouTube as well.
posted by Artw at 11:36 AM on November 27, 2007

1. U have no Skilz (and I own you). Playing thousands of games doesn't make most people better. Some, but not most.
2. Trash talk is a good reason to play Halo3. It's where I learned "You are so gay in the face" and "Fuck you and have a cup of tea" (from our British friends).
3. Most of the "negative talk" is just people venting. Not to be taken seriously. Easy to mute. Easy to file a complaint about with Microsoft. Those who make a big deal of this WANT ATTENTION themselves. Microsoft has canceled people's accounts for this kind of crap.
4. Halo3 also creates a virtual environment unlike any you will find in real life. 12, 24, and 48 year olds end up on a team together and have to negotiate strategy, hierarchy, and standards of behavior while taking fire from heavy weapons. Most of us have forgotten what the play ground was like in elementary school. Welcome to the virtual playground.
posted by ewkpates at 11:37 AM on November 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

Wait, so youre telling me that the life lesson here isnt that little boys say nasty things, but adults are all too lazy to disable a feature they dont like and prefer to publicly complain than take some basic responsibility.

But why should we encourage these little twits to think their behavior is acceptable? Why should they be allowed to own whatever space they decide to plop themselves down in? It's exactly this attitude- this go away if you don't like it- attitude that creates glass ceilings and hostile work environments.

Why exactly is it wrong to make them feel bad for acting like trash? If they don't like it, why can't they go home?
posted by headspace at 11:39 AM on November 27, 2007 [4 favorites]

lol i just fianchettoed yr bishop faget

kekeke
posted by exlotuseater at 11:41 AM on November 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

Halo3 also creates a virtual environment unlike any you will find in real life. 12, 24, and 48 year olds end up on a team together and have to negotiate strategy, hierarchy, and standards of behavior while taking fire from heavy weapons.

Clearly you haven't been in America's public school system.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:42 AM on November 27, 2007 [9 favorites]

And, you are right, the 14 year old, lives with mom stereotype is total bullshit. Everyone I know who acts like this in game is actually a 20 year old who still lives with mom.

I wish I was lying.
posted by absalom at 11:43 AM on November 27, 2007

So if people started yelling nigger, nigger, nigger at black people trying to say, eat at a diner, they should just go somewhere else?

Yeah, I would probably go eat somewhere else. You'd hang out?
posted by xmutex at 11:44 AM on November 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

I've certainly had more fun playing things like Mario Kart DS online because I didn't have to connect with the (potentially) child-minded morons on the other end in any way.

Let's take a moment to consider that you're talking about playing Mario Kart DS online and then complaining about children.

Hmm.
posted by xmutex at 11:46 AM on November 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

There’s a joke here somewhere that involves the word “driving” and “mom”

Not a joke. You've never heard of a mother dying and being reincarnated as her son's car? Do you live in a cave? Moms talking to their sons through car radios is funny to you? How is that funny, exactly?

For a second I read the first line as "I want to bang you because you're gay."

I read it as "I want to hang with you because you're gay."
posted by iconomy at 11:46 AM on November 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

.
posted by Olli at 11:47 AM on November 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

Friends of gays should not be allowed to edit Wikipedia.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 11:49 AM on November 27, 2007 [2 favorites]

Let's take a moment to consider that you're talking about playing Mario Kart DS online and then complaining about children.

I'd rather not communicate with children or people who act like them, certainly. Which I don't have to do in something like Mario Kart - the people in the other karts could be eight or eighty, and I neither know nor care.
posted by terpsichoria at 11:55 AM on November 27, 2007

If they don't like it, why can't they go home?

Because Xbox Live IS their home. While ewkpates appreciates the generational diversity that the online gaming experience offers, I can't frigging stand it, because it's clear as day that Halo 3 is for kids. I'm 35 years old. I have absolutely nothing in common with any teenager playing Halo 3. This game is clearly Not For Me. I'm sure Microsoft is glad to have my money, but I'm not the target market.

(insert stock rant about the marketing of the extended adolescence here)

Why exactly is it wrong to make them feel bad for acting like trash?

It's not wrong, but it sure as hell ain't effective. What are you going to do, shame them? If some idiot kid is going "nigger fag nigger nigger," do you think yelling at them will actually get them to shut up? I'm not saying you don't have a point, but I'm also saying it would be ineffectual at best. That said, I'll try to do that myself.

For what it's worth, I've noticed that there isn't nearly the cocktardery on Halo 3 that was on Halo 2. MS really scored with the "shut the other team up" option.
posted by solistrato at 11:56 AM on November 27, 2007

Speaking of xbo 360 issues, my roommates just got Rockband and we love it, to death, as has anyone else who has topped by the apartment. However, I had a friend over and they made up a new character named Thor-bringer. As soon as he entered the name, he was told that the name Thor-bringer was "not what one would call polite" and that as a result, the name would only be seen locally, not on the online universe.

WHAT
THE
FUCK,
MICROSOFT?

How did Thor-bringer bring p a redflag when you're allowing bands like "the QU33FS" and "Ass Raping Monkeys" to show up in the rankings?

Sorry for the derail, we're just at a loss for what happened with that one.
posted by piratebowling at 11:59 AM on November 27, 2007

"I want to hang you because you're gay."

I'm already hung, but thanks!
posted by troybob at 12:00 PM on November 27, 2007 [2 favorites]

My first experience of Xbox Live was my PGR3 opponent averring in a falsetto Scottish accent that 'all black people smell of Monster Munch', in an attempt to (presumably) insult another player who was clearly South East Asian. So not only racist, but incompetently so. And also: what flavour of Monster Munch? Cos between Flamin Hot and Pickled Onion those crisps cover quite an olfactory spectrum.

I'm all for freedom of speech but I agree with the position that Microsoft has a responsibility to deal with this kind of disgusting bigotry. To extend the café metaphor, if you went into an eatery and there were patrons shouting 'nigger nigger nigger', wouldn't you expect the owner to kick them out?

Not a joke. You've never heard of a mother dying and being reincarnated as her son's car? Do you live in a cave? Moms talking to their sons through car radios is funny to you? How is that funny, exactly?

Good Lord. That wikipedia link took me straight through the looking glass and I don't think I'll ever come back.
posted by RokkitNite at 12:05 PM on November 27, 2007

as has anyone else who has topped by the apartment.

BEST. TYPO. EVER.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 12:06 PM on November 27, 2007 [2 favorites]

"Nice homo rankings you gaywad queerbaits."
posted by acid freaking on the kitty at 12:07 PM on November 27, 2007

Why exactly is it wrong to make them feel bad for acting like trash?

Nothing, except the relative effectiveness. Do you want a 50 percent reduction? Might be possible. A 90 percent reduction? You may as well go stand at the shore and attempt to stop the tides.

If they don't like it, why can't they go home?

That's not what you seem to be proposing, though. You seem to be arguing for a model of "If I don't like it, why can't I make someone go home?" And there's plenty of things wrong with that, the least of which is "you don't own Xbox Live."

If a gang of punks hang out at the local McDonalds, you complain to McDonalds and elect to eat at Burger King.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 12:09 PM on November 27, 2007

One day I'm going to make a fortune when I prefect, patent, and start selling a filter that you can install, which contextually takes words that offend you and changes them to other random words.

Take that, you [WALRUS] boy. I hope you people [PARTY] from [CHEESE]. All you people are a [SQUIRRELS]. This world will be a [MOUNTAIN] without [RABBITS]. [NERF] made a mistake that you were [STAPLED]. I believe in a world that [OTTERS] need to be [TICKLED]. Ever heard of the [APPLE TREES]? I believe it should be resurrected to [WIGGLE] on [BASEBALLS] like you. The next time I see a [ZEBRA], I will [JUGGLE] him/her and [FEED] them. [SALTSHAKERS] are not humans.

Sure, it just becomes random noise, but that really isn't too much different from what it is already. Just more surreal.
posted by quin at 12:14 PM on November 27, 2007 [13 favorites]

triplejack poker does that now.
posted by empath at 12:17 PM on November 27, 2007

Nasreddin: You can have the best of both worlds, at least.

behold, the best worst best worst romeo and juliet ever
posted by duende at 12:18 PM on November 27, 2007

Most of us have forgotten what the play ground was like in elementary school. Welcome to the virtual playground.

Some of us, on the other hand, remember very distinctly what the playground was like, and have no desire to go back there.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:31 PM on November 27, 2007 [4 favorites]

MY GUN IS DEFECTIVE!
posted by gorgor_balabala at 12:34 PM on November 27, 2007

I've noticed that alot of gamers are really fawking racist. Whenever I play an online game that has any form of chat all you ever hear is racial slurs. Like it's cool to shoot a person and call them gay? I swear if these people are the future of this country..... We are all doomed! Wait no we're not, they too fat and lack social skills to make it out of the house!
posted by Mastercheddaar at 12:57 PM on November 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

There's nothing better than telling 8-year-olds all the bad things you want to do with their mother while you're blowing them up with C-4 sticks on Rainbow Six: Las Vegas. Eyeballs rolling in the backs of their sockets level of fun. Needless to say, I had to sell my system in order to begin the long process of reintegrating back into society.
posted by phaedon at 1:01 PM on November 27, 2007

How did Thor-bringer bring p a redflag when you're allowing bands like "the QU33FS" and "Ass Raping Monkeys" to show up in the rankings?

Maybe they didn't like the idea of promoting someone who thpreads eth tee dee's. Just brainthtorming, here.
posted by waraw at 1:10 PM on November 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

Crap! THOMEONE
posted by waraw at 1:11 PM on November 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

My first experience of Xbox Live was my PGR3 opponent averring in a falsetto Scottish accent that 'all black people smell of Monster Munch'

Seriously. I have tears streaming down my face. This is the funniest shit I have heard in a long, long time. Thank you.
posted by dios at 1:21 PM on November 27, 2007

One day I'm going to make a fortune when I prefect, patent, and start selling a filter that you can install, which contextually takes words that offend you and changes them to other random words.

I have prior art. I did this almost ten years ago on PMC-MOO with the Generic Censored Room.

By default, it would censor all discussions of real-world things ("class", "exam", "work" etc.) and replace them with silly words like "hippopotamus" and "fumble". People in the room could easily add and remove individual censorings.

The owner of the room had various neat little settings. By default, people would see their own text as if it were uncensored...

As you can imagine, it was a lot of fun.

We also changed the MOO to GayMoo and changed the action verbs to have people lisping, mincing, etc. We got SUCH complaints from the inhabitants: "We were planning a wedding and everyone's lisping!"

What was funny is that we were frequently accused of anti-homosexual bias, but this prank suggested by one of the organizers who is gay, implemented by yours-truly who's very gay friendly, and the actual gay inhabitants of the MOO thought it was hysterically funny.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 1:22 PM on November 27, 2007

empath writes "Are you people seriously suggesting: If you don't like it, don't play?

"Seriously?

"So if people started yelling nigger, nigger, nigger at black people trying to say, eat at a diner, they should just go somewhere else?

"What the fuck is wrong with you people?"

So, empath, why aren't you on XBox Live shutting these people up?

I'll make a guess that you're not into video games? Or perhaps you are, but not into them enough to buy an XBox360? Or you don't enjoy the particular games available on the XBox360? Or maybe you enjoy games, and you have an XBox360, but don't enjoy playing live opponents?

But, wait, that shouldn't stop you. After all, other people are saying that they'd rather not deal with this crap when they just want to have fun, and you're telling them that there's something wrong with them for thinking that way. So, apparently, the issue is big enough that you should go on Live and show racists and homophobes the error of their ways, even though you wouldn't be enjoying yourself by doing so. So why don't you do it, then? If there's something fucking wrong with people for preferring to enjoy themselves than fight oppression, then the same is true for you, right?
posted by Bugbread at 1:22 PM on November 27, 2007 [4 favorites]

That heroes link is great.
posted by ersatz at 1:27 PM on November 27, 2007

*teabags empath, runs offscreen*
posted by phaedon at 1:28 PM on November 27, 2007

Two more comments.

First, I found the link from "heroes" to be extremely moving. Good on him.

Second, the primary users of these games are kids. If we are to be a civilized society, we must by necessity have tighter controls on children than adults. While the previous link should make it clear that I'm against censorship for adults, I think it's essential that children be given a protected environment that betters them.

The people who provide these online games are making money from our kids; they should be taking better care of them.

There are lots of clever ways that they could be doing it, too -- ways that would even increase the brand-loyalty.

For example, if a (juvenile) player uses the word "nigger", the game would cease and be replaced by an aggressive educational segment showing people who died over the word nigger. ("These aren't computer pictures you're seeing. These are real people like you who were tortured and killed over the word 'nigger'. Never forget them.")

The child would have to answer simple questions at each stage -- you couldn't skip the lesson by signing off.

Kids would hate it at the time. But they'd certainly learn. And it would be an experience. A few years later, they'd remember that one moment over hundreds of other hours of gaming experience.

You wouldn't have to pass laws to enforce it if a few large companies did it. Parents buy a lot of these games -- most of them would definitely go for an adult language filter for their kids.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 1:44 PM on November 27, 2007

bugbread: I was thinking more along the lines that someone at Microsoft should do something about it, and people who do play xbox live should pressure them to do something about it.
posted by empath at 1:49 PM on November 27, 2007

I bet the players of xbox live are just screaming for some kind of ropey AI to intermittently censor them and/or show them PBS documentaries about how to become better people, and would in fact pay good money for such a service.
posted by Artw at 1:55 PM on November 27, 2007

Wow, lupus_yonderboy, stay the FUCK away from my legislative apparatus.
posted by nasreddin at 1:58 PM on November 27, 2007 [2 favorites]

During the development of Marathon for Live Arcade, we had an idea for dealing with this kind of crap:

There are really only a handful of epithets that these assholes on Live use, and they have a well-defined waveform signature. We had the idea of watching your speech, and if you started using any of the [i]no-no words[/i] on our Magic List of Asshole Vocabulary, your character would spontaneously explode.

Maybe for the next title.
posted by Mikey-San at 1:58 PM on November 27, 2007 [7 favorites]

When I feel like getting into the general population of Halo gamers to improve my (pretty low) ranking, I play Lone Wolf with no headset and "Mute All" selected.

Otherwise, I have a pretty long list of friends-- most of whom I know IRL-- who get together for some private server action. I've typically got 10 to 15 people in my friends list active at any time who I know are fun to play with.

Problem solved.

I'm not a member at Gamers With Jobs, but after reading their weblog, forums and listening to their fantastic gaming podcast for a while now, I'd like to also suggest that site if you're looking for new connections on XBL (or Steam).

XBox Live is like anything else in the Internet. There are stupid fuckers everywhere and you either need to filter them out yourself or suck it up, wade in the shit and armor yourself using the phaedon mother method™.

As for people complaining about Microsoft not doing something about it, I have two things to say:

a) You have the ability to lodge complaints about any player through the XBL UI. I just don't bother as my current methods of finding others to play with suits me fine (and it's the method I always used for PC gaming.)

b) Welcome to online gaming you fucking n00b.

(btw, I wouldn't mind adding some mefites to my list.. mefimail me to swap tags)
posted by eyeballkid at 2:03 PM on November 27, 2007

empath writes "bugbread: I was thinking more along the lines that someone at Microsoft should do something about it, and people who do play xbox live should pressure them to do something about it."

Ah, ok, sorry, misread you.

Well, MS is doing something: they ban folks who get lots of negative feedback. And I agree, people who play XBox should use the feedback mechanisms built into Live to report the stuff. Of course, you can't report all of it, you'd get carpal tunnel syndrome, but you can at least report some of it.
posted by Bugbread at 2:08 PM on November 27, 2007

This is just a console problem by and large then, no? I've played a wide swath of FPS on the ol' PC here and this sort of stupidity is way rarer. OR maybe I'm just lucky.
posted by absalom at 2:17 PM on November 27, 2007

absalom - which FPSs? I've seen it - to a greater or lesser extent, and more often in text than in voice - in pretty much every online game I've played.
posted by Artw at 2:23 PM on November 27, 2007

I think everyone here is pointing something out that's very important: XBox Live is a breeding ground for retards.

Newsflash! here's why: Halo 3 fucking sucks. If you play it, you're likely someone who was just introduced to gaming, and you simply don't know any better. In other words, you're 13 and your mom just bought it for you, or you're 45 and you bought it to fill the leisure time between work-days.

The 45-year-olds get turned off by the environment, the 18-30 demographic realizes better games exist, and what's left is a bunch of whiny pubescents with nothing else to do.
posted by Room 101 at 2:25 PM on November 27, 2007

absalom writes "This is just a console problem by and large then, no? I've played a wide swath of FPS on the ol' PC here and this sort of stupidity is way rarer. OR maybe I'm just lucky."

I haven't played online PC games in a long time, but they don't all have voice standard, do they? I thought you needed extra programs like TeamSpeak or the like. From what I understand, it was the "giving absolutely everyone a microphone, and requiring all online games to support voice communications" thing that started the problem.
posted by Bugbread at 2:25 PM on November 27, 2007

Room 101 writes "XBox Live is a breeding ground for retards."

Nah, they don't breed there.

They probably don't breed period.

When I'm feeling generous, I consider it a holding tank, keeping them out of other places. When I'm feeling pessimistic, I just think of it as their hangout, like the gangster-wannabees who take over parks.
posted by Bugbread at 2:27 PM on November 27, 2007

Ha, ha. I first read that as "I want to hang with you because you're gay."
posted by Mental Wimp at 2:28 PM on November 27, 2007

Newsflash! here's why: Halo 3 fucking sucks. If you play it, you're likely someone who was just introduced to gaming, and you simply don't know any better. In other words, you're 13 and your mom just bought it for you, or you're 45 and you bought it to fill the leisure time between work-days.

Newsflash! I work for an Xbox 360 game developer and still enjoy Halo 3, both solo and multiplayer.

In other words, you're an elitist Internet gamer twat who thinks his opinion on video games is the ultimate word in fun, and that anyone who thinks game_you_don't_like is a newb or doesn't know shit! Too bad you're wrong.

Why do you assholes insist on posting in every fucking Halo thread in the known universe? You're just as annoying as every loudmouth who plays the game you're talking about.
posted by Mikey-San at 2:30 PM on November 27, 2007 [4 favorites]

* and that anyone who enjoys game_you_don't_like is a newb or doesn't know shit!
posted by Mikey-San at 2:31 PM on November 27, 2007

Almonds are nice.
posted by Artw at 2:32 PM on November 27, 2007

I've played a wide swath of FPS on the ol' PC here and this sort of stupidity is way rarer.

See, for me, I grew into this problem organically. When other kids were throwing fireballs at Blanka, I was backstabbing your dwarf cleric and gossiping shit about you and your mom over telnet during recess. Then came Unreal. Then I headshot you with my sniper, and then press a button which prompts Samuel Jackson to remind you that, "That IS.. a tasty burga!" and then go to my seminar. So by the time Xbox 360 rolls around, and I am out of college and fully unemployed, I am able to hop into bed, order a pizza, and talk shit in real time for a good 10-12 hours. in between bong hits. The idea that this could be a platform-specific problem seems ass-backwards.
posted by phaedon at 2:33 PM on November 27, 2007 [2 favorites]

I'm a software dev in test on the Xbox.

We're aware of the reputation our service has. And while the percentage of asshats on Xbox Live is surprisingly smaller than most people perceive it to be, they're there. Short of an interview process for all new accounts, we can't keep asshats from joining up and playing.

Yes, we have the complaint system, and action is taken against people that collect a significant amount of complaints. No, I can't reveal exact numbers and exact penalties. But someone who makes a habit of being an asshat is going to get smacked down from it - and if they continue, stronger actions get taken. Unfortunately, it's reactive based on community feedback, and requires player to submit the complaints for anything to happen. It's not practical to monitor all voice chat on the service and immediately kick/ban people as soon as they show racism, sexism, homophobia, or other forms of asshattery. We're continuing to discuss and investigate further ways to deal with this - and not just ways of finding the asshats, but ways of discouraging it to begin with.

I can promise you that there are a number of us that do take this seriously and really want to find solutions. Heck, as a female gamer, I get more than my share of it directed to me when I play online. I put up with it so that I can help try and clean up the service, but I'd rather it not be there, and I know I'm going to do what I can to help.

To summarize - we know, we added some features to the Xbox 360 over the original Xbox to help with this, and we continue to work on this problem.
posted by evilangela at 2:36 PM on November 27, 2007 [10 favorites]

I haven't played online PC games in a long time, but they don't all have voice standard, do they?

There's no standard but, for example, Valve now includes built-in voice chat in their games.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 2:37 PM on November 27, 2007

This is just a console problem by and large then, no?

No.

OR maybe I'm just lucky.

It depends, you might have picked a few servers to frequent that are well moderated. There's a huge difference between client and server and peer to peer in terms of administrative powers, or lack thereof. You can mute, file a complaint, give a negative review, etc. Think of it like training an animal, if you punish it for behavior well after the fact the impact barely registers. If you're in the middle of a game of CounterStrike shouting racial epithets and your rendered view disappears and is replaced with a menu saying "You have been banned" your feedback level is greatly enhanced. Then you simply find a different server, preferably unmoderated, natch.

Newsflash! here's why: Halo 3 fucking sucks. If you play it, you're likely someone who was just introduced to gaming, and you simply don't know any better. In other words, you're 13 and your mom just bought it for you, or you're 45 and you bought it to fill the leisure time between work-days.

Wrong on both counts.

It's not practical to monitor all voice chat on the service and immediately kick/ban people as soon as they show racism, sexism, homophobia, or other forms of asshattery.

You need to talk to the NSA, I'd imagine they've done some very interesting research into voice pattern recognition and data mining... what else am I paying for, anyways? Dedicated servers? Pffft!
posted by prostyle at 2:39 PM on November 27, 2007

TheOnlyCoolTim writes "There's no standard but, for example, Valve now includes built-in voice chat in their games."

Huh. I did not know that.

Actually, speaking of dicks on online games, wasn't Counterstrike on the PC pretty bad as far as that goes?
posted by Bugbread at 2:40 PM on November 27, 2007

I was hoping you'd show up here, evilangela. :-)

I can promise you that there are a number of us that do take this seriously and really want to find solutions. Heck, as a female gamer, I get more than my share of it directed to me when I play online. I put up with it so that I can help try and clean up the service, but I'd rather it not be there, and I know I'm going to do what I can to help.

This reminds me of something that happened to me last week:

My gamertag is "Chelsea Bridge". Chelsea is, admittedly, a chick's name. I took it for very specific reference from my bungie.org past. Heh. Anyway, I don't always use my microphone in Team Slayer if I'm by myself in a party, and one night when I didn't, a couple of guys decided to zero in on me. They mistakenly thought I was a girl, and conversed the entire game about how they were going to rape me. Sigh.

I won't pretend to know what it's actually like to encounter that sort of thing, but I can't say it felt very good at all. Really makes you think twice about how you show other people what you think of their value.
posted by Mikey-San at 2:46 PM on November 27, 2007

Enjoying the comments so far, but THIS offended me:

lol i just fianchettoed yr bishop faget

kekeke

You... you can't fianchetto somebody else's bishop!
posted by dreamsign at 2:49 PM on November 27, 2007

you can't fianchetto somebody else's bishop!

mb if u werent such a fucking nub u could
posted by Mikey-San at 2:51 PM on November 27, 2007 [7 favorites]

So, uh, I guess this is a bad place to ask anyone if they wanna play some Halo 3 tonight?
posted by robocop is bleeding at 2:52 PM on November 27, 2007

Newsflash! here's why: Halo 3 fucking sucks. If you play it, you're likely someone who was just introduced to gaming, and you simply don't know any better. In other words, you're 13 and your mom just bought it for you, or you're 45 and you bought it to fill the leisure time between work-days.

The 45-year-olds get turned off by the environment, the 18-30 demographic realizes better games exist, and what's left is a bunch of whiny pubescents with nothing else to do.

You're funny. Don't you have a blog to update or something? Given the described breakdown, my wife is going to be very disappointed to discover I've become a whiny pubescent again.
posted by Pantengliopoli at 2:57 PM on November 27, 2007

Oh, and evilangela -- thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
posted by Pantengliopoli at 2:58 PM on November 27, 2007

This is why XBox Live makes it so easy to block people. Mute them, file a complaint, and move on. It's really not hard... and if you do that, you can have a fine gaming experience.

There are actually quite a lot of decent people on there, its just that, as in a forum, the loudest idiots get all the attention.
posted by wildcrdj at 2:59 PM on November 27, 2007

(It will actively try to not match you with people you have filed "Avoid this Player" on, so in addition to not having to hear them anymore, you are unlikely to face them again, at least in a game with a high population of players like Halo 3)
posted by wildcrdj at 3:01 PM on November 27, 2007

My nick in TF2 is Your Gay Lover. Because, you know, "hotshot32 just killed Your Gay Lover" can be interpreted in at least a couple of ways.

*updates nick on XBL*
posted by disclaimer at 3:02 PM on November 27, 2007

I was hoping you'd show up here, evilangela. :-)

I tried posting earlier today, a nice long similar comment, but then Metafilter puked with an error and ate my text.

But yeah, sounds typical for what I get. Even more fun is that because I don't sound like a high-pitched 14-year old girl, the limited bandwidth for voice chat sometimes compresses it just right to make my voice androgynous - and I get guys that spend the entire game insisting I'm actually male and telling everyone else about it.

I've also had evenings playing team slayer with friends where I haven't heard a single epithet or insult that goes beyond good-natured taunting, and I realize just how great this service could be if we could make that the standard. At least some games, like Catan or Carcassone, are already there because the asshats don't play them.
posted by evilangela at 3:05 PM on November 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

Anyway, I don't always use my microphone in Team Slayer if I'm by myself in a party, and one night when I didn't, a couple of guys decided to zero in on me. They mistakenly thought I was a girl, and conversed the entire game about how they were going to rape me.

That's when you need to turn on the mic and, in your deepest manliest man-voice, intone "Just try it, pubeless". Then the headshot.
posted by CKmtl at 3:10 PM on November 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

and let's not forget voice-chat was created to freak out MMORPG-Moms, not calling people gay.
posted by darkripper at 3:23 PM on November 27, 2007

You think that's bad? I play Halo on the Mac and the brats TYPE that crap out at times. Got so bad there was an Elder's group formed, no one under 30. The trash talk is awesome: "Dude, I just I went all housing bubble on your ass" or "FU, I just took viagra and will smash your shitty two car garage."
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:00 PM on November 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

Guess it could be luck. Most my recent experience is with TF2, and before that I suppose that on PC games voice is a lot less utilized. I never even dealt with voice in BF2.

Oh, yeah, text chat. Forgot about that. The Internet Fuckwad theory is untouched. My faith in humanity restored.
posted by absalom at 4:06 PM on November 27, 2007

I use the pink-hearts-and-kitten (not explicitly gay per se, but certainly charmingly and suggestively fey) 'Sausage Party' spray in Team Fortress 2, expressly to annoy and draw out the homophobes. Though perhaps I should be crying, I have to laugh when I see a scout frantically and ineffectually whacking the wall where I've put up the spray with their baseball bat.

If they're on the other team, I then blow them into chunks with a rocket or grenade, and it is remarkably satisfying.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:23 PM on November 27, 2007

I tried posting earlier today, a nice long similar comment, but then Metafilter puked with an error and ate my text.

TCR FAIL

TCR043: Site should not puke and devour the user's post.
posted by Mikey-San at 4:38 PM on November 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

God, I love the sprays of sticky bombs and crouching snipers and such.
posted by absalom at 4:39 PM on November 27, 2007

Bungie should implement a system where annoying people have to beat Myth on Legendary difficulty before being allowed to reconnect.
posted by ersatz at 4:46 PM on November 27, 2007

My nick on CS:S used to be "A Basket of Kittens" ... as in, "You have been killed by A Basket Of Kittens."
posted by grabbingsand at 4:51 PM on November 27, 2007 [3 favorites]

Text chat is a lot easier to auto-filter. Especially since you are sending the whole message at once, you can just stop entire bad messages. As opposed to voice chat, which is realtime.
posted by smackfu at 5:09 PM on November 27, 2007

Text chat is a lot easier to auto-filter. Especially since you are sending the whole message at once, you can just stop entire bad messages. As opposed to voice chat, which is realtime.

No $#!*, sherlock.
posted by phaedon at 5:27 PM on November 27, 2007

I'm going to choose to believe that $#!* represents "fucking cock", because;

"No fucking-cock, Sherlock" has a nice alliteration happening.

In fact, 'Fucking-cock Sherlock' would be a pretty great CS nic.
posted by quin at 5:38 PM on November 27, 2007

That's not alliteration, quin.
posted by Reggie Digest at 8:59 PM on November 27, 2007

It's consonance. An example of alliteration, which is leading consonance, is Relax, Reggie, really. Rum'll rumple yer rotten rectitude.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 9:10 PM on November 27, 2007

A friend of mine from college would use the name "Cum-guzzler" while playing FPS, because with a name like that, what was the worst people could say to him?

Also, "Chuggernaut."
posted by gc at 11:01 PM on November 27, 2007

Theres so much homophobia in Counter-Strike that half the players HAVE to be gay... or something. It just makes no sense...
posted by Student of Man at 11:28 PM on November 27, 2007

I can't believe how quickly "potty mouth" leads us to "fascist control and censorship of public discourse".

1. Halo3 is about the balance of gaming skill, strategy and tactics. Two of the the three usually wins. If you prefer playing an elf and wearing nice outfits, then enjoy.

2. I suspect I've played more Halo3 than most of you. I also rode the school bus for an hour each way in the public school system. I prefer Halo.

3. I'm, sadly, rather well off and in my thirties. I like playing Halo with 14 year olds. I like playing Halo with 20 somethings living with their parents. I like playing Halo with black kids in LA and Irish kids in Ireland and our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and the French and the Japanese and Germans when I'm online at the right time.

It is inevitable that angry/stupid people will vent in a public forum. This is called "society". Step up or stay home. I will gladly grudge match all those of you who want Microsoft to censor the world pretty. At the same time. All of you versus me. I will own you so bad it will make your mothers cry.
posted by ewkpates at 4:54 AM on November 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

I suspect I've played more Halo3 than most of you.

1K?

I also rode the school bus for an hour each way in the public school system.

Yes, and I wish some censor would have been there to squelch that trash as well.

I will own you so bad it will make your mothers cry.

Ok, link your gamertag... I don't see it in the wiki. I've got a bag of plasma grenades with your name on them.
posted by prostyle at 6:24 AM on November 28, 2007

I will gladly grudge match all those of you who want Microsoft to censor the world pretty.

Well, youre in the minority then. Where do you think people like Jack Thompson get their support from? Just that caricature of conservative christians that mefites love to pull out of their hats? If you want to see the huge support for censorship all you have to do is look at all the 'enlightened' posters in this thread. It aint just soccer moms. Everyone has a magic hot button that makes them act crazy. With this crowd its not violence or nudity its taboo words broadcasted over a videogame.

These kids just want attention and just want to make you angry. Dont let them. Like I wrote above: unplug the headset.
posted by damn dirty ape at 7:07 AM on November 28, 2007 [2 favorites]

"Theres so much homophobia in Counter-Strike that half the players HAVE to be gay... or something. It just makes no sense..."

I always figured they were mostly Republicans playing in public restrooms.
posted by klangklangston at 10:36 AM on November 28, 2007

A big reason I don't play Halo 3 is this kind of nonsense. There's various options to mute people with varying degrees of awkwardness to use. But squad shooters are much more fun if you're actually talking and coordinating with your teammates. Not so much when they're yelling "faggot" at you. (I always wonder, how'd they know?)
posted by Nelson at 10:58 AM on November 28, 2007