Just got called the "N" word in my video game

[jumptheshadow]

Logged into my video game, Dark Age of Camelot, this evening. It's been my favorite form of escapism since 9/11 -- until this evening. It's a fun, brilliant game. I have my own guild and have met a lot of nice people there from all walks of life. I play with a lawyer, a techie, a firefighter, and many very cool people and have had lots of good times.

However, something very upsetting happened tonight. A guy in my battlegroup started talking about "people being niggers." I expressed my discomfort, and told him I was going to appeal him to the customer service representatives. He used the word again and tells me that Mythic, which owns Dark Age of Camelot, will do nothing about it.

Somebody sends me a tell: "You're a nigger."

Turns out that the players who were using the word "nigger" with impunity were correct: Mythic wasn't going to take any action. I talked to the customer service representative, who tells me basically that they aren't going to honor their terms of service. They don't monitor player chat groups, even the large ones, and even though I have screenshots, there aren't going to be any ramifications for the player using the hate word. After some discussion, they threw me a bone: They would "look into" the private tell that was sent to me.

This is my point of view: I don't think the word "nigger" should be tolerated in a public venue when clearly it carries so much hate-filled, racist baggage. I am not black myself, but I find the word extremely offensive. I am gay. I find that the use of the word "faggot" in these battlegroups (not to mention using the term "gay" to describe something that is dumb or stupid) offensive. And, no, Mythic won't do anything about that, either, even though it is clearly against their terms of service.

Does this happen in other video games?

[Crazy Guggenheim]

1. I don't know about other video games but you might try a LTTE at

your local newspaper. If that doesn't work, contact the people at PC World's website.

[Blue_Tires]

2. wow...

i see words like 'nigger' and 'jew' tossed around almost daily whenever i play counter-strike or other half-life mods---even though many mods in servers have cracked down, and i don't see it as much as i used to

[Deja Q]

8. The "F" and "N" words are quite popular... However,

the "J" word is one I have yet to see.

[Az]

3. Yep, and you can get their account yanked

Report it to the admins. They will suspend them first time and cancel if its a repeat offense.

[jumptheshadow]

4. No, they won't suspend the player

I am upset for two reasons:

1) I don't know of any other company or organization outside the video game industry that would tolerate the use of this word by employees or patrons,

and,

2) It's obvious that the executives at this company have made a considered decision that neither black nor gay consumers are important to them so they are willing to let them play with discomfort.

[Az]

9. Switch to a different game

A friend of mine had a similar situation while playing World of Warcraft. The idiot got suspended for 3 days. He came back on and started lipping off again and got his account yanked.

Sorry to hear the game you are playing allows such abominable behaviour. Think of all the time you can get back for living when you quit.

[jumptheshadow]

10. LOL, touche

I had heard that WoW was strict about this sort of thing. Perhaps they are better at marketing than the DAOC management, and not willing to offend entire swathes of the population in order to humor 20 year old white male rednecks? It's too bad, because I have met many cool people in the game.

I was wondering if video games had ushered in an entirely new ethic in entertainment marketing, one that is more than willing to enable bigotry and bigoted language. Seems to me, however, that in order to make games a level playing field for everybody to have fun you have to draw a line somewhere.

[CBGLuthier]

5. Damnit

Mythic used to be a good company too. Guess they are getting too big to care about doing the right thing.

I remember back when Bush started his war some asshole made some nasty comments about blowing up sand...

I unloaded on him and left. Didn't play too much after that.

[democracyindanger]

6. It happens but

every time I've seen it happen on the few online games I've played (CoD, Final Fantasy, Star Wars) the bigot was booted off.

The fact that it's the publisher that doesn't do anything about it is extremely disturbing. Keep a record of emails, and send them with screenshots and a copy of the terms of service to the NAACP. I don't know that the NAACP would be much help, but at the very least it would put pressure on Mythic.

Oh, and stop playing Camelot. No sense to give money to a company that permits--and it could be argued, endorses--racist language.

[Darth_Kitten]

7. that's pretty bad.....

:mad:

[Ladyhawk]

11. Yes.

Anonymity on the Internet lets people get away with being complete jerks. I got to listen to someone tell me how we should kill all "sand niggers." :eyes: Sometimes I want to reach through the monitor and fwap someone. It sucks, yes, but there isn't much a person can do about it.

If this is against Mythic's terms, perhaps you should pursue it. It won't win you any popularity contests, though. People get nasty about not being able to tear down minorities. It's a right, you know. :sarcasm:

[Betty88]

12. /agree

It is unfortunate but true, anonymity makes these jerks brave. From the dim light of their mothers' basements they can proclaim "freedom of speech" or tell you that's not what they really meant, or my current favorite,"the word has two meanings so you are ignorant." Personally I find the whole thing so ghey. ;)

[LynneSin]

13. I see all that stuff at DiabloII

and I figured it's probably some 12 year old getting a kick out of using naughty words.

I've done other online games where they were much more strict about language but then again you would also have to pay a monthly fee to join the online community.

I haven't played the Camelot game (I really go through spurts with online games, depending on my sleep abilities) so I don't know if it's pay to play online or not. But I do think if a free service is offered online they are less likely to do something about the language.

[jumptheshadow]

15. $15 a month

The guy using the offensive language happens to be a 20ish white male from Arkansas. I hadn't had any dealings with him before last night. Bottom line, I find it almost shocking that a company would condone the use of such bigoted, hateful language.

We pay $15 per account per month, or a total of $45 per month, plus the expenditures for new computers we have made in the past two years. Perhaps this "incident" has been a good thing. We have some nice, interesting friends and haven't been seeing much of them lately.

DAOC has been appealing partly because of how the game encourages people from all walks of life to work together as a team. Each class in the game has different strengths and flaws. If you are creative, you can find a way to complement each other. That's why it's so surprising that Mythic turns a blind eye toward this issue.

Thanks to my partner, Betty88 for kicking this thread, and to all of you who added your thoughts to it. Frankly, I hope to change Mythic's policy on the use of hate language, and the more discussion we have about this topic, the better.

[LynneSin]

16. Then I'm shocked that you're paying money and they aren't doing something

I've played Nexus where they fixed it that if you typed an offensive word it would automatically change it to a cleaner word. Even if you found a way around saying the word (like putting spaces between the letters) they had an online judicial system where you could report the infraction and online judges would review the evidence and give appropriate punishment.

Even older games had systems set up that would not allow certain words to type through.

So yes, you're paying alot of money and they should take care of the language issue especially if screenshots were presented. Else why bother paying to be online? You could just go to battle.net and see all the vulgar language for free

[jumptheshadow]

18. LOL

>>I've played Nexus where they fixed it that if you typed an offensive word it would automatically change it to a cleaner word.<<

Mythic has general filters but, surprisingly, they don't screen for the word "faggot." I always wanted to see them change the phrase "he's a faggot" to "he's fabulous." LOL. When players use the word "gay" as an insult, Betty88 and I turn it around on them and say: "You mean he's good-looking and dresses well?" It usually shuts the player up.

However, I think the use of the words "nigger" and "faggot" go beyond the boundaries where you can just slap a filter on them. You can't get so lost in a fantasy land that you ignore the impact these words have on the people to whom they are directed. And even if you use filters, the words and the intentions are usually quite clear.

[Bassic]

14. You know what?

You might be able to get a journalist to cover this. Send it to newspapers and tv stations, you never know.

Bad publicity for them if it works.

[charlie and algernon]

17. it's common in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

you play an African American in it trying to form a gang, so yeah, the N word is said by the characters quite a bit.

[jumptheshadow]

20. This game is set in the medieval era

So the word is truly inappropriate. But you have a point here. Mythic is desperately trying to cater to the same people who would buy Grand Theft. Forget that its main competitor (the game that just ate DAOC's lunch) is WoW, which apparently has much tougher hate language rules.

In justifying his use of the word "nigger," the guy said to me: "It doesn't mean anything racist. It means that a person is ignorant." Uh-huh. Just like the word "gay" is used as a synonym for "stupid" or "dumb."

The CEO of Mythic is Jewish. I have never seen any anti-Semitic language in the game. But I wonder: Would he allow the usage of a certain four-letter word that is used to insult Jews? Or would it hit too close to home for him? Would he want to shelter his close relatives from the discomfort caused by that word? I would hope so.

[ikri]

19. I've not seen racism in SWG

(Star Wars: Galaxies if you're not an MMO geek)

I've been playing it since launch and as far as I can tell they're pretty strict on offensive language. I've never come across any overt racism, though there's plenty of people running around spouting the whole That's so Gay thing which infuriates me and a lot of the more mature players I know.

The hard part from the vendor's point of view is that even if they ban an account that person can go right out and purchase a new one at the same price. They could ban the credit card numbers, but since many people either have multiple cards or use game cards to pay they can never guarantee that they'll completely ban someone (although they are apparently blocking a lot of Chinese IP addresses to prevent people selling in-game cash for real-life cash via ebay).

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

21. It's extremely easy to doctor screenshots

And monitoring chat groups is well near impossible. So no, they won't do anything about it, sorry to say.

[jumptheshadow]

22. The CSR told me they have logs

First, the public element of this conversation was witnessed by many people. Second, the CSR told me that he had complete access to all the logs of all the conversations. So they don't have to monitor the chat groups. If a person uses hate language and is reported by a customer, DAOC's staff can simply check their logs, as per their CSR.

How can other games enforce this rule? Perhaps because they care enough about their customers to exert the effort?

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

23. They can ban the person's IP if they wanted to.

But if it's a pay-for-play subscription game, that kinda hurts the bottom line.

[jumptheshadow]

24. That begs the question...

If you're concerned about the bottom line, then do you ban a few idiots who are screwing things up for everybody, or enable a hateful environment where blacks and gays don't feel welcome? Blacks and gays are consumers, the last I looked...

Do you invite bad publicity or simply and decisively eliminate the problem accounts before you really get a bad rep?

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

25. Hey, I'm just telling you why. I'm not justifying it for them.

[yewberry]

26. You folks might HATE this idea

but I'd talk to the ESRB. Let 'em know that (who is that, sierra online?) ignores terms of service and allows racial and sexual epithets in the course of gameplay.

I just checked, and Dark Age of Camelot has a 13+ rating. How do you think they'd like an "M" or an "AO?" Think that might affect their bottom line?

[democracyindanger]

27. That and Vivendi

Vivendi is the publisher. It's counterintuitive, but I think the larger the company, the better the response. Vivendi doesn't want the hassle and bad press.

[jumptheshadow]

31. Excellent idea

I intend to pursue this. And yes, DAOC's distributor Vivendi is probably very PR conscious. The European distributors probably will be as well.

Somebody just posted on one of our game boards that Mythic has closed its eyes to player rip-offs in DAOC. They obviously have a "hands off" attitude that is at this point harming the game experience. I guess their feeling is that, well, this is a video game and nobody will take player complaints seriously.

But, more to the point, video games are businesses: Businesses that generate millions of dollars per year. Look upon it in that way and you begin to see how outrageous it is that a company would tolerate hate language directed at its players.

[jumptheshadow]

29. Point well taken

Some of our guild members have young teenagers in the game. They are very concerned about what kind of conversation they are exposed to, and so we all keep an eye open when the kids are around.

[dr.zoidberg]

28. Just stab his character in the face.

That'll teach him.

[AntiCoup2K4]

30. I only have one question.....

...when did Bill Bennett become a gamer? Is this a new habit to keep him out of Vegas??