Larian Studios 'Looking Into' Baldur's Gate 3 Xbox Bans | MMORPG.com

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Larian Studios 'Looking Into' Baldur's Gate 3 Xbox Bans | MMORPG.com

A Baldur's Gate 3 player found themself in a bit of hot water for accidentally posting explicit content, and the developers at Larian Studios are now looking into the matter themselves. 

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ZenJelly

The question has to be, what did they post to violate TOS? Screenshots don't magically happen, so if you screen shot "dem tiddies" and uploaded it then it's on you bro.

Vrika

ZenJelly said:

The question has to be, what did they post to violate TOS? Screenshots don't magically happen, so if you screen shot "dem tiddies" and uploaded it then it's on you bro.

The question is also whether Microsoft/Larian Studios were clear enough that taking screenshots or capturing video would result in a ban.

People are not required to read through all the license agreements and terms of use. If screenshots from a single-player game approved approved by Microsoft are a bannable offense, then they should display some kind of warning about it.

ValdemarJ

This has happened on many more games than BG3. Reddit has been talking about this for a bit and Microsoft needs to do something about it.

They sell games with mature ratings. All they have to do is what Valve does with Steam and put a content block on the image unless you click through the age verification. This one is all on Microsoft for being lazy, inconsistent, and not giving a damn.

Scot

I agree they should have an age verification check, but gaming should be about gaming not playing as it were.

ValdemarJ

Microsoft's response to this is that they know and "fuck you". Seriously, that's it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/XboxSeriesX/comments/192aby6/xbox_confirms_its_banning_baldurs_gate_3_players/

The reddit thread links to Eurogamer as a source and the r/XboxSeriesX mod posted this from the article:

"To provide clarity on Baldur's Gate 3 mature content enforcement actions, Xbox account suspensions are not automatic. Each clip is reviewed by a moderator and, if found in violation of our safety and content policies, actioned accordingly.

Our team evaluates appeals and can reverse suspensions if action was taken in error. If this was a first offense, for example, we will remove the suspension and let players know why it happened and how to avoid future issues (e.g. how to turn off auto-upload when sensitive content is being captured)."

Essentially Microsoft knows and has no plans on making changes. It's on the consumer and game developers to figure out what "Microsoft Moderator of the Day" feels like dishing out.

Slapshot1188

I guess the root issue is that Microsoft should not have approved the game since it's content is against it's moderation.

Scot

Anyway it gives a whole new dimension to "content creator".

cheyane

I am just putting this out there but if you're on a site where younger people are visiting and it isn't restricted . You should not be putting up your tit pixs. That's on you. I get that there was an automatic upload but that too is something totally within your control.

It's your content that you chose to upload. Shouldn't you check where it's going and who is watching it. 

I upload vids on youtube. I am careful about them because I don't want to get into trouble. I don't use bad words and such when I talk. Some responsibility should go to the person uploading it's only right that it does.

On the other hand my vids are over an hour long. I doubt anyone has the patience to sit through my rambling to check whether I am using foul language.  

Slapshot1188

cheyane said:

I am just putting this out there but if you're on a site where younger people are visiting and it isn't restricted . You should not be putting up your tit pixs. That's on you. I get that there was an automatic upload but that too is something totally within your control.

It's your content that you chose to upload. Shouldn't you check where it's going and who is watching it. 

I upload vids on youtube. I am careful about them because I don't want to get into trouble. I don't use bad words and such when I talk. Some responsibility should go to the person uploading it's only right that it does.

On the other hand my vids are over an hour long. I doubt anyone has the patience to sit through my rambling to check whether I am using foul language.  

While sure there are things people can do to self-regulate but IMHO you are totally excusing the company which is wrong.  The company approved the game.  The company sold the game. The company set their system up where videos can be auto-uploaded.  The company knowingly has no age check (unlike competitors).  So yeah, could the user have done something?  Sure.  But maybe the 2.7 TRILLION dollar company could have, no.. SHOULD HAVE, prevented this on their side.

Sovrath

cheyane said:

I am just putting this out there but if you're on a site where younger people are visiting and it isn't restricted . You should not be putting up your tit pixs. That's on you. I get that there was an automatic upload but that too is something totally within your control.

It's your content that you chose to upload. Shouldn't you check where it's going and who is watching it. 

I upload vids on youtube. I am careful about them because I don't want to get into trouble. I don't use bad words and such when I talk. Some responsibility should go to the person uploading it's only right that it does.

On the other hand my vids are over an hour long. I doubt anyone has the patience to sit through my rambling to check whether I am using foul language.  

Do you have a public channel?

cheyane

Yeah it public. Youtube has puts ads on my videos. I put them up and I never put any ads on them. Pisses me off to no end. They are knitting videos but I talk on them in between showing the way to make stuff . I talk about a whole bunch of rubbish. Some people complained I talk too much. At some point because of the unkind comments I decided to stop making the videos. It is not like I was charging people or putting ads or earning anything so why should I bust my ass making videos for arseholes that write rubbish on my videos.

Quizzical

I'm a little confused as to what is going on here.  Are people taking screenshots of NSFW content, then looking at the screenshot and manually making it public?  Or are people taking screenshots of NSFW content intended for their own private use, then Microsoft makes it public for them, and then bans them for it?  If the former, then I can understand the ban.  If the latter, then the problem is Microsoft.

ValdemarJ

Quizzical said:

I'm a little confused as to what is going on here.  Are people taking screenshots of NSFW content, then looking at the screenshot and manually making it public?  Or are people taking screenshots of NSFW content intended for their own private use, then Microsoft makes it public for them, and then bans them for it?  If the former, then I can understand the ban.  If the latter, then the problem is Microsoft.

The short answer that leaves out a lot of details:

1. Screenshots and video clips are uploaded to the cloud servers by default. Users have to find the setting(s) to disable this. Not hard, but not intuitive and obvious either and there is no apparent disclosure or periodic reminder that clips are being automatically uploaded.

2. These are in game screenshots and clips uploaded to Microsoft cloud that are from games sold by Microsoft on Xbox. This is inconsistent because uploading sexually explicit photos or other adult content to OneDrive isn't illegal either (unless they are illegal in the jurisidiction).

3. Microsoft and game publishers are free to use screenshots and videos in promotional ads and those might pop up randomly in community, xbox, and other feeds trying to advertise and promote games.

It doesn't matter if a person is taking those screenshots for private use, if they have them uploaded to cloud storage (Xbox on OneDrive). This issue only applies to files that are uploaded to the cloud and thus subsequently potentially shared or seen by others. Users can keep their sharing private, but as I mentioned, apparently Microsoft and game publishers can use them for promotional purposes. Users must agree to this in order to upload images to the cloud (Xbox live services hosted on OneDrive).

A really stupid aspect of this is that Xbox used to have it's own dedicated cloud storage for media uploads, but Microsoft wanted to put the cost of this on the consumer so now it all goes to their OneDrive. The consumer is using their own space to host these photos/videos from.

The solution to this is to not upload video clips to OneDrive (only keep them local) and to not share your content. It defeats a major feature and purpose of the social aspect of the platform.

So much for short answer.

Slapshot1188

Again.  2.7 TRILLION dollar company can and should do better.

ValdemarJ

I forgot to mention, the lower-center middle button (between the hamburger and window-pane buttons) on the Xbox controller is a screenshot button. It's very easy to tap on that accidentally in the middle of playing a game. That will trigger an upload, if auto-uploads are enabled. I have accidentally hit it countless times and then went and cleaned up the junk screenshot(s) later.

Additionally, some games can auto upload a screenshot or game clip based on an in game event, like beating a boss or hitting some cool achievement. Those upload and are shared automatically (auto sharing of achievements and special events can be disabled, gutting another social feature on the platform).

Quizzical

ValdemarJ said:

I forgot to mention, the lower-center middle button (between the hamburger and window-pane buttons) on the Xbox controller is a screenshot button. It's very easy to tap on that accidentally in the middle of playing a game. That will trigger an upload, if auto-uploads are enabled. I have accidentally hit it countless times and then went and cleaned up the junk screenshot(s) later.

Additionally, some games can auto upload a screenshot or game clip based on an in game event, like beating a boss or hitting some cool achievement. Those upload and are shared automatically (auto sharing of achievements and special events can be disabled, gutting another social feature on the platform).

Yikes.  It sounds like if Microsoft wants to ban people for causing explicit screenshots to be shown on their platform, then the main people that they need to ban are their own employees who designed such a system.

kitarad

Seriously so people are uploading their racy pictures without knowing they are uploading it ? This is really funny. They got banned for it too. Stupid way to run the uploads. Why is the default setting public? Must be because they want to use the user generated content and to hell with content being inappropriate viewing for their gamers. Greedy bastards cannot be bothered to protect the gamers.

This should be a PR nightmare because the cause is definitely the way Microsoft designed it to take advantage of the settings. By right Microsoft should get into trouble for this not the gamers.

Kyleran

cheyane said:

Yeah it public. Youtube has puts ads on my videos. I put them up and I never put any ads on them. Pisses me off to no end. They are knitting videos but I talk on them in between showing the way to make stuff . I talk about a whole bunch of rubbish. Some people complained I talk too much. At some point because of the unkind comments I decided to stop making the videos. It is not like I was charging people or putting ads or earning anything so why should I bust my ass making videos for arseholes that write rubbish on my videos.

Anyone who puts themselves out in public will get both supporters and detractors.

If more people enjoy your content than dislike it, and you personally enjoy doing it, shoulder up and press forward.

Also remember, trolls often come across as being far greater in number or influence than they really have.

Smart move is never to engage with the naysayers, at day's end nothing infuriates them more than to be ignored.

As for YouTube putting ads on your videos, be reasonable, they offer a useful service that most people don't pay anything for, how else do you expect them to generate revenues?

As Jackson Brown once famously sang, "Nobody rides for free, nobody gets things like they want them to be... Nobody"

gameplayingmonkey

While I definitely think they should implement some sort of age verification and/or NSFW spoiler tag filter to avoid stuff like this I'll play devils advocate a bit...

I disagree that people should be allowed to take and publically post their NSFW game content and I don't feel that 'well microsoft sold it so it should be okay' is really that defendable. If I go to Walmart and buy a copy of the horror game Outlast that doesn't suddenly make it acceptable to walk around the store and show random shoppers unsolicited NSFW videos of content from the game. I'd be banned there, too, despite arguing "well you sold me the game, so you must be endorsing this!"

Should I be allowed to put BG3 nudie pics in this comment? Obviously, MMORPG.com fully supports its content considering they cover it everyday, right? Or would I get banned from this website as well?

Getting banned because you didn't change the default setting away from public doesn't make you a victim as much as it shows negligence when you are *purposefully recording adult content.*

Kyleran

gameplayingmonkey said:

While I definitely think they should implement some sort of age verification and/or NSFW spoiler tag filter to avoid stuff like this I'll play devils advocate a bit...

I disagree that people should be allowed to take and publically post their NSFW game content and I don't feel that 'well microsoft sold it so it should be okay' is really that defendable. If I go to Walmart and buy a copy of the horror game Outlast that doesn't suddenly make it acceptable to walk around the store and show random shoppers unsolicited NSFW videos of content from the game. I'd be banned there, too, despite arguing "well you sold me the game, so you must be endorsing this!"

Should I be allowed to put BG3 nudie pics in this comment? Obviously, MMORPG.com fully supports its content considering they cover it everyday, right? Or would I get banned from thiso website as well?

Getting banned because you didn't change the default setting away from public doesn't make you a victim as much as it shows negligence when you are *purposefully recording adult content.*

To play the angel advocate here, if the default setting was not to share then the player would be willfully deciding to upload inappropriate content.

As it stands now the default setting is being purposely done for MS 's benefit so players shouldn't be punished for not realizing this.

Sounds like MS does review and reverse "innocent" mistakes, at least for first time offenders, but an "opt-in" for the sharing option would be better, at least from a consumer viewpoint.

gameplayingmonkey

Kyleran said:

To play the angel advocate here, if the default setting was not to share then the player would be willfully deciding to upload inappropriate content.

As it stands now the default setting is being purposely done for MS 's benefit so players shouldn't be punished for not realizing this.

Sounds like MS does review and reverse "innocent" mistakes, at least for first time offenders, but an "opt-in" for the sharing option would be better, at least from a consumer viewpoint.

I'm not sure that I can agree that being ignorant of how the product works justifies breaking the TOS. Microsoft isn't trying to trick its consumers into banning themselves.

Slapshot1188

gameplayingmonkey said:

Kyleran said:

To play the angel advocate here, if the default setting was not to share then the player would be willfully deciding to upload inappropriate content.

As it stands now the default setting is being purposely done for MS 's benefit so players shouldn't be punished for not realizing this.

Sounds like MS does review and reverse "innocent" mistakes, at least for first time offenders, but an "opt-in" for the sharing option would be better, at least from a consumer viewpoint.

I'm not sure that I can agree that being ignorant of how the product works justifies breaking the TOS. Microsoft isn't trying to trick its consumers into banning themselves.

Microsoft is a big company and it seems like the Left hand and Right hand are unaware (or don't care) what the other one is doing.  If you do not want something (anything) from a product YOU sell, to be place on a site YOU own, and you are a 2.7 TRILLION dollar company, you can quite easily fix that.

gameplayingmonkey

Slapshot1188 said:

Microsoft is a big company and it seems like the Left hand and Right hand are unaware (or don't care) what the other one is doing.  If you do not want something (anything) from a product YOU sell, to be place on a site YOU own, and you are a 2.7 TRILLION dollar company, you can quite easily fix that.

They are fixing that though - they are banning users that post things that they don't want on their website.

Scot

As a general principle I think we should always have to select to opt in, by default we should be sharing nothing. Just like cookies which we still annoyingly have to "indicate our preferences" for. We should be assumed to not want anything other than 'essential' cookies and only opt in if we decide to later on.

cheyane

Kyleran said:

cheyane said:

Yeah it public. Youtube has puts ads on my videos. I put them up and I never put any ads on them. Pisses me off to no end. They are knitting videos but I talk on them in between showing the way to make stuff . I talk about a whole bunch of rubbish. Some people complained I talk too much. At some point because of the unkind comments I decided to stop making the videos. It is not like I was charging people or putting ads or earning anything so why should I bust my ass making videos for arseholes that write rubbish on my videos.

Anyone who puts themselves out in public will get both supporters and detractors.

If more people enjoy your content than dislike it, and you personally enjoy doing it, shoulder up and press forward.

Also remember, trolls often come across as being far greater in number or influence than they really have.

Smart move is never to engage with the naysayers, at day's end nothing infuriates them more than to be ignored.

As for YouTube putting ads on your videos, be reasonable, they offer a useful service that most people don't pay anything for, how else do you expect them to generate revenues?

As Jackson Brown once famously sang, "Nobody rides for free, nobody gets things like they want them to be... Nobody"

See the point is it takes me a couple of months at least some pieces took 4 months of taping myself loom knitting and correcting and trying to be clear and rerecording the footage. Not to mention how much editing I had to do to cut down the long hours of footage I had to a reasonable length.

 I never engaged with the entitled arseholes but their comments made me mad. So at that point I asked myself who was I doing this for. I purposely made my work ad free and they were specifically because there were no large pieces being done. Everyone had hats and shawls and gloves but no real jackets and stuff like that. So I made them to share my ideas but as soon as I found myself getting angry and upset I decided I could be spending that time doing things that didn't make me feel bad in the end.

Fine I should have focused on the comments praising my work but at the end of the day I didn't want to read the nasty comments and I didn't want to feel bad so I stopped. Certainly gave me a lot more free time to play again. It was a good decision. Some folk did write and ask me to make more but my age is also causing my hands to hurt when I use them on the loom so I retired the loom for good.

Should I have soldiered on for what though. I wasn't happy reading that and to be honest why should I suck it up. It isn't like I was earning money or making a living off those vids. I made them to help the community. Many of them were appreciative but at the end of the day if something makes you feel bad you should not force yourself to accept what is happening. I decided I would stop. I don't regret it to be perfectly honest it was getting quite burdensome when the request for garments began coming in and I was getting aches and pains. So all in all I think the almost million views and over 5000 subscribers from a channel and I had no intention of growing was enough for me.

Youtube can generate reviews off people who make money off their videos. I made mine specifically ad free for a reason. They should have respected that.