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SOE to attempt policing all your online activities.
Jyiiga
Member UncommonPosts: 1,187
http://www.pcgamesn.com/planetside/soe-ban-players-extreme-behaviour-outside-their-games
“Not only will we ban your forum account, but if it's serious enough we'll call up customer service and have you banned from all of our games,” SOE community relations director Linda Carlson told GamesIndustry. “We do not need those individuals as customers.”
Carlson was very clear - it doesn’t matter how influential a player might be, or what position they hold in what guild: “we’ll still ban them”.
“In our games, if you are an exploiter we don't care who you are, how big your guild is, how many people you threaten to take with you when you go,” she said.
“We can control anybody who's playing our games...[but] if we know who you are and you're abusing somebody on Twitter, we will ban your game account and we will not accept you as a customer ever again. It's not always possible to identify people [in that way], but we take that seriously.”
SOE uphold different standards for each of their games: they wouldn’t expect the same kind of behaviour in a competitive shooter like Planetside 2 as they would in a collaborative MMO like EverQuest. But Carlson said standards do need to exist, in clearly-stated form - and that SOE need to reinforce them with bans for bad behaviour both in and outside their games when necessary.
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When I first read this I was like yay... Deal with them fracking exploitiers and anti-social buggers. However, the more I read the more concerned I became. At what point is the line drawn, who are they to go picking around through social media looking for negative comments. Does it end at their own personal pages or will they go beyond that? If I call their game a bucket of trash and hope they drive their cars into a lake are they going to feel the need to ban my ass from all their games.
It never turns out well when you threaten not only your customers but, all of the online community with the ban stick.
Comments
You're right, where does it end? Would it be acceptable if I went into McDonald's and told the person in the back that they suck at making my hamburgers and I hope they die? Or if I told that Walmart greeter that they suck at greeting and they should hang themselves? Or if your boss came up to you and said, "You really suck at whatever it is you do, why don't you just eat a bottle of pills and die"?
No, it's not acceptable, so why is it acceptable online? If I did any of the above, even as their customer, I'm sure I'd get banned from their establishment. Unfortunately, we believe that because we're online we shouldn't be held to any type of standard of common courtesy. I like the concept. Whether or not the execution meets what my expectations are, I don't know, but I guess we'll find out.
I'm wondering if this could, possibly, improve gaming communities. Prompt intelligent conversation and debate without fear of being lamb-basted. Furthermore, for the people who are employees of said game or game company, it provides them with some relief from the constant and continual harassment.
Crazkanuk
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Lawyer's are toasting away with this one !
MAGA
If they really try this, it would just lead to more trouble than it is worth. Having been a mod and having dealt with other mods in my lengthy MMO career, people can get a little power mad at times. You can't expect a company like SOE to make and enforce rules that are going to reach out across the social online spectrum.
Several problems come to mind immediately. How do you identify someone outside of the game? There are plenty of people using the same or similar user names of other players. There are also plenty of people with the same names in real life. Naturally they can't ask someone like Facebook or Twitter to divulge RL information.
Second issue. Could something like this be used to silence decent? SOE is not your friend, they are a business. Their number one priority is not looking out for your best interests, its looking out for their interest and the interest of their share holders. They are not a neutral party like say, a jury.
Third. This wouldn't be transparent. Anything they decide to do, would be done behind closed doors and they could tell you whatever they want. You wouldn't have a leg to stand on, unless you took them actual court over it. They could assassinate your character however they saw fit.
My problem is with the tone of the article I posted and not just the one extreme example that was given in said article.
If SOE are really going to do this, then fair play to them, if it encourages people to be more responsible in their behaviour online then thats all good. It might even be something that spills over into other MMO's much like the deal pubs have with other pubs in their area, blacklisting/banning people from all pubs for bad behaviour and not just the pub where they 'misbehaved' so yes, i'd fully support SOE on this one.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Bravo SOE.
And if you think a lawyer will control who they ban and don't ban from their own online service, apparently you've never read a EULA. Good luck with that.
To the guy who said Lawyers are readying up for this, no they're not.
Any business (at least in America) can refuse to serve someone. MMOs are no different. If they see someone as being a bully or a bad influence they have every right to protect their game and their community from that person.
It is also good that they made it clear that they don't care if you run a large guild or anything else. If you're doing bad things you're out. Most of this would be if you were exploiting the game, which is nothing new really. Them adding in that if you are out cyber bullying on Twitter or anything else is actually a fairly solid move. If you are cyber bullying in one place, there's no reason to expect you wouldn't do it in another.
Even companies (again at least in USA) can fire you for what you post on social networking. What people tend not to realize is freedom of speech is at a government level, as in the government can't restrict what you can say. A business has every right to restrict what you say as a customer or an employee.
In a way it is great that all of the internet douche bags have to realize they can't do whatever they want and expect nothing bad to come back on them. I personally am not concerned as I don't go around doing bad things and hoping games don't find out.
Good.
Since the early days of the internet, I've always wanted more accountability for people's actions. People feel that they can get away with pretty much anything online (and they mostly can). I have no problem with SoE heavily policing their own products, just like I have no problem with anyone who chooses not to purchase their products for their policies.
Toxic players are insidious and destroy communities. People often conduct themselves very differently online than they would in real life as if the person on the other side of the monitor isn't also a real person. I'm not saying, let's all hold hands and sing kumbaya; but I am saying that you should face consequences for your behavior. If you tell someone you hope their drive their car into a lake - that's fine by me, but you should also be fine with any reaction received.
Take ownership and accept consequences. Simple.
In theory, this is a good idea, but the logistics of actually doing this are not really feasible. Anyone who purposely creates an online persona across multiple social sites is going to be somewhat aware of their actions and behavior. Those people aren't likely to become such an annoyance that they get banned. Without that purposeful tie in between the social accounts, it's not likely SOE would be able to tie the accounts together.
The kinds of people this applies to would be Direwolf20 for Minecraft or the Yogscast people for a variety of games. These people derive income from playing video games, and they are popular enough that if they decided to go on a racist, rant about socialism or something, it could reflect on the games they are playing. SOE doesn't want that to happen. Which makes me wonder if anything like that has ever happened. Has it?
Maybe they just don't want players popularizing poor behavior using videos of their games.
Anyway, I would expect this to apply to in game behavior for like 99.999% of the players.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
You'd be surprised. I've seen many of MMO players who directly link themselves to other forums and still act like massive assholes to everyone.
It also isn't like they wouldn't still ban you from their game if you were being a jerk in their game. They're just saying now we might catch you other places as well.
I think the twitter thing is directed at people who abused SOE's staff via twitter and that if SOE can figure out just who it is, they'll ban em. It is a huge stretch to suggest SOE is going to trawl through all social media and merrily ban people who they feel are abusive assholes (but more power to them if they do).
It is likely 1) abuse via social media directed at SOE / SOE employees and 2) exploiters and repeatedly abusive people playing an SOE title who get a ban from *all* SOE titles. No bad thing imho.
The only problem I'd have with it, is as previously pointed out, someone going power mad and banning without sufficient reason or any objective method of appeal. If they do go down this route, they really need to police themselves carefully, let alone spell out the consequences of breaking their rules.
They want to filter out negative and harassing people, more power to em. If you don't like it, you can simply not participate in the first place.
On the contrary those thinking inside the box, are those who feel they have a right to anonymity anywhere on the net, and a pass on their actions no matter how severe.
Can it be abused? Yes, Mod power can always be abused, it is abused regularly, that's why when you're banned you have an option to have a higher up review that action against you. IN most cases a ban is overturned if abuse can be proven. The only difference is in this case, what you view as harmless forum PVP, or a slip of the tongue (finger) will not be viewed as such on SOE service sites or it's respective social media. It's up to the person in question to act with tact, respect and normal social behavior, otherwise you forfeit your right to use these services, and the games they support.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Are you aware that in many companies, you can get fired for your "out of work activities" if they prove to be illegal?
My guess is that is where the line is drawn.
If you do something that is considered illegal you can get banned.
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I think it effects anyone who plays their games. seeing how they are going to track every customer now on the net using the data you give them.
And repost your info. So yeah a private company tracking you and giving them the thumbs up....
They are right. If someone behaves like a total asshat in one of their games, why would he suddenly become and angel of virtue in another one? I'm sure you won't get total-banned just for using the "F" word in a public chat channel.
I can see people using racist, homophobic or generally violent language like allusion to rape and murder getting that treatment though. And sorry, but I agree with SoE, communities are better without those people.
And if they manage to 100% identify idiots who use the same pseudo on Twitter and behave badly, why not, even though that seems to be quite difficult to achieve and may even lead to lawsuits. This said, some countries have put people promoting physical violence and issuing threats on Twitter on trial, after Twitter gave them the data, and that's a good thing. Notably some religious extremists in Europe.
And about "all your online activities"... the title is misleading. They won't ban one from Blizzard, NCSoft, or any other company, just from their own games.
At the end, it's a private company. Personally, if I see someone insulting me or generally behaving like an ass towards me on Twitter or FB and I know who it is, he better not come make a "friendly" visit to my house afterwards, because I won't let him in and offer him a drink. I will tell him to go away. Just like SoE does with asshats.
My computer is better than yours.
What? This only applies to Sony's services and social media sites/pages, the only people who have to worry are those that have no self control when typing on the internet.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
This wasn't a problem back in the day, but with the current generation keyboard warriors who have no sense and just blurt out the most retarded shit they'd never ever dare say in real life for fear out of any type of consequence..
Regardless, SOE is based in the US, here any company has the right to refuse service.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.