So I had a buddy just get suspended for two weeks for cursing both in an Xbox Live game and over personal messages to another player. The other player started trash talking so he then responded and blocked the player so he wouldn’t get anything in return. A few days later, he gets a message from Xbox Live stating he’s been banned from ALL forms of communication for two weeks due to cursing which is against the Xbox Live Code of Conduct.
Here’s what I don’t understand. Halo, as well as many other titles, are rated M for Mature meaning you must be 17+ in order to play because of violence, cursing, gore, or a combination of the three. So why would a player get banned for cursing over Xbox Live? Wouldn’t that contradict the rating? I mean if you’re going to ban players for cursing, shouldn’t you ban those who aren’t at least 17 too?
Not for Halo 5, T for teen kiddies, we have to hold everybody’s hand now. everyone gets a trophy (albeit a completely random trophy in which luck is determinant).
I was playing Halo by the time I was 13, and even when I was insulted on Reach I just rolled with the punches, if you can’t take the heat, get out of the fireplace.
The age rating of a game is an evaluation of the game’s contents by an external organization, often mandated by law. The Code of Conduct is a set of rules that Microsoft wants people to follow in their services. These two things are entirely unrelated, and any overlap is more or less coincidental. Moreover, the age rating really does only refer to the contents of the game. It takes no stance on the online experience, or how players are expected to behave. For this reason usually when you launch a game there’s the disclaimer “Online Interactions Not Rated by the ESRB”.
At the end of the day, Microsoft is free to control their services as they see fit. Just because the game contains cursing doesn’t mean they have to let players curse. The rules just apply to Xbox Live as a service, not the individual games.
> 2533274825830455;3:
> The age rating of a game is an evaluation of the game’s contents by an external organization, often mandated by law. The Code of Conduct is a set of rules that Microsoft wants people to follow in their services. These two things are entirely unrelated, and any overlap is more or less coincidental. Moreover, the age rating really does only refer to the contents of the game. It takes no stance on the online experience, or how players are expected to behave. For this reason usually when you launch a game there’s the disclaimer “Online Interactions Not Rated by the ESRB”.
>
> At the end of the day, Microsoft is free to control their services as they see fit. Just because the game contains cursing doesn’t mean they have to let players curse. The rules just apply to Xbox Live as a service, not the individual games.
