|
|
Review 8/24/2010
|
|
Concerned parents and anyone else who cares about human decency in the game environment should avoid video games from this company like the plague.
For the past several months, I've been watching in-game "trade chat" in World of Warcraft degenerate into a cesspool of hate speech, cyberbullying, and bigotry. Reports of Terms of Service violations are met with 4-7 day wait times to receive an obviously copy-pasted stock response from a "Game Master", then seeing the same offenders repeat the behavior night after night despite direct knowledge that multiple players have reported the issue.
Blizzard is ignoring its responsibility to police its own environment. While a degree of non-censorship is vital to preserving the morale of the game community, speech which crosses the line of legality and compliance with the company's own ruleset must be met with a firm response. Not slap on the wrist 24-hour bans. Not "warnings". These people need to be, at minimum, squelched from being able to use public chat channels, and case-by-case referred to local law enforcement for violation of federal hate speech and cyberbullying legislation.
In refusing to act, Blizzard demonstrates at best utter incompetence and at worst tacit endorsement of these behaviors and is treading on dangerous legal and regulatory ground. Their cronies at the ESRB conveniently refuse to rate the content of "online interactions", so there are literally no consequences under the current regulation system for allowing people to use your communications platform as a stump for hate speech--not even a game rating more restrictive than "Teen". In its current state, World of Warcraft is no place for teens, much less anyone else who has any sense of civility.
It may well be that the "vocal minority", in the words of some of Blizzard's forum community managers, are skewing the perceptions of an otherwise unconcerned and civil majority. I ask one simple question in that regard--if these egregious violators are truly such a small contingent of the player base, what would be the fiscal harm in banning their accounts, as required by the terms of service for repeated and ongoing violations? Why is policing such a tiny number of players such a difficult customer service resource task? The answer is simple--it's not a small minority of players. This behavior is not the exception, but the rule, and in allowing this environment to persist Blizzard is clearly putting corporate profit ahead of upholding its reputation and its own promises to its customers to provide a game environment free from this disgusting behavior.
Blizzard must either begin to uphold its own rules, or adopt new ones which are more in keeping with its actual enforcement. Otherwise, its PR activites, ESRB rating, and "B" rating with the BBB are complete misrepresentations to dupe the consumer. I consider the BBB and ESRB part of the problem for refusing to voluntarily act on this issue and set some tangible consequences for this company's indifference.
In my opinion, until Blizzard can provide evidence that it is in fact taking action to prevent the most horrific of abuses in its public chat enabled games, its ESRB rating should immediately be downgraded to M and its BBB accreditation revoked. I would further like to see the FTC and California Attorney General's Office investigate Blizzard for allowing the game to be a safe harbor for illegal activities, and its derivation of profit for encouraging and abetting such illegal activity with active refusal to uphold its own terms of service.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|