CAG's Wombat Endures The 360 Community's Hate, Stays Classy
I know a lot of people exaggerate by saying the worst part of Xbox Live is the people that use it, but everyday I'm starting to believe them literally more and more. The most recent occurrence of hateful people ruining online gaming for everyone comes to us from Cheap Ass Gamer's CAGcast.
You see, it all started when Stewart "Wombat" Nacht was featured in the Xbox.com's gamer spotlight. Normally, the players that appear in the online feature take part in an interview with Xbox's Community Manager and GayGamer gal-pal TriXie that's placed on Xbox.com and seen on the 360's dashboard without much of an issue. But for no apparent reason, as soon as the feature went live, Wombat started getting some rather hateful notes and messages from fellow 360 players. Sure, there were a some positive ones with CAGcast shoutouts, but nobody should be receiving messages from other players telling them to "die!" or that "you are a fat piece of $#!%," or "you are such a **********, wombats are ****** and **** more ***** than Paris Hilton," along with the usual racist and homophobic remarks we've unfortunately come to expect from online gamers. Even Wombat's fellow members of the CAG clan got the rude messages as well until he set his friend's list to private. What's most confusing about this whole thing is that the interview didn't cover any hot button controversies, but instead covered gaming centric questions and what Wombat's favorite karaoke song is (btw, Toto's Africa is a favorite of mine too!). So what's all the fuss about?
While the CAG guys take this all in stride, as CheapD notes that the fact that PS3 online players not using mics might be a good thing, they also take some time to talk about how absolutely ridiculous the whole thing is. What sort of people take the time out of their day to do or say this stuff and what sort of measures can Microsoft take to put these idiots in their place?
You can hear all about the story over on the NSFW CAGcast (or fast forward directly to the story with this little clip right here).
Thanks to SoFreshSoDarryl for the tip!
[Trixie360 Interviews Wombat5277] Xbox.com
Game-Boy
Posted to Hot Stuff, Miscellany, Video Games on 5 August 2009
· Comments (9)
Other stuff like this: cheap ass gamer, hate speech, haters, trixie, why I hate playing online, wombat, xbox live experience
I don't think a lot of people exaggerate about this. Xbox Live is useful and convenient, but having to wade through the sea of douches to co-op with your friends isn't worth it.
When I think of Hateful language and online gaming, the first thing that always, always comes to mind, is XBox Live. I realize fully that homophobic comments and the like are certainly not endemic to XBox itself, but that doesn't stop my brain from making the association.
And that's just plain bad for Microsoft. They may be doing work with GLAAD and even GG.net, but ultimately, when people already associate your brand with this kind of thing (and I know I'm not the only one..) well, in my mind, that's Too Little, Too Late.
This is why I do not use my headset often. I do not mind the trash talk at all but it is the racial slurs, homophobic insults, and other hate-speech that really bothers me.
That kind of thing sickens me in the very physical sense of the word.
I listened to this podcast and when he played it live, I guess I should be more disturbed by the fact that this wasn't even surprising to me. This is what I expect from Xbox Live. I remember when Xbox Live was new and it was amazing to talk to people while playing console games, but seriously, since Halo 2 came out and MLG blew up, my expectations for random people on xbox live has steadily diminished and keeps me from wanting to hook my headset up when I'm on there. On the other side, whenever I actually come across someone else chatting on PS3, people just seem a lot more mellow there. I seriously hope this phase passes over on xbox live since I've been completely done with it for a long time now.
I listened to this podcast and when he played it live, I guess I should be more disturbed by the fact that this wasn't even surprising to me. This is what I expect from Xbox Live. I remember when Xbox Live was new and it was amazing to talk to people while playing console games, but seriously, since Halo 2 came out and MLG blew up, my expectations for random people on xbox live has steadily diminished and keeps me from wanting to hook my headset up when I'm on there. On the other side, whenever I actually come across someone else chatting on PS3, people just seem a lot more mellow there. I seriously hope this phase passes over on xbox live since I've been completely done with it for a long time now.
I have a gold account and have avoided using it to play games online solely because of this. I've had next to no XBL experiences, but everything I see tells me that I can expect to be n-worded toll my ears bleed in the first ten seconds of online play. Why MS doesn't do a thing about this should be clear to everyone; money. People pay to play online, and as long as they pay, MS will sit on their hands unless they absolutely positively MUST act, and even they it's usually a slap on the wrist... if that much.
The vocal minority who behave like asshats are the reason why I bought a PS3 over a 360. If Microsoft could provide a gaming experience that had less of these snot nose turds I would be happy to buy one of their consoles.
@thinktank909
How is Sony going to prevent the same thing from happening? I'm not sticking up for Microsoft at all, but the fact that asshats use their service isn't their fault. GM isn't to blame for the jackass that burns out his tires in front of my apartment every night at 3am.
I've had bad experiences playing on xbl because of team killers and asshats, but never because of hate speech (that's because I have everyone muted).