Talkin' smack to kids in online games
Anyone who has ever listened to a teenager on Xbox Live knows how it goes. He's saying WHAT? Racist, homophobic, bigoted language ... and that's just in their handles. Given easy voice chat, conversation heads straight to the lowest common denominator. But unfortunately perhaps, it's not possible to censor voice chat as easily as it is to censor text in order to make the chat safe for children.
That's a pretty difficult design problem. Given you have written a game for children where chatting is possible, is it even remotely possible to make sure conversation stays friendly and helpful? This very question is the subject of this week's Game Career GuideDesign Challenge. Now, this would be a hard enough challenge for text alone, and luckily, that's all the challenge covers. With the growing pervasiveness of voice chat, though, even the best text-based filtering solution will fail utterly. SOE has promised to integrate Vivox voice chat technology in its future games, including its "M"-rated The Agency and its "G"-rated Free Realms. This is a challenge SOE will face at launch. How would you guarantee a safe environment for a child, one where they could not give away any personal information, where they wouldn't be exposed to hateful speech or threats, but where they could speak freely with the friends they know?
David Craddock at our sister site, Big Download, reports about a group of kids who are monitoring chat and reporting unhealthy chat or just tasking the game publishers themselves to monitor chat. Club Penguin's developers claim two-thirds of their staff is devoted to monitoring chat and customer service. Kids will always find a way around restrictions, and the only real solution is for parents to closely monitor their kids when they are online in any capacity. No other system can possibly take their place.
[Via Gamasutra]
