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PewDiePie in trouble once again for racist outburst
Felix "PewDiePie" Kjellberg is back in the headlines for, once again, expressing racist sentiment in one of his YouTube videos. During a stream of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, the world's most popular YouTuber said the n-word during an expletive-filled rant.
Google Maps: offensive search results came from 'online discussions'
Google is constantly scraping the internet to fill out its search results, but apparently using crowdsourced information can have its drawbacks. Over the last couple of days word spread that searching for certain racial slurs (guess) showed the White House as the top result, and now Google is offering an explanation why. Unlike the MapMaker-inserted Android/Apple logo prank, Google says the results popped up "because people had used the offensive term in online discussions of the place." Other than blaming the internet, the team is updating its algorithm to fix the issue and is updating its ranking system to address "the majority" of those searches. Marketing Land found a few entries that led to the White House, none of which worked when we tried them today. It looks like certain offensive terms are now being blocked from showing results at all, although creative minds may be able to poke holes in the filter.
The Daily Grind: Do you hold developers accountable for what they say?
Yesterday, Gamespot broke a story about an executive producer for zombie MMO The War Z who took to his game's forums to rant about gankers in the beta test. The developer, Sergey Titov, used a homophobic slur to describe those beta testers, which caused some commenters to erupt in a fury. He later altered his comments and issued an "apology" for the rant, expressing astonishment that anyone would take his homophobic slur as a homophobic slur. "I don't know where they [are] coming from," he wrote, "but I used it as a curse." The sad thing is Titov's probably right: Far too many gamers think nothing of careless insults based on gender, race, and sexual orientation. But to see it from a developer and then see it dismissed by the game's supporters as something trivial and all good in fun between bros is embarrassing for the community. I'm glad he (or more likely, the game's PR) rescinded the slur, but I also know that subconscious and conscious bias seeps into gaming at the design, culture, and corporate levels, and I'm far less likely to pony up for a game whose developers just don't seem to get that the MMO demographic stretches beyond the privileged straight white male 20-something stereotype. So today I'm wondering how you hold devs accountable when they say something that exposes their prejudices or blind-spots or just poor business sense. Do you expect heads to roll? Do you vote with your wallet and pick games where customers aren't subjected to unprofessional tirades by devs, or are you resigned to the suspicion that most studios are saddled with this mentality? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Officers' Quarters: Jerk message of the day
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.I've spent the past six weeks talking about raiding, so I think it's time to get away from the topic and talk about something less drama-ridden, like the guild message of the day feature. What could be more straightforward and less controversial, right? Well, as this week's e-mail reminds us, no part of leading a guild is completely free of incident.Would rather not name the guild but it's on Bronzebeard EU. Only the Guildmasters (of which there are 10) can set the message of the day. Despite this security, an offensive homophobic message of the day appeared one day. I'm afraid I didn't see it as I wasn't online while it was up, but when another Guildmaster saw it, it was immediately removed. No one owned up to it and no one could think who would do it, so one Guildmaster (a friend of mine in real life) logged a complaint with Blizzard to try and find out who set this message.
