The anonymity afforded to us by the Internet as not just gamers, but people, is truly a double edged sword, in that you're free to talk smack without fear of some grandiose reprisal (for the most part), provided we're also willing to put up with the same sort of hostility in return. It traces back to the old days of scrawls and scribbles on a toilet stall wall, or high school desk. "Mike was here." "Mike sucks." "No, YOU suck," and back and forth. No one knew quite who was talking crap on Mike, or if it was even the right Mike responding, or even a Mike at all, but the conversation kept on going, until eventually, the janitor was no longer entertained, or, we all learned to crap with smartphones.
Up until recently, there was never some overreaching authority promising to deliver reprisal to the act of trolling. But Sony's trying to step up to that in a big way.
The company's Online Entertainment Director of Global Community Relations, (which probably looks pretty damn impressive on a business card) Linda Carlson, explained some pretty harsh policies to ban trolls from play.
Speaking with GI.biz, Carlson stressed, "Not only will we ban your forum account, but if it's serious enough we'll call up customer service and have you banned from all of our games. We do not need those individuals as customers. A very influential player, high up in a huge guild - we'll still ban them... In our games, if you are an exploiter we don't care who you are, how big your guild is, how many people you threaten to take with you when you go."
Granted, the company's intentions are noble, after all, trolls are not exactly a celebrated bunch since they crossed horns with three billy goats once upon a time. Shit talking in general is a big part of why I don't like playing online in general, and tend to avoid it. God forbid what sort of mayhem will be unleashed when GTA goes online later this week. But Sony's policies may be a bit reaching a bit too far. According to Carlson notes, even Twitter abuse is crossing the line, and will have repercussions for gameplay.
"We can control anybody who's playing our games...[but] if we know who you are and you're abusing somebody on Twitter, we will ban your game account and we will not accept you as a customer ever again. It's not always possible to identify people [in that way], but we take that seriously."
Bullying seems to have become THE big taboo of the times, and I think that all efforts to lay down the ban hammer on someone deserving of it should be applauded. But Sony has nothing to do with obscure tweets directed amongst players, never mind the headache that will come with trying to police it.
Carlson is more than correct, saying, "I don't believe anybody needs to put up with that stuff. You cannot deal with it online because there are no repercussions for that sort of bad behaviour. I think what developers do need to do is understand human nature. They need to understand that this is normal."
I'd argue it's not normal, but it certainly seems to be because, as Carlson notes, there's never any punishment for it. Should that change? I'd say so, but Sony and Carlson should realize that there are boundaries for everything.
