There is nothing to stop a child from visiting the new adult-only, online role-playing game Sociolotron but this on its entry page: "By entering the site you declare that: 1) You are 21 years of age or older; 2) It is legal for you to read about interactive erotic role playing involving erotic text and erotic images; 3) You are not offended by reading about a highly politically incorrect form of roleplaying; and 4) ...you have read and understood the Legal Terms and Conditions and you agree to all of these terms and that all statements made in the terms about visitors of our site and customers of the Sociolotron game are true for you." Then they click on "The above is true for me. Let me in" and they're there, joining others living out their "darkest fetish fantasies" or joining a cult, the source of whose "magic rituals" is "among the darkest and most depraved secrets of the world."
Players of EverQuest, Ultima Online, etc. may be tempted to move on to Sociolotron because, according to Wired News, it has monster battles and other fantasy fare like that of many multiplayer games, in addition to sexual fantasy. The game begs big questions, such as whether this type of role-playing legitimizes rape in impressionable minds, along the lines of pedophiles' practice of exposing children to images of other children's abuse as a way, experts say, of persuading them that this behavior is "normal." In its article on Sociolotron, "Pursuing the Libido's Dark Side," Wired News paraphrases one source as saying that "people shouldn't be afraid that the game's players will step away from their computers filled with violent lust.... In fact ... the fact that rape and other so-called bad acts are possible in a game like Sociolotron can actually be a valuable social experiment." Parents also might want to know that the game includes chat - "private between the people in the room, but everybody has a log of this text," the game's publishers explain.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I don't assume you have played the game yourself? In that case you would know that there is A) an age verification process to actually play the game, either by credit card or by presenting a document like a drivers license and B) there is no roleplay whatsoever of underaged characters. Players who are reported to refere to an underaged characters are banned permanently, together with their IP and computer signature.
ReplyDeleteLike so many other "writers" you have probably just scanned the website and bit into the keywords "rape" "fetish" and "sex"
Even if it were that easy for children to access it, though as has been stated, it isn't, who's to blame?
ReplyDeleteThe internet has a large ammount of adult material. Any parent should use a net nanny AND observe children on the internet. It's like giving kids access to cable TV, all they have to do is flick to porn or violent movies or whatever.
Don't want young kids looking it up.. fine, I agree, but don't expect me to blame the website, when the parent is lacking
Responding to the comment posted at 7:35 am: Thanks for not bashing me, Anonymous. I don't pretend to and simply don't have the resources to research every news story I link to (in this case, Wired News's write-up of Sociolotron). Your comparison of the community in Sociolotron vs. maybe the lack thereof in MMMPORGs is really interesting. Even Microsoft offers tips for dealing with griefers, but I haven't seen much in the mainstream tech media about this issue young gamers can run into. Could you email me (or post here, if you prefer to stay anonymous) some examples - say, the 3 or 4 *worst* examples - of games in which people get harassed and griefed the most, games you really wouldn't recommend to young teenagers? I'd love to ask you more questions, e.g....
ReplyDelete1. In what types of games does griefing happen most?
2. Why is Sociolotron different - what about it allows for this sense of community in which people take care of each other and hold each other accountable (surely not just because characters can perform egregious acts - they can do that in GTA too)?
3. What would gamemakers need to do to make that kind of community happen in games like Halo or GTA?
Again, thanks for your meaty post!
You're going to really hate my responses. I'm not going to bash you, but I am going to state some very basic facts about computer games of which your posts do not reflect any knowledge.
ReplyDelete"Could you email me (or post here, if you prefer to stay anonymous) some examples - say, the 3 or 4 *worst* examples - of games in which people get harassed and griefed the most, games you really wouldn't recommend to young teenagers?"
Harrassing and griefing is the norm in most MMORPG games. There are no easy pat answers. There is no list of titles you can warn parents about. MMORPGs involve the continual interaction of human beings over the internet, and social interaction is a key part of MMORPGs. We're not talking about TV shows. You might as well be asking "which cities are best for me to drop my kids off at unattended for a day?" Here is one example of a MMORPG wherein grief is commonplace: www.thesimsonline.com
Click that link and look at it. How dangerous does it look to you?
Examples of grief: obtaining another players personal information and giving it out to other players. Hacking another players computer. Sexually harrassing another player. The list goes on.
1. In what types of games does griefing happen most?
Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games- MMORPGs. Why? See above. As previously stated by another poster game staff cannot possibly monitor everything that goes on, just as you can't possibly actually research everything you link here. One point about Sociolotron that is vastly different from other MMORPGs: the In Game Staff are volunteers who are not payed for their services. The developer actually talks to players on the message boards and continually modifies and updates the game based on their suggestions. In large corporate-run games the developers never come into contact with players and the "gamemasters" live in Asia, work 20 hours a day, and speak poor English.
2. "Why is Sociolotron different - what about it allows for this sense of community in which people take care of each other and hold each other accountable (surely not just because characters can perform egregious acts - they can do that in GTA too)?
I'm not seeing a connection between Grand Theft Auto and Sociolotron. Sociolotron is a MMORPG. A MMORPG is a game where each character in the game is controlled by a human being, and there are thousands of characters in a vast virtual world. Grand Theft Auto is a game where the player steals cars and runs around shooting other characters that are controlled by a computer chip. In order to have a "community" you would need other human players.
3. What would gamemakers need to do to make that kind of community happen in games like Halo or GTA?
GTA & Halo are single-player fighting games. You can play a few other players in a multi-player mode, like 15 tops if I'm not mistaken. In games like Sociolotron you can be playing with 200 other players at any given time, and as MMORPGs go Socio is a midget. There is one MMORPG with over 4 million players (and yes their Gamemasters live in Asia and work 20 hours a day too LOL).
Thanks for the answers, Anonymous. It's obvious you're not bashing. I realize that technically there's a clear difference between the GTA games and MMORPGs, but I think that gaming in general is moving in the direction of MMORPGs, and - with Xbox Live and other connecting technologies - all those console games, including the GTAs, are getting to be almost a MMORPG-like as those originally designed to be. Anyway, thanks, things are becoming clearer.
ReplyDelete