Head of Xbox Phil Spencer wants cross-platform bans and block lists

[jsilva]

In brief: Xbox boss Phil Spencer has always been a major supporter of cross-platform systems. For now, these systems mainly exist for multiplayer and online gaming, but the head of Xbox wants more, including cross-platform bans and shared users blocklists.

In a recent interview, Phil Spencer commented on how the metaverse compares with online gaming communities and the current state of the video game industry. One topic he touched on during the discussion was harassment and how the industry can deal with it in the future.

Spencer believes a cross-platform ban system is a viable solution to prevent toxicity. When someone is harassing someone on Xbox and gets reported, the support team can ban him from the Microsoft network, but what if that same person could also be banned from other platforms? That's what the head of Microsoft's gaming brand wants to achieve, preventing users from being followed by attackers when gaming on different networks.

As an alternative, Spencer also stated that platforms could support shared blocked users lists between themselves, preventing users from playing with unwanted players regardless of where they play.

"I'd love to be able to bring [blocked users lists] to other networks where I play. So this is the group of people that I choose not to play with," said Spencer. "Because I don't want to have to recreate that in every platform that I play video games on."

The Xbox boss also commented about the connection between gaming and political polarization in the USA. Spencer mentioned how online gaming communities became a place for people to talk, communicate, share, and socialize. It was expected to see people sharing their political views, but the Xbox social network wasn't designed for that purpose.

"One of the things we've stated about our social network is we're not a free speech platform. We're a platform around interactive entertainment and video games," said Spencer. "We're not there to allow all kinds of social discourse to happen on our platform. That's not why we exist."

Of course, users can use Xbox Live tools to create a political party if they want, but these tools were never meant for that. They were designed to provide interactive entertainment and gaming-oriented features to the Xbox community.

Spencer clearly wants to distance the Xbox brand from any political point of view. A fact even more evident when considering what he said about the Activision Blizzard sexual harassment scandal, stating Xbox was "evaluating all aspects" of its relationship with the video game publisher.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/92948-head-xbox-phil-spencer-wants-cross-platform-bans.html

 

[envirovore]

He's not the only one.
Get banned for cheating or being an overly abusive a$$hat on service, that should extend to all your services you game ruining schmuck.

 

[m4a4]

Sounds good in theory...

But who would control it? How would you appeal if you are accidentally banned on another platform?

 

[Sausagemeat]

Yeah this isn’t going to work. As always companies will want to be seen to make a big effort but the reality is that gamers are toxic, they will always be toxic and they will always find a way to play. Without decimating your own market you have to accept it for what it is.

What happens if you get banned in error? Is there an appeal process? Or are users just going to lose their accounts with all their digital content that could lead to class action?

Really we shouldn’t be holding MS or any games company to account for the behaviour of the users.

 

[Aceseven]

That would never work,

gamers are terrible, the only way to really deal with that is to make em pay, I dont play CoD or other games like it, but I do play ff14 and if that sub fee does anything its keep out "most" of the riffraff, after that free companies and in-game snitches do the rest.

just banning people does nothing, they'll make new accounts or just buy another copy of the game and get back to it.

sadly with everything going f2p the companies are making it very easy for a**hats to prosper now.

 

[Dimitriid]

Beyond the technical reasons or general dislike for gaming culture (Which I dislike as well) the moral implications are extraordinary here: You're letting private companies decide to make you a non-person basically. If you have a problem with what China does with surveillance and citizenship control why wouldn't you have a problem with Microsoft arbitrarily deciding "You can't use *any* entertainment products anymore, across multiple companies"

The minute they step outside of their walled garden it enters the realm of the government and private companies creating their own enforcing and virtual or "meta" States. This absolutely needs oversight because of course it wouldn't stop at gaming: Soon after if Facebook decides you need a 30 day suspension then you're gone from twitter, from youtube, from all social media. You might not be able to socialize, you might not be able to find a job if banned for wrongthink lists expand to potential employers (and you know they will)

 

[QuantumPhysics]

#1 Cheating absolutely can't be tolerated. Ban them all.

#2 Xbox, I see, is exercising its powers to "control" and marginalize "free speech" (you saying anything that they don't like or may result in some newb getting offended).

As an Xbox subscriber for over 8 years, they absolutely have the right to do this - just as Facebook, Instagram, Techspot, and all the other social medias do: disallowing free speech, disabling dislike buttons, etc,etc...

But I hope you all know that this form of "techno fascism" where you sucker everyone into a space and then start manipulating them is typical of the situation we face in the future.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Beyond the technical reasons or general dislike for gaming culture (Which I dislike as well) the moral implications are extraordinary here: You're letting private companies decide to make you a non-person basically. If you have a problem with what China does with surveillance and citizenship control why wouldn't you have a problem with Microsoft arbitrarily deciding "You can't use *any* entertainment products anymore, across multiple companies"

The minute they step outside of their walled garden it enters the realm of the government and private companies creating their own enforcing and virtual or "meta" States. This absolutely needs oversight because of course it wouldn't stop at gaming: Soon after if Facebook decides you need a 30 day suspension then you're gone from twitter, from youtube, from all social media. You might not be able to socialize, you might not be able to find a job if banned for wrongthink lists expand to potential employers (and you know they will)

"The only way to win is not to play". -WAR GAMES

If you don't like Facebook, Metaverse, Twitter, Google, etc's manipulation and control - don't use them.

At the end of the day, if more and more people refuse to obey their TOS and uninstall them - or stop using them, they lose. They lose revenue, they lose profit.

The problem is: most people don't have the brainpower or will to disengage or to divest.

 

[p51d007]

LOL, when I first saw the headline, I thought it say Phil SPECTOR...I said but he just died!

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has always been a major supporter of cross-platform systems

Yeah, uh, nope. The Xbox brand was staunchly against multi pltform support until the xbox started getting its arse kicked with the PS4.

He's not the only one.
Get banned for cheating or being an overly abusive a$$hat on service, that should extend to all your services you game ruining schmuck.

As anyone who plays games online can attest, it's not cheaters getting banned, it's people who say a naughty or diss microsoft for focusing on woke politics instead of fixing their garbage games. People hwo have taken 343 to task over their barely functional, unfinished garbage have been labeled as "abusive, hostile trolls" by microsoft before.

Beyond the technical reasons or general dislike for gaming culture (Which I dislike as well) the moral implications are extraordinary here: You're letting private companies decide to make you a non-person basically. If you have a problem with what China does with surveillance and citizenship control why wouldn't you have a problem with Microsoft arbitrarily deciding "You can't use *any* entertainment products anymore, across multiple companies"

The minute they step outside of their walled garden it enters the realm of the government and private companies creating their own enforcing and virtual or "meta" States. This absolutely needs oversight because of course it wouldn't stop at gaming: Soon after if Facebook decides you need a 30 day suspension then you're gone from twitter, from youtube, from all social media. You might not be able to socialize, you might not be able to find a job if banned for wrongthink lists expand to potential employers (and you know they will)

Well said. This is a major red flag. Why should anything that happens on a platform have anything to do with unrelated platforms? Why does MS need to be sticking its fingers into other people's pies?

This kind of thing is RIPE for abuse, and we know these arsehats are going to abuse it, they've been doing so for years already.

but gamers are a bunch known for welcoming abusive control and autocratic demands if it means they can be seen as good little allies of "intsert social movement here" so I imagine they'll be begging daddy MS to ban anyone who calls them out on their BS.

 

[VaRmeNsI]

This is why games need private dedicated servers, prevents centralized censorship.

 

[Danny101]

Honestly, why is anyone talking politics while gaming? Bans I wouldn't support, but block lists, sure. Besides, I game to escape, not to talk about the current political state of society. Refrain and no response system is necessary. If there are incidental conversations, then that would be held to a minimum and not be disruptive. We really shouldn't have to address it.