The whole social stigma that surrounds a simple word is outrageous. It only contributes further to the distorted and disproportionate attitude so many people associate with it.
It’s perfectly acceptable to make the ‘Okay’ hand sign in Westernized culture, however all you need to do is go on Wikipedia to see that in several countries it even has vulgar meanings.
Context and perceived meaning are things that we apply to words and language through social convection and popular culture over the course of several years.
To suggest that an MMORPG community of over 1 million is exempt not only to the wonderous phenomenon that is global culture, but to the world of explicit language is preposterous wishful thinking.
It comes down to a matter of business management vs player behavior. In an absolutely massive and successful game such as Guild Wars, is it safer to say that it is going to attract players from around the globe and therefore should take into account global differences in culture when slapping around bans for misconduct – or to assume that players themselves should consciously make that connection at all times of play?
I personally do not think throwing out 3 day bans for profanity is going to solve the issue. ESPECIALLY if people are not warned prior to receiving a 3 day ban.
Granted, I will DEFINITELY not be swearing again, but I feel as though I shouldn’t have to watch what I say in an online environment that I payed 60 dollars for. I’m not a child in elementary school and STATISTICS would argue that the vast majority of people I’m playing with aren’t either.
And if we’re arguing that American’s find the word more offensive than other Nations, I may as well bring up a free speech debate and argue that if we can’t arrest the Westboro Baptist Church under the guise of free speech, why is banning for something as minuscule as profanity acceptable?
This sort of thing is extremely rare in other games, especially MMO’s.
Yes. Yes it is. I’ll completely agree with you on that argument. But I’m not agreeing in the way you think, because you see, that’s a BAD thing. It’s one of the reasons contributing to the increasing stigmatization of gamers and gamer culture – this vicious, poisonous in-game “chatting” profanity and hate speech that goes on in some games.
So Yes, it doesn’t happen in other games that you get actual painful consequences for using a term that you KNOW (c’mon, don’t tell me you didn’t know) was very, very bad, and can be argued to be hate speech. You knew it was a horrible word and you just hoped that no one would report you for it.
(PS, the whole “words have the power you give them” thing is not true at all, especially not when the words have power given to them by powerful institutions. Learn you some sociology, or believe me, I’m a South African.)
The fact that something like that has actual painful consequences here is a GREAT thing, and is attracting many players like people I know personally, who love games, and who are gamers in any sense of the word, but could never play online because they simply never had the “you must have this thick skin to play” that other games expect from you because in their own freaking lifetimes words like the one you used were used to dehumanize them, make them seem less than “full” human, so that horrible atrocities could be committed against them.
Now you may think it’s “silly” to have rules like that for a Teen-aged game, but that is ONLY because you are sitting comfortably in a position where no words like that have been used against you, leading to actual, real-life consequences on your body or the people you love. For those who have had that happen to them, online gaming was just yet another thing they had to miss out on.
You should be, as at least a teen-aged person, mature enough to enjoy a game without making it unpleasant for others, regardless of filters or no filters or country of origin.
Thank you again. ^AT