Forum Discussion

4 years ago

For your serious consideration: age gated servers

Edit: I'm really looking to engage with EA/DICE employees, the rest of you I may just respond to for the sake of moving a discussion somewhere productive. If you don't like this, no big deal, there's a non-zero chance somebody who hates this direction is the kind of person I wouldn't want to play with anyway.

That's right; age floors where you must be of a certain age to play on a server. You can probably guess why I would be suggesting this. I am sick of playing with 14-year-olds throwing the n-word & other slurs around in the game chat. I'm sick of all the childish "x your mom" and other sexist nonsense from pubescent edge-lords whose diet primarily consists of hot pockets and anime. I would really like to play with and be introduced to more mature players with fewer insecurities that cause this BS. For your perusal, I have some screenshots of the kinda nonsense that doesn't belong in the in-game chat.

One of the things that currently irritates me is that there doesn't seem to be a blanket no-tolerance of the n-word and other slurs built into the server software that can't be turned off. At minimum, this should be standard. And nobody in here try to talk to me about the "technical difficulties" because I'm a software developer and computer scientist myself and I KNOW how completely trivial this is.

I anticipate a number of canned responses to this so I'll start with these:

"But how will you verify age, people can lie!"
This can be a verification service contracted out to a third party where official ID are collected (possibly for a fee) to verify age of the owner of the account. After which, an authorization is given to the person on ONE account to enter a server where they meet the age crition.
"What if some kid just steals his parent's ID?"
The verification process would likely work the same way background checks for anything else does. In the US, this could mean driver's license/state ID + SSN. Internationally or even in the US, this could just be doable with a passport.
"Is it free?"
If EA wants it to be, sure. I would expect the financial burden be put on the individual player seeking to be verified, though. That fee I mentioned as a possibility? That's how it would happen.
"This sounds like a lot to go through just to play a game"
It's not just to play a game, it's to avoid having to play it with a large subset of you who ruin the game.
"Why bother?"
Because there are more than care-free white boys who wish to enjoy video games and this would allow those of us who don't want to deal with their crap to play in peace and not feel like we need a shower after every session of racist nonsense in chat.

"But there are older people who are racist too!"

Yeah, but part of growing up is realizing that no solution is ever perfect, nor can it be. This is about reduction of harm, not some simpleton scorched earth philosophy where only the most extreme solution should ever be implemented. I guarantee not having to play with highschool incels will make my games better.

Screenshots removed due to player names being shown - ElliotLH

discussion

39 Replies

OkamiToge
Seasoned Ace
4 years ago
@TuskegeeHeir People sure are overly sensitive these days, did you ever experience a cod lobby with open mics? I don't think you would have survived.
TuskegeeHeir
4 years ago
@TankerFlankerIs this supposed to be useful somehow? This is supposed to be an engagement with the devs and EA so I don't really expect anything from you, but you could at least contribute meaningfully.
WindowsManTv_CZE
Hero+
4 years ago
Hello @TuskegeeHeir

This is a little bit to much just to play a game.. There are Communities that are adults playing together if you really don't want to play with young players. 🙂

Best thing i can recommend you is that you should join EA Gaming & Battlefield Discord channels. You will find many adult players there. Or maybe a Platoon/Clan that will be kind to invite you to play with them.

You can ask there for players with same age as yours. 🙂

EA Gaming -> https://discord.gg/DZzTUsZwm2

Official Battlefield Channel -> https://discord.gg/battlefield
VOLBANKER_PC
Seasoned Ace
4 years ago
@TuskegeeHeir Just turn off chat…
TuskegeeHeir
4 years ago
@WindowsManTv_CZE So I anticipated the first sentence, but to answer this more general suggestion of finding groups, this isn't about just finding "the right game for me". This is about changing the culture of the BF community, which can be pretty toxic and racist, like all shooters.
WindowsManTv_CZE
Hero+
4 years ago
@TuskegeeHeir

I understand to your point but EA can't ask for ID's to play a game... People always will be like this way. Some players are toxic, Some players are playing for fun, Some players are playing only with friends...

You or EA can't change players choices or how they act. I know its bad but we live in 2021. 🙂

You can Report players for cheating, abuse, (toxicity) and harassment here -> https://help.ea.com/en/help/faq/report-players-for-cheating-abuse-and-harassment/
TuskegeeHeir
4 years ago
@WindowsManTv_CZEI feel like you didn't read the entire post, because I addressed this too. "There will always be one" is never an excuse to sit on your hands and do nothing.
Fringerunner
Seasoned Ace
4 years ago
@TuskegeeHeirWindowsman isn't wrong though. The issue you want to tackle (not that it *shouldn't* be tackled, i'm actually with you there) requires more than just one game putting in some kind of framework, it pretty much requires internet access itself to be keyed to some kind of IRL ID like passports etc, because if it's digital, it can and will be spoofed (pretty sure the idea behind the TPM reqs on windows 11 is to try to achieve something along the lines of what you're asking for more than it has to do with ITsec or anything else).

And right now, there is a way to achieve what you want as suggested by others (i do this automatically in just about all games now as i'm just tired of the constant flow of stupid over unmoderated voice chat) which is turn off ingame VOIP as a rule, assume chat will be horrid and just try to catch the few times where relevant information is being put out, and find a guild/discord etc where there's clear rules and active moderation.

Some potentially good news for you though, first it should be relatively easy to find a portal server with constant admin presence if it launches with the admin tools "promised", and second I've seen at least one guild so far advertising on this forum with a a code of conduct pretty close to what you're asking for.

Maybe go ping them and see if the community is what it advertises, and you'll get more or less what you ask for via their discord.

Directly implementing what you're asking for is going to be legally difficult in quite a few countries, and damn near impossible in some, so EA/Dice taking that upon themselves is a cost/benefit question that lands squarely in "oh hell no", even if the idea itself probably would make policing the community a lot easier/better.

It's not perfect, and while your idea has merit in theory, implementation is just about impossible unless it's internet-wide, and even then some people are just so blindingly stupid/xenophobic/racist that even that wouldn't stop them from going full idiot on a daily basis.

Much like in real life, the trick is to pick your friends rather than try to eradicate stupid.
(edit: again though, this isn't a long-term solution or "right", but it is what it is on the internet atm. Again, change there has to happen at the root/culturally, not via individual games)
TuskegeeHeir
4 years ago
@Fringerunner I appreciate the difficulty of the system logistically, but I also know it can be overcome in most countries BF has a presence in if it's taken seriously. Some countries would probably be left out, I realize that. But this is also not something any player would be compelled to do regardless. Would it suck for those players in an unserved country would would also like age-gated play? Absolutely. But I take that as a challenge and not a barrier.

Companies not unlike EA constantly brag about how they solve tough problems, so I think it's entirely fair to tell them to put their money where their mouth is. This is a real problem, but no meaningful action has ever been taken on it and it's long-past time somebody do so. As far as the wider gaming community, devs talk. They look at what other devs have done and how it worked and try to see if they can implement the same systems. GDC revolves around this, and it only takes one system to work for others to then start copying and remixing it for their communities. In academia we do this via publishing our research. We expect and encourage other researchers to read and run with it in almost whatever direction they deem useful.
Fringerunner
Seasoned Ace
4 years ago
@TuskegeeHeir Here's the thing though, words are nice and cheap vs hiring first the legal people required to do a review on each country EA operates in to figure out which territories they could implement it in (scandinavia and some of the baltic sea states have some interesting ID linking to digital systems that would work as an example), and after that figure out a framework that would work without compromising each country's ID system and data laws, and then develop it and staff it + make sure the system stays on top of changing laws in all territories and making sure the framework can be changed as required in each territory.

I'm sure they already have some of this done just due to data retention laws being fairly different between just the US and EU, but that's probably solely from a marketing/data sale for advertising basis.

Looking at the mess that is core communication platforms as an example. (reddit, twitter, facebook etc)
They're very very slowly moving towards making a choice on moderation vs "free" but even they, who literally make their money on people communicating on their platforms, are incredibly timid about policing that content because the moment they set a standard or take responsibility for policing "bad" content, the amount of new hires required becomes a not-insignificant change to their bottom line, not to mention it opens them to a host of legal challenges in many countries.
(See Australia's recent "twitter is responsible for the content on their platform" kerfuffle and the fallout/debate around that as an example)

For what it's worth, i think with all the scrutiny said communications platforms are under and how quite a few countries are looking at how they can make those platforms liable for their content is going to force through a change with EA long before debates on forums like this will, because the second a country requires communication channels to be moderated, it'll affect games as well as platforms like twitter etc.

The only downside to that bit is that most of the more "progressive" countries when it comes to these things are fairly small, so until some larger countries decide to pull the finger out and EA would really notice it if they didn't comply, i think it will be next to impossible that any real change happens.

Until then most companies will talk a big game, and do the absolute minimum required to claim compliance at the same time.
Again though, for now we have self-policed communities and guilds/clans, and that does count for something.