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Have you jumped off of Xbox Live due to homophobic comments from your fellow gamers? Well I’ve got the answer. Some of the people behind Live are homophobes too.
Have you jumped off of Xbox Live due to homophobic comments from your fellow gamers? Well I’ve got the answer. Some of the people behind Live are homophobes too.
Jamie Durrant is a gay video game producer at Microsoft who works with a team of homophobes. I can’t decide what shocks me more. The fact that Mr. Durant endured name calling like “Fag Boy Jim”. Or the sad realization that the people taunting him were grown men who should have known better.
I’m sure there are lovely and open minded people working at Microsoft. Unfortunately, the company is allowing itself to be seen as a homophobic sausage den. I don’t feel comfortable gaming online for this very reason: I’m sure to encounter sexual harassment. As a woman who would like to work in the gaming industry I’m incredibly disappointed.
It’s time to carefully revise the community standard’s on Live so that gay gamers are not punished for being harassed. I also see a business need to recognize the diversity of employees and customers in a business as global as gaming. Revising HR standards to embrace the diversity of today’s workforce would be a great first step.
[Via - DailyMail]
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Comments
03.26.09
I really appreciate that someone is stepping forward to say something about this. I play on Xbox Live as well. While I'm not gay, I have still been called a "fag" countless times. The truly appalling aspect of this is how commonplace it has become and the lack of accountability placed on those who act this way.
If you compare the Xbox Live environment to online communities, there's a huge difference in the censorship of this type of activity. It is not acceptable in online communities, so why should it be in games? By allowing it to continue, companies like Microsoft only alienate the minority gamers (which really amounts to anyone who isn't a teenage boy), exasperating the issue and providing a venue for the expression of sentiments otherwise not acceptable in the rest of society.
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