Careful with Multiplayer Games That Use Mics

Disclaimer: There is some language that I will be quoting that is not suitable for children and could hurt the eyes of some adults too. So pass on by if you’re one.

I’m one of those players that loves multiplayer games. Especially the type that bring me back to the good ole’ days of Quakeworld Team Fortress (believe me, my college roommate knows how addicted I was to that and having been in two ranked clans). So when I finally was thrown back into it lately for fun, with Fat Princess, I was ecstatic.

Until yesterday. I felt a lump in my throat when I heard over the headset when the public chat ran. Basically, the goal of the game is like capture the flag, except it’s capture the princess. You’re to rescue your own princess from the enemy base and if you do so, you win the game. So I was on the red team, and the blue team had just won and their top player says over the chat:

“I got your princess, niggaz. Now she’s going to get raped.”

Wow. Talk about getting floored by stupid people and reinforcing bad stereotypes. Yes, you could tell that the male voice was probably a certain race and was trying to be macho of sorts. But that sort of language? When it’s a Teen rated game? You can deal with some of the annoying kids that want to talk incessantly but the line has be drawn somewhere.

Now first things first. It’s not Titan Studios fault that this idiot said crap like this. In fact, this can happen in any sort of video game that has headset usage and you take a chance when you play online games. While it’s a detriment to the overall game play, maybe headset lockout is useful in this scenario for parental controls. But overall, I slept on it and still couldn’t let it be. What can you say when someone says something like that and sounds totally like a douche? And to throw around the N-word is so not cool.

Do I have this guy’s PSN-ID? You betcha. And I’m going to avoid this loser from now on. There are plenty of great people on these games and you should never have some moron’s bad impression shock the overall good environment. But just so you know so that you’re well-armed with the knowledge that this does happen instead of being like me and letting my jaw drop to the floor because someone decided that it was cool to reinforce a negative stereotype.