240°

Where The *!$% Are Profanity Filters In Games and Streaming Services?

Why is it that video games and streaming services like Netflix don't have profanity filters? Has anyone attempted it and how could it be achieved?

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whatsgood.co.za
monkey6021438d ago

You know of all the issues you'll find people support and stand behind. This ain't gonna be one.

There are a lot more pressing issues need fixing sooner than a few curse words.

1438d ago Replies(8)
NecrumOddBoy1438d ago

Can we first ban people blasting their garbage background stereo music over the microphone?

monkey6021438d ago

Yes! Or with screaming babies in the background!

I get they cry. I have a 2 year old, he has those moments. I just don't broadcast them in a public lobby!

MWH1438d ago

It's not a bad idea to have more people raise the concerns about the different kind of issues of all severity levels. By the time a more pressing issue is resolved you could have multiple smaller issues sorted with the proper care and follow up.

BlackIceJoe1438d ago

I have would have no problem with giving customers more options like being able to turn off language that you don't like.

I could be wrong, but being completely honest I don't think it would be hard to implement into games too.

Inverno1438d ago

Maybe because something that's meant to be viewed and played by adults don't need it? If you can't handle a few f bombs then perhaps watch a kids show or something.

P_Bomb1438d ago

Sometimes it’s just lazy writing, trying to sound edgy. Predator has a canned “get to the chopper” but when I clicked it once I got a generic “F this let’s get the F outta here.” I wanted the Schwarzenegger line, as written!

Inverno1438d ago (Edited 1438d ago )

I don't think the solution for lazy writing would be to have an option to censor it tho. I'll agree that there is some really bad writing and often edgy with pointless swearing, but I can't understand being so triggered by a swear that you need it censored. You get a warning by ratings, you know exactly what you're getting into bedore you start watching or playing.
It's like how Japan censors porn as if people can't tell what's happening in porn.

LordoftheCritics1438d ago (Edited 1438d ago )

Yes it is poor writing.

F this F that, is expression of stress.

Stress can be expressed masterfully by better words, sentences, pauses, silence, expressions etc etc

CS71438d ago

Honestly what’s wrong with an option? Some adult who don’t swear would prefer to have entertainment without swear words.

Is that really that hard to understand?

Inverno1438d ago (Edited 1438d ago )

There's a difference between not swearing and not wanting to hear swearing though. The word is still being said and the bleeping or muting would just imply regardless and make it more obvious. Of course we could also use the excuse that it's "for the kids" but kids eventually learn swear words from their parents and it's up to the parent to teach em that they shouldn't say it.
I see more of just another thing to whine about by all the oversensitive people who seem to want the world to be like how it is in "We Happy Few"

1438d ago
CS71437d ago (Edited 1437d ago )

@Inverno

Not for kids.

I enjoy a product more without swear words, even if it is censored.

I’m a fully functional adult who hears swearing daily on the job and understand it is a normal part of life.

However, if given an option, I always choose the ‘clean’ version of something.

Does that mean I didn’t enjoy The Last of Us? No? But if I had an option to censor swear words would I do it? Yes.

P_Bomb1437d ago (Edited 1437d ago )

Games already have god mode, cheats, toggles for blood/gore and difficulty. It’s not rocket science.

Re. Get to the choppa. I’m guessing ppl are too young to remember that was the catch phrase?

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 1437d ago
assassingamer361438d ago (Edited 1438d ago )

Oh great somebody woke posting. You understand there is warning label on games telling you if it is rated E, T, M, or even R....nobody expects to play GTA with filters come on now use your brain

senorfartcushion1437d ago

Woke posting? Woke people are idiotic political moderates and centerists rehashing the political correctness trend of the 1990s

Profchaos1438d ago (Edited 1438d ago )

Because it's a case of if you do this you will stiffle the artistic integrity of the team that worked hard on it. If you don't like swearing there are plenty of options for you but don't think you'll ever be able to boot up a game of GTA or a Quentin Tarantino movie and have a smut free experience.

I'm a parent to I don't want to expose my kids to swearing I don't think they are old enough to handle it but the last thing I want is a profanity filter on media content I want to experience rdr2 with swearing in tact not a watered down Disney version life is hard most games depict swearing appropriately in my eyes.

As a parent I simply use the available parental controls and everyone is happy little ones are not exposed and when they are in bed the content I want to view and play is at my fingertips.

There's been some research into ai that can block slurs in online play and that's one thing constant abuse from a real person directed at you is way worse than Samuel Jackson talking about big Mac's in France.

Tv did it for years as the article stated well that's not quite right maybe tv works different where I love but some extremely graphic scenes might be cut from scarface as an example overall swearing is in the movie still but most made for tv content is not interesting and with the rise of Netflix and HBO podcasting and decline of tv and radio most people agree they don't want a commercialised tv experience anymore.

CS71438d ago

… So what is wrong with a option for profanity in settings?

It doesn’t affect you and people who want it can use it. What’s the big deal?

Profchaos1438d ago

If the creater of the content feels like they do t want to offer that kind of watered down experience why make them

CS71437d ago

@Profchaos There was a point when creators didn’t feel the need to put in many of the accessibility options that are in games today.

If there are people who would enjoy a product more with an option, then requesting that option isn’t invalid.

Profchaos1436d ago (Edited 1436d ago )

Accessibility and profanity filters are vastly different things accessibility is always about making your game playable for people who have unique physical limitations I don't think a single creater would say something like I don't think coulor blond people should play my game vs I think we should offer a pg version of red dead redemption 2 those actors and creators who worked tirelessly Iver the last ten years let's mute half the dialog remove some of the more confronting scenes and call it a day

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290°

The Real Enemy of Gaming Isn’t DEI. It’s the CEO

From Horse Armor to Mass Layoffs: The Price of Greed in Gaming. Inside the decades-long war on game workers and the players who defend them.

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rushdownradio.net
jambola20d ago

maybe a real enemy is people who use terms like "the real enemy"
there can be more than 1 bad thing, t's not like a kids show with 1 big bad

senorfartcushion18d ago

This is very much a “dummy who volunteers themselves to the middle” comment.

The real enemy is a common phrase, people use it all the time.

Calm down.

jambola18d ago

i'm very calm
you seem very upset however

Notellin17d ago

You don't seem calm at all. Don't take this so seriously, you seem desperate responding to others defending your opinion that lacks any value or critical thought.

jambola17d ago

stop projecting
i'm not desperately dong anything, i'm tapping at keys on my keyboard bud

PapaBop17d ago

It's not like kids show with one bad guy? I present to you.. Bobby Kotick

ABizzel117d ago (Edited 17d ago )

DEI was never the problem and it was an ignorant take to begin with.

DEI is why games like Kena Bridge of Spirits, South of Midnight, and Ghost of Tsushima exist.

DEI is why we have a huge resurgence in Japanese, Chineses, and Korean developers producing games like Stellar Blade, Black Myth, and why Nintendo & Sony exist.

DEI is why more and more games have HUGE accessibility options with both Sony and MS fully behind this.

DEI was never a bad thing, the entire purpose of DEI is representation of all people, genders, disabilities, etc…

The problem was people used DEI as a default derogatory term to describe what they believed was forced representation, which allowed colorist, racist, sexist, misogynist, homophobic, and xenophobic fools to run away with the negative DEI narrative.

jambola17d ago

you don't get to decide other people's motivations
sorry to break it to you

ABizzel116d ago (Edited 16d ago )

To each their own, however, nothing you said invalidates why some people take offense to DEI incorrectly.

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 16d ago
Sciurus_vulgaris20d ago

Executives seem to often have an obsession with perpetual revenue growth. There is always a finite amount of consumers for a product regardless of growth. Additionally, over investment is another serious issue in gaming.

Killer2020UK18d ago

The fact that they also rarely have any real expertise in game development compounds things. They'll look at what's been successful elsewhere, lack the knowledge to properly understand why they have been successful and then force a team to 'reproduce' their badly interpreted idea of that success.

We see it so often with sequels to games that were successful too. The team are left well alone, they have a break through hit and all of sudden the money men descend on the IP and completely railroad the dev team's ideas. Usually winds up being 'make the same game but MORE'

LoveSpuds17d ago

This is true throughout all of the corporate and public sector organisations to be honest. CEO's generally move amongst the corporate world without any need to have experience of a particular industry, they simply need to rely on their senior leadership credentials. A CEO of a retail giant will just as easily transition to a CEO role in the energy sector for example.

Not defending CEOs here to be clear, I think it's a huge part of the reason the western world is so fucked up. CEOs don't need to care about the sector they work in, in fact it's better if they don't care if they want to screw everyone to make profits.

GhostScholar18d ago

Companies don’t hire executives to break even. If the goal is breaking even then why start the company in the first place.

Soy18d ago

That's understood; it's getting record profits and expecting to always beat those record profits, and seeing anything less as a total failure. Then they lay people off and raise prices to reach those record profit levels again, just to sate shareholders. It's setting expectations way too high just to spike share prices, then inevitably falling short. It's feeling entitled to being more successful than everyone else. It's the CEOs doing all this to boost their own bonuses.

ABizzel117d ago

Growth benefits the company’s profits and therefore the company’s stock if publicly traded, which pleases the shareholders making them more and more rich, which is why Growth is always at the forefront of the vast majority of any publicly traded company.

More growth = More Money and the people at the top want all the money they can get. I can’t really blame them anyone would love to see their profits go from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, to multi-millions it’s almost like a gambling addiction.

But it also goes to show someone how morals can go out the window for a lot of these people, and how amazing some CEOs are when they catch this early and provide a balance solution that takes complete care of their employees across the board while keeping the business sustainable IE: Insomniac Games ALWAYS on the best places to work list. The rest of the industry could learn.

jambola20d ago

honestly, the "real" enemy of gaming, is ourselves
if nobody bought horse armor, shitty dlc would have died almost overnight
if we stood firm and nobody bought games from companies that were bad with layoffs, it would be solved
we're the idiots supporting awful business practices, we are the ones enouraging it

TiredGamer18d ago

I think the reality that we don't want to convince ourselves of is that without the rise of "horse armor" and DLC, game budgets would have essentially stagnated (smaller teams/smaller games), or game prices would have risen much more dramatically than they have. There was an incessant drive for bigger worlds, infinite detail, and hundreds of hours of "gameplay" over the last two decades, that while perhaps a natural evolution of things, needed a suitable funding stream to accomplish.

HyperMoused18d ago

What...CEOs make tens of millions and that doesnt include SLT etc etc...we now have multiple editions of games, in game currency, MT's, battle passes.....and what do we get..worse game than what was coming out 20 years ago....dont drink the cool aid, its this nickel and dime crap that is absolutely leading us to gaming destruction.

senorfartcushion18d ago

This is the worst possible answer to this conundrum. Blaming the masses is blaming the only people who are constantly “told” to buy.

Consumers are the only ones not to blame here. People make their own choices all the time. Disney movies are bombing and DEInis being blamed. Has that been enough to put Disney out of business? No and it never will.

Christopher18d ago

Disagree. Businesses are able to do what they do because people are bad consumers and don't think critically about purchases. Disney got away with doing shit stuff for years and it's just the last year where people got tired of it. It's not like it didn't work for 5 years or so for Disney to do the things they've done. They'll just move onto another way to get people to see movies and it will be just as bad but more profitable until people wake up and realize it.

TiredGamer18d ago

Consumerism drives business behavior. It's not so much "blaming" as it is observing behavior. The point I'm making is that the direction that games have gone are driven by the spending. Consumers are spending on DLC and they are driving the expectation of more glitz and padded out (lengthier) games. If they continue to pay, they will continue to drive that direction until a threshold is reached that forces a change in behavior.

senorfartcushion18d ago

Corporate advertising is the most powerful force on the planet.

This is N4G for god sake, every day there are arguments between people who are Team Xbox and Team PlayStation because they’ve been convinced that having an identity built on paying money to Sony and Microsoft matters more than having one as individual gamers who can play whatever they want.

And THEN we get to the corporate advertising part: to play whatever you want is to sink MORE into the advertising pits, making it so that you can more than one specific product.

jambola18d ago

ah you're right
they were told to buy it, it's clearly impossible to avoid that
if enough people stopped supporting, it would stop
disney not stopping would only be because enough people didn't stop

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 18d ago
victorMaje18d ago

Agreed. I’ve been saying for years, announce you won’t be buying the upcoming game because of the practices of the previous game, then you only have to stick to your guns once, see how quickly things change for the better.

We have to unite in what we shouldn’t purchase.

jambola18d ago

just imagine a world, fifa came out worse, nobody buys the next one until they see proof it's better and stick to it
or games being forced online for single player and nobody buys it
things would change so fast

HyperMoused18d ago

Just like scooby doo, you have shown us the real monsters are us

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 18d ago
Inverno18d ago

Greed and greedy people have and always will be the main issue for everything wrong in the world. Everything is a product to be exploited for monetary gain. Even when there are things that could help progress us along for the sake of making our lives easier that thing must be exploited for monetary gains. Anything that tells you otherwise is propaganda to make you complicit.

coolfool18d ago

I've never thought "DEI" (although the way most people use it doesn't match it's real definition) is the problem with games. Good games have continued to be good when they have a diverse cast, and likewise, bad games have continued to be bad. There isn't a credible example I've seen where a diverse cast has been the direct cause of a game being bad.

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Really cool that some of the money goes there.

Even if people don't subscribe to the mag, it might bring people to the charity.

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One of the main charities my wife and I donate to. They help a lot of children and being a parent of 5 children I can’t imagine what those parents go through. I’ll probably get a sub to GI because of St Jude and of course because I love video games.

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