XBox Live Thinks One Name is Offensive, Rock Band Says Another Isn't Classy
Meet Steph Tytus and Varun Nangia, two more readers whose names were too inappropriate for XBOX live. Varun was forced to change his gamertag, which was his first and last name, and Steph tried to create a band using her name so the world can know that she rocks. Sadly, Rock Band thinks her name isn't "classy," and spat our an error message.
Here's Varun's letter:
Today, I discovered I couldn't connect to Xbox Live. After calling "Shanya" at Xbox Live (could not understand her, despite trying very hard), I was told that the Xbox Live service was down. How odd - everybody else, including my flatmate, on the same console is able to connect.
So I called back and "Ryan" answered. Ryan spent 35 minutes diagnosing my issue, making me connect, disconnect, reconnect and otherwise delete, undelete and trash my account. All the while, I explained to him that it clearly was NOT an issue with the connection, and not an issue on my end. After struggling to read his script, he finally took pity on me and followed my instructions to see whether there was anything wrong with my account. Sure enough, there was.
The system had tagged my Gamertag as offensive. What was my Gamertag? First name + last name.
What?!
That's right - my first name + last name is an offensive combination to the people who run Xbox Live. I asked Ryan what to do and he suggested changing the name order around.
So I've been forced to change my Gamertag - which means all the time that I've been using Xbox Live (about 30 months), my name has been offensive and apparently in violation of their terms, but they didn't bother to check or notify me or... well, do anything, really, except disconnect me today. I note that they updated the terms in 2005, twice in 2006, once in 2007 and somehow, I was in compliance with those terms all this time. Yet despite no change in the terms since June 2007, I am now in violation of those same terms. Explaining all this to the supervisor, "Lawrence", on the phone resulted in long, unintelligible mumbles (it was as if he arbitrarily picked words and letters out of the dictionary, strung them together, and then ran the whole gibberish through a randomizer), I was told that it was for my own security and protection they had decided that my name was offensive. Oh and the name that I had spent a while building an identity around? Yeah, there's no compensation for that. Nor did my preferences transfer over. In fact, I'm completely SOL...
Oh, for pete's sake, Microsoft.
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Comments:
steftytus sounds like a disease, maybe they thought it was an STD or something.
I wonder what's not classy about this. Maybe they're just not happy that its an actual firstname + lastname?
Uh that is rock band I think, not guitar hero.
I'm starting to wonder if there's not a glitch in the MS matrix. This one just makes no sense at all.
How about The Colonel Angus Experience? Would that be OK?
That's not Guitar Hero, that's Rock Band. Not sure why that would be flagged as inappropriate by RB though.. I've seen some pretty immature band names on there.
Moderately Satisfying Sirloins, forever!
That's not Guitar Hero, it's Rock Band.
Ok...
A) Stop blaming Microsoft for not banning your name right away, everyone. You too, consumerist. Microsoft has better things to do than be name police, and I'm glad they're not spending my Xbox live fees to BE the name police. They wait untill they recieve a complaint, and then ban.
and
B) What the heck is improper about VarunNangia? Perhaps Microsoft should actually LOOK IN to the names that get reported, because it seems like in this case they banned without even looking at it.
I could understand TheGAYERGamer and RichardGaywood (sorry, there's no way Microsoft could expect people to think RichardGaywood was a real name, and not a "clever" euphamism for "DickHomoBoner" and I totally support them on that one), I really could. But... this makes absolutely no sense, and her gamertag should definately be reinstated. This makes no sense.
They probably fear lawsuits if someone hunts down Steph because she had her full name listed on xbox. Having your full name may also be against their TOS.
I'm thinking Tytus Experience comes up as "s ex" in the filters. I don't see anything wrong with stephtytus. So no plurals + "experience" in name bands.
Moral of all the x-box stories, fuck Bill Gates. Hey Bill, I'm sick of Word auto-formatting my documents. Believe me, I know how I want my document to look more than you do.
Is it possible the system just detects letter patterns? "Varun Nangia" is a *little* close to a word that might be construed as distasteful, though still a stretch. Mike Hunts of the world, you're on notice..."Mike Hunt Experience" is not going to fly.
Just another computerized "dirty words filter" that is hopelessly broken and ridiculous. No one has been able to create something that even comes close to working correctly . Yet, they're content to keep using them, no matter how much their solution (the filter) is worse than the problem it claims to fix (profanity). Boggles the mind.
oh em gee.
mike hunt doesn't spell anything. the end of tytus and beginning of experience apparently do. seriously they're counting the space now?
tytu"S EX"perience
for those who can't see it.
It sounds like a policy very similar to that of License Plates. It takes just one person to be offended/complain about a plate for it to be removed. Zero Tolerance. Xbox seems to adapted a similar ZT policy.
It does seem pretty ill advised to use your full name online like that, and you can't blame MS for not wanting what could potentially be children having their full name as their gamer tag.
As for Rock Band, perhaps it is the same thing, where it verifies the band name against your gametag's registered full name to make sure no kids advertise their full name.
I wonder if it would allow FUBillgates...
I've gotten the not classy one on Rock Band :) of course it was a little more clear cut than that. I thought it was pretty funny at the time, because i've not heard of a lot of classy rock bands ;)
@Asvetic: Actually, when I was in LA, my wife and I noticed several cars that had vanity plates that seemed to get through the system. Some were pretty bad, like, I do not want my kids to read that, bad.
@donnie5: Well, from what I understand, if you call the department of transportation and report the offensive license plate, it'll be removed!
Here's why: the steph tytuS EXperience. Notice the forced caps... I can't imagine that anyone would care about that, but wow, microsoft is really cracking down! Next, I'll have to switch to a name like "bob" when I'm playing gears of war too, so I can realistically and aimlessly kill without offending online gamers.
hmm...perhaps xbox blocked the name VarunNangia because it has the letters of vagina in it....maybe it is some explicit filter that doesnt work properly...
@donnie5:
My favorite: [www.snopes.com]
The best part is, that's a randomly generated tag, not a vanity plate.
Oh yeah, fuck console gaming. And Microsoft. Have to stay on topic, you know.
let's just start an americans with overbearing sensibilities club! all the nanny groups can tell us which words are naughty, which parts of the human body are dirty, which thoughts to think, all that good stuff. then no one ever has to worry about being offended because life simply will never ever rub you the wrong way!
i can't wait to move...
Get a member of the Sex Pistols to use his band name in Rock Band... I'd like to see what happens then.
@WiglyWorm: Bad thing is they are "permanently" banned and "cannot be recovered".
Apparently at M$ a word jumble of vagina counts as offensive. Hey I can rearrange my tag to be Naked Hut Tiro...is that offensive?
list of songs in guitar hero. sex pistols are on that list. little self defeating there, eh microsoft?
The funny thing about the Rock Band filter is that there are still LOTS of offensive and nasty band names on Xbox Live. You can say something nasty without using any individual bad words, and also tricks like '@' instead of 'a', '|\|' instead of 'N', etc., will work to subvert the filter. You can't keep people from expressing themselves however they see fit, it seems.
OK, as I'm way too old to rock, I'm going to donate the name of the band I was always going to start; she can use it if she likes.
Ladies and Gentlemen, please give it up for ...
Nipple Inferno
I say Steph Tytus like "Steph Titus". I don't know what's on their minds. They should get themselves together. This is bad, but at least it's being covered so they get the negative PR from it.
@katylostherart: Wow, I looked at that name for five minutes and didn't see that. Good eyes! (Or I'm just an idiot...)
We got the same message in Rock Band when my son's friend created a character called "Mick". Because, yeah, the Irish are sooo easily offended.
THE CHILDREN, WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN!??!!!!!!?
How about the George Bush experience? ... Wait, they'll find Bush offensive... and it'll have nothing to do with politics.
I'm sure microsoft doesnt announce every single time an issue comes up with x-box live.
I'm sure if a parent or 2 had their lawyers send letters demanding that MS not let their little babies use real names in their gamertags just in case the millions of child molesters out there find them then MS would just say screw it and not let anyone do it.
Last time I checked the Live TOS is pretty much says its up to MS's discretion at any time. Its their service, they can be as picky as they want.
oh and HIV 2 Elway: you are aware that your can turn off auto correct right?
I can't login either.
-Clem Midia
Found it!
Take the spaces out: thestephtytusexperience.
Why does Microsoft need to be the name police at all? When we go online with our Wii we get a message saying that online content is beyond the control of Nintendo or something like that. Basically, go online at your own risk - you might possibly be offended by something. Who cares? If parents are so scared that their kids might see the word "gay" or think that a word looks like the word "vagina" maybe they shouldn't allow them to connect to the internet. And if it's adults that are worried that they might see these words themselves? Maybe they should go back home and live with mom and dad.
@kc2idf: Uh, yeah...someone found that an hour ago.
FFS, read the comments, people.
Couldn't they institute a policy wherein, if a name is flagged that is not obviously obscene, Microsoft sent a warning message to the user letting them know the name was flagged and giving the user a chance to rebut the obscenity/inappropriate/"not classy"(WTF?) claims? If a user is an adult (or even say, over 13 or something) and their gamertag is their own name, they should be allowed to keep it. It's not there's anyone out there named F*ckface McGee or something...not that I've ever met, at least.
I had a classmate in elementary school whose last name was Buttner...wonder how she'd fare with Xbox.
Here's perhaps the biggest slap in the face....the said the name MICK JAGGER was not classy.....i had to laugh at the one! No wonder we dont have any rolling stones dlc yet.
So when are people gonna wise up and quit playing these lame games? Why be a corporate pawn?
Official news release from Microsoft:
"In order to protect the interests of Microsoft, we'll now be filtering any search results on our Live.com engine which contain words which may cause children or grown men to snicker."
@TMurphy: "Get a member of the Sex Pistols to use his band name in Rock Band... I'd like to see what happens then."
I think "Paul Cook" would probably pass muster.
OTOH, I think Steph Tytus should change her band's name to "The Staph Typhus Experience." Now THAT'S a rockin' band name!
What twisted meaning do they look for?