It's a Jungle

Editor Brad Shoemaker avoids online console gaming for fear of abuse. His sensitive ears just can't take the punishment. Give him heck at brad@gamespot.com.

Community standards are different all over the world, and I won't deny the possibility that the citizenship of Australia simply has a different notion concerning what's appropriate and what's not in a video game. Personally, I suspect that behind the stubbornness of the OFLC's crippled video game classification system lies a thick wall of bureaucracy. In the US, people on both sides of the "how far is too far" debate like to moan and wail about how ineffective our own video game rating system is. While I agree that the ESRB could definitely use a bit of an overhaul, the idea of turning regulation over to a government organization like the OFLC simply frightens me.

Besides, there's nothing like a little personal accountability when it comes to consuming video games, or any other medium. You parents are responsible for knowing what your children are playing, just like you're responsible for knowing what they're reading, watching, and listening to. The ESRB's rating system may not be perfect, but it does impart basic information about the contents of each rated game--information enough, at least, that you can make a basic, informed decision about whether or not it's appropriate for your kid. I'm willing to bet that most of the people foaming at the mouth about the horrific content of today's games haven't paid much attention (if any) to the ratings on those games, which clearly proclaim them unsuitable for little kids.

But then, even those permanent ratings stamped on the front of the box only go so far; these days every game with a rudimentary online mode begins with a message stating that "game experience may change during online play." In other words, bodies like the ESRB can police the static content that ships in the box, but they have no control over the potentially objectionable behavior of real human beings in an interactive space. You can't really blame them for that--sensitive gamers will just have to gird themselves before going online by expecting a certain level of abrasive behavior from those who enjoy the almost-no-consequences freedom of interacting across the Internet.

Until voice recognition becomes advanced enough to filter out the occasional untoward utterance, you're not going to be able to escape at least some degree of offensive behavior when you're playing online with other gamers, many of whom are decidedly juvenile. (Chocolate milk, anyone?) Microsoft has at least done a good job with its Xbox Live per-user ratings system, which lets you leave feedback on abusive users or report them to the appropriate authorities. Granted, there's some potential for abuse in the option to report other users' offensive behavior--you could imagine a scenario where the very tool meant to mitigate harassment could itself be used to harass. But the system that's in place is about as much as you could ask for, without seriously impacting Live users' freedom to play and communicate as they want.

Sony's infamously laissez-faire PS2 online implementation has been almost universally reviled next to Microsoft's masterful implementation of Live, and the 360 version is so far ahead of its predecessor, you have to wonder if Sony can ever make up for all the online ground it lost in the last round of consoles. Still, that's not going to stop the company from trying; it's hardly surprising that rumors are flying about the inception of a similar service to Xbox Live for the PlayStation 3 called HUB. It certainly sounds familiar, what with its community-driven communication features, downloadable demos and trailers, and multiplayer functionality. But will it be any good?

At least Sony has the advantage of being able to watch everything Microsoft is doing with the 360 version of Live. Even if they just crib all of HUB's features from the current state of Live, they'll be off to a pretty good start. But I'm not convinced they'll even go that far. In fact, there hasn't been any real indication so far that Sony places such importance on solidifying its online infrastructure. Up until the HUB rumor surfaced, it was assumed that the PS3 would stick with the anything-goes model of the PS2, which led to endless tedious network setups and a million different interfaces for getting online. Even now that word is actually spreading about the existence of a unified online environment for the PS3, it doesn't seem like Sony is gathering the resources necessary to push this thing through to its necessary conclusion. You've even got people on Sony's team making anonymous statements like this:

"They [Sony management] don't understand it. They don't understand why it's important. They don't get what developers need to make it good... They're trying to adapt due to tons of inside pressure (there are, of course, many incredibly brilliant people [at] Sony who have been screaming about this stuff for about a decade), but essentially Microsoft is on the cutting edge of this stuff and Sony is like your grandmother who just got her first AOL account."

There's no question that online play is enormously important to the future of gaming--heck, games have existed on the PC for years that are only playable online. While it may be a while before any such games ship on a console, it's clear that while online console gaming was only an emerging concept during the last generation, the PS3 and Xbox 360 are the systems on which the technology will come into its own. Microsoft is already off to an exceptional start with Xbox Live, and it has already shown that the infrastructure will only get better as time passes. I just hope Sony's up to the challenge of duplicating those efforts.

Next Up: Cliff Hicks