Player-created porn in MMOs

In response to my ideas on classes in Querulous Plains Tesh brought up a very interesting objection:

"all of this runs into the typical problems with anonymous internet art; way too many people who think porn is cool and being rude is OK."

I'll admit I hadn't thought of this even though I've heard of this before.

It first really came to my attention with the assault on Second Life players by the flying penises of the Goons.

What made this particular storm in a teacup absolutely fascinating were the over-the-top responses of aggrieved party Prokofy Neva such as

"Your notion that they "need" to be shocked and they "have to understand" that it is "just a video" game let's us know the kind of Nazi stormtrooper/Leninist KGB cadre work we can expect."

Entertaining stuff!

I found a Youtube video. Don't click the link if you don't wish to see an example of a Second Life flying penis:

See it soar majestically through the skies

In WoW you can simulate sex with a druid character by mashing the sit key very fast while in bear or cat form. It creates an appearance of thrusting that is very sexual. And furry.

People also cyber and simulate sex with non-druid characters although its not quite so explicit. Nevertheless the tunnels of the Deeprun Tram and the inn at Goldshire have a reputation for "erotic roleplay".

And in most games now pvpers celebrate victory by "teabagging" their opponent's cold dead corpse which is actually simulating a fairly extreme sex act.

OK, so we know it's a problem, how do we make a game that contains it to acceptable levels.

You can just ignore it

As far as I can see in both WoW and Second Life it's just ignored for the most part. I know that recently in SL they've created a special zone for all the porn but it bumbled along quite happily before that with plenty of porn everywhere.

Possibly people might have been banned for harassing individuals but just displaying pornographic avatars in SL or simulating eroticism with your WoW avatars seems to go completely unpunished.

There is a limit on what you can ignore however.

In most countries child porn is illegal, you can go to prison here in the UK if it is on your PC. If it becomes present in a game, even if in cartoon or hentai form then the server admins surely need to act.

Second is anything involving grooming. "teenagers, phone Dirty Bill to lose your virginity + phone number" is something that you would have to act on.

In some jurisdictions the authorities will take less lenient views. China has recently cracked down on a broad range of video games that in the opinion of the Chinese government cross the line with regard to public decency. I suspect that the main reason this hasn't happened in Islamic countries is because the religious laws tend to be made by very elderly men who probably have absolutely no idea any of this is going on.

Responsibility

The next question I'd like to consider is who is responsible. Philosophically I'm inclined towards the view that an individual is responsible for his own actions. If someone uses a MMO game to meet and abuse children then that individual should go to prison, not the game devs.

Next if it's the software that is to blame then which piece of software? If I'm shocked by something I see in WoW and my jurisdiction allows me legal recourse then do I sue Blizzard or my isp or Microsoft Windows? All of those companies are involved in providing software that has allowed another person to offend me.

Is it the government's fault? If I'm offended by someone from, say, Belgium, should the Belgian government act against the individual on my behalf? What if it's a crime here but not there?

Is it my responsibility simply not to use the internet or play games where I might be offended?

Co-operative approach

I think in the end a co-operative approach is called for.

Governments should legislate where they feel a need to protect the morals of their citizens. If China or Australia bans my game that's correct for that country. If it's not supported by the people and it really matters to the people they can lobby their government or ultimately replace the government with one that suits them better.

As a game developer however I do think that where you can, as an institution, take action to protect minors from sexual predators and unsuitable images.

The simplest way is just to slap a M, Mature, rating on your game. It should not then be sold to minors at all.

You could devise in-game mechanisms for dealing with it. For instance in Querulous Plains you could devise a Puritan character class who gets exp for hunting down smut and a Judge character class who gets exp for punishing players the Puritan and Police players catch. That doesn't necessarily diminish its role in the game however since it makes it playable content.

And of course in an impact pvp game like QP there's a simpler solution. If someone offends you then you can get some mates and just kill him and burn his paintings.

You could ban accounts that create porn. There might be considerable scope for grey areas however. Are naked breasts porn? Well, they have been in almost every M rated film since the iconic American Werewolf in London and those dvds are not considered porn.

If you create definitions then for some players the challenge will be to subvert the spirit of the law while keeping within its letter. For example "no graphical depictions of intercourse, everything else goes" would result in a slew of pornographic imagery more disturbing than mere intercourse.

I think this is a real area of concern for anyone managing an online community and a very difficult problem. People do behave worse on the internet. The internet is heavily used for communicating porn. If your game supports player creativity porn is very likely to follow.

But I don't think people who run virtual worlds can just ignore it. The main problem is that online sexual predators are likely to be attracted to a game community that combines teenage players and rampant pornographic imagery and behaviour. If some child is raped and murdered because of your game that could lead to you or the people you work with wishing you'd never made it for the rest of your lives.

It's also a problem that children will play the game and see images they are too young to deal with. It's very important that if your software supports porn you make the dangers explicit to parents of younger players.

There are also political problems if your internet virtual world has significant player-created pornographic elements. China will ban you. Maybe other governments too. Parents may try to sue or get you closed down. Negative publicity may impact your game.

I realise that MMO games are subjected to a higher bar than films or books and that some gamers may feel this is unfair. But gaming is a very personal experience and it's an interactive one. If you see something you don't like in a film it's natural to look away. In a game it's not natural to log out so you may get pursued by someone trying to get a rise out of upsetting you.

Lastly it's perhaps important that designers should solve these problems before someone else solves it for them.