I’ve been reading a lot of the debate going on right now in the MMO world regarding what people’s rights are in-game versus out-of-game. Where is the line? Does a person have the same set of fundamental rights inside a virtual world? I think the answer has to be yes on the big issues (race, religion, sexual preference, etc.). But in virtual worlds, it doesn’t end there. You may not realize just how far we go to make sure people enjoy these games.

Our GMs deal with a lot of harassment issues. If you steal somebody’s parking spot in real life, there’s nobody calling the cops as part of a “play nice policy”. In our games, we have to go the extra mile to try and settle disputes fairly and reasonably. Every day, GMs in virtual worlds have to resolve all kinds of issues, and much of what they deal with is way below the surface. In EverQuest many years ago, we caught a lot of flack because of a player who wrote a “fan fiction” story outside the game that was pretty graphic and depicted violence towards a child.

We banned the person.

There was a media frenzy about how we were book-burning suppressors of Free Speech. We silently took the heat.

Why?

Because we couldn’t tell the real story, which involved one player accusing this banned player of something that, if true, would have crossed major real-life moral and legal lines. I personally spoke with the person accused and there was enough that made me uncomfortable to decide the right thing to do was to keep this person out of our games altogether. The “fan fiction” story this player wrote certainly was a part of this decision, particularly when combined with the accusation made in-game. But the reality is that it came down to a judgment call about potentially inappropriate behavior in our game. We have to make these sorts of calls each and every day and I think that for the most part we — as an industry — do this right.

Yes, you’re going to read about incidents where a GM has done wrong by a player. Those incidents get all the press. What doesn’t get the media or the rant sites excited (unfortunately so, I think) are the vast majority of times GMs get things right, including dealing with inappropriate behavior quietly, behind the scenes, the way it should happen. I wish people didn’t think that because they’re in the privacy of their own homes and they are “anonymous” that they can act any way they want, but that’s just a fact of life in the MMO world. I wish you all heard about the good things they do. You don’t hear about them making sure someone gets help after making a suicide threat in-game. You don’t hear about them personally calling a player after a hurricane to make sure they are ok… but I wish you did.

If some ignorant clown starts yelling racial or sexual slurs in-game, the right thing for us to do is to ban the person as soon as we verify their actions. And that’s what we do. We don’t have the equivalent of TheSmokingGun.com where you can view a mug shot of everyone who’s been convicted of in-game harassment. There are all kinds of privacy concerns involved with our games that we take very seriously, so we have to walk a fine line.

But I sure do wish we could create a virtual “jail” that all of the different MMO companies could send people’s characters to. It would be nice to make sure these idiots didn’t just get banned from our game and move along to harass players in another MMO, but that their characters would be “behind bars” for a good long time. Maybe even the death sentence for avatars, but without the whole prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

Until that day, thank the GMs, because they get it right most of the time. The Thin Blue Line of MMO’s is there to make sure you have a good time playing these games.

Smed