Microsoft Helps Out Battlefield Dad

[Saelune]

So they promote lying about age so they can play M rated games. Good job. Really though, Child accounts should have parental controls so the parents can choose to let the child play M games or not. (With no being the default)
This means parents cant *****, and ones who trust their kids can make the choice. I dont like bad kids playing M games though, (or any game where I can hear them in) but as a person who played M games when under 18, I can see both ways.

 

[TheEldestScroll]

let me get this out of the way: EA is the satan of the gaming industry.

anyway, i think its cool how this guy fought for his son's rights to be able to play a harmless video game. and its good to see a parent actually using judgement to determine weather or not their child is smart and mature enough to realize that whats going on in a game isn't real.

if people used this kind of judgement the ESRB wouldn't be necessary. i still think the ESRB is just another tool that modern parents use to further neglect their kids and their hobbies, but thats beside the point.

i'm just trying to say that it's almost ironic that EA is contributing to this borderline immoral laziness of parents by setting these kind of restrictions when you consider their marketing techniques of late (example: dead space 2 "your mom will hate it" ad).

i seriously wish EA would just die.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

its still bullshit, they shouldnt even allow a game to be purchased for an account that cant play it, if they do then thats a trap that should be illegal

I agree totally on that but its microsoft were talking about here a company that doesn't care who's fun is ruined as long as they continue to make their millions it hardly ever affects them.

 

[duchaked]

In any event...just don't make a bloody child's account!

But yeah, glad that got worked out I'd like to game with my offspring if I ever have any (legitimately and raised by me aldkjflakjdf jkjk)
this next generation, as hopeless as it seems sometimes, will be quite interesting... (assuming the Apocalypse doesn't decide to share itself with the rest of the world instead of just focusing on Japan...must of misread the memo)

 

[mjc0961]

It's not as bad as the situation you describe, but to my mind it's still pretty bad for a 9 year old to be playing a violent FPS. If the dad wants to connect with him, how about picking one of the hundreds of non-violent games out there. It's not like BF1943 is the big game which all the kids friends will be playing at school; from what I gather he wants to play it as that's what his dad does. Ideally then his dad should switch to something else when his son is around.

I'm one of those people who will never mind as to what a game allows you to do, only that the person playing the game is at least as old as whatever certifying body dictates (unsurprisingly this viewpoint is often vehemently disagreed with by those under age). Why does playing a violent game with your father/adult make what's occurring less impactful? If anything it must give the whole experience a kind of validation because it is happening while under the observation of a figure of responsibility.

Well, let me start with "Why does playing a violent game with your father/adult make what's occurring less impactful?". The answer is that it doesn't. The main thing is that every child is different, and if a parent feels that his or her child is mature enough to handle the themes of a game and understand that it's a game which is very different from reality, then they can decide to let their child play if they wish. So if you have a 9 year old one day and decide that Battlefield 1943 isn't appropriate for him to be playing, then you as a parent get to step in and make sure he isn't playing that. But if another parent feels their child is able to play the game and handle it properly, then they can let the child play under whatever conditions they set. Maybe the child can only play when they are present, maybe they can only play if they are playing together, or maybe the child can play it alone but only for a certain time. But every child is different and only the parent can say for sure if they should play it. And in this case, the father had already been playing BF1943 before deciding to let his son play, so he likely had a good understanding of what was in the game and could decide if it was okay to let his son play. And with this game, he decided it was okay for his son to play. He should be applauded for doing this, because it's how all parents should handle their children when they want to play those types of games.

I agree totally on that but its microsoft were talking about here a company that doesn't care who's fun is ruined as long as they continue to make their millions it hardly ever affects them.

See, this is what I was talking about before. Ultimately this is EA's fault because of their stupid need for people to have an EA account in addition to the Xbox Live account everyone already has when they buy a game on the XBox Live Marketplace. Microsoft did nothing wrong here and didn't have to do anything for this family beyond giving them a "Sorry, but it did say you have to be 13 or older before you bought it." But instead, again even though it wasn't their fault, Microsoft went above and beyond to help these two customers by not only giving the father a refund which would have been more than enough, but also allowing him to create a new account for his son with a different age entered AND gave him a code to redeem on this new account so he could keep his remaining Xbox Live Gold subscription time from his son's old account.

So what do we do? Why we bash Microsoft for being greedy and not caring about their customers, of course! Disgusting.

 

[archvile93]

Couldn't all of this have been avoided if MS just didn't let you purchase multiplayer only games to an account not within the age limit to play online?

 

[Raeil]

I'll leave my opinion regarding whether he deserved a refund or not etc out, but there's one thing:

'Deeply buried?' His own Youtube video shows that it's included on the game's marketplace page and take 2 seconds of scrolling to find, within the first 6 sentences of a pretty short set of Terms and Conditions. I can understand calling it deeply buried if it's on page 9 of a 14 page legalese strewn PDF, but it's literally right there before you buy the game.

Call me arsey, but when the T&C are that short, there's no excuse not the read them.

Yeah but it said he needed to be 13 to REGISTER WITH EA ONLINE not 13 to play, for all he knew Registering with EA online was not something he had to do, you know all those programs that annoy you with notifications asking if you want to register them but letting you use them anyway?

Quoted because I was going to say it. Specifically, the T&C did not say that the name the account was under had to be over 13, they said that someone over 13 had to be the one registering. Had the T&C specifically stated, "This game will not run on accounts with ages less than 13," then there would have been no need for a refund or a switch, because it would have been extremely clear.

 

[KalosCast]

Sorry, but America needs the "recommended age limit" to become a legal age limit. I know that opinion isn't exactly popular on here, but it would at least give some validity to decisions like this. The game was rated 13, the kid is 9. These are the same parents that moan when their kids are exposed to "offensive" material in games or online.

Hey look, someone who didn't even read the OP.

 

[samsonguy920]

So basically someone at Microsoft helped a dad skirt around a hard age restriction to allow his underage son to play.

One wonders how EA feels about this. Not to mention it is this kind of crap that helps ratings become enforceable. If the California law that is still in limbo(the Supreme Court is not an agency to rush at things it would seem) was in effect and applied, this dad and the Microsoft employee would be in big doodoo.
Hopefully we won't have to worry about the gummint stepping in on these sorts of matters. All the same, shame on these two parties for circumventing a coded restriction that isn't so bad.
Would it have killed Pop to find a game he and his son could enjoy together that wasn't rated M? I feel that if he still has his Atari 2600 collection, one might find Custer's Revenge in there.
Okay, okay....I will get off the box. Quit shoving.

 

[josemlopes]

How many ToS have you actually read? It may not be the best habit, but 99% of people just scroll to the bottom and click "I agree." I recall the incident where Gamespot or something put a notice in their ToS saying that they got their customer's souls... Should he have read it more carefully? Yes. Do most people read them carefully? No. He purchased the game, he shouldn't be barred from playing and then told he can't get a refund.

That ToS is right there, with the information about the game, in CAPS, and it isnt even long, theres just no excuse.

This wasnt because he wasted 10 bucks, their family isnt going to become poor because of that, it was because he felt like he needed to fight the system against this kind of traps but there are no traps.

 

[binvjoh]

Hopefully we can put all this behind us now.

Also, who else thinks "Wetzel" sounds like a name for a wet pretzel?

 

[Casimir_Effect]

It's not as bad as the situation you describe, but to my mind it's still pretty bad for a 9 year old to be playing a violent FPS. If the dad wants to connect with him, how about picking one of the hundreds of non-violent games out there. It's not like BF1943 is the big game which all the kids friends will be playing at school; from what I gather he wants to play it as that's what his dad does. Ideally then his dad should switch to something else when his son is around.

I'm one of those people who will never mind as to what a game allows you to do, only that the person playing the game is at least as old as whatever certifying body dictates (unsurprisingly this viewpoint is often vehemently disagreed with by those under age). Why does playing a violent game with your father/adult make what's occurring less impactful? If anything it must give the whole experience a kind of validation because it is happening while under the observation of a figure of responsibility.

Well, let me start with "Why does playing a violent game with your father/adult make what's occurring less impactful?". The answer is that it doesn't. The main thing is that every child is different, and if a parent feels that his or her child is mature enough to handle the themes of a game and understand that it's a game which is very different from reality, then they can decide to let their child play if they wish. So if you have a 9 year old one day and decide that Battlefield 1943 isn't appropriate for him to be playing, then you as a parent get to step in and make sure he isn't playing that. But if another parent feels their child is able to play the game and handle it properly, then they can let the child play under whatever conditions they set. Maybe the child can only play when they are present, maybe they can only play if they are playing together, or maybe the child can play it alone but only for a certain time. But every child is different and only the parent can say for sure if they should play it. And in this case, the father had already been playing BF1943 before deciding to let his son play, so he likely had a good understanding of what was in the game and could decide if it was okay to let his son play. And with this game, he decided it was okay for his son to play. He should be applauded for doing this, because it's how all parents should handle their children when they want to play those types of games.

You make a good point which I would counter by saying that every parent is different too. On these very forums there are usually a load of threads to be found about how kids today are asshats or some parent neglected their child/brought it up badly. Giving these parents all the power over what a child is and isn't allowed to play may turn out bad. As a really bad, tabloid-esque example: just because a parent decides it's ok for his kid to take heroin doesn't mean it is.

I'm never sure why there is this need to let everything be in the judgement of the parents, who may often be uninformed or uninterested, instead of a company of people who's only job is to rate the suitability of media. As far as I can tell it's a way of passing any blame: if a kid plays a violent game because their parent allows it and then goes batshit insane the fault lies only with the parent. But if the kid had gotten the game a different way then the blame usually gets dumped on the VG industry. So giving all the power to the parent is a good way to curb liability, but that's all it's good for in my opinion.

In this case I'm sure the dad is a good parent and will always ensure his son plays violent games under his supervision until an appropriate age is reached. But you'll forgive me for wanting to play devil's advocate on this one because the effects of violent media on children are still not well understood. I can easily use myself or others my age as an example of violent games having no effect because I'm a sensible individual (or at least I think I am) who played things like GTA and Carmageddon while they were younger. But it needs to be remembered that the games available in those days looked like ass. There was no photo-realism or HD graphics; pedestrians in GTA were pixellated blobs without any real human characteristics and those found in Carmageddon were also devoid of any humanity bar the form. We'll only know what the effect of having played modern-graphics violent games are in about 10 years time when the current generation - those usually claimed to populate XBoxLive - have grown up.

I'm almost certain there will be no correlation (barring the odd nutball), but as a scientist I have to keep an open mind.

 

[Zannah]

So when did microsoft shift to being nice people rather then an evil coorperation? oO

 

[mogamer]

its still bullshit, they shouldnt even allow a game to be purchased for an account that cant play it, if they do then thats a trap that should be illegal

I agree with this point. If the account isn't allowed to play the game, then why is it allowed to purchase it?

But yeh, the rules are pretty easy to find and the guy doesn't deserve a refund. What I question is the fact that he allows his son to play age restricted games, yet set up an account with the sons correct (under)age in it. My kids are now old enough to play "T" rated games, but they've been able to do this for years because I never set up an age restricted account for them. I just pay attention to what they are doing.

We don't need a law in this country making the ESRB ratings legal. There are enough laws restricting (or actually trying to restrict because they really don't work) the way we think or act.

The part I really feel sad about is that they bought Battlefield 1943. Ugh!

 

[Griffolion]

Good to see the little guy get justice. It's also good to see MS not being an asshole, but EA's behaviour was just really disappointing. Why fight against the very people who keep your wages paid?

 

[Roxor]

Why the hell do they include these stupid agreements when nobody reads them?

I think that if companies absolutely must include them, that they should be restricted to a maximum length of 25 80-character lines. If you can't cover it all in one screen of text, you need to edit it down.

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

its still bullshit, they shouldnt even allow a game to be purchased for an account that cant play it, if they do then thats a trap that should be illegal

I kind of agree. I'm glad everyone is happy, but if you're using a 9 year old profile, YOU HAVE TOF FUCKING READ!!!

I'm 21, I don't read age restrictions, because I'm in Canada and I was legal 3 years ago. a 9 year old or his father will have to read a little more carefully for fear of age restrictions.

I also feel the video was unecessary. It wasn't THAT far down and it was in caps

if it was that important it should have been at the top of the list rather then hidden down near the bottom, shit like that is why we need some heavy regulations on digital distribution, its much too easy for the consumer to be fucked over

While this is true, I feel a certain amount of common sense factors in. If you're working with an age 9 account, then you have to wonder if there are limitations... This is why I don't think Digital Distribution is TOO advanced yet, we're still gonna get stories of this for a while

thats the thing tho, there shouldnt be age limitations, there arnt on retail games and I think that battlefield is only rated teen which means no one gives a crap about its rating, if parents set one then thats all well and good but industry forced age limits are bullshit

I think it's more the responsibility of it all. If anything happens and that disclaimer isn't there, people are going to say "Well, you should have some kind of a disclaimer letting people of a certain age game.... Blah Blah Blah" Don't forget this kid was raised gamer by his dad, so I'm guessing his Dad's etiquette rubbed off on him, but we all know the toddler screamers that make online gaming a bit of a bummer.

It all depends on the maturity of the person, I'll admit, but a lot of people believe that anyone under the age of 13 just don't have that maturity yet. If the kid was 11 or 12, that's kind of understandable, but at 9, I do think certain restrictions are okay. In this case, I think with his father's whole bringing him into the group of gaming peers and the kid being nice about it, he should be able to bypass it, but in a lot of cases it's a justified factor.

 

[Andy Chalk]

That's on EA though, not Microsoft. It wasn't Microsoft's policies that said a 9 year old couldn't play the game.

Hey, I agree, but sometimes Company B has to step it up a little bit to clean up the mess made by Company A. There's not necessarily an obligation there but it's a win/win situation: the customer goes away happy, the company that made the save gets some good will and positive press out of it. That's more than worth $20 in MS points and a little bit of CSR time.

 

[Andy Chalk]

I'm glad things worked out for this guy and his son, don't get me wrong, but...that's the *point* of T&Cs. Terms and Conditions. Even the 'potentially crippling' ones. Yeah, they're boring, and no-one wants to read them, and so companies can 'hide' stuff in there...but it's totally up to the consumer to read them. If we actually read Ts&Cs companies maybe *wouldn't* be able to get away with 'hiding' stuff. If you don't read them, you have to be prepared for unpleasant surprises.

This is true, but as some point there has to be a line. If a company is going to put into place a policy that restricts access to its product, then it has, or should have, an obligation to make that restriction reasonably clear. "Reasonably" being a wonderfully vague term, of course, but in a case like this I don't think it's cricket that EA/MS can see perfectly well that the game is being purchased through a child's Live account, yet says nothing about until after it's too late. If nothing else, it's just a really shitty way to treat customers.