Kotaku’s Mark Wilson took issue yesterday with the varying ages of Xbox LIVE users, concluding that the service needs age matching. Wilson’s point is a valid one. As I shamelessly squander all of my tangible real life relationships playing Call of Duty 4 (CoD4), I’ve frequently noticed that the tinny sounds piping through my (probably toxic) Xbox headset belong to ‘people’ about a decade shy of buying a beer.
And sometimes, when not fueled by scotch and pharmaceuticals, I question whether those voices should be on the receiving end of my own tinny, but endless stream of obscenities and taunts as I’m knifed in the head by e1itegamer007 for the 30th time. In the end, I’ve never cared enough to think about it beyond the game, but maybe there is a solution.
Perhaps, as Wilson, Xbox LIVE could also match players according to age. It’s simple enough. One extra field to add to the matching critera. LIVE account could, maybe, prevent the pedos from harvesting a lobby of young gamers, but who knows?
This is new territory. Kids have always like games and adults these days are less embarrassed to admit that they play games. They both have equal claim to the territory, so how should things be segregated accordingly? And how can we prevent little Joey from accepting a bus ticket from choadwasher9? Answers people.