14 DAY TRIAL // The Grand Theft Auto franchise is one of the biggest in the world, making a lot of fans due to its complex gameplay, intricate stories and, most of all, to the fact that it didn't shy away from controversy either in its content or, as we have seen recently, in its name, as Rockstart unveiled that the next DLC episode would be named GTA: The Ballad of Gay Tony.
This announcement prompted a lot of interesting reactions all over the gaming industry but also made a lot of Xbox 360 users question how Microsoft would behave when it was released, as the company made it clear that it wouldn't allow users’ orientation to be displayed on their Gamertag nor profane words in their actual nickname.
Kotaku wanted to find out just how the company would act, and asked Microsoft's corporate vice president of Xbox Live software and services, John Schappert, about the way the announcement of the new game would affect the Gamertag policy.
“I think the two are very separate issues,” Schappert replied. “That said, Xbox Live head of standards enforcement Stephen Toulouse continues to work with our team and we continue to look for ways for people to personally express themselves and you can look for more features coming to Xbox Live, but nothing to announce right now. They're working on some of that stuff and the community has been very involved. We try to walk the fine line where we do the right thing to allow people to express themselves but not have it be taken overboard.”
In order to avoid arguments or scandals, Toulouse revealed that his team wanted “to provide the capability for our users to express relationship preference or gender without a way for it to be misused.”
Do you think that allowing users to express their orientation on Xbox Live will affect the users and gamers that they interact with? Leave us a comment with your thoughts.