Video games: A unifying force for the world
Safety, it is our number one priority, not only for ourselves but for those around us.
I have always been a big advocate for online safety but for those of us to take it upon ourselves to be informed and aware of the risks and to teach others how to mitigate those risks.
I believe Microsoft has always been at the fore when it comes to utalising the systems it has on offer to give the parents more control over their child's gaming habits and better monitor their level of exposure, of course this means the parents need to be informed in the first place.
With all the negativity that comes from the mainstream media it is often hard to separate fact from fiction so here it is, direct from the man himself. That man is Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox and a true advocate for gaming and the pleasures it can bring.
Phil Spencer: Gaming Must Promote and Protect the Safety of All
My father, a
chemical engineer, brought home our first computer, a Sinclair ZX81, which came
out in 1981. We played games together and then later, we wrote games together.
Today,
for many people around the world, gaming is the first entry point into
technology, just like it was for me.
I
believe in two fundamental truths about gaming:
First,
gaming is for everyone. No
one group “owns” gaming. Instead, whether you’re new to gaming or are a diehard
e-sports fan, you are welcome to play and welcome to all the fun and
skill-building that comes with gaming. In this way, when everyone can play, the
entire world wins.
If you imagine
gamers as predominantly men and specifically teen boys, think again. We are a
2.6 billion-person strong community of parents playing with our kids,
adventurers exploring worlds together, teachers making math wondrous,
grandmothers learning about their grandchildren through play, and soldiers connecting
with their folks back home. Most gamers today are adults; nearly half are
women.
Second,
gaming must promote and protect the safety of all. Gaming
must be a safe environment.
Creating
community is shared work, and protecting community is essential work, so, we
all carry part of the payload of community safety – game industry and gamers
alike.
This
widespread embrace of gaming and its global communities have turned video games
into the world’s leading cultural
industry, bigger than movies or
music. But it also comes at a time when digital life includes a growing toxic
stew of hate speech, bigotry and misogyny.
No
different from rock and roll, books and TV before them, video games are often
dismissed or maligned as frivolous, fraught with violence or filled exclusively
with hate-mongering. But gaming is uniquely designed for equality. We don’t
just walk in someone’s shoes – we stand on equal footing, regardless of age,
education, socioeconomics, race, religion, politics, gender, orientation,
ethnicity, nationality, or ability. Gaming doesn’t just bring
stereotype-defying gamers together; it unites us through our universal language
of fun and answers our human need to play. Research has shown an effective way
to battle polarisation and prejudice is through relationships with people
outside our own groups, known as intergroup contact
theory. This is where gaming excels: forging unexpected friendships
with people we might never meet in real life. Dr. Linda Tropp, a professor of
psychology at University of Massachusetts Amherst, observes, “As an interactive
form of entertainment, gaming environments have the potential to bring people
together for collaborations across differences, and to build empathy and mutual
understanding through play.”
When
people call video games a waste a time, I point them to the well-documented
health and social benefits of gaming. Beyond pure exhilaration, gaming helps
children with autism make new friends and
seniors with Alzheimer’s improve their
memory. Researchers have found that gaming teaches adults leadership, improves decision-making
and reduces stress and depression and
also teaches kids
computational skills and empathy.
Gaming is the gateway to these 21st century skills and to STEM
(science, technology, engineering, and math). Just consider: teen girls who
play video games are three times more likely to pursue a STEM degree. Among
teenagers who play games online with others daily, 74% have made
friends online and 37% have made more than five friends online.
By
uniting as an industry, we can thoughtfully and deliberately continue building
a safe and inclusive gaming environment for everyone. Microsoft, Team Xbox, and
I are personally committing to this, beginning with the following principles
and actions:
We
commit to be vigilant, proactive, and swift. Our
Xbox Safety team is nicknamed the “Defenders of Joy” because we will defend you
in every humanly and technologically possible way, so gaming remains fun. We
will identify potentials for abuse and misuse on our platform and will fix
problems quickly. We are also intent on expanding the composition of our safety
team so wide-ranging perspectives can help us identify future safety problems
and solutions. Because hate and harassment have no place in gaming, we recently
published a refreshed version of our Xbox Community
Standards to communicate how each
of us can keep gaming fun and safe for all and detail the consequences when any
of us break these standards. A welcoming community is the key to a safe
community, so our 150,000 Xbox Ambassadors –
community leaders, stewards, and allies – will be engaged to embark on new
community missions to help create an inviting and safe environment for all
gamers. We will also continue to roll out new programs for the health of our
entire gaming community.
We
commit to empowering you to safeguard your gaming experience the way you want. We
believe in equipping you with the tools to customise your gaming experience fit
for your personal comfort level. This summer, we are empowering our official
Club community managers with proactive content moderation features that will
help create safe spaces for fans to discuss their favorite games. We plan to
roll out new content moderation experiences to everyone on Xbox Live by the end
of 2019. Creating a Child
or Teen Account is the easiest way for
parents and guardians to manage who their kids engage with as well as their
family’s screen time, content and spending. While more than 26 million Child
and Teen accounts have been created to-date, we will make it easier for parents
and guardians new to console and PC gaming to discover and create Child or Teen
accounts. This year, Microsoft Stores rolled out a series of family workshops
to help parents understand the tools available to them on console and PC, and
this summer we are launching Gaming Summer Camps offering young gamers new ways
to explore life skills and practice healthy habits that can be used in gaming
and everyday life. Additionally, we recently launched a new “For Everyone”
destination on Xbox.com.au where
parents, guardians and players can learn how we’re making gaming more fun for
everyone with our new inclusivity, accessibility,
and safety features. We’re
innovating now in these and other concrete ways to reduce, filter, and develop
a shared understanding of toxic experiences, and to ultimately put our
community of gamers, and their parents or guardians, in control of their own
experiences.
We
commit to working across the gaming industry on safety measures. Because
we intend to protect all gamers, we will openly share safety innovations with
our industry the same way Microsoft has made PhotoDNA
technology universally available to everyone from the police to the tech
industry to fight the spread of child pornography. Today, multiple
teams working in areas like moderation, user research, data science, and others
are already aligning with industry partners to share insights, and best
practices in areas of safety, security and privacy.
The
gaming community continues to grow rapidly, and the imminent roll-out of new
game services such as Apple Arcade, Google Stadia and Microsoft’s Project
xCloud, will make gaming available to even more people worldwide. Our industry
must now answer the fierce urgency to play with our fierce urgency for safety.
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