Thank you, sincerely, for this little survey. I’m sure you’ve gotten much more feedback than you expected when you wrote it.

I find myself in a bit of a predicament. On the one hand, I am a longtime libertarian and hardcore gamer (since 1980 on Atari 2600, 5200, 800 PC, Mac, Windows) and yet also now a parent with two young kids (bought a Wii in 2007, my first console since 1984) and I’m continually frustrated and annoyed at Nintendo for what appears to be an absurdly conservative policy on on-line communications, and yet I *know* what goes on with XBox Live and certainly would not want an involuntary earful. Even at my age, I don’t like profanity and certainly won’t tolerate being cussed at by a 14-year-old I’m not close enough to geographically to slap.

Is it just because nobody cares anymore about being polite and decent? Is not liking being cussed at my own condemnable character flaw and personal problem and I should just get over it?

Thanks again. I’ve hyperlinked to your article. I hope you don’t mind.

David V

Secondly, I am a parent, nearly 50 years old, and I set the wireless xbox up for my sons. I have played the game to see what they do because I need to know. The swearing is completely out of control and despite commentary that “know one cares”, let me assure you that parents deeply care because it pollutes the minds of their children. I disabled the voice feature in system setup screen. Most parents probably are unaware and that is too bad. Xbox needs to give out better notification on the language and how to control it. I am warning all the parents I know about this and having them disable the voice feature or at least reduce it to friends. The problem with that is that the player can add anyone as a friend and thus overule the parents intention. On the up side as my generation ages, and we are computer/network literate, it becomes easier to institute boundaries for your children.

As a final note, the fact that society deems this type of language acceptable for those over 17 is absurd. It is wrong at any age. It dims your thinking, robs you of any innocence, and decays your very sole.

No audio – out.

If everyone played mature wise or just did’nt give into other people’s shit we’d have no use for stuff like booting systems, and mute options, its all just a disgrace.

But no matter how you look at it, you can talk as much shit as you want, I mean just scream it, say it all day. But at the end of the day you’ve accomplished nothing, if instead you let your skills and gaming attitude speak for you, thats what makes you who you REALLY are. Like a wise person told me once… “anyone, can say anything, but only true men can back up what they’ve said, or even without saying anything, which leaves no argument.”

Say what you want about this comment, but I belive that 90% of the whole online community would agree with that statement.