Gamer pays to get away from Xbox Live death threat

by Xav de Matos on Dec 23rd 2008 3:45PM

Surprise of the day: Xbox Live is an encyclopedic wonderland of foul-mouth debauchery. Blogger David Zatz says one Call of Duty: World at War soldier took trash-talking to the new heights when he threatened, "I'll kill you in real life with a real gun." Zatz admits he was also talking trash during the online session but the threat took competitive speech too far, no matter how "unlikely" the threat was.

After the incident Zatz decided to change his gamertag and requested Microsoft waive its required cost to change an online identity. Not only did Microsoft deny his request but Zatz claims the support agent was very "dismissive" of the situation in general. "Death threats must come in regularly, because the support staff didn't seem concerned." Eventually, Zatz paid to change his gamertag.

Should Microsoft be more vigilant about specific chatter on Xbox Live? Maybe, but with nothing in place to prove what's said it would be next to impossible -- it's your word against another person. We'd suggest players not egg each other along and then be surprised when someone takes things too far, utilize the reporting system on Xbox Live and play with the people you know.

[via What They Play]

Source

Tags: death-threats, xbox-live

Reader Comments (52)

I always thought ten bucks to change your gamertag was kinda steep, regardless of the circumstances.

Does the "report a person" feature actually work? Occasionally I get threats on Halo. I know it's never serious because whoever it is hasn't even hit puberty yet (generally...seriously, I wish I had their parents when I was that age to let me...watch South Park???)

Back to what I was saying: I've reported a few people, and though I don't think I've ever played them again, does anything actually happen? This is a real question, because I really have no idea.

Am i the only one who gets peoples message requests to "report there Gamertag" just so they can get a free name change?

Yeah, it's no surprise Microsoft doesn't buy this stuff if my example above is wide spread.

Yeah, I get loads. Usually people on my FL wanting to change without paying, and my message back is always: "pay for it yourself you SLAG!"

I've gotten nice people on their support and awful people. It's like going to the DMV. One day the person will say no, but you can go in the next day to the same person with the same materials and they'll say yes.

My assumption is that they don't really have a policy for it at all, rather than that it's a regular occurrence. Hopefully they'll give him back his money.

I hate trash talk, and it's the main reason I rarely play in public games/matches. I have 5 or 6 real-life friends that I play with regularly.

Trash talk is generally childish, ignorant, cowardly insults, used by childish, ignorant, cowardly people who cannot rely on skill alone to beat people... as one of my friends says, it's easy to sound like a hard case when your safely locked in your bedroom isn't it?

In my experience, this behaviour is more frequently found in gamers (and boxers actually) of a particular nationality, but I won't say which one in case they threaten to kill me. You know who you are! Stop it. ;)

I agree on most of your sayings, I'm glad MS made the private party chat now so when I game with friends we dont have to deal with huge loads of trash talking or just plain cursing n name calling.

Although that last part of your post kinda feels like you trying to single a nationality out. Downright its all races/nationalities that do this, not just one particular. Whites, blacks, hispanics, etc. I heard it from them all, no one is safe lol.

@Danny - Nationalities are different than race. There are many white people who come from different European nationalities, but in the end those white people are all considered to be from the same race.

I mostly play online with my PS3 and generally, I feel there is a lot less of this on that system and that mostly is due to the lower install rate and you need to buy a mic if you want to talk trash and people who actually spend the money will want to use it the way its supposed to.

I have a feeling that when I play World at War online, I won't be using a mic or even have the mic sound on because I really could care less if some 10 year old punk feels the need to kill me in real life.

A good example of why I play few games online.

then you're missing out.

MS does nothing it appears, when you send bad feed back to someone. Have any of you seen poor gamerfeed back represented in anyones gamercard? I haven't. MS needs to police LIVE a lot more... we are pay $50 a year... and they want to become this family oriented console... they need to come down a lot harder... I mean a lot harder to curb some of these morons out there. Just my 2 cents.

Unless you provide specific details your gamertag and information is relatively anonymous. If someone made a death threat it would be somewhat difficult to track you down based on your gamertag alone. Even if you've included your real name and city/state how many Michael's are there in New York?

I agree that getting a death threat is concerning but the validity of it is suspect.

The problem was that his gamertag was his last name--a relatively uncommon last name at that. So, he was giving quite a bit of personal information out.

Oh please, come on. Loser nerds always give death threats. They dont even leave their homes. This guy is just a chicken.

I think the same.

Also, this is something out of Microsoft's hands so, what can you expect them do? Your fault if you're the one contributing, talking trash and making the online experience awful.

Threats over the Internet should have been reported to their local law enforcement

If you're so scared that you change your gamertag, then you should pay. These are the same people that freak out when they call into a radio show and won't say where they work for fear of losing their job.

Nobody cares about you that much!

"Surprise of the day: Xbox Live is an encyclopedic wonderland of foul-mouth debauchery."

i think you misspelled douchebaggery.

Debauchery is a word meaning extreme indulgence in sensuality.

No, I meant debauchery.

WOOOSH. That is the sound of the joke missing Xav de Matos and YoRone22.

i had a death threat about a month ago from some american... he said he knew where i lived but i live in the UK so i didnt really think he did. I just laughed it off, most of these people you'll probebly never meet in real life. Just mute em!

Personally, I *love* getting death threats during games. I openly laugh at whichever moron threatens me thusly, and make more outrageous threats in response.

"Yeah? Well, i'm gonna alter the orbit of the moon so it crashes onto your house and squashes your mum"

What a chicken shit for getting scared of a death threat over an online game. Seriously my Gamer Tag is Avada Kadavra 9 please someone try to find out what my name is, and my address online please see if you can find me. More than likely you will find my city and state but nothing more, yeah good luck.

maybe the reason it costs to change your gamertag is because you dont need to.
if someone tries to threaten you dont change your gamertag just mute'em and file a complaint.
they dont know where you live and they wont bother trying to find out just besause you beat them in a game.
and on the very rare ocasion that someone DOES know where you live and wants to kill you then you should change your gamertag........and then RUN!

shit he wasnt actually gonna kill the guy, he must be new to xbox live or just a big pussy cause everyone makes death threats but how many of them have actually followed threw? zeroo get over it pussy

Thank goodness for party chat. This is why I'm always in it chatting with my friends, no matter what game we're playing. I rarely listen to the random people I'm playing with.

But as far as the gamertag name change thing goes, I don't think MS should give him a free one. The guy admitted that even he was engaging in the trash talk. And who knows what he said to anger the other guy so much. We're all paying for them, you can pay for it too.

party chat ruins games like COD in a sense that if there's only 2 of you in your private party you cant communicate any information about the game to the other 4 players on your team.

am i the only person who doesnt like party chat?

The only game that I ever cared about when my team mates wouldn't talk was in Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow and Chaos Theory. I don't think other games require near as much team work.

It prob wasn't on COD, it was probably a sex chat gone bad, and dude had his nude picture, phone number and home address.

Absolutely retarded. Stop bitchin and buck up! There is no way somebody is actually able to obtain enough information over Xbox Live to kill another player in real life. If this guy actually felt threatened by another player saying that, then pull your pussy lips up.

there's a purpose for Party Mode...

and secondly, I'm sure the guy was trash talking so much it made someone make death threats.

I do think $10 is too much for a name change, and I don't really think that the situation was handled properly...but what I want to know is-- what gamerzone is he? He was talking trash, as were his opponents...if they're both underground, shouldn't that kind of stuff be expected?

"Yes, yes, I am very scared for my personal safety, but not so much so that I am willing to pay $10."

I don't think he's scared as much as he is a combination of cheap, stupid and shameless.

hey Xav, i dont mean to speak for you but essentially, what youre saying is - DONT BE A FUCKING DICK!! You assholes on LIVE know exactly who you are too. Treat everyone with humanity and respect, douchebags.

If I had a nickel for every death threat I got back in middle/high school, I wouldn't need to work today. Death threats are almost always stupid, pointless posturing.

I believe part of the reason for the cost of a name change is a deterrent. Once a name is used, it's out of circulation, permanently. If people could change their names at will with no consequence, then very quickly you'd run out of usable names (as if there weren't enough "1337-5p33k" names as it is).

I normally think most posts on this site are really good...but this is just dumb, im sure i get at least 20 death threats a day on xbl....and i really dont care....why give someone whos being insane more attention?

If you take a threat over Xbox Live seriously...that's just sad..If the guy said that to me I would just laugh at him.

It's simple. Don't contribute to it!

If you even reply to those morons, or just laugh, then they will feel accomplished at getting something out of you. Simply ignore them. Don't acknowledge their existence and they will simply get tired, realize they are worth nothing to society, and leave.

God I loathe soft ass America. People are fucking soft as shit. I got a fucking threat; who gives a fuck? Suck it up bitch.

i think its funny how death threats are taken so lightly even if they're regular, but if someone were to leave an empty box near a building or on the side of a road, bomb squads and police surround the area.

And you people wonder why I don't use my mic. I only talk when my friends are online, and thats in a private party.

seriously? if they let this guy change his tag for free then every other person who wanted to change their tag would call and tell them they felt threatened... anyway there's a free way to do it: have people file complaints against you. i've never done this myself but i've seen it done and it was done in a pretty short amt of time...

anyway changing your tag because this guy threatened him is dumb. at school, how many times have you heard "i'll kill you" jokingly from someone? maybe it's just me, but personally i would've just muted/blocked communication, filed a bunch of complaints, and went on with my life

damn its just a game

Haha, Zatz was probably the kind of kid that had his daddy beat up the father of the school bully and now he cries inside every time he gets put down. Seriously, this is the most ludicrous thing to complain about. I've heard a variation of that threat more than a dozen times and haven't taken it seriously once. Nothing said on LIVE has made me want to hide my gamertag and I definitely don't think MS should waive the fee for this guy.

What CyberKnight said a few posts back is exactly why MS charges for name changes.

Yeah, I don't get it either really. You can play the damn game online w/ no headset. And if its a more tactical game that requires communication... then youre really only communicating w/ your team and not the 'enemy', so unless you're a total screw up and your teammates complete assholes, I don't see why you'd get a threat?

There's just too many options to make this guy's complaint valid.

By the way, I'm going to kill everyone that's posted a comment. Starting with....mmm... YOU. lol.

So, if you do a domain lookup the guy didn't even privacy control it. So it displays every bit of his data, house address.. phone number.. full name etc.. so smart.

This guy should of contacted bootblack or Stepto they head up the policy team for xbox live if any of you guys every have a problem they are the people you want to PM they will take care of it. They have helped out several of my friends that had similiar issues.

So this idiot wanted to change his GamerTag for anonymity, but then goes to the press, consequentially revealing his REAL name. Anybody see some faulty logic in this?

Well, if you as a gamer really feel "Threatened" them MS needs to adrees the problem!! Much like the phone company if you make a report then they can and will change your number. MS needs to help people who have been some what victimized by A-Hole gamers who act Big and Bad over LIVE and in "Real Life" are punks!!

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Gamer pays to get away from Xbox Live death threat

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