NHL20 has a racism problem

[canadianmagpie]

NHL 20 has a racism problem, and EA needs to address it • The Faceoff Circle

Came across this today. I can certainly say I've come across guys with pretty offensive names when I've played and certainly can understand the frustration of being unable to report them.

Obviously EA needs to rethink its filtering software so that there are no loopholes to getting offensive names in the game.

Click to read more...

 

[NDiesel]

It's brutal. I've seen some pretty heinous ones on there too.

 

[bucks_oil]

NHL 20 has a racism problem, and EA needs to address it • The Faceoff Circle

Came across this today. I can certainly say I've come across guys with pretty offensive names when I've played and certainly can understand the frustration of being unable to report them.

Obviously EA needs to rethink its filtering software so that there are no loopholes to getting offensive names in the game.

Wow... great and well written article. I never play online, so I wasn't aware of this, but I completely agree with you. It is beyond blatant and needs to be addressed.

My heart sank reading from your opening paragraphs... about your real life team and EASHL team. I can only imagine how deflating it must be to see such blatant racism when you log in to relax and enjoy a game.

As a hockey player myself, you occasionally hear things you don't want to hear in a locker room, but I have never heard anything near as bad as the screen caps you captured... I guess the adage is true, where there is anonymity, the worst part of humanity can bare itself.

Thanks for picking up this fight.

 

[canadianmagpie]

Wow... great and well written article. I never play online, so I wasn't aware of this, but I completely agree with you. It is beyond blatant and needs to be addressed.

My heart sank reading from your opening paragraphs... about your real life team and EASHL team. I can only imagine how deflating it must be to see such blatant racism when you log in to relax and enjoy a game.

As a hockey player myself, you occasionally hear things you don't want to hear in a locker room, but I have never heard anything near as bad as the screen caps you captured... I guess the adage is true, where there is anonymity, the worst part of humanity can bare itself.

Thanks for picking up this fight.

I should add, this isn't my article. I have seen what the person who wrote it has seen too, but I think that all of us feel what he or she feels.

 

[jprenkert]

People use the internet as a cloack of invisibility and the feeling of invincibility. Kind of a place to and no holds barred, etc. This along with the banter during game play is big part of why I don't do internet gaming. I enjoy good Trash talking among friends, but not stuff like this. There has got to be a way to curb it.

 

[Always A Devil]

Obviously EA needs to rethink its filtering software so that there are no loopholes to getting offensive names in the game.

What might be offensive to you might not be offensive to someone else. Going down this road of censorship leads to only bigger problems.

 

[abo9]

Is it that prevalant? I don't play the game but I'm surprise there is no filters against that kind of language, you'd think the issue would have been raised sooner!

 

[Bolt32]

I remember one time logging on NHL 19. I was relaxing, having a beer. I'm 30 years old, just trying to escape from reality for a bit before going back to my adult stuff. Had so much shit talking over the mic (Much worse than what would be said during a hockey game I'm playing in.) I legitimately wanted to murder them. Thing is I couldn't even mute it unless I mute my TV, couldn't block their speaking, mute speaking between friends. Just shut up and take it or turn off the sound on my TV. I haven't played an EA NHL game since. I don't regret cutting that toxic crap out of my life to be honest.

 

[canadianmagpie]

What might be offensive to you might not be offensive to someone else. Going down this road of censorship leads to only bigger problems.

So in the article, what team/name had no offensive names? They need to expand on common sense filtering and they need to institute a way to report names like this (right now, there's none).

Is it that prevalant? I don't play the game but I'm surprise there is no filters against that kind of language, you'd think the issue would have been raised sooner!

It's probably dependent on when you play. The idiots really come out late at night.

 

[WeThreeKings]

This thread is a decade too late.

EA does nothing about this.

 

[n00bxQb]

I can’t remember what year it was, but on PS3 for sure. Most likely prior to NHL 13 as I was more into GM Connected than EASHL starting in 13. There was a troll who frequented drop-in games using a racial slur against first nations in his name while trolling (intentionally screwing his own team over) and would sometimes make racist statements or play overtly racist music over the microphone. If you messaged him online, if he responded, he’d usually call you a racial slur and block you.

He would get banned and create the same name with a new number at the end. He was well into the 80s last I remembered. EA didn’t care about actually solving the problem.

That’s probably the worst offender I can remember but we all know NHL online has been prevalent with racist, homophobic, and gender-discriminating names and caricatures for over a decade.

 

[Your Boy Troy]

It is universal with online gaming. It is what it is. It never deterred me from playing the game.

There is only so much that game developers can do. Players will find ways to circumvent a filter.

 

[Albatros]

There is only so much that game developers can do.

Maybe so. But there's also only so much that game developers want to do. Racism, misogyny, and numerous other toxic elements are freely allowed to flourish among gamer subcultures. So much so that they are essentially mainstream.

 

[n00bxQb]

It is universal with online gaming. It is what it is. It never deterred me from playing the game.

There is only so much that game developers can do. Players will find ways to circumvent a filter.

I got a 3-day ban for using “pain in the ass” when reporting a bug on EA’s forums in I want to say NHL 10 or 11 regarding autosave in BAGM/franchise corrupting save files ... the ban spanned across multiple platforms (including PC; couldn’t play Dragon Age: Origins during the ban).

There were rumours of people getting console banned for talking about ice tilt on EA’s forums.

And, of course, to play online back then, you had a key you had to enter that came with the game (or you could buy one for $10). It should’ve been easy before they stopped that.

There’s a lot more they could’ve done, they just had no desire to.

 

[Always A Devil]

So in the article, what team/name had no offensive names? They need to expand on common sense filtering and they need to institute a way to report names like this (right now, there's none).

In my opionion you cant start to make it impossible for people to be idiotic, stupid or trying to be edgy like these guys do.
For all we know, this can be people makin up these names to even create a case that this stuff needs regulation for all we know.
Been plenty of that in the past.

If they are offensive or not is not really interesting, the problem you are gonna find yourself in is:
Where do we draw the line for whats offensive?
Cause its not a definitive thing.
I have seen people with gamer tags about all kinds of stuff that might be considered offensive.
Am I offended? No, cause I choose not to be. Do I think its stupid or rude? Sure.
We should'nt make rules and laws on whats offensive to people cause that might be anything.

All I'm saying.

 

[The Great Mighty Poo]

LOL using "Do something" and "EA Sports" in the same sentence, that's frowned upon in these parts. Good joke though.

 

[The Great Mighty Poo]

Hell when the NHL 20 demo came out I got a temp ban "flaming or personal attack" or something stupid like that because I destroyed some joke 10-0, since all he wanted to do was hit and fight me all game.

 

[JoVel]

Yep, people are clever. Filtering won't solve anything. The best thing would be to be able to report players for offensive ingame names, but that would probably be quite slow.

I mean it wouldn't have to be, but this is EA we're talking about.

 

[Arthur Morgan]

At first I was thinking like wow how is the heck is NHL20 racist. I never play online so I never see names like this. Didn't realize it was online play.
Thats freaking brutal. The unfortunate part unless NHL20 gets some MODs on there to search and take care of the names like these.
The ability to change your name all the time makes it almost impossible for them to take care of without MODs banning accounts.
It would be so much easier to take care of like they did in COD World At War(Think it was this one can't remember) where you couldn't use racist words in you're clan tag.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

I mean...doesn't every video game with online modes have this issue? There are a lot of dumb kids playing games who think it's "cool" or "funny" to come up with stupid names or talk trash behind the comfort of their tv screens.

 

[ReginKarlssonLehner]

I mean...doesn't every video game with online modes have this issue? There are a lot of dumb kids playing games who think it's "cool" or "funny" to come up with stupid names or talk trash behind the comfort of their tv screens.

I play many games but I never see it with the frequency I do in NHL. The worst part is, even the great teams have those names.

I took pictures of many teams I’ve faced just past few days and some are absolutely disgusting.


The majority are directed towards blacks. And this is long before George Floyd incident (to not consider it as a reason why the racists/trolls came out).

It’s disgusting.

 

[canadianmagpie]

In my opionion you cant start to make it impossible for people to be idiotic, stupid or trying to be edgy like these guys do.
For all we know, this can be people makin up these names to even create a case that this stuff needs regulation for all we know.
Been plenty of that in the past.

If they are offensive or not is not really interesting, the problem you are gonna find yourself in is:
Where do we draw the line for whats offensive?
Cause its not a definitive thing.
I have seen people with gamer tags about all kinds of stuff that might be considered offensive.
Am I offended? No, cause I choose not to be. Do I think its stupid or rude? Sure.
We should'nt make rules and laws on whats offensive to people cause that might be anything.

All I'm saying.

Having a player name as "Georgefloyd deservedit" is well beyond the line for what's considered edgy. What I'm saying is there are some pretty obvious team names/player names that are offensive. If you want to have a stupid name, pick something like Hugh Jazz or I.P. Freely. Not something that is derogatory to a race, religion or a real person. I would think that's a pretty easy line in the sand to have.

At first I was thinking like wow how is the heck is NHL20 racist. I never play online so I never see names like this. Didn't realize it was online play.
Thats freaking brutal. The unfortunate part unless NHL20 gets some MODs on there to search and take care of the names like these.
The ability to change your name all the time makes it almost impossible for them to take care of without MODs banning accounts.
It would be so much easier to take care of like they did in COD World At War(Think it was this one can't remember) where you couldn't use racist words in you're clan tag.

Personally, I would have a MOD change the guy's name to Joe NHL (the default name for all new players) for a period of time if the name was deemed offensive. If it becomes a continuing issue with the guy, then it is permanently changed to Joe NHL.

But EA could handle some of it by allowing reporting to happen and changing their filter system to cut out the loopholes that others have used to get racist names through their system.

 

[x Tame Impala]

This has been a problem in EASHL since 2009 when I first started playing, but it's been a general problem since the day I started playing Xbox Live. Playing Counter Strike in 2003/2004 you'd here A LOT of that stuff. Sometimes it'd be little 12 year old kids saying it, sometimes it'd be people sounding way older.

There should be a report feature where you can screenshot the person's gamertag and username and send it in to EA. Even for them, I don't think it'll be too much too handle.

 

[x Tame Impala]

Looks like they’re working on it though!

NHL 20 Flooded With Racist Team Names

 

[Mrfenn92]

Online march time