Call of Duty Developer Gets Death Threats After New Patch

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Saying that you support someone's right to make a death threat doesn't mean you don't think they're idiots for doing so

You know that nobody actually has the right to make a death threat, right? It's actually a criminal offense to utter death threats, as it violates another's right to a safe and harassment free environment, making the offender's Free Speech void in this case.

Saying you support someone's right to make a death threat is saying you support rights that a person does not have.

I don't know about US law, but in Australia a death threat is considered unlawful only if there's a reasonable expectation of it being carried out. The developer is being very silly if he perceives an internet message as serious intent, and by that token, I don't even think he does. He seems pretty cool about it, and I don't blame him for tweeting about it. Although I think it's ridiculous that we have an article on it, considering the frequency with which people on the internet make death threats.

 

[Vareoth]

The reasonable part of me says to just ignore these pathetic excuses for humans.

The unreasonable part of me says: track, arrest, trial and imprison.

 

[nathan-dts]

The only thing I really know about this game is this meme. Threats from obnoxious children are petty & empty, unless they know where you live & it's within biking distance from their house.

Pretty much it. When I was in my early teens I was surrounded by people that only played Call of Duty. Eighteen currently and this is the first time in a while that I've been reminded that people still play entries into this franchise.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

snip

That's a big warning sign saying "We need to change our behavior!"

In the US and Canada (I live in Canada) making death threats is illegal. In Canada there are several forms of speech that are illegal, such as racism, homophobia, sexism, ect. Hell, the Westboro Baptish Church is banned from crossing the border because of that.

And the highlight in bold is exactly what I was talking about. People just wave it off as "Well it's the internet" and that's not okay. It's not okay that the people screaming and shouting shit like this get a free pass to say whatever they please, but those who take a very reasonable and expected issue with it are somehow scoffed at for taking issue with assholes behaving like this.

This kind of double standard cannot last.

I think it's perfectly acceptable, and should be acceptable everywhere. Not socially acceptable, but legally acceptable. Rather than banning opinions and views, we should be allowing people with them to show the world what idiots they are and be ridiculed for it. I don't see any double standard because neither I, nor most people who don't particularly mind that people send death threats that have no chance of ever resulting in violence because the people sending them are children, make the laws against other kinds of speech. The main contention, although possibly not applicable in this case, being that people who hold prejudiced views often don't see themselves as prejudiced or think they have good reasons. This will not be fixed by limiting discussion. That said, this is all far above the level of the death threat(s) in question, which are practically jokes by this point. There are plenty of people in media who get death threats all the time. I have gotten about 3 death threats for my involvement in something, however relevant that is. If anyone is seriously seeing these threats and fearing for their lives, they need to get a grip, honestly, and realise how little danger they present.

 

[Legion]

*Sigh* how come the most obnoxious immature ones make the most noise?

Because the mature gamers are content to bury their heads in the sand and give bullshit excuses like "This is the Internet" or "Free Speech hurr durr"

Instead of taking the route of being louder by shouting "SHUT UP" to these obnoxious asswipes.

That is a contradiction.

If they are mature, then they wouldn't react by being louder and telling them to shut up, because by doing so they are lowering themselves to the idiots level and therefore wouldn't be mature. Shouting at idiots is not a mature response.

I much prefer to ignore them or else block them. If everybody muted and blocked this kind of person they'd eventually learn that people are not willing to put up with their crap. This kind of person thrives on attention and telling them to shut up is just one way of giving them that.

"Ignore the trolls" wasn't made up to out of laziness or apathy, it is because the best way to deal with attention seekers (which most of these kind of people are) is to ignore them, because by not giving them what they crave they will learn their behaviour isn't working.

Shouting at them in return just escalates the situation, it really is amazing how people haven't figured this out yet.

The other alternative for those willing to put in the effort is to teach people some compassion and manners, but that's not likely to work over the internet, because nobody really gives a damn what a stranger thinks when it comes down to it. That kind of thing is really down to family and friends who are a better person than the idiot/troll.

 

[Realitycrash]

..You think it's alright to threaten peoples lives and harass them because 'they are still going through puberty'?

All I said was that people should grow a spine. I've gotten threatened so many times online and in real life and I've never had any news outlets running after me going BOO HOO over it. Nor do I care enough about random words people throw around when they're acting stupid.

The important thing is not whether I "think it's alright" or not. We can sit around getting pent up over other people's opinions all day long and at the end of the day it'll never be more than a pointless exercise. The important question is what we should do about it. And I'm vehemently opposed to doing much other than nothing.

So have I. I've been threatened and abused mostly my entire life. I still don't see why I can't get worked up and call for these assholes to be banned from their game. Telling people to 'grow a spine' is unnecessarily inflammatory.

 

[Frotality]

reason #1 e-sports should not exist. competitive gaming is a realm of radical meta-gamers that pits obsessive, unstable weirdos against each other for the world to turn their heads and snigger at. at some point we're gonna have to decide whether gaming as a culture is represented by the sportsmanship of frat boys, children, and overly-invested koreans; or by the thoughts and discussions of a more general and less voracious audience that build a social element to works of individual entertainment and art.

the point is gaming cannot have ANY defined culture, as a serious artform or otherwise, if it is simultaneously seen as a both an individual hobby and a publicly covered competitive sport. you dont call a basketball game a TV show, do you? its technically true, but socially its seen as something completely different from the programs around it. gaming as a culture needs to find some way to distance these two halves in the public eye, so that both can finally evolve into what they want to be, and fairly divide the news articles highlighting the stupidity of either, improving the public image of both.

 

[Arrogancy]

The correct response is to find the accounts of those who made the threats then just ban their accounts with ZERO chance of recovery.

Maybe convince them to give the account information by saying "We are sorry you feel this way. How does an experience boost or custom skin as compensation sound?" or whatever to convince them to give their ID away. Give them what you promised at first, then after a week hit the fuckers with a ban preventing them from playing all games associated with that account. If they try and kick a stink about it you've got cause to inform the police of their death threats.

...and that's how you police the internet.

And then you lose your entire market due to the ensuing PR nightmare and allusions to 1984 and Big Brother. Seriously, trolls suck and ruin nice things for everyone, but if any business adopted that policy they'd get hammered from all sides. Ultimately, trolls aren't going to do anything but be annoying and obnoxious, and while they should be dealt with, the strategy needs to be viable.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

"THEY CAN TAKE OUR $60 EVERY NOVEMBER

BUT THEY WILL NEVER TAKE OUR DSR FIRERATE!

Death to the oppresive developers! They're too noob and gay and can't 420noscopeladderstallheadshot!

Are you going to sit there and let the bunnyhoppers and buttmad snipers win,

or are you going to join me and our assault rifle entourage!?

Men! Children! To Twitter!

Also I fucked their mom."

 

[Banzaiman]

It's stuff like this that makes me wonder why the number of dipshits on the internet seem to outnumber the dipshits in real life. These are all people, and they can't seriously think that this is okay. Then I remember people like the Wesboro Church and the KKK and Stormfront and I give up.

But I agree, as some have said before, this is not exactly a rare occurrence. Granted, this is a gaming website so it tends to cover such instances in their relation to the industry, but this isn't even a particularly horrendous example. Good on the execs though for responding with dignity, which is all you can really do. I'm pretty confident that this is just a type of people whose knee-jerk reaction is to rage and type death threats rather than really think about anything that's being said. Doubtful any of them actually noticed the changes, they just read that some of their stuff was being nerfed and got angry.

We can try to shout them down, but I won't hold my breath for a success. These people can shout back forever and never change their stance, at least some of them, and even if some of them calm down after the core of the problem won't be solved. Short of policing the entire internet I don't know how to prevent stuff like this, and no one had better start that. Forums like these have moderators where such people can be warned and banned, but in open and unmoderated places like Twitter there's really no way, short of ignoring it. We should all just try harder to make this pass, and not take these threats seriously. It will keep happening regardless of what we do.

Of course, shouting back can be fun from time to time.

 

[Ashadowpie]

i bet it was an 8 year old that threatened him too. since you know, incredibly under aged boys play COD (an incredibly violent swear bucket filled bloody glory war game) more than older teens/adults that the game is actually meant for.

i find this incredibly disturbing. i wonder if WoW gets this treatment when they nerf stuff too? well, that game is alot more tame so, i wouldnt think so.

 

[ThunderCavalier]

<3 the metagame.

Unless these guys are losing money over this (which I doubt they are), they're just being whiny bitches because their K/D has just dropped from 5.21 to 5.19. I'm so sad that your combat record is slightly less shiny than usual.

 

[Alpha Maeko]

Call of Duty is pretty well known for getting someone killed in a fraction of a second. So... as much as I don't agree with the haters, I can see where losing those fractions on your favorite gun can make you sadface

 

[hazabaza1]

*Sigh* how come the most obnoxious immature ones make the most noise?

Because noise is linked with immaturity and being obnoxious.

Nothing really new, this is the internet being the internet.

Captcha: orange juice

Why yes, I think I'll go have some. Something to cool all this seething rage.

Exactly what I was thinking. People are told to kill themselves/threatened all the time for things less "important" than this. Dunno why it's more important if it's a game dev instead of some furry or neckbeard being threatened.

Because this is a gaming website, the person in question is a developer for one of the most sold game series ever, and the reasons for the threat and his response have stuff to do with the community.

 

[Whytewulf]

And sadly this is why I am done playing FPS that revolve around multiplayer. The games could be fun. But I am not great at them and the communities in general are awful. I am so so so tired of people "HIDING" behind their avatars and believing they are the king of everything.

 

[Frost27]

well, when you appeal to a certain crowd for years.... -_-

granted, i've gotten enough death threats through jobs/internet that i don't even bat an eye anymore, but really, if i was a seller of steroids to huge fuckheads, and i got upset that there were dude bro's fighting in front of the shop, i'd expect to be called a fucking idiot for not seeing that coming.

i do agree that it shouldn't be common place for that to happen, hopefully the dumbshits who do this got suspended or something off the games for a while.

This pretty much sums up my thoughts as well. It is definitely unacceptable behavior but they did make their own bed by catering to these types of personalities to the point that they created their own category of douchebaggery in the CoD kiddies.

Fortunately for them, most of the trolls are going to have a hard time convincing mom to fire up the minivan and drive them out to his location.

 

[Single Shot]

They're just lucky that the Treyarch guys are being so chill about it. Still though, it would be nice if they'd just learn to chill out themselves. It's a video game, and a multiplayer one at that. Be angry at the players, not the developers.

Treyarch probably isn't worried because he knows those quick scoping noobs can't hit anything without aim assist. >.>

But seriously, it's nice that they're simply saying "not cool" and their attitude really should be followed.

If that's the case they really should see this.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/01/17000-linux-powered-rifle-brings-auto-aim-to-the-real-world/
Be afraid people, be very afraid, CoD noobs just invaded the real world.
.
.
.
.
.
Now if only they could work out the safety, we'd all be dead.