[UPDATE] Microsoft Devastates Autistic Child By Labeling Him a Cheater

[The Atheist]

And yet another reason I don?t like game scores and achievements. The hassle they create in order to foster a ridiculous sense of competition, for having nothing better to do with ones time I suppose, doesn?t seem to be worth the 'feeling' of achievement.

The achievements system is fine. It's those that either abuse it or become obsessed with unlocking achievements that are/have the problem, but they are in a small minority. I can take or leave them most of the time, but sometimes they extend my fun with a game when it would have otherwise ended, for example, one of the only games I have unlocked the full 1,000 gamerscore for is Assassin's Creed 2, and if it wasn't for achievements, I would have had nothing to do once the main campaign was over. In that instance, I really enjoyed chasing down the last few achievements. It's a system that's easy to ignore, but adds extra fun/challenge for those that are interested.

however, Microsoft have a tendency to be over-protecive dicks who wield the ban hammer a little too loosely

Do you have any evidence for that? Regardless, the kid wasn't banned from Live. He can even carry on earning gamerscore and unlocking achievements. Also, the system is automated in this case. If it was flagging tons of innocent people, it would have been a huge story by now.

 

[Denamic]

Fine, so someone's upset that he got labelled a cheater, which he denies.
I can't possibly tell if he's lying or not without any evidence.

Why is the part about autism even relevant?
I mean, sure, he might be able to have obsessive focus or something, but that's not even mentioned in the article.
As far as I care, it might have said 'child with glasses accused of cheating'.
Because everyone knows people with glasses never cheat.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

It's a national news story quite simply because more and more people are realising there's far more entertainment in video gaming and the internet than in watching 24 hour news channels.

So it's unsurprising (tho disappointing) that TV channels will use every means necessary inspire fear of video games in their viewers to keep them away from consoles.

Every person they can push the idea of 'Oh Microsoft, they're not nearly as nice as that lovely man on Fox' they've kept another viewer and can sell more ads.

Sure it's a non story in terms of a 'fair and balanced international news source' *cough*, but it suits their anti gaming agenda, so it's going to be pushed up the schedule.

It's a tricky one, but what do MS do? Roll over and ignore cheating from everyone who claims some form of disability? Pay people to investigate each case personally? I'd say if the mother is willing to send in medical evidence, then MS should relent, this time, even if cheating was found, but if there's repeats then autism can't really let him continue to just have the entire gaming network his way.

I only say that for the bad press they're already getting, not because he's autistic, else where do you draw the line at who can cheat?? I'm also not saying he did, we don't know how badly off he is, whether he understands the concept of fair play.

Do we want to have to supply medical records and a police report when we sign up to the next generation of console online services? Just to protect the corporation's backs?

Like I say, I'd give him the benefit of the doubt this time, on the knowledge that if cheating is detected in the future they'll have to rule for the few million other players over one.

 

[KLJT]

If Sony took all my trophies i'd go and cry my eyes out then spend the rest of my life trying to get it back and if he did cheat, who cares if he feels he needs to cheat fine but before Mircosoft feels the need to name and shame then maybe they should look at how every xbox owner i know is on their 3rd or 4th xbox

 

[Phoenix09215]

The kid must've cheated. That means no more Gamerscore! Unless, its an error bbut I highly doubt that...

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

I don't really have enough information to judge the situation. Since we don't actually know what he's being accused of, much less whether he did it or not, it's impossible to say who's in the right.


By the way, that's quite an unbiased headline you've got there. What, are you cribbing notes from Fox News, now?

 

[CrystalShadow]

"lol, gamerscore"

While it's a bit sad that an autistic child is made to feel so devastated, I have to say that it's ridiculous how much people care about achievements and a glorified score counter.

I agree in general, but highly obsessive behaviour over trivial things is a common theme for those with Autism.

That, and difficulty relating to other people.

 

[Quaidis]

Also, is there much point in throwing in the fact that he's autistic? I'm autistic, but I wouldn't want to throw that around or something. Is it meant to make me sympathise with him?

Unfortunately, I think the fact he is autistic is the only thing giving this story any worthiness of attention in the media world. People get their gamerscores wiped for cheating all the time and I'm sure more than one claims they weren't doing anything wrong. His autism is being used as a sympathy chip--"Why is the big bad corporation picking on this one poor child?"

Agreed.

If this was made into such a big deal, I could see that as a further reason for Microsoft to refuse giving the gamer score back. If they did, you could see half the banners and cheaters with an xbox 360 e-mling and complaining to Microsoft that they, too, are 11 and autistic. All of them. Then what will Microsoft do?

 

[Rafael Dera]

That they take away his achievements if he was cheating: okay. MS probably wouldn't do it unless they were sure.
But i don't think they should put cheater next to his name; that kind of social stigmatisation doesn't really fit in this day and age, imho.

 

[laserwulf]

There's a blog called "Why Was I Banned" ( http://whywasibanned.com/ ) that highlights some of the more amusing Xbox forum entries from banned/suspended players, and the responses from MS reps. Also, the official Xbox podcast has a fellow from the Enforcement team that occasionally explains what his team does. MS doesn't ban or suspend users unless there's verifiable proof that wrongdoing has occurred, like unlocking online-only achievements while offline. Although the reps will sometimes tell users on what grounds they were banned, it seems to be company policy to not disclose details of bans/suspensions.

Autistic or not, there's no doubt in my mind that the kid or someone with access to his account violated the ToS.

 

[MurderousToaster]

I just love how some parents these days think: "Hey, so, my son's been the victim of an error in the system. What should I do? I know, I'll contact Fox News!" instead of politely emailing customer support.

 

[Joepow]

I don't see any implication of Jackson's innocence here. Microsoft is just being polite by not outright saying "he cheated".

Microsof are also not saying "he cheated" because they're unwilling to give away any details of how. 3 company reps and 3 e-mails to the company (I checked) don't even tell them how or where he cheated. Perhaps a chance of their mistake? Which they won't undo.

Also, he's autistic so he is incapable of understanding emotions and he measures his worth by his gamescore?... That's not what autism really is.

Autistics have a great deal of difficulty dealing with change and emotions. When they're in their own special "zone", they can cope with quite astounding mental feats because they don't have to deal with the usual mental garbage that we take for granted. (There's also Savantism, but that doesn't seem to be the case here).

The three basics of autism are difficulties with social interaction, social communication, and social imagination. (http://tinyurl.com/6dxepe8)

That means that a simple score will be as great as importance to an austic as your first kiss or your mum's cookie recipie. It's what makes them feel whole. Slap a label for being a lesser person (Cheater) on top of that, and you may as well slap an "N word" on all your non-white players - it's that offensive.

Note: I'm not saying he didn't cheat - I'm not saying this wouldn't be as bad applied to anyone else and I'm not saying that it's healthy for him to be using this as his only interaction.

But yeah, Microsoft, get off your collective ass and at least let this guy remove the cheater tag, that's just fucking childish.

We really don't know enough to judge whether he really cheated or not. If the punishment was automatic they might not have records of how exactly he cheated or maybe they need some time to retrieve them. On the other hand, perhaps they DID make a mistake but they are not willing to admit that their system is problematic.

As to weather this punishment is generally too harsh, I never commented on that.

Lastly, I see your point that he is affected more by the punishment than the average gamer, but I disagree with the notion that those who are hurt more by the punishment should get special treatment. By the same logic, a lonely criminal should get more jail time than one with many friends.

PS: Do we know the kid is autistic, or do we just have his mother's word for it?

PS2: If I don't reply to any other posts, it's because I'm going to bed I will reply tomorrow if needed.
edited for terrible spelling

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

I'm sure Microsoft wouldn't just erase someone's gamerscore unless they legitimately cheated in some way. The only reason this is in the news is because he's autistic.

 

[Dragonpit]

Yea I don't think the whole truth is out there, Microsoft just doesn't go flipping through random people's accounts and labels them as cheaters, he was either reported as cheating or raised some red flags by having his score jump high in a short period of time.
Also really disgusted that people run to the media with something like this and parade it as a sob story just because the kid is autistic, and if they do find out that he for sure cheated his mom will still probably raise hell about it.

It's not really a sob story, although I can certainly see how it could be described as one. But no. You can be surprised about how smart autistic people can be. He probably made some poor B@$t@rd look bad, got called a poopy face, and was reported. That or he made his gamer score rise faster than any man on his honeymoon. I'm hoping the kid's little problem gets hashed out soon.

 

[ninetails593]

The kid's probably lying. Now he's trying to raise media attention to get his precious numbers back.

 

[garfoldsomeoneelse]

So... what, exactly? Microsoft labels an account as illegitimate, as they've undoubtedly done to many others, and it's news-worthy because it happens to belong to an autistic kid? This just in: the government forces people with cancer to pay income tax.

 

[JEBWrench]

If he was a regular 11 year old, this wouldn't be a news article. But OHNOEZ autism.

I for one hope he did cheat.

 

[OG-Original Gamer]

Oh man. I hope to hell Microsoft doesn't give in on this. Being Autistic does provide any sort of moral immunity, and if he's intelligent enough to play with an X-Box he certainly can understand the rules.

But you get the picture here. The little cheater's coddling parents are what happened - their kid got caught an they decided to play the "Poor Little Wetarded Kid" card. Autism does not mean confused, or simple. I would love to see some explanation as to how you could appear to be hacking when you aren't.

It is very easy to verify cheating, and if an error is made they can find that too. Good for you Microsoft for treating this person the same way you would treat anyone else, which is what we're all supposed to do when dealing with person thus challenged.

 

[RichardThompson]

This reminds me of something that happened to an autistic friend of mine not 6 months ago. This person and I played a game known as maplestory, on the global server. One day, he had his account banned for what was claimed to be macro'ing. However, he is autistic, and I've seen him play, he does everything exactly the same each time he goes around a map. He only trains on linear maps for the reason, so he can continue the same system over and over again. It's quite disturbing in my opinion, almost methodical. However he recieved this ban, and because we live in europe it was impossible for him to create a new account on the global server (which is really North America). We sent emails of complaint, but to no avail. Eventually I bought him a new global account so he could start again, but we're always in fear of the same thing happening again.

 

[Therumancer]

To be entirely honest this seems dodgy to me given how much focus is being put on the kid being autistic. Also I'll point out that I'm very skeptical of so called "high functioning autistics" and conditions like "Assbergers Syndrome" which seem to be overdiagnosed in the case of every attitude problem out there. In general if the kid is functioning enough to play video games, he's functioning enough to cheap at them, and given how autistics tend to be very self-focused and use their condition to justify general douchebaggery, I wouldn't be surprised if the kid was cheating.

Let me be honest here, the "I have Assbergers" has become an internet Meme simply because it's used as a bail out by so many people running around on the internet, especially in video game and fandom forums. Encyclopedia Dramatica, Something Awful, and other similar sites have all done schticks on it for this reason. Simply put, this fits the occurance to a "T". The only issue here of course is that he's 11 and apparently instead of mouthing off on the Internet (which he might be doing also actually) his mommy is freaking out, probably both because of her son's condition, and also because a very expensive piece of hardware just got nuked. What's more this probably keeps the kid busy, so she doesn't have to deal with the problems.

That said, don't get the impression I'm entirely unsympathetic no matter how it might sound. I'm not autistic, but I do suffer from a lot of problems myself. Unfortunatly in a case like this you can't start making exceptions, if the kid was caught cheating (and really, I doubt Microsoft made a mistake, and pretty much every cheater denies it), he needs to pay for it for the sake of the community, so the safeguards will be a deterrant. The last thing communities like X-Box Live need is every outraged person who claims to be an Aspie making an issue out of it because of this.

I think we have a cheating kid, irregardless of any problems he might had, a strict penelty, and an outraged parent who is out a couple hundred dollars, and probably seems to think due to coddling that the rules shouldn't apply to her or her kid in cases like this because of his condition.