XBox Live NEEDS an Age Filter

I refuse to use a microphone when playing on XBox Live unless I can confirm that the people in-game with me are above (or at least sound like they are above) the age of 18. Why? Because hearing the shrill voice of a 14 year old while trying to immerse myself in a game like Call of Duty: World at War is nearly impossible. I sit down after a long day of classes and work hoping to hop into a game and take out a few people, but instead I have to deal with hearing children yack their high-pitched, unintelligent mumbo-jumbo into the microphone making me want to quit.

More after the jump.

Who can we blame? Well I suggest we start with the parents. Why? Because they are likely the ones supplying their angel of a kid with the game to begin with, as well as providing the kid with their credit card to pay for XBox live. I mean come on parents, have you even looked at the box for Call of Duty? It screams “do NOT buy for my 14 year old son!”, yet somehow the kids always end up with these games. Lets take a look at the game case shall we:

I tried to highlight the reasons why kids shouldn’t have this game. Fire, guns, bombs, death, etc. However none of that tells the parent “hm, maybe I shouldn’t buy this.” So next we have the blatant rating:

Anyone with eyes can see that it is for ages 17+. Yet that still doesn’t push parents away from buying these games. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think there is anything wrong with a parent getting a shooting game for their kid, as long as they are mature enough to handle it, and that is one of the major issues. Listening to the way these kids talk on the microphones its obvious they are NOT mature enough to handle it.

XBox Live can be a hostile place. When the mature players (17+) get into it, swear words and racist slurs fill the audio channels. Who is on the receiving end of this? Well mature players like myself, and then young kids. So, we have these young kids that sound like girls hearing profane things being shouted and decide to themselves that they want to join in on the swearing bonanza. Sadly, that just makes it worse because its funny to hear an adult curse when they die in a game, but its sad, annoying, and frustrating to hear Johnny Mc-14-Year-Old curse in a game. The ONLY time it is funny hearing a kid swear in a game is when you can hear his mom in the background yelling “Johnny Allen McYoungster, what did I hear you say???!?” lol, kids.

It basically just boils down to immersion, which is destroyed by the sound of a pre-pubescent kid. How do we solve this problem? Simple, require the damn XBox Live customer to enter their CORRECT age when registering, and use a voice sample to verify their age. Then Microsoft could develop one of two things:

1. In-Game filters that allow the users to select which age groups they are willing to game with. That way those of us who are older than young can play with our own kind, and kids can play with their own annoying-ass people
2. Develop a voice analysis system. What will it do? It will constantly scan the voice of the player, and if it reaches a certain pitch that only children and not-straight adult males can hit it perma-mutes their microphone. Then it will randomly sample the sound every month to see if their voice has changed and if it has, reactivate their microphone

Why do this? To eliminate the children ruining my gaming experience, and the experience of others by annoying the hell out of everyone playing the game. Not to mention the fact that children are likely always in game with me causes me to sensor what I am saying, which I shouldn’t have to do.

People, Microsoft, this is the only way.