Sexual harassment in virtual reality feels all too real – 'it's creepy beyond creepy'

lololololol

a reply to: CatandtheHatchet

True, however the thread title doesn't reflect that.

a reply to: _BoneZ_

T&C its the title of the article in the Guardian, not mine

I think clearly the only thing we can do to protect the women is to lock them in a stone tower enable progressive space spaces for women and make sure nobody directly interacts with them. they feel the patriarchy is not represented in their progressive space

for feminism and progressiveness..or something.

originally posted by: CatandtheHatchet
a reply to: _BoneZ_

T&C its the title of the article in the Guardian, not mine

Only counts for "Breaking News" sections.

Never heard so much bullocks in my life.. No doubt this is from some everything blown out of proportion drama queen..
Go and take a walk in the park you moron or take out your sword in the game and cut the guys f ing head off..

a reply to: schuyler

Thanks, sorry for the confusion

Next time I'll know better

originally posted by: UKTruth
Oh FFS, the SJWs have moved into VR too? Great.

What>? You immediately assume this female was a SJW????? You seem automatically to trash the woman. Since that is the case, then I can assume just as easily that your were the moron playing the BigBro442 fool who decided to feel her up in virtual reality.

For one, how did the guy know it was a woman? There is no body associated with Quivr. Secondly how did she know he was trying to grope her? He could have been just trying to wave and say hello. You can't exactly telegraph precise hand movements with the current VR setups.

Soon the feminists will shame anyone from playing video games soon. That or they will require developers to develop purely non gendered models to make them happy.

a reply to: CatandtheHatchet


Sargon sums up this bit of Feminist "Crazy" quite well!

Sounds like someone sharing their fantasy via a video game.

originally posted by: schuyler
Add to that the established fact that many "girls" in gaming are actually boys in disguise and it gets even more creepy. Oh, dear, I guess that makes me a homophobe now. drat!

That's a trend that has been on the decline in recent years. It used to be common that women would pick male avatars, and men would pick female avatars, but with all the social media integration in games these days that has changed.

Staying gender anonymous in games isn't helped much by voice chat being a necessity either. Some games these days don't even have actual text chat support anymore, especially consoles. It's all voice based.

a reply to: seeker1963

Sargon sums up this bit of Feminist "Crazy" quite well!

Yes he does, the article is narrative pushing junk, which in my opinion based on the games stats and it's seeming capabilities, are based on disingenuous reporting.

The last segment of Sargon's video regarding the southern poverty law center labeling Maajid Nawaz as an anti Muslim extremist, was really depressing, here is a moderate Muslim trying to tackle the political Islamic ideology, and being undermined by idiots.

originally posted by: CatandtheHatchet
Yes he does, the article is narrative pushing junk, which in my opinion based on the games stats and it's seeming capabilities, are based on disingenuous reporting.

I'm not so sure, I do VR development as a hobby right now. I've always focused on single player so this isn't something I had really considered (even if this story is likely exaggerated). Any time something is online though, you have to design while thinking about the toxicity of your games community. It's the internet and people are going to troll each other, furthermore there's going to be some segment who simply misunderstands a gesture.

It's definitely something to be aware of.

originally posted by: CatandtheHatchet

right up until the moment someone named BigBro442 decided to “virtually rub [her] chest” and make her feel like just another “powerless woman”. “Even when I turned away from him, he chased me around, making grabbing and pinching motions near my chest,” she wrote in a Medium post of her experience playing QuiVR, a virtual reality game. “Emboldened, he even shoved his hand toward my virtual crotch and began rubbing.”

So Trump was playing a video game....

a reply to: Aazadan

I'm not so sure, I do VR development as a hobby right now. I've always focused on single player so this isn't something I had really considered. Any time something is online though, you have to design while thinking about the toxicity of your games community. It's the internet and people are going to troll each other, furthermore there's going to be some segment who simply misunderstands a gesture. It's definitely something to be aware of.

Okay I can see what your saying and yes developers are always going to have to consider the silliness of their end users, simply to mitigate damage to their new/existing brand.

But humans are going to do what they do socially, trolling is a part of the online environment (because humans seem to enjoy being responded to (acknowledged) and acting like a troll is a cheap and easy way to achieve this), for the most part (apart from doxing and swating) this can be solved with user controlled blocks and in allowing individual preferences regarding who they socializes with, while multi-player gaming.

However the Guardian article is very disingenuous and is using this basic human feed back loop to feed an article which is trying to shape societal consensus, and the journalist who wrote this is being particularly lazy, or is a poor propagandist

a reply to: hellobruce

So ya gone and made a cheap political point.

So how are politics in the great downunder doing?

I hear PM Turnbull is real role model /s

originally posted by: CatandtheHatchet
But humans are going to do what they do socially, trolling is a part of the online environment (because humans seem to enjoy being responded to (acknowledged) and acting like a troll is a cheap and easy way to achieve this), for the most part (apart from doxing and swating) this can be solved with user controlled blocks and in allowing individual preferences regarding who they socializes with, while multi-player gaming.

User controlled blocks are a good way to ignore a message, but you still have to see a character if that character is able to interact with the game world. The sort of harassment being talked about in this article is through body language. Touching, being in your face, etc. Blocks don't stop that, and it's been a minor but ongoing issue in multiplayer games for years now. From the teabagging you might see in an FPS to someone not getting out of your face in an MMO (especially a first person MMO).

In VR these actions have the potential of being a bit more offensive because your characters range of animation is larger and it involves communication not through your chat server which is an easy thing to block, but rather through your game rendering, where the simple act of removing a disruptive element can still disrupt your experience because unseen forces (the blocked players) will alter the game environment without the player getting feedback as to why.

However the Guardian article is very disingenuous and is using this basic human feed back loop to feed an article which is trying to shape societal consensus, and the journalist who wrote this is being particularly lazy, or is a poor propagandist

a reply to: Aazadan

User controlled blocks are a good way to ignore a message, but you still have to see a character if that character is able to interact with the game world. The sort of harassment being talked about in this article is through body language. Touching, being in your face, etc. Blocks don't stop that, and it's been a minor but ongoing issue in multiplayer games for years now. From the teabagging you might see in an FPS to someone not getting out of your face in an MMO (especially a first person MMO). In VR these actions have the potential of being a bit more offensive because your characters range of animation is larger and it involves communication not through your chat server which is an easy thing to block, but rather through your game rendering, where the simple act of removing a disruptive element can still disrupt your experience because unseen forces (the blocked players) will alter the game environment without the player getting feedback as to why.

So perhaps a close proximity shield in these particular VR instances would be useful.

Implementing having an override, that the individual gamer can switch off for particular players they want to have direct virtual contact with, and a corresponding switch off, if circumstances change, might solve this as a basic standard rather than making ideological hay

originally posted by: CatandtheHatchet
So perhaps a close proximity shield in these particular VR instances would be useful.

Implementing having an override, that the individual gamer can switch off for particular players they want to have direct virtual contact with, and a corresponding switch off, if circumstances change, might solve this as a basic standard rather than making ideological hay

The problem with shields that repel others from touching you is they also work in the reverse. With multiple characters you can be locked in place, as the shield prevents them from getting near you. This is also a form of harassment.