More False Advertising & Sexual Harassment

Via the tech support graveyard:

On August 23rd, the Sodium Starter Pack for Home became available in the PSN store for $6.99.  From the advertising posters seen in Home and in the PSN Store itself, I was pleased to see that it included the black version of the bartending outfits and specifically the Black and Grey Waitress Uniform (bundle)

Unfortunately, when purchasing the S1 Starter Pack this is NOT what you get -- instead I found these two incorrect clothing items added to my wardrobe collection, the "Sodium Scorpio's Pink Waitress Uniform Pack - female" (shirt with black arm tattoo, and skirt with pink leg warmers):
 
Since the ads clearly promised that we would get the "Sodium Scorpio's Black and Grey Waitress Uniform Pack," I would NEVER have bought this Starter bundle had I known that it actually contained the Pink version of the clothing.  It would have been cheaper to simply buy the game together with the black uniform separately!

Well this Starter Pack is intended for new users to the Sodium games, which til now I hadn't really explored .  So I tried on the pink outfit anyway, and let me say, while wearing it I wouldn't wish the instant bombardment of "How old are you" and "Where are you from" that I received, on ANY new user.  The episode confirms my experience that Home users typically expend unwanted attention to the clothing worn by female users.  Wearing a hot pink pre-teen outfit makes it twenty times worse.

Obviously the purpose of the bartending clothing is to enable playing the mini-game -- the point is not to invite additional harassment upon the player! -- so I'm sure that this isn't what Marketing intended when they put together this starter package for Sodium.

Please fix the Starter Pack download to give us the black-and-grey version that we paid for.  Thanks.

Harrassment On Home

According to this topic:

Lately, I've been watching my 16 yo daughter playing on Home and was amazed to see how she was treated by some of the people online. What amazed me even more was the apparent lack of moderation. I have heard there was always a moderator, sometimes seen, sometimes unseen. Now, my daughter can pretty much handle herself and she's not stupid enough to give out personal info past her first name. But not every child is like that, and THATS what troubles me. I think if Home continues to remain unsupervised (as far as I can tell) there will inevitably be an incident where a child gives out an address or decides to meet with someone from Home in real life, and wind up murdered or kidnapped or both. And I am not being overly dramatic. Why do you think they have FBI policing chat rooms? And that's all Home really is: a variation of a chat room. My daughter enjoys chatting with her Home friends and she's been telling me about this new premium service that will be coming out soon. But I'm hesitant to give money to a service that doesnt respect its current players enough to prevent a 30plus guy from asking my daughter for nude pictures of her in front of everyone nearby. And won't enforce their rules even after a report and a phone call. You gotta wonder sometimes.

Stalkers and Harassment

From this wonderful post:

I am so sick and tired of being stalked and harassed on Home. I have reported several people for this and still they continue to do it. Something has to be done. Mods are never around and they are totally out of hand. This user is constantly stalking me on Home. I have reported her more than once and she is constantly doing it. It is impossible for people to enjoy Home when they are constantly being stalked and harassed. I have her on block and it doesn't help one bit she is still doing. Please do something about this person. It like she don't give a darn about Sony terms of service and I'm highly upset that nothing is being done about it.

Breaking News

Written by: Kapow

Cops in Oklahoma City are looking for a 43-year-old woman who they say met a 14-year-old boy in PlayStation Home and ... yep, you can see where this is headed.

Authorities say the woman, Annamay Alexander of Deltona, Fla. (It's always Florida ...) met this boy via Home and sent him some terms-of-use violating messages, such as a picture of her in her underwear. In early January she drove up to Oklahoma City to seduce him.

An affidavit says Alexander later met the boy's mother under the ruse of talking about the boy's desire to marry her daughter. This flipped out the mom, as you can well imagine (she wasn't told the daughter was 9, either). She told Alexander GTFO and never speak to her son again. Alexander didn't follow the instructions. Mom later intercepted two phone calls from Alexander, then found sexy texts on his cell and PlayStation, plus the aforementioned picture.

Alexander, who is a married mother of three, referred to herself as the boy's wife and left subtle messages such as: "My body is yours to do whatever you want with," and "I love you and we are going to get married." The victim then confessed to having a sexual relationship with her and is said to be suicidal now. Alexander is looking at stalking and statutory rape charges but is still at large.

This is a harrowing story for any parent; it's creepy and gross to me, and not just because this obviously unhinged woman looks like Dennis Quaid in a wig. But if Home is to blame then so is the phone company.

Remember, it's not just the females who are getting abused in Home.

Story via Kotaku

GET LOUD!

This blog gets a lot of mixed reactions. Especially since we single out and pick on people. It's usually for the greater good, and hell, it's funny. But the main point is this: We believe in the possibility of Home, we are Home users, and we are upset.

The issues with Home are many. The constant sexual harassment, the massive amount of bugs that remain unresolved, the complete disregard of it's users by the staff, and many other issues. We would like to address the Home community, and see if we can rally you to make a change.

Now, there are a LOT of folks who are upset with the direction Home has taken. If you read the forums, no one has any confidence in the staff's abilities, and are disappointed. Recently groups have sprung up to help work on Home's problems. Now, we're all for people voicing their opinions. God knows the good folks of Lithium and the HCM combined have worked hard to silence any naysayers. However, there's one issue that these groups aren't addressing.

The Home Community Management Team, and the forum staff at Lithium do not listen to anything that you say or do.

Now you can create all these themed clubs, give them cute nicknames, and hold debates all you like. The combined efforts of Lithium/HCM have worked very hard to silence anything that would give Home any bad press. You can complain, but if it's on their turf and they are the ones that determine what you can and cannot say. So let me explain the roles of those who are the biggest roadblocks.

1. Lithium. Lithium is a company of web development hacks. Fifteen minutes on their forums can give you a very good idea of how awful the forum setup is. However, as bad as it is, that's only an introduction to the main problem, which is the Lithium staff. Lithium is paid by Sony to operate the functions of the forums. They keep users from spamming, help users find the information they seek, and general functions of supporting an online community based around Sony's Playstation products. However, you need to understand the people who are operating the forums are low paid high school graduates, and maybe a handful of those going to community college. They are young, inexperienced, and full of anger & rage at their parents for forcing them to pay rent. These folks work hard to CENSOR, SILENCE, MODIFY, OR BLOCK any criticism of Sony and it's platforms. This including Home. (This also includes banning, warning, and editing the signatures of ANYONE CAUGHT LINKING TO OR SUPPORTING THIS BLOG)
   
2. Home Community Management. (HCM) These are another crew of inexperienced hacks. To clarify direct information, I have been informed by insider sources that two of the main HCM (CydoniaX & Locust_Star) have -zero- clue what they are doing. I was also informed GlassWalls is mediocre at his position, but better then the others. What the Home staff will do in order to maintain a level of order is deliberately harass "trouble users" and provoke them into some type of interaction that will cause them to get banned. They ignore any and all tech support related questions, chiming in rarely when people make too much noise. (Or sometimes to cover the problem they'll lock or delete tech support posts) They also create user groups and situations to obtain free ideas and services. One being their failed HVC (Home Community Volunteer) program. Somehow they didn't see how giving a bunch of teenage kids free range to act like authority figures would backfire.
3. Home Development Staff. Seriously, how long does it take to patch up the collision detection in Red Bull Beach? How hard is it to make the Bride Hair Wig stay on the avatar's head? How difficult is it to modify the way the wardrobe is handled? The answer: Not that hard. As a developer myself, I could have had all the issues that plague most of Home finished in a few Hours. Bigger ones a week or less. These aren't complex issues.
   

The efforts of Home users to promote progress have been quieted at every possible angle. You can create as many clubs as you like, post on the forums until they ban you as well. Nothing is going to happen because the combined efforts of the HCM/Lithium will quiet you. They will censor you. If need be, they will remove you in order to protect their interests. Their interests are simple: To look good, and to maintain job security.

Let us ask you this. If you walked into a McDonald's and ordered a meal, wouldn't you be disappointed if your french fry box was empty? Wouldn't you be disappointed? Wouldn't you voice an opinion? What if when you complained about your missing food they banned you from ever entering again? Chances are you'd call up the people above them and complain. So why is Home any different? It's a free service sure, but how many of you have invested money into it? Created friends and social circles? And it could all be taken away for something as simple as irritating the staff, or in some cases their friends. So let's continue the McDonald's analogy. Say the Manager of your local McDonald's was friends with someone you didn't get along with. When you both are in the restaurant, this other person gets much better treatment. They get free food items, they get their requests filled before you, and they can break the rules and go walk around in the kitchen with the staff, while the staff ignores you. Pretty upsetting. But this is exactly what is happening in Home. You are paying money that you work to earn, and in return you are being treated like garbage, ignored, and plain blown off. And if you have the GALL to speak up, you are placed on someone's shitlist where you have to walk on broken glass in hopes that you're not banned.

THE MOMENT YOU SPEND ONE DIME ON HOME YOU ARE A CUSTOMER. AS A CUSTOMER YOU DESERVE THE RIGHT TO BE HEARD AND TREATED WITH RESPECT.

So we urge everyone, if you are upset, make some noise. Get loud. They might be able to censor & silence you on their turf, but their turf is just a grain of sand in the sea of the internet. Start a blog, make some calls. Remain anonymous if you have to, but understand, none of these "improvement clubs," debates, or forum posts are going to get the job done. You need to get out there. I'd encourage people to use the following tools to make a little noise:

Lithium:
6121 Hollis Street
Suite 4
Emeryville, CA 94608
Call (510) 653-6800
Fax (510) 653-6801

Sony Tech Support:
Phone: (800) 345-7669
Hours of Operation Monday through Saturday 6:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m
Sunday 7:00 a.m. - 6:30 p.m Pacific Standard Time.

Start a Blog:
http://www.blogger.com/

Upload videos of Home issues:
http://www.youtube.com/

http://vimeo.com/

Contact Various Game Journalism Sites:
http://www.ign.com/
http://www.1up.com/
http://kotaku.com/
http://g4tv.com/

And last but not least, don't be afraid to band together as a group and bombard someone's contact that has influence. Don't sit back quietly as Home sponges your money and then screws you for it. If you don't stand up for yourself, they will continue to walk all over you.

Sexual Harassment? locked.

A few days ago a fairly average post came up:

Dear Forum Admins,

I've been noticing an increase of male avatars who seem to chase after female avatars who may or may not be really female but I have seen more 'men' chasing after women on this game. The reporting feature in the same by pressing select does not seem to work at all so I ask this. Could you setup any alternative means to report sexual harassment through PS home or through a reporting feature that could be implemented to the PS3 itself?

Luckily Locust_Star stopped by to drop a gem of wisdom:

Our moderation team receives all reports, regardless of the pesky Error message that some users receive when using the Submit a Report feature. Please continue to use this feature to report any violations of the Home EULA or PSN ToSUA.

Then locked the topic. We can't have folks thinking there's no way to take care of the HUNDREDS of sexual harassers that women deal with daily. I love the "pesky Error message that some users receive when using the Submit a Report feature." Oh, that pesky error where you can't submit sexual harassment! Crazy!

Worst bowling alley trip ever!

In the topic: Worst bowling alley trip ever! A young lady complains about something that's a real burden. THE REPORT FUNCTION BREAKS AND DOESN'T ALLOW SUBMISSION OF REPORTS.

Don't know if this has been pointed out but the report function seems to have been malfunctioning. I'm usually not bothered by the harassment I experience but it annoyed me tonight when guys kept coming up to me, sitting on me, asking me to take off my bra. Not what they were saying, but the fact that I couldn't submit a report. Just had to a rant a tiny bit. Otherwise it was the worst trip cause I couldn't even break 100 on my score lol. I'm terrible at bowling.

Since that feature is broken, I suggest immediately messaging Locust_Star, CydoniaX, and GlassWalls.

Sexual Harassment, Not Just Happening To Females

Written by: Kapow

So I was hanging around, AFK, in the Central Plaza earlier when i looked up and noticed this fool (a person using a female avatar) was harassing one of my friends (a male). Following him around where ever he went, making sexual innuendos towards him and so on.
The harasser (XxVIRUSxUNDEADxX) was using a female avatar with default clothing but we have no proof of what his/her true gender is. My point is that harassment, sexual or not (in this case both), doesn't only happen to females but you rarely hear anyone talking about males getting harassed.
You never hear any stories of how a male was standing around and then all of a sudden someone got down and started giving him a virtual blowjob and how shocked and traumatized he was that that had happened to him. One could make the argument that males are more laid back, and don't take things like that so serious. Which is true in a lot of cases, but not for everyone.
A few days ago I was standing around in the Central Plaza, not looking at my TV, and when i looked back at the screen there was some random person pretending to blow me. But me being me, I laughed and then walked away. I didn't take it seriously or as some sort of personal attack in any way. But that's me. It could have been a guy like Mr_Lochwood (who I know gets pretty pissed when people do that kind of thing to him or anyone else) and they wouldn't have just laughed it off. Or it could have been a 10-14 year-old boy who shouldn't really be seeing that sort of stuff.
I guess what I'm trying to get at is that while harassment, sexual or not, happens a lot to females, they are not the only ones it's happening to and it can affect males just the same. Also


Home Pro-Tip/ Common Sense:
If you're being harassed, sexually or not, report for harassment then move away. If they follow, tell them to stop following then move away. If they keep at it, report for stalking then jump to another space or instance.
And if you feel like you don't have to leave (and of course, you don't have to) then by all means, stay. But I look at it like this, if something bad or wrong was happening to you, wouldn't you want to get away from it? COME ON!

Girl for a Day

According to this topic:

My Avatar is a male, and the few times I go on it stays that way. Now this is not a bashing post. When the festive tree event was going on there was an event were I had to dress like a girl to get a free item. Wth? It took 5 minutes or more to get that item and it was the worst experience in my life if you know what I mean. In that 5 minutes I had so many dang friend request, male avatars fallowing me around trying to talk to me. I had one ask if I wanted to go to their apartment. So my point of this post is if your straight I see no reason to ever want to walk around home as a female. So I am not buying any of that "well I just like to look at the female avatar." You can go to your apartment and do that. The way Is see those guys trying to pick female avatars up is not funny it's gross and annoying. If you ever watch to catch a predator I bet those are who are doing it. Maybe those default clowns who act up, Sony should make their avatars a permanent female and if they are straight they will never log on again.

I won't mention the user who made this awesome avatar above by name, but ULTRA-UBER-KUDOS him for it!

Man Charged With Child Porn Via PS3

Remember this from back in March? According to ABC Houston:

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- It's a first for Harris County -- a cyber sex crime committed not with a computer, but with a popular video game console. A man arrested in Kentucky didn't need his computer to view and send child pornography to an 11-year-old Houston area girl.

Anthony Scott O'Shea, 24, was arrested Friday at his home in Sommerset, Kentucky. Authorities said he was viewing and sending child pornography through his Sony Playstation3. O'Shea reportedly didn't even own a computer.

"He used the PS3 for everything, checked his email, played on the internet, on his PS3 and of course, played his games on PS3, but had no computer," said Sgt. Gary Spurger of Harris County Precinct 4.

Investigators showed us how O'Shea used his PS3 to instant message his victim, an 11-year-old girl from the Houston area. Sgt. Spurger said O'Shea befriended the girl, winning her trust and ultimately making obscene demands.

"He asked for pictures of her breasts. She said no. He said friends do things for each other. You're on my friends list. If you don't, I'm gonna remove you, at which point she feels nervous and scared and sent the pictures," said Sgt. Spurger.

Soon afterward, the girl was asked to send nude pictures of herself and authorities said she did using her webcam.

Spurger said the girl had permission to play the PS3 and her parents knew about the internet connection but didn't know about the nude pictures until she told them. The parents immediately notified authorities.

O'Shea has been charged with three felonies, sexual performance of a child, online solicitation of a minor, and promotion of child porn.

Sgt. Spurger said O'Shea's influence over his young victim will be hard to remove as witnessed by this exchange between the girl and investigators.

"The last comment she made was, 'Why is my friend going to jail?' That's what she said and the hardest part was I wanted to reach through the video and tell her, 'Hey that's not your friend, never was and never will be,'" said Sgt. Spurger.

Authorities said O'Shea emailed the girl's nude photo across the country. O'Shea remains in custody in Kentucky under $300,000 bond.

Anyone want to place a bet on how long it will be before Home becomes the object of one of these stories? I'd be willing to place odds on this year.

thesixthaxis.com has now covered the sexual assault in Home story. Read it here.

Naturally, reporting the user to the PSN is the correct thing to do, and although we assume Sony have dealt with this individual the Telegraph has now picked up on the story.

We doubt it.

Indyposted

Now it appears Indyposted has covered PS Home sexual harassment.

Female Claims “PlayStation Home” User Sexually Assaulted Her…Online

My Week as a 13 Year Old Girl on Home

Via Email:

Hey, wanted to let you know about a project I'm doing. It's called "My Week as a 13 Year Old Girl on Home." I am pretending to be a noob 13yo girl, who just got a PS3 for xmas. I'm roaming around, completely ignorant, asking the same questions all noobs ask. Pretending to be oblivious to what people are saying around me. After the week is finished, I plan on creating a web page devoted to the experiences.

You REALLY REALLY REALLY need to send that to us when you're done.

PS3 Home player 'sexually assaulted', roommate claims

Lol, it just won't stop! I love the quote:

The incident has lead to a report in Australian newspaper The Daily Telegraph (spotted by NeoGaf poster Puck), which carries the headline "Fears over online sex assaults: Game players traumatized".

In it, the University of Melbourne's Dr Jessica Wolfendale said "unwanted sexual attacks" can emotionally scar victims, even if they are not real.

Man oh man, how many other sites can this be submitted to? Let's find out. Full article here.

God I love Destructoid

God I love Destructoid!

Sexual assault is not funny. Sexual assault in PlayStation Home is hilarious. This is a truth we have all come to accept, but one PS3 user believes it to be serious business. Claiming her roommate was "sexually assaulted," PSN member "Whoef" is seeking a restraining order on a fellow Home fan.

For the full story, head here.

Girl virtually sexually assaulted in Playstation Home

Original forum post - http://boardsus.playstation.com/play...858859#M858859

This morning I learned that my roommate was sexually assaulted near the Festive Tree while she was helping others with the puzzle. She would move and the harasser would follow. Each time trying to get behind her and use the crouch gesture. This apparently went on for some time. The harasser was warned multiple times and laughed at the thought that someone might report him for his actions, which was eventually done, and also, I'm proud to say, by other bystanders.

It should be obvious to any clear thinking person that more needs to be done in these situations. Report, definitely, but at the same time the harasser should be immediately disconnected and then not allowed to enter a instance were their victim is located, keeping them apart. Like a Restraining Order. If the harasser has a string of victims, then let them find themselves all alone or better yet, only with other harassers.

In fact, Home should create the Home Jail, then the harassers can harass each other, since that seems to be their only purpose for being on Home. Put them where they belong. There is no reason Home can't make money on future rapists. After losing all their items, like a real jail, Home can sell them orange jumpsuits, flip-flops and they can decorate their jail cells with a few items such as bunk bed, toilet and a bed roll. They might as well get use to it, that's where they are headed if they don't change their criminal behavior.

At the same time, the victim is given a free personal space which includes a mini-game. The game consists of the harasser being placed in a very small courtyard and the victim, using an automatic tomato gun, shoots tomatoes at their harassers. Perhaps this would encourage these losers not to come back if they are going to act like a criminal.

Okay, those last two paragraphs are probably going over the top. I'm just upset that this took place, but we can still dream.

Seriously, if complaints aren't going to be immediately dealt with by the staff, regardless of the reason, then give some recourse to the victim that doesn't include punishing the victim further and rewarding the harasser. That sitting gesture should be immediately removed. If sexual assault and other crimes against users, it seems predominantly against women, is allowed to continue, at the very least Home is going to turn into an all male application. Worse, Home is going to lose a lot of money. Starting right now with my roommate's.

She hasn't decided whether she will go back into Home. At this point she is rather disappointed with the whole thing and I don't blame her at all. Me, I'd rather not completely say what I'd like to do. Lets just say it involves food and hungry dogs.

Wow, Home's lack of sexual harassment has made it into the newspaper! And people thought Home-Watch was the only group noticing this?

Unwanted Contact Part 2

Someone left this in the comments of the last post. I thought it would be right to share. I have to ask, why can the HCM not protect it's users from such abuse? I assume it's because that would be, you know, work.

Unwanted Contact

Via Email:

I left my ps3 on overnight on a female avatar. The pix attached is what I got. Pretty scary huh? =)

Well it's a good thing they didn't know you're a guy. (You're a guy I'm assuming) Then you would have had a million guys messaging you "ur gay wtf"

Creeps

Decided to capture this post before it's deleted, edited, or banished to the tech support graveyard. It involves creepy guys.

So I went on Home for the very first time all excited to explore and look at all the different stores, and some guy starts following me around. He kept going in front of me everytime I stopped saying hi asking where I was from and how old I was, and me, not seeing how this was relevant, told him I was not here to make virtual friends. He then proceeded to message me twice harassing me asking how old I was and what not. I don't think it's right that people can message you just like that, you should have to accept a friend request before people can message you from home. I felt very invaded in my personal space. And now I find out there is no way to report him unless he actually happens to be in home at the same time I am? There has to be another way, so if anyone knows one or can help me out that would be awesome. His name was stephenvasquez if that helps at all. Thanks.

Thanks for the post, and I hope the creeps lighten up.