Quarrel made the jump from iOS to Xbox Live a few days ago and with it we’ve learnt some rather interesting things about what restrictions Microsoft imposes on developers. More specifically the words that Microsoft will allow on their online service.
Quarrel is a neat little word/strategy game wehre you fight for conquest by making eight letter annagrams. The game allows you to take the word play online but a few people have noticed that they’re disallowed some words that seem like awfully strange ommisions. Words like ‘balls’ and ‘shaft’ are being discounted as valid words in online play. Sure these words could broadly be seen as unsavoury, but players are also reporting that much more innoect words are being blocked.
Gary Penn from Quarrel developer, Denki games, said it’s up to Microsoft.
“Microsoft has an additional filter in place for all Xbox Live games, which we have to support, but while we have to use that filter, we don’t know which words are permitted. From playing, we do know that it includes such oddities as ‘help’, ‘start’, ‘skid’, ‘poop’, ‘bung’, ‘hung’, ‘dice’ and ‘god’. Microsoft clearly has its reasons for censoring such words within Live games.”
An interesting behind the scenes look at what restrictions are mandatory for developers working on the platform. Though as colourful as the insults I’ve seen flying over online networks I can’t say I’ve seen ‘dice’ used to offend anyone. Perhaps I’ve just been playing the wrong game.
Crazy.