A ruckus is brewing as the ‘content police’ are cracking down on user submitted songs for Activision’s Guitar Hero and levels for Media Molecule’s LittleBigPlanet.
It’s the pursuit of homage to one’s nostalgic loves of yore that’s the problem. User song versions of Mario, Sonic, Zelda and the like are falling foul of moderators.
More troublingly is the moderator hammers of retribution for LittleBigPlanet, which is all about user content. Levels that are obliterated by mods aren’t recoverable as they’re the only copy and have understandably started to earn the ire of some users.
”We’ve seen a few messages from people whose levels have been moderated but are puzzled to work out why it happened,” posted a Media Molecule dev, and then outlined how the moderator process works.
Basically you upload the level, someone submits a complaint and it’s added into the moderator queue. Within 24 hours the level is checked and if found to be naughty or offensive it will be removed, and in more serious cases the user could face “further action”.
”That’s how it stands right now. We are working on a system whereby any level that is moderated will inform the creator of the level why the action was taken, as there could be unintentionally unsuitable content in the level, or a cultural offense which is harmless in one country and offensive in another - either way we want to ensure that creators’ levels are only permanently removed if they warrant it,” explains the developer.
”In most innocent cases a simple tweak to the level may be required and that’s what we’re working on communicating.”
One level that was deleted was based on the PS3 itself. Why that was deleted considering LBP is an exclusive to PS3 is rather mind boggling. Expect mass riots throughout major cities by the end of the year as effigies of SackBoy are put to the flame.
Source: Eurogamer
