I am a 28 year old male gamer that enjoys both Xbox LIVE and the xbox.com community forums. I have been a member of both since December of 2004. I have experienced one of the greatest opportunities. Through Xbox community forums I have found other players from all over the globe with like minds and attitudes as myself. For over two and a half years across numerous games I have shared a great friendship with the same people. We have become true friends and have even had the opportunity to meet face-to-face in a yearly gathering that we now participate in. We met each other through the Xbox community forums, but we are now having a hard time continuing this experience due to extreme moderation on the community forums. We carry on the casual chit chat about life and gaming and we find ourselves being banned or threads deleted and we do not understand why.

A woman told us that their GamerChix forum provides an area for non-gaming discussion called “Girl Talk.” This area allows GamerChixs to talk about other content beyond just gaming conversations. The woman shared with us some of the discussions ranging from threads looking for other lesbian gamers to what men they would keep on the planet. To be a member of GamerChix private area you must have a gamer tag and you must be a woman. All you do is send an email to join and you get access into their closed world and a nice icon beside your name (Called Trixi Icons) showing that you are a GamerChix. Most gamers (including myself) think it is great that this group of minority gamers (GamerChix) is given an area to escape the woes of other gamers hitting on them continuously or being harassed. Also, let me say that I have never seen inside of the GamerChix private area. All I have seen it what was shared.

There is no where else on the general population community forum that this type of chatter is allowed. Everyone must stay completely “On Topic” about gaming content. When gamers asked for an area to enjoy the same community experience as “Girl Talk” we were told no. We were also hammered on for even seeing some of the information in the GamerChix area. The female gamer that shared this information did not share any gamer tags or truly sensitive information. This female was only trying to back the idea we were proposing. After requesting an area like “Girl Talk” many group threads that steered even slightly away from game discussion started disappearing. These threads disappeared with no explanation of why and continued to be deleted even if they did stay “On Topic”.

It is rumored that there once was an area that allowed general non-gaming discussion, but supposedly it got out of hand and was removed. Still, why are GamerChix, a group of 6000 women allowed to have this area? Is it because the Xbox Community Manager (Trixi360 is her gamer tag) is a woman? To most gamers it feels as if we are being discriminated against due to the make up of our chromosomes. Is this fair to not make all groups abide by the same rules of the xbox forums Code of Conduct (CoC) and Terms of Use (ToU)? It is fair to create a separate set of rules for a different gender?

If Xbox’s community is not allowing this to take place due to immaturity why can they not create a special area for GamerParents or GamerAdults based an age seperation? The Entertainment Software Association stats show that the average gamer age is 33 (ESA). . Xbox and Microsoft already back an area called “Xbox Dad.” Why are Xbox Dads not allowed this opportunity? A freer discussion area could even give gamer parents a way to have their kids meet others kids that the parents trust due to a relationship built on the community forums.

Gamers feel this is discrimination to provide an area for non-gaming discussion for GamerChix (females), but not for the general community population. Regardless of the minority of the group it is still discriminatory based on gender. The xbox.com community is over two million strong and grows everyday. But still we are treated with injustice due to a few rotten apples (mostly kids). All moderation is done through volunteering and would not cost xbox.com any additional money to add moderators to a non-gaming general discussion area.

All xbox.com tells us to do is go build our own private forums for our group to communicate. The negative of building a private forum is that it does not allow for us to meet other like minded players. The community forums receive heavy traffic compared to a private forum. Xbox.com forum staff seems to be stuck on the idea that our group wants a special area dedicated to ourselves. What we as gamers want is an area for all gamers to be able to meet each other and have non-gaming general discussion. It is hard to find new friends through the online environment due to the continuous screaming of racism and homophobia (which is another article by itself). Allowing everyone to have a non-gaming general discussion area would allow us to find other Xbox LIVE gamers that might be on the same life tract as we are.

Yes… These are private forums that are owned by Microsoft, but shouldn’t there be some separate but equal mentality on their site? Xbox and Microsoft completely back GamerChix. They even allow for them to have dedicated nights banding them all together playing the same game (Xbox Calendar). They also have a family night. Why is there not a separate area for “Family” gamers to get together and share lives struggles that are seen by adult family gamers? If my group were female and shared our story on xbox.com we would be put in the “Gamer Spotlight” or even marketed like Fragdolls. But, instead we are banned and pushed to the darkest corner for our conversations to take place and be heavily scrutinized for any “Off Topic” discussion.

Of course our group and many others gamers can venture a little to far away from the CoC in our conversations but we steer ourselves back. Regardless of what we try we are still male gamers with little to no hope of gaining the opportunities that the GamerChix have already. I still have to question if this is the case because the community is managed by a female gamer. The Community Manager is going to come back and say that this area is mostly younger gamer girls that do not need other gamers pressuring them or being bad role models. She is also going to say that we acquired this information by exploiting the area, but we cannot help that a female gamer was kind enough to supply us some information in hopes of helping our cause. We do not want their area disband. We only want the same opportunity to have casual chit chat to meet more people that may be great to game with. Make an adult gamers area and an area for younger gamers too. Why do we all not deserve to have the same opportunity on Xbox’s community forum?