It seems that Julius Jackson, an 11 year old autistic boy, spent 200 days earning  1,500 achievements only to have Microsoft X-box online take it away and label the young man a cheater.  “it  [x-box] is pretty much his only outlet and his only friend because of autism” says his mother.  The young man’s achievements wiped out, his account is now permanently labeled CHEATER. His mother, Jennifer Zdenek, assured Julius everything would be alright and telephone Microsoft X-box online.

“When I phoned, the lady could not explain to me what actually the wording meant, his mother said, and gave me to her supervisor who then could not do the same and referred me to the Microsoft legal department by address only.” – Jennifer Zdenek on Fox News

Who can help but automatically be drawn into the image portrayed of a huge multinational corporation victimizing an 11 year old? Screenwriter John Ordover leapt to the defense:

“John Ordover, who wrote two episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and has an autistic son, said, ‘”It’s extremely unlikely that the boy was cheating. He simply outthought, outplayed and outlasted not just the other players but also the programmers themselves. This boy probably has the attention to detail, focus and visual processing necessary to easily accomplish what so-called normal people could not. Also, it wouldn’t occur to an autistic child to cheat.’” – John Ordover

A few days later and the story has taken a whole new turn. The following comes to us by way of Escapistmagazine.com:

Zdenek  now tells Q13 Fox News that her son gave his Xbox Live information to a third party, who used illegitimate methods to give Jackson Halo 3’s Recon Armor. She shared an email from Toulouse [head of Microsoft Xbox Live enforcement] that says:

The account Zombie Kill67 transferred from the Xbox it is normally seen on, to an Xbox in another city. The account earned several achievements for Halo 3 that can only be done online and in succession. It was clear they were unlocked out of order and offline. Earning successive online achievements out of order and offline is an impossible feat, not due to skill, but due to the technology of the system. It can only be done by modifying the account and faking the achievements. – Escapistmagazine.com

The reason all this hits both home and close to my heart is that I was raised by a mother with cerebral palsy . Back in the days of employment  quotas mom was fresh out of college looking for a job.  She went for a job interview at one of the nation’s largest charitable organizations who’s purported reason for existence was helping people like mom.  At the interview mom was told “get up and walk for me” – it turns out that mom was only being offered a job to fill a quota.

Mom would have none of it.

We live in a society where people and organizations are often tried in the court of public opinion long before the facts come to light…guilty until proven innocent.  It might not be right, but it is human nature.  We side with the underdog, with the victim of big business.

Back in my undergraduate days my marketing instructor always told us that two things will sell a product: children and little animals.  It preys on our human nature.  It’s why you see toilet paper commercials with fluffy bunnies and little babies.

Who’s at fault here? Who’s in the wrong and who is in the right? We will leave all that up to you to decide. We can say for sure that while there may be many reasons to hate the Microsoft corporation this story isn’t one of them. 

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

[posted for Julie Whitefeather by The Webmaster]

Now we are sure, whenever our readers see the “welcome to the (fill in the blank) edition” they say to themselves “oh boy, it must be a slow news day.” Well our contention is that there is simply a lot we wish to write about that day and only so much room in one article. At least that’s our story and we are sticking to it. That said, there are people in the news today who have “said things with style” –  it is merely a matter of WHAT sort of style that is a matter for discussion.

Earlier this week we wrote about one Erik Estavillo, whom you may remember as the player who sued (unsuccessfully) Sony Computer Entertainment of America over his banning from the PlayStation Network.  The latest round of lawsuits are against Activision/Blizzard and Microsoft Corporation. To wit (doesn’t that sound legal? We thought we would throw a “to wit” in there) he has subpoenaed one of the richest men in the world, Bill Gates, as well as actress Winona Ryder and a member of the band Depeche Mode. Now Mr. Estavillo has added to his list of subpoenaed celebrities by summoning to the stand “a pair of rappers” (or so Gamepolitics.com reports here ).  Game Politics.com being one of our favorite sites, we will just have to take their word for it that rap artists come in pairs (we heard at one time they came in “murders” as in a “murder of crows” – we are happy to be proven wrong in this case). Added to the list of those subpoenaed are Lady Sovereign, as well as Krayzie Bone of “Bone, Thugs and Harmony”. It appears that the rappers are being subpoenaed to show “how rappers are not censored/banned/or punished for ‘cussing/trash talking’ on private property”. 

Now we aren’t sure what got Mr. Estavillo banned from the PlayStation Network in the first place, but based on the reason for the latest round of summons we have a sneaking suspicion.  And if (and that is a big if) that is the case we will be interested to find out if the words “first amendment” come under discussion.

In the end, no matter what the reason for the lawsuits against Microsoft and Activision/Blizzard we have got to hand it to Mr. Estavillo…having the hutzpa to bring a lawsuit and summon a laundry list of celebrities has style.

[Authors note: for those of you who have never heard of the word “hutzpa” before, the classic definition is a man who kills both his parents and then throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan]

We’re not sure what kind of style this next section consists of, but we will call it the “we don’t like ten bunny rabbits dancing around with toilet paper” style (derived from a quote by the late Rod Serling). There is an interesting interview over at Werit (available here) that comes to us via Bio Break (simply because the letter “B” comes before “W” on our Google Reader). The interview is with Fallen Earth developer Wes Platt. Here is an excerpt from the interview we just loved:

 Werit:  You guys recently had the Days of the Dead event for Halloween which seemed to be a hit among the players.  Can we expect a Christmas Event?  If so, will it involve a mutated Santa Claus?

Wes Platt: Yes, we’ll have a winter holiday event. You might even get to kill some elves.

Elf hunting in Fallen Earth? Sign us up, we will be the first ones in line.  We have our motorcycle and our 357 magnum six shooter all ready.

And all this talk about Fallen Earth reminds us of a quote from script co-authored by Harlan Ellison, based on one of his stories:

“World War 4 lasted just five days  – just long enough for the final missiles to leave their silos on both sides. What’s left where once were homes and families and warm hearths – now only desolation, civilization lies smothered, decaying under an ocean of mud belonging to whoever can dick (we presume the author is referring to Richard Nixon) and fight and keep it for his own. God that’s dramatic. I like that. So spread about us the city of Phoenix, Arizona where in 2006, 18 odd years ago, you managed to come into the world and we became associates…now let’s hear that back” – from a script based on a story by Harlan Ellison

Now we will be the first to admit that the story has some scenes that set our teeth on edge, but it is interesting that the setting of the story is in post apocalyptic Arizona. It is interesting to note that at least Ellison himself said of the last line in the film: “moronic, hateful chauvinist last line, which I despise.”

And before we leave the subject of Fallen Earth entirely, we should point out that in some of the games we play the wait for a gm to respond is sometimes measured in days.  In the case of the latest Fallen Earth GM to help us out the response time was measured in seconds (less than five to be exact). It was a difficult problem (we won’t go in to it here). Suffice it to say that although the programming glitch wasn’t in the patch notes, it was fixed in the next patch less than 24 hours later. We don’t know if GM Daxus is responsible but we are claiming it for him anyway.

Say it with Style…

The latest game to make its way around the blogosphere (at least the end we inhabit) is, as we all know, Alganon. Now as of our readers and listeners know, we are big supporters of the restoration of keel hauling as punishment for the application of “WoW clone” to any game (other than WoW itself of course). That being said, our good friend R.W. Harper (a guest on our upcoming anniversary show) has a great review of the game over at www.lorewriter.com entitled “Something New and Totally Out of the Blue” Here is an excerpt:

 I have sensed a ripple in the force amongst you all and know that this usually is a prelude to the mass of trolls that are about to start screaming their unintelligible and uninformed spewage about the following:

Oh great, another WoW (Everquest, Everquest2, Dark Age of Camelot, Ultima Online, Runes of Magic, Hello Kitty, Warhammer Online) clone.

You know what?  I see this argument being about as pertinent as a dissertation on the variable textures and viscosity of horse dung.

Now THAT my friends is style. We wish we had written that ourselves.

See you online,

The No Prisoners, No Mercy Team