Devs Blacklisted one of the Sacred 28 families

[Nimarus]

I decided to give my character the last name of one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight families. Since I didn't see any student listed in the game under the Abbott family, I thought I'd choose that name. Decided to go with a simple Henry Abbott and I suddenly realize that the devs have blacklisted naughty words and something about Abbott is apparently naughty.

Imagine a Wizarding World game blacklisting one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight Wizarding Families from the game. Lol, imagine if they blacklisted Potter.

Edit: Seems you can use a save editor to change your name.

[Silverbuu]

huh...? Why blacklist any name? It's an offline single player game.

[Psyringe]

Originally posted by Silverbuu:

huh...? Why blacklist any name? It's an offline single player game.

It's a single player game for which screenshots, gameplay videos, and streams get shared all over the Internet. The risk is not that other players get offended. The risk is that some mainstream media picks up material with sexualized or politically offensive names and runs with the story, which then causes damage to the Harry Potter brand. Warners contract with the IP holder most likely includes a clause that Warner needs to prevent potential damage to the brand, that's standard procedure. Not implementing a profanity filter could be seen as allowing damage to the brand through negligence.

That said, I don't see what's problematic with the name Abbott either. But in most cases, profanity filters aren't developed specifically for the games that use them. They are ready-made third-party solutions that just get bought and implemented, and that don't necessarily mesh well with the game in question.

[id795078477]

Originally posted by Psyringe:

Originally posted by Silverbuu:

huh...? Why blacklist any name? It's an offline single player game.

It's a single player game for which screenshots, gameplay videos, and streams get shared all over the Internet. The risk is not that other players get offended. The risk is that some mainstream media picks up material with sexualized or politically offensive names and runs with the story, which then causes damage to the Harry Potter brand. Warners contract with the IP holder most likely includes a clause that Warner needs to prevent potential damage to the brand, that's standard procedure. Not implementing a profanity filter could be seen as allowing damage to the brand through negligence.

That said, I don't see what's problematic with the name Abbott either. But in most cases, profanity filters aren't developed specifically for the games that use them. They are ready-made third-party solutions that just get bought and implemented, and that don't necessarily mesh well with the game in question.

By that logic all games should introduce insane censorship, constant surveillance or both. But that's not what happens. And the premise is wrong anyways, because:

-- Those who wish to offend will do it via other means (because save editing was available on week 1)
-- Even the media platforms like yt would not be legally held responsible for such an offensive content provided they acted on the signals in time - lest to say the developer of a game that was used to produce it. It's the user who did it that will be.

[Psyringe]

Originally posted by Dellecross:

Originally posted by Psyringe:

It's a single player game for which screenshots, gameplay videos, and streams get shared all over the Internet. The risk is not that other players get offended. The risk is that some mainstream media picks up material with sexualized or politically offensive names and runs with the story, which then causes damage to the Harry Potter brand. Warners contract with the IP holder most likely includes a clause that Warner needs to prevent potential damage to the brand, that's standard procedure. Not implementing a profanity filter could be seen as allowing damage to the brand through negligence.

That said, I don't see what's problematic with the name Abbott either. But in most cases, profanity filters aren't developed specifically for the games that use them. They are ready-made third-party solutions that just get bought and implemented, and that don't necessarily mesh well with the game in question.

By that logic all games should introduce insane censorship, constant surveillance or both. But that's not what happens.

"All games" do not have a third-party IP involved that they depend on. Many publishers do not care much about potential disasters like the one I outlined, if it's only their own IP that's affected. But if they depend on a powerful IP holder who expects them to treat their IP with proper care, and who could theoretically cause massive damage to the publisher by revoking the license, then they usually operate from a "better safe than sorry" perspective.

Originally posted by Dellecross:

-- Those who wish to offend will do it via other means (because save editing was available on week 1)

That doesn't matter though, because the publisher's objective is not to do the impossible and try to prevent every potential abuse. The publisher's objective is to demonstrate to the IP holder that _if_ a PR disaster happens, it happened _despite_ the publisher taking all reasonable precautions.

If someone uses a save editor, the publisher can tell the IP holder: "We did implement industry-standard precautions by applying a profanity filter. If someone hacks into the game data, that's beyond our control. We are sorry that this happened, but we did all we could."

If the game has no profanity filter, the IP holder could ask the publisher: "We have a contract. You agreed to handle our IP with proper care. How could such a PR disaster happen when an easy-to-implement, ready-made profanity filter could have prevented it?"

Originally posted by Dellecross:

-- Even the media platforms like yt would not be legally held responsible for such an offensive content provided they acted on the signals in time - lest to say the developer of a game that was used to produce it. It's the user who did it that will be.

Legally, yes. But the publisher and the IP holder do not care who's legally responsible, they care about preventing potential PR disasters. Being able to say "Well, legally, this was the fault of the user who uploaded this material in the first place" does not undo such a PR disaster once it has happened.

[Shadow]

Bruh

[Nimarus]

Something involving the "o" in Abbott caused the problem. I used a save editor so I could change the name from Abbtt to Abbott. You'd think someone in the Dev team would have whitelisted the family name of one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight.

[id795078477]

Originally posted by Psyringe:

Originally posted by Dellecross:

-- Those who wish to offend will do it via other means (because save editing was available on week 1)

That doesn't matter though, because the publisher's objective is not to do the impossible and try to prevent every potential abuse. The publisher's objective is to demonstrate to the IP holder that _if_ a PR disaster happens, it happened _despite_ the publisher taking all reasonable precautions.

If someone uses a save editor, the publisher can tell the IP holder: "We did implement industry-standard precautions by applying a profanity filter. If someone hacks into the game data, that's beyond our control. We are sorry that this happened, but we did all we could."

This is still not good enough. A reasonable IP holder by that logic would then ask "why the heck did you not implement the check for profanity at the moment user loads the game or why did you not implement any anti-tampering for it?" (reminder: Denuvo is only in-game for checking the license stuff, it does _nothing_ when it comes to checking local files integrity).

So this argument fails because it shows that the issue is handled "without a proper care". If they were allegedly so paranoid about the IP and the reputation, there's no explanation to why the save editing was a thing almost instantly or why the game doesn't do basic local files integrity checking. Even more - mods are in the game and there's nothing preventing them from existing - and trust me - mods can be far, far more damaging to the reputation than a silly name of a character.

So - no, not convinced. Or at least - if it was the reason for the thing, then they achieved the worst of both worlds - i.e. upsetting the players and still not achieving any degree of protection at the same time (at least not if properly challenged in the court)

[Psyringe]

Originally posted by Dellecross:

Originally posted by Psyringe:

That doesn't matter though, because the publisher's objective is not to do the impossible and try to prevent every potential abuse. The publisher's objective is to demonstrate to the IP holder that _if_ a PR disaster happens, it happened _despite_ the publisher taking all reasonable precautions.

If someone uses a save editor, the publisher can tell the IP holder: "We did implement industry-standard precautions by applying a profanity filter. If someone hacks into the game data, that's beyond our control. We are sorry that this happened, but we did all we could."

This is still not good enough. A reasonable IP holder by that logic would then ask "why the heck did you not implement the check for profanity at the moment user loads the game or why did you not implement any anti-tampering for it?" (reminder: Denuvo is only in-game for checking the license stuff, it does _nothing_ when it comes to checking local files integrity).

You are correct in stating that the IP holder _could_ ask this. However, I don't know of a single case where one did. What an IP holder usually wants, is that the publisher does their due diligence and adheres to the current industry standards with regard to IP protection. The current industry standard, as far as I'm aware, does include profanity filters, but not protection against save editors. If you don't find that plausible, feel free to talk to the respective parties and convince them of your views. :)

Originally posted by Dellecross:

So this argument fails because it shows that the issue is handled "without a proper care". If they were allegedly so paranoid about the IP and the reputation, there's no explanation to why the save editing was a thing almost instantly or why the game doesn't do basic local files integrity checking.

You think we are having an argument. We don't. I'm offering explanations on how certain decisions are made in the industry that I'm working in. You are free to believe that your own ideas reflect reality better than my experience.

Originally posted by Dellecross:

Even more - mods are in the game and there's nothing preventing them from existing - and trust me - mods can be far, far more damaging to the reputation than a silly name of a character.

Yes, I'm aware of that. Most of the parties in the industry are aware of the risk as well, ever since Bethesda lost a good deal of money after the ESRB re-rated Oblivion as "M" (from "T") due to a nude mod, and stores like Walmart dropped the game because of that rating.

I was indeed surprised by the fact that Hogwarts Legacy doesn't prevent tampering with its files. The very high likelihood of, say, underage nude mods showing up definitely does look like a potential PR hazard to me. I do not know why Warner shipped this game without file integrity checking, perhaps there wasn't enough time for that (many other elements of the game were obviously rushed to make the release date) - but that's highly speculative.

Originally posted by Dellecross:

So - no, not convinced. Or at least - if it was the reason for the thing, then they achieved the worst of both worlds - i.e. upsetting the players and still not achieving any degree of protection at the same time (at least not if properly challenged in the court)

Again, the danger for Warner is not getting challenged in court. The danger is that the IP holder loses confidence in the publisher as someone who treats their IP with proper care.

I don't agree that Warner "upset the players" by implementing a profanity filter, because 99.99% of players never notice that it even exists. The remaining 0.01% may indeed get upset, but from the perspective of the publisher, 0.01% of upset players is probably preferable to the risk of enabling a PR disaster out of negligence and angering the IP holder. Again - companies tend to resort to a "better safe than sorry" strategy when huge amounts of money are involved.

That said, I agree that Warner could have been stricter with its approach to mods, though I'm happy that they weren't. With regard to the profanity filter, I really don't have strong feelings either way. I understand players who are disappointed that they cannot choose a given name, but I don't think it's a big deal either. I do think that profanity filters are overly cautious and often badly implemented, but I also understand why publishers see a good reason for them to exist.

[id795078477]

Originally posted by Psyringe:

You are correct in stating that the IP holder _could_ ask this. However, I don't know of a single case where one did. What an IP holder usually wants, is that the publisher does their due diligence and adheres to the current industry standards with regard to IP protection. The current industry standard, as far as I'm aware, does include profanity filters, but not protection against save editors. If you don't find that plausible, feel free to talk to the respective parties and convince them of your views. :)

Are you a lawyer specializing in IP protection / Copyright law? If no - then how could you claim that it is not a common practice? What is the statistics on contractual obligations for it? What are the risks of non-compliance (breach of contract penalties, the likelihood of the litigation on the matter, etc?)

Originally posted by Psyringe:

I was indeed surprised by the fact that Hogwarts Legacy doesn't prevent tampering with its files. The very high likelihood of, say, underage nude mods showing up definitely does look like a potential PR hazard to me. I do not know why Warner shipped this game without file integrity checking, perhaps there wasn't enough time for that (many other elements of the game were obviously rushed to make the release date) - but that's highly speculative.

That's simple - because they do not have obligations that you claim they do. Or they do not have the IP care you think they have. Or at most, they compared the concerns and legal risks and the cost of implementing that system and made the decision against it because the likelihood of a real court case multiplied by the potential losses was not worth the cost of introducing such a system. Any of this options would mean that the premise, like I mention above - is faulty, and that the censorship had no real basis to begin with.

Businesses are not stupid. They (try to the best of their ability to) make rational decisions. As someone who does have to deal with decisions concerning corporate law and technology, I am aware of at least basics on how those decisions are made. And if the contract was so strict and the IP protection suit was so rigid and/or the reputational/PR concerns were even on their radar, they would not go for open modding in their game.

Originally posted by Psyringe:

You think we are having an argument. We don't. I'm offering explanations on how certain decisions are made in the industry that I'm working in. You are free to believe that your own ideas reflect reality better than my experience.

We are. Because you claim things you cannot know and just as in this quotation you substitute the facts for your judgement telling it as if what you say is true without any proof. Seen this from you personally a lot of times in this forum, for some reason you "have to be right" which is normally "who cares" by me - but this time the topic is important to me and you've stepped over a blatant line of presenting an opinionated take as facts and truths.

[Psyringe]

Originally posted by Dellecross:

We are. Because you claim things you cannot know and just as in this quotation you substitute the facts for your judgement telling it as if what you say is true without any proof. Seen this from you personally a lot of times in this forum, for some reason you "have to be right" which is normally "who cares" by me - but this time the topic is important to me and you've stepped over a blatant line of presenting an opinionated take as facts and truths.

Again, you are completely free to believe that your own ideas reflect reality better than my experience. I already said that. If you want to have an argument here, it's going to be a unilateral one. ;)

If you want to believe that I'm talking total horsecrap here, that's absolutely fine with me. As I said, I'm offering explanations here with the intention to help people understand things better. In this case, someone asked "why is there a profanity filter in a single-player game", so I explained common reasons for that. If one or two people leave this thread with a better understanding of how some of the decisions in this industry are made, I'm considering this thread worth my time.

I'm not sure how you think that throwing ad hominems around is going to help the discussion in any way. I'm afraid I won't join you on that path. Have fun. :)

If you're interested in how this industry works, then I would suggest getting in touch with actual developers and publishers - visit conventions, get in touch, ask questions, listen to GDC talks, etc. You don't have to believe me if you do not want to, but I'd encourage you to try and understand how certain thought processes work, rather than decrying them as implausible from your own personal perspective.

[Thorley23]

Originally posted by Nimarus:

Something involving the "o" in Abbott caused the problem. I used a save editor so I could change the name from Abbtt to Abbott. You'd think someone in the Dev team would have whitelisted the family name of one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight.

Other than not wanting you to use canon names of book characters it strikes me as being possible simply because it's a religious rank, and Harry Potter has had long term conflicts with various Christian churches, it varies from sect to sect and faith to faith, but to put into perspective the Cathedral from the movies that they used as the basis for Hogwarts was not the first choice as they had been turned down before hand due to the way the books glorify the supernatural, and pretty much omit any mention of god or the truth of their faith. It's likely not an issue with other religions as the same battles have not been as vocal, but it might be one there, and is omitted so nobody can use something like that to be deliberately offensive towards religious folks somehow and cause problems.

Not saying this is the reason, just that it might be. Understand, things have been getting pretty crazy in recent years and the unwillingness to force free speech protections onto private platforms has been getting crazy. In many MMOs (which I play heavily) I am oftentimes afraid to say anything over concerns of being banned, so I mostly talk to guild mates and such via things like Discord when I'm typing. The reason is that in some games you can get banned just for saying something trivial. For example one long term friend I have who is hardly offensive or edgy spent hundreds of dollars on "Warframe" and got perma-banned because saying the word "trap" in their chat will cause the chat mode to perma ban your account and you need to petition Digital Extremes to unban you which they rarely will do due to the word being inherently offensive in their opinion.

Apparently this goes back to one of their warframes being Androgynous in design (I am not sure which one, I used to play all the time, but it's been a while) and people were joking that frame was "a trap" and some of the mods didn't think that was funny so made the word "trap" a bannable offense, and apparently hundreds of players at least have gotten banned for just saying the word "trap" such as in the context of setting traps by using delayed detonation abilities, or using Vauban to set up traps and mines and pull enemies in during defense missions and such. Apparently it's unreliable and you don't always get banned for saying it, but well... I never would have known this was a thing if a friend didn't get banned for it and I doubt they were making jokes about the way one of the frames looked. There is also nothing overtly said anywhere listing banned words and offensive terms that could have multiple meanings and upset the people running that game..... so as a result I don't play much anymore, and if I do, I'm not likely to want to type anything as they are apparently unstable and insane.

The point here being that unless free speech protections are forced onto private platforms, which was something the Democrats USED to believe in in the 1990s, expect insanity to reign as you never know what is going to offend someone or what they are thinking. At least your not losing your access to this game due to some obscure line in the EULA somewhere (if there is even one in Warframe's case) for daring to try and use the word "Abbott" in a character name. I mean while I can understand what Warframe's intent might have been, it is pretty insane to have a game where characters set traps and they ban the word trap because it could in theory be used offensively.

[Psyringe]

Well, since we have a few different theories now about why "Abbott" in particular gets censored, why not test them? :)

(creates a few characters)

Okay, here's some data:

1. The names Priest, Pope, and Cardinal were all accepted, so the reason is unlikely to be related to the church.

2. The names Gaunt, Weasley, and Avery were all accepted, so the reason is unlikely to be related to the "Sacred Families".

3. The name "Harry Potter" gets accepted, so the game doesn't seem to have problems with the names of existing characters either.

4. However, a bit of research reveals that the word "abbo" is apparently a pejorative term to describe Australian Aboriginals.
https://hatebase.org/vocabulary/abbo
(This is from Hatebase, a site that a developer of multiplayer games pointed out to me as a potential source of blacklisted terms for a profanity filter.)

"Abbo" on its own also gets blocked, so this seems to be the term that is causing the block.

[Bolo]

I'm a big Fatal Fury fan. Guess what last name didn't work, 'Crackshoot'. Figured it would be similar to Shacklebolt but nope. Now was it the 'crack' or the 'shoot'. Figure it could be either at this point.

[Nimarus]

According to Urban Dictionary:

Originally posted by Urban Dictionary:

Abbott: Australian slang largely considered offensive. refers to a person devoid of any moral compassion, and in extreme interpretations can be taken to refer to a fascist.

I believe we have our answer boyz. I can currently change the name in the save, but the menu screen still shows the old name that I used to finalize my character. Currently putting in mod requests so people can bypass this on PC so those of us with legit names, that are banned, can use them.

[Leadmagnet]

Here I was thinking it wasn't allowed since Castello wasn't put in the game....