The sad saga of LEGO Universe's dong detection
Table of Contents
Shuttered MMO LEGO Universe was in constant conflict with a mighty opponent: the human impulse to draw dicks.
One of my friends has this odd little electronic notepad he keeps in his glove box. It's kind of a neat device, and he generally shows it to anyone who rides with him. "Try it out," he says, handing them a stylus.
Almost everyone immediately draws a penis.
Nobody knows whether it's some sort of hardwired biological imperative or the product of centuries of phallocentric culture, but toilet walls everywhere attest to the simple fact that a lot of people like to draw dicks, if they think they can get away with it.
As a result of this, building games like Minecraft and Trove are wall to wall dongs. Golden dongs, clay dongs, diamond dongs, dongs you could conceivably see from space - fully automated ejaculating dongs, in one memorable Minecraft example. (I tried searching for this last little gem but the results I got were, uh, not especially relevant.)
LEGO Universe, NetDevil's shuttered MMO, did not have dongs. In a very interesting series of tweets from the project's senior graphics designer Megan Fox, we learn how, why - and at what tremendous cost. A massive thank you to the hero who compiled these on Exquisite Tweets.
Funny story - we were asked to make dong detection software for LEGO Universe too. We found it to be utterly impossible at any scale.
— Megan Fox (@glassbottommeg) May 29, 2015
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Players would hide the dongs where the filtering couldn't see, or make them only visible from one angle / make multi-part penis sculptures.
— Megan Fox (@glassbottommeg) May 29, 2015
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The moderation costs of LEGO Universe were a big issue in general. They wanted a creative building MMO with a promise of zero penises seen.
— Megan Fox (@glassbottommeg) May 29, 2015
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They actually had a huge moderation team that got a bunch of screenshots of every model, every property. Entirely whitelist-based building.
— Megan Fox (@glassbottommeg) May 29, 2015
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YOU could build whatever you wanted, but strangers could never see your builds until we'd had the team do a penis sweep on it.
— Megan Fox (@glassbottommeg) May 29, 2015
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It was all automated, but the human moderators were IIRC the single biggest cost center for LEGO Universe's operational costs. Or close to.
— Megan Fox (@glassbottommeg) May 29, 2015
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And "that" is why Trove/etc were able to make better building MMOs. They didn't have to worry about little kids seeing dongs. We REALLY did.
— Megan Fox (@glassbottommeg) May 29, 2015
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You see, LEGO was deeply committed to a dong-free game world.
We even had an employee very nearly fired for building a penis. It was on his own property, but a kid wandered into it during a kid test.
— Megan Fox (@glassbottommeg) May 29, 2015
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We're talking "test operator rushed forward, blocks the monitor, slams the game closed, four alarm fire to find who built the penis" here.
— Megan Fox (@glassbottommeg) May 29, 2015
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After which a memo went out indicating our new absolute zero tolerance policy on building penises of any kind, anywhere, in the game.
— Megan Fox (@glassbottommeg) May 29, 2015
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This is all obvious, simple stuff, and is why dealing w/ COPPA (which protects kids) is so damn hard in online games. Even DEVS build dongs.
— Megan Fox (@glassbottommeg) May 29, 2015
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People saying "well just allow dicks" - LEGO's brand is utterly trusted by parents. We had to uphold that trust. Which meant zero tolerance.
— Megan Fox (@glassbottommeg) May 29, 2015
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Anyways, "all of that" is why every single successor to LEGO Universe has been small and missing build play. LEGO knows how expensive it is.
— Megan Fox (@glassbottommeg) May 29, 2015
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I expect stories of the sunk costs gone into LEGO Universe are told to young LEGO execs at bed time, as cautionary tales to never try again.
— Megan Fox (@glassbottommeg) May 29, 2015
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And they basically can't compete with Minecraft, because Minecraft can just shrug that entire problem off. So they've focused elsewhere.
— Megan Fox (@glassbottommeg) May 29, 2015
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Don't go thinking working for LEGO is a nightmare, though; Fox had only good things to say about her time with the company.
BTW LEGO is every bit as cool to work for as you'd think. Every office has rows and rows of brick bins. I'd build stuff while code compiled.
— Megan Fox (@glassbottommeg) May 31, 2015
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LEGO is in the news at the moment due to the surprise Early Access release of LEGO Worlds, although toys-to-life style affair LEGO Dimensions is also drawing a lot of interest.
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