Brickipedia News:LEGO Universe's issue with members

User:CJC95 0:00, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

by CJC95
June 2, 2015

Remember LEGO Universe? The MMO was online between 2010 and 2012, leaving many fans disappointed in its closure. Now, thanks to former NetDevil developer Megan Fox, we may know one reason why - stopping people creating LEGO penises. LEGO, naturally, wanted the game to be completely free of such things, and internet users, naturally, kept making them. Fox said on Twitter:

"Players would hide the dongs where the filtering couldn't see, or make them only visible from one angle / make multi-part penis sculptures.

"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. They actually had a huge moderation team that got a bunch of screenshots of every model, every property. Entirely whitelist-based building.

"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. It was all automated, but the human moderators were IIRC the single biggest cost centre for LEGO Universe's operational costs. Or close to."

This comes out just as LEGO Worlds is released onto Steam early access. The game offers building abilities, but is currently single player. No doubt any attempts at including multiplayer or mod support via Steam Workshop may face similar moderating issues.

Megan Fox via Eurogamer.

Tags: LEGO Universe LEGO Worlds

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Comments (12)

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Saberdaber1Novice

115 months ago

Score 0

I always thought it was only because of the limiting of subscriptions to only a few counties. Well then. Guess I was wrong.

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Saberdaber1Novice

115 months ago

Score 0

countries, not counties

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Edward NigmaMaster Builder

115 months ago

Score -5

Don't mind me, just building swastikas over here. You said no dongs, not no potentially offencive symbols that are actually religious symbols that people still find offencive because they're not Christian symbols.

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BerrybrickLegendary Brickipedian

115 months ago

Score 1

Don't mind me, just commenting here so I can down vote that.

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AjraddatzAmateur

115 months ago

Score 0

LOL. I never understood why they didn't use community moderators in LU. Nearly every major game does that.

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ToaMeikoHonorable Brickipedian

115 months ago

Score 2

LEGO doesn't do that for anything though. Even Message Boards moderators are employed to moderate. People actually get paid to put up with LMB people

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CJCBricktastic

115 months ago

Score 0

The lengths people have to go to to make money these days. Poor sods.

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BobaFett2Novice

115 months ago

Score 1

Paid moderators are one of the standards required to allow kids under 13 to legally play the game, at least in the US. The game was definitely targeted at a younger crowd (as are almost all of their products).

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ToaMeikoHonorable Brickipedian

115 months ago

Score 0

Thanks for sharing that. That's good to know.

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BerrybrickLegendary Brickipedian

115 months ago

Score 3

You just had to share this. :P

Also, her name is Megan Fox? Poor woman.

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CJCBricktastic

115 months ago

Score 2

As if to prove the point, about 20 minutes ago the most watched stream of LEGO Worlds on Twitch was a guy making such an object, and commenting about what great detail the game allowed him to go into.

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1999bugAmateur

115 months ago

Score 1

One of the earliest reviews on Steam is about being the first documented dong builder in LEGO Worlds.

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