Microsoft Seeks Patent On Shaming Fat Gamers

theodp writes "A newly disclosed Microsoft patent application — Avatar Individualized by Physical Characteristic — takes aim at fat people, proposing to generate fat avatars in gaming environments for individuals whose health records indicate they're overweight, limiting their game play, and even banning them. From the patent application: 'An undesirable body weight could be reflected in an overweight or underweight appearance for the avatar. Only requisite health levels are allowed to compete in a certain competition level. A dedicated gamer could exercise for a period of time until his health indicator gadget shows a sufficiently high health/health credit in order to allow reentering the avatar environment.' Linking one's gaming avatar to one's physique, explains Microsoft, will produce healthy and virtuous behaviors in individuals. Microsoft also proposes shaping gaming experiences by using 'psychological and demographic information such as education level, geographic location, age, sex, intelligence quotient, socioeconomic class, occupation, marital/relationship status, religious belief, political affiliation, etc.'"

Comments

What next?

[Khris]

How about patenting a system to prevent people from supporting the Jonas Brothers! Now that one would make millions!!

Re:It's a Free Market

[gstoddart]

Wow, recursive suck. How depressing. :-P

Cheers

Re:It's a Free Market

[CannonballHead]

Right, because Christians and republicans are representative of the world's overweight and stupid people.

I know, it's just a joke. Just figured I'd mention it.

Re:Prior art: Nintendo Wii Fit

[h4rm0ny]

Or one could say her life was made miserable because of her weight.

You could but that would be logically incorrect. People's cruelty was the first order cause. To illustrate this, your reasoning would also say that it is the fault of someone for being black if they receive insults about being black, the fault of someone for being Christian if they receive insults about being Christian, the fault of someone for choosing to be a computer programmer if they are laughed at by non-computer programmers.

As to your being grotesquely obese but not being a victim of insults or abuse or being judged, I can only assume that you either live in a spectacularly more enlightened part of the world than most of the USA, or that you simply don't care about it. I suspect the latter. Again, your logic is flawed. That you don't care about the abuse does not mean that someone else does not. That is a deductive fallacy.