Xbox insists its willy-nilly bans of Baldur's Gate 3 players from its online services are 'not automatic', suggests turning off its opt-out feature to avoid horny upload crimes

Last week, Baldur's Gate 3 players on Xbox Series X-S were caught off-guard when their uploaded clips of romance scenes—which include full nudity—were causing them to get banned, something Larian's said it's currently working with Microsoft on.

Yesterday, the Xbox Support account released a statement to tackle allegations that these bans were automatic, or not taking into account the fact that Baldur's Gate 3 ("the horniest RPG", as our online editor Fraser Brown puts it) isn't really porn. There's tasteful sex scenes that aren't really above your standard Dragon Age: Origins or Mass Effect-style bonking of bodies, they're just combined with actual digital nudity. 

"To provide clarity on Baldur's Gate 3 mature content enforcement actions, Xbox account suspensions are not automatic," the statement reads. "Each clip is reviewed by a moderator and, if found in violation of our safety and content policies, actioned accordingly."

Xbox's content policy does include "nudity and sexual content" as part of its no-no's, though I'm starting to wonder if that's an outdated strategy. Surely more comprehensive age verification and filters would be the better solution? 

"Our team evaluates appeals and can reverse suspensions if action was taken in error. If this was a first offence, for example, we will remove the suspension and let players know why it happened and how to avoid future issues," says Xbox, and suggests turning off auto-upload when "sensitive content is being captured". 

Turns out, auto-upload is opt-out, as per the link provided. Under the subheader "Upload to OneDrive or the Xbox network from your console", it reads: "Automatic uploading is standard."

So to clarify: some Baldur's Gate 3 players are getting unilateral bans from playing any games that require an internet connection—which is a lot of them, these days—because the game automatically uploads your clips by default. This seems to me like a major oversight, one that doesn't take into account the fact that your players might be adults. 

I'm not here to judge why someone might want to save their romance scenes for later perusal. But if you've just been clipping stuff for personal use, I can completely see how you might end up stepping on this particular landmine. I'm happy to take Xbox at its word that these bans are being enacted by people—but if that's the case, then it's clear the content policy itself is short-sighted.

When one Twitter user asked if Xbox was "suspending accounts for having auto-uploaded content from a setting that is turned on by default", the support account replied: "Please follow our Official Xbox Support page on Twitter in order to be able to get a Direct Message regarding the issue you are encountering." Words of wisdom we can all live by.

Ultimately, it just makes me glad to be playing the game on PC where my screenshots are stored locally unless I choose otherwise—safe in the knowledge that I can take as many artful snaps of Gale's magic staff as I please.