People System (Friends List) overview

This topic provides an overview of the People System. It includes the Friends List and manages relationships between players, like showing a player's real name only to close friends.

The People System:

• Is part of Xbox Live Social services.
• Tracks and maintains relationships between players in the Xbox Live ecosystem.
• Lets players easily recognize and organize their contacts on Xbox Live, whether they're close friends or online acquaintances.

Players can show their real name to people who they trust, and hide their real name from people who they don't trust. Players can select a friend as a favorite so they show up first in various experiences where a list of friends is shown.

One-way and two-way relationships

The People System lets players have both one-way relationships and two-way relationships through the concept of following. Before following, players could only friend other players by sending them an invitation and then waiting for them to accept that friend request. This resulted in a two-way relationship where players could follow each other. This process could take days, depending on how frequently players checked their friend requests.

With one-way relationships, players can follow another player and see their online activity immediately instead of waiting for them to respond. At this stage, the player in a one-way relationship is a follower.

The player being followed still receives a notification and has the opportunity to follow the requesting player. This makes them friends in a two-way relationship. One-way relationships cut down on the wait time to interaction. This gives requesting players the added bonus of keeping up with noted players who stream to viewers or have gained a following for their competitive prowess.

Gamertags and real names

Creating and maintaining a mental map of which real-world player is which gamertag can become a very difficult task when there's the potential for unlimited friends and following relationships. As a result, we give players the option to reveal their real name to players who they know personally so they can recognize them more easily.

Showing real names is optional and must be opted into by the player. Real names are never shown to everyone on Xbox Live. They are shown only to people who the player knows. These relationships are expressed either through connections that are manually indicated by the player or through a social network that the player has associated with their account. Players always appear as their gamertag when they interact with random strangers in matchmaking or other experiences. In addition, there's no option to appear as your real name to strangers.

Players can control how they appear in games. They can decide that they want others to always see them as their gamertag in games, even if some of those people have access to their real name. At the time players opt into the functionality that allows their real name to show (only to those they know), they're presented with the option to always appear as their gamertag in games. Selecting this option means that their gamertag always appears on the game screen above their head.

Privacy and people that players know

A core feature of the People System is that it provides for anonymous relationships and those that aren't anonymous. Players can have real-name friends and random gamertag relationships with players who they've encountered on Xbox Live. This means that two different sets of rights must be supported.

• Let trusted, real-world friends see sensitive information.
• Let players add random gamertag relationships while feeling safe that they won't reveal anything sensitive.

In addition, players can place restrictions on individual pieces of information about themselves like their profile, online status, and Friends List. Access to this information can go into three categories.

• Everybody: The information is public to anyone who comes across the player.
• Friends: The information is available only to those who the player has deemed a friend.
• Block: The information is inaccessible.

For the full list of privacy settings, see xbox.com.

Favorite people

The Xbox Live People System provides the player a simple category system for their own People List. Players can select anyone on their list as a favorite. Those people appear first and are prioritized higher across features.

Favorites appear first in games whenever a list of people is shown. There's no limit to the number of favorites that a player can have.

Players can change anyone on their list to a favorite, regardless of whether the person has a real-name or gamertag relationship without privacy implications. Favorite people are a subset of the player's People List. A subset doesn't behave like a separate list of people.