In a heartening change of policy, will now allow Live gamertags to reference sexual orientation, nationality, race, and religion within the confines of new stricter decency standards.

General Manager of Marc Whitten writes in a letter to the Xbox community that the change follows from complaints lodged by Xbox Live subscribers and non-profit organisation GLAAD.

"Under our previous policy, some of these expressions of self-identification were not allowed in Gamertags or profiles to prevent the use of these terms as insults or slurs. However we have since heard feedback from our customers that while the spirit of this approach was genuine, it inadvertently excluded a part of our Xbox Live community."

This is great news, more stringent decency guidelines could make securing an expressive gamertag difficult.

By Tracy Erickson