"It's revolting. It's violent. It's everything you love in a game, and your mom's gonna hate it."
EA has decided to take a new route in marketing their action/horror/thriller/survivor/space game Dead Space 2. Instead of worrying about showing content or giving glimpses of the story, EA has decided to focus their efforts on making sure every gamer knows what's really important about their product; how much it will upset their mothers.
These people are idiots. There's no kind way to say it. Right now the Electronic Merchants Association is in the Supreme Court desperately fighting California's video game censorship laws so publishers like EA can release Mediocre Shooter 4: It's Still Personal, or whatever they have lined up, without worrying about whether an M rating will bar it from the shelves of Gamestop. While this is going on, EA has basically stated "We are deliberately putting disgusting content in this game, which is all you, the gamer, care about," which is both insulting and completely untrue, and I can assure you California's lawyers will have a field day with it.
So way to go EA. Way to set the public image of video games back five years. Way to tarnish the reputation of gaming during a time when it is critical that developers demonstrate maturity. Way to affirm everything the media, the fear-mongering politicians, and the insane activists have been saying about the industry since Duke Nukem. Seriously guys, good job.
It's actually a smart move from a pure business standpoint, but it also reinforces the popular notion that games are strictly kids' things. The people at EA knew what they were doing, and they don't care how seriously people take games as long as consumers buy Mediocre Shooter 4. The same is true for Activision, a company that would rather profit annually from what it already knows sells (Call of Duty) than innovate and try new ideas.
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