Controversy for the sake of lulz

There's nothing like a good week of people causing controversy. Case with 2 stories. The first story came from Treyarch when community manager Josh Olin had this to say

“It’s a creative industry – the most creative form of entertainment in existence,” he added. “Too many developers who try new things are getting burned by “pundits” and angry entitled fans who look to be contrarian, sometimes simply for the sake of being contrarian.

“The only thing this attitude aims to achieve is stunt that creativity and innovation even further, which is something that no rational gamer looking to be entertained would want to do.”

Ya know, I think we are doing a good job at pissing off game developers by pretending to be a bunch of angry gamers. Maybe we can convince SEGA to create the most boring Sonic game by saying that every Sonic game after Sonic 1 sucks because it adds something new.

Of course, I could be wrong. As it turns it, it is over the poor performances of the PC and PS3 versions of Call of Duty: Black Ops, compared to the X-Box 360 version of that game. Of course, the proper way for normal CoD fans to protest is to act like a gangster and cuss up a storm. Why well because

With Call Of Duty online players a famously foul-mouthed bunch it is entirely natural for Treyarch’s community manager to witness the worst of it. Olin’s Twitter feed shows he is a regular target of abuse.

And here I thought Halo fans had it worst.

Moving from Activision to Electronic Arts, they themselves have stirred up some of their own controversy. This time, by using parents as a means of promoting Dead Space 2

Well, actually, it is, since a "parent advocacy group" is calling out the campaign for the same reason I think it's stupid: it completely overshoots (and in many ways insults) its target market, pandering to a demographic that won't (and shouldn't) even be looking at the game, let alone buying it.

If you haven't seen it, the campaign focused on the reaction of mothers to the game's gorier and scarier moments. It closes with "Dead Space 2. It's everything you love in a game, and your mom's going to hate it."

What is this, 1993? Does Dead Space 2 do what Nintendon't? Dead Space 2 is a game rated Mature, meaning it's pitched at people who at their youngest are 17 years old. But these "moms" in many cases look more like "grandmothers", which makes things worse: either EA is pitching the game at kids who think pissing off their parents is cool (kids who shouldn't be playing the game), or it thinks the children of these women - who would be in their twenties and thirties - think pissing off their parents is cool.

Neither scenario makes EA look too good.

That's right. A commercial where mothers are shocked at the contents of the game and are even shocked that their shockiness is being exploited by a commercial. It even got the attention of Common Sense Media who requested to the ESRB to sanction the ad itself, due to making it irresistible to teens and young boys. They also had this to say.

"We think it violates the ESRB's Principles and Guidelines for Responsible Advertising Practices," Steyer wrote. "The question is does the ESRB stick up for kids or not."

I say they shouldn't. That's government overreach of our children. We don't need no stinkin rating system telling us what to do while we fail to look up information on a game and end up buying the violent game for our child by accident.

Okay, maybe I have drank too much tea right now.

Works Cited:
Next-Gen: Edge Article
Kotaku
LA Times.