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This is disappointing; EA buckles under pressure, ends charity sponsorship

Jack House

Jack House

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For those that do not know, EA stands for Electronic Arts. They are a major video game publisher and I have no good words for them. They are often times at forefront of controversies in the video game industry and are very often chastised by consumer rights groups. But last month was slightly different, instead of being underfire for yet another anti-consumer policy, they came under fire from anti-rights groups. Specifically, Brady Bunch type namby pambies.

It all started with a cross promotional effort between EA and Project Honor. EA is currently developing a game called Medal of Honor: Warfighter. While developing the game, they struck a partnership deal with various gun and gear manufacturers and were promoting them on their site as well as linking to the manufacturer's various sites. One of these included a special Tomahawk promotion, where a limited edition tomahawk was being sold to help raise money for Project Honor, the aforementioned jackwagons took great offense to this and wrote articles criticizing EA for these promotions. EA swiftly responded, unfortunately, by removing the links to the website of the manufacturers and the tomahawk.

I'm quite disappointed to see EA bowing to the pressure from the hoplophobes, though not surprised.

Excerpts from the articles:


Partners in Arms by Ryan Smith at The Gameological Society
In their quest for realism, military shooters have ventured into murky moral territory.

Ever since a graduate student claiming to be The Joker allegedly shot dozens of moviegoers at a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises, the debate about gun control has been co-opted by those attempting to connect or disconnect the dots between the fiction of costumed comic book characters gunning for each other in Christopher Nolan’s violent opus and the very real slaughter that left 12 people dead. Video games have been mentioned mostly by proxy in the conversation (the movie theater gunman was reportedly addicted to Guitar Hero, not Call Of Duty), but this might also be an opportune moment for the industry to reexamine its long love affair with the modern military shooter and attempts to blur the line between violent video game fantasy and reality.
Take, for instance, the rather overt case of Electronic Arts’ Medal Of Honor: Warfighter. Companies often toss around buzzwords like “immersion” or “authenticity” to promote their video games, but EA’s claim that they’ll “put you directly in the boots of the soldier” for the upcoming sequel to Medal Of Honor doesn’t just smack of hacky marketing speak. First, there’s the promise of ripped-from-the-headlines settings and characters in Warfighter—you’ll be battling the Islamic separatist group Abu Sayyaf and the Somalia-based cell of al-Qaeda in “real-life hotspots” around the world. But EA takes the realism factor further by allowing players to test out a photorealistic replica of, for example, the TAC-300 sniper rifle. Like the way the gun drops terrorists or racks up headshots in multiplayer? Feel free to visit Warfighter’s official website and click on a sponsored link that will take you to McMillan, the manufacturer of the gun. There you may purchase a real-life TAC-300 to your own specification (night-vision kit is optional!) and have it shipped to your local federally licensed gun dealer for pickup.
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EA, guns, and the dangers of brand identity by Laura Parker at GameSpot
What kind of message is a video game publisher like EA sending when it encourages its players to buy weapons? The race to create a perfect, all-encompassing brand identity that infiltrates every aspect of gamers' lives has become of increasing importance to game publishers. It has also thrown some of the gaming industry's ethical boundaries into question.
In a bid to extend the reach of its Medal of Honor: Warfighter brand, EA chose to test these boundaries by updating the official Warfighter site to include links to the sites of the real-world weapons and weapon accessories manufacturers that are helping turn the game into the "most authentic shooter" yet.
Anyone visiting the Medal of Honor: Warfighter site can click through to these external sites and, where legally permitted, purchase weapons like the ones featured in the game.
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The Medal of Honor Tomahawk by Tom Bramwell at Eurogamer

The latest example of the cultural disconnect I've encountered, however, is one of the most bizarre things I've ever read. As explained in Ryan Smith's Gameological Society editorial, EA is partnering with real-world weapons manufacturers not only to make sure that the guns in Medal of Honor: Warfighter are authentic but to make real-world weapons based on the game. I'm putting all this stuff in italics to emphasise how much it doesn't compute to my middle-class British liberal brain. Look! Here's a f***ing Medal of Honor tomahawk!
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EA's response:
"That was an effort to raise a lot of money for charity, and we were well on our way to raising a lot of money with that tomahawk, but I don't know what will happen with that now. That whole effort, we've been working with those partners because we wanted to be authentic, and we wanted to give back to the communities. Every one of those partners, none of them paid a dime for product placement - all the money generated went to Project Honor."
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Or as another person put it.
Oh man, we were gonna raise so much money for charity but you fuddy-duddies had to go and spoil it!
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;)
 
Jack House

Jack House

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Ca Patriot said:
people who play video games are creepy
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People who live in California aren't even people. :uhoh:

davidmcbeth said:
I'm a COD man myself ... but I'll keep this horrific story in mind ...
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I prefer Battlefield, due to the large maps and vehicles. It just feels so right to get a headshot from a mile away that you have to perfectly time with the player running, jumping, other players, buildings and vehicles getting in the way and bullet drop.

I was a pretty good marksman in Battlefield Bad Company 2. Mostly used either the recon or assault class. Long range pistols kills are also really satisfying. Especially when dueling with another sniper. I usually won those fights, whether I was using a sniper rifle, assault rifle or a pistol.

But I haven't played in a while. :(

Even so, I also enjoyed CoD a lot. Was a lot of fun for pure chaos, or going 1v1 with friends. Depending on who I played, I always we dominated or was dominated. Not much middle ground. XD

twoskinsonemanns said:
Halo rules!
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I loved, LOVED Halo Combat Evolved. Not so much Halo 2 or 3. Haven't played ODST or Reach yet and never played Halo Wars. I was very disappointed that it was console only. RTS games should be on the PC. Halo Wars was a perfect example from what I heard, it suffered from bad controls and whatnot. Had it been released on PC, it'd have been a day one purchase for me because it looked really cool.

Pity Microsoft wanted to try and force the 360 on those that hadn't already bought one. That's the primary reason why Halo Wars didn't live up to it's full potential, retail wise. Most people were like me, refused to play it on console. If it had gone to PC, it'd probably have been very successful. Closing Ensemble was also stupid.

I'm sick and tired of these big publishers buying up small, kickass developers and destroying them.
 
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twoskinsonemanns

twoskinsonemanns

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Jack House said:
People who live in California aren't even people. :uhoh:


I prefer Battlefield, due to the large maps and vehicles. It just feels so right to get a headshot from a mile away that you have to perfectly time with the player running, jumping, other players, buildings and vehicles getting in the way and bullet drop.

I was a pretty good marksman in Battlefield Bad Company 2. Mostly used either the recon or assault class. Long range pistols kills are also really satisfying. Especially when dueling with another sniper. I usually won those fights, whether I was using a sniper rifle, assault rifle or a pistol.

But I haven't played in a while. :(

Even so, I also enjoyed CoD a lot. Was a lot of fun for pure chaos, or going 1v1 with friends. Depending on who I played, I always we dominated or was dominated. Not much middle ground. XD


I loved, LOVED Halo Combat Evolved. Not so much Halo 2 or 3. Haven't played ODST or Reach yet and never played Halo Wars. I was very disappointed that it was console only. RTS games should be on the PC. Halo Wars was a perfect example from what I heard, it suffered from bad controls and whatnot. Had it been released on PC, it'd have been a day one purchase for me because it looked really cool.

Pity Microsoft wanted to try and force the 360 on those that hadn't already bought one. That's the primary reason why Halo Wars didn't live up to it's full potential, retail wise. Most people were like me, refused to play it on console. If it had gone to PC, it'd probably have been very successful. Closing Ensemble was also stupid.

I'm sick and tired of these big publishers buying up small, kickass developers and destroying them.
Click to expand...

As I use Halo solely to keep in touch with long-distance siblings I never played Halo Wars. But I do play Reach with my siblings regularly and it is awesome!
 
Jack House

Jack House

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davidmcbeth said:
Halo? Come-on, you 12 years old?

Go play MW2....lol
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27046762.jpg
 
R

RetiredOC

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ARMA III will be coming out soon.


Sorry, you're xbox/playstation controllers don't have half the buttons required to play the game. adults only.
 
Jack House

Jack House

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Schlitz said:
ARMA III will be coming out soon.


Sorry, you're xbox/playstation controllers don't have half the buttons required to play the game. adults only.
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Ohhhh looky at Schlitz, mocking people for their choice of gaming platform. Guess he'll have to miss out on ArmA III. Too bad, would have been interesting to play with him, especially if there is another DayZ mod for ArmA III. :p
 
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