Activision responds to AAID News
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Ellie Gibson
Activision has responded to accusations that PC and console title GUN promotes racism and genocide, apologising to Native Americans who have complained about the game for any offence caused.
In a statement issued to GamesIndustry.biz, the publisher said: "Activision does not condone or advocate any of the atrocities that occurred in the American West during the 1800s. GUN was designed to reflect the harshness of life on the American frontier at that time.
"It was not Activision’s intention to offend any race or ethnic group with GUN, and we apologize to any who might have been offended by the game’s depiction of historical events which have been conveyed not only through video games but through films, television programming, books and other media."
Activision's comments come after the Association for American Indian Development launched a campaign against GUN, as reported previously.
One of AAID's main complaints was with regard to the prominence of "Indian scalping" in the game, but according to Activision: "While GUN depicts scalping and killing, these actions are not directed exclusively toward any race or gender but are used against a variety of opponents, reflecting the realities of that time."
The AAID previously requested that Activision removed all content which it deems offensive from GUN, threatening to start a global campaign to have the game removed from shop shelves if this demand is not met.
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Comments: 1-25 of 25 in total
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reality_cheque
02/02/06 @ 14:53
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Can we start a campaign to remove everything offensive from Uwe Boll films? For example, the involvement of Uwe Boll...
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Ninjamagic
02/02/06 @ 15:14
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Havent played GUN but would be interested to see what this was all about.
Could you find Indians and ride up to them horseback and scalp them? Was there a lot of Indians? Was it always the Indians? Could you do it to anyone? In a way if it highlighted their genocide then isnt that a good thing for them? But i suppose you could look two ways about it. |
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Either:-
1. This is guerilla marketing by Activision. or 2. These people really need to get some perspective, actually play the game, and realise that everyone thinks that Indians (oops, sorry, Native Americans) are really rather cool and that a crappy computer game isn't going to change our opinion of them. |
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effinjamie
02/02/06 @ 17:27
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Contrary to what Hollywood would have us believe, "Scalping" was primarily a white man thing.
What better way to prove how many Indians you had killed |
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Mho7276501
02/02/06 @ 17:29
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" Political correctness is just another form of censorship..."
how about a game were you play a german soldier shooting jewish prisoners? Would offence at that be "politcal correctness"?? what about the red neck racist PC shooters you can get from the kkk??? are they ok by your standards |
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YES!!!
Why wouldn't you be able to play WW2 (or 1) and play as germans shooting THEIR enemies. Same goes for the rednecks in the KKK, it already exists and YOU have no right to stop games you feel are wronge from being made. (The movie industry HAS those rights, its about time the game industry is respected the same way) PERIODE
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 02/02/06 @ 17:50
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el_pollo_diablo
02/02/06 @ 17:48
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I've not played GUN, but lazy stereotypes are something that Neversoft seem to do very well in their games. I'm thinking of pretty much the entire skaterboarding community in their THPS games, particularly the latter ones.
What with the lapdancing scenes and kids in wheelchairs in there too, their games all feel, for want of a better word, low rent. If they've offended a group of people, well, they had it coming for being so lazy in their writing and storylines. |
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Censorship is not always a bad thing. I can understand if Native Americans are offended by the content in GUN. Many of us are used to shooting Nazis in video games, but they were the aggressors whereas Native Americans were the victims. Part of the problem is that many of the cultures that we are used to seeing in violent games are either no longer around or are ficticious. Native American culture, however, is still here and we should respect that. The workaround could have been if you were able to play from the Native American side, similar to the way you can play both sides in FPS and RTS games. In the end, I think sales of GUN speak for themselves since it was rated below average by many sites. I wouldn't mind seeing scalping censored either. That is a cruel practice.
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el_pollo_diablo
02/02/06 @ 20:09
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I never said that I thought the game should be banned. I don't think it should.
But I've certainly got no sympathy for Neversoft. |
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Let's be honest here... I don't care if a game is about destroying Europe or China or whatever... it's just a game. But the thing is.... How many games do we have that the main mission is... let's say it, anihilate the USA?
As "Planet" mentioned... there is lot's of WWII games released in recent years... There are great games, but, how about releasing a Metal Gear Solid type game where the main character is a vietcong that uses tactics to eliminate any american threat? The themes are always USA wins and the rest of the world looses. Big salut to all eurogamers of our big EU nation from Lisbon. |
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TurdBreaker
03/02/06 @ 12:27
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boo-fuckin-hoo...
what sort of politically correct bullshit is this? That's what it was LIKE in those days.. Next we'll have neo-Nazis comlpaining that CoD2 and other WW2 games are portraying them in a "bad way".. |
Comments: 1-25 of 25 in total
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