Now that Deep Silver's parent company owns the studio that makes the Saint's Row franchise lets hope they don't do something tasteless tacky and sexist like this with that franchise, like marketing it with a giant purple sex toy weapon... oh wait.
Dead Island Riptide and the problem with video game marketing
By
Laura Parker, Associate Editor
What decisions affect the marketing of a video game? What responsibilities do publishers have when creating advertising material? Five different voices in the games industry sound off on the Dead Island Riptide controversy.
Last week, video game publisher Deep Silver unveiled a special marketing promotion for Dead Island Riptide: a collector's edition of the game featuring a 31cm resin statue of a decapitated near-naked female torso.
The bloody torso, meant to signify a "grotesque take" on the Roman marble sculptures of the second and third centuries, was described by Deep Silver as a "conversation piece".
The same day, prompted by an overwhelming amount of negative feedback, Deep Silver released a public apology for the product it had so enthusiastically praised hours earlier.
"We sincerely regret this choice," the company said. "We are collecting feedback continuously from the Dead Island community, as well as the international gaming community at large, for ongoing internal meetings with Deep Silver's entire international team today. For now, we want to reiterate to the community, fans, and industry how deeply sorry we are, and that we are committed to making sure this will never happen again."
Do game publishers have a responsibility to ensure marketing materials meet a certain standard? And should more game marketing strive to honor and reflect the original creator's vision for the game?
GameSpot asked five voices from different parts of the international gaming industry to sound off on the problematic aspects of video game marketing.
Rhianna Pratchett, games writer:
I'm a fan of Dead Island and I'll admit that I've chopped off more than a few zombie limbs in my time--mainly because it's pretty hard not to in the game. But when I saw the severed and mutilated, bikini-and-gore-clad torso which was being promoted with the collector's edition of Dead Island Riptide, I was a little shocked. Who thought that such a crass, offensive (to both men and women), and generally tacky piece of merchandise was an appropriate 'reward' for players who shelled out more money for the collector's edition? Why did part of Deep Silver's apology seem to be trying to shift the blame onto players by suggesting that it's already what they do in the game? There are many things that I do in games that I wouldn't want immortalized in a desktop accessory.
It's not surprising to see games marketing aimed at men, but it's not often quite so blatant i.e. "Look, tits!" It is perfectly possible to keep the creative integrity of a franchise without resorting to one-gender marketing tactics. AMC's recent collector's edition piece for their Blu-ray version of The Walking Dead shows this perfectly. It's a male zombie head with a screwdriver through its eyes. Nasty, sure. Gross, a little. In keeping, definitely. Offensive, no.
Having been caught up with a recent 'controversy' on Tomb Raider, I know that the way we market games matters. The way we speak about players, characters, and their relationships matter. The idea that there's no such thing as bad publicity was coined long before the days of the Internet and social media. It's simply not the case anymore. However, situations likes these do have an importance and value in our industry. They create necessary debate about the ways in which marketing should reflect a game's content. They let players and press discuss where the lines are, whether they should be crossed, and if so, how. I'd rather that these scenarios didn't happen, but talking openly about these issues is the only way that we'll ever move on from them.
Rhianna Pratchett is a scriptwriter and story designer for video games, books, film, and television. She is currently the lead writer on the upcoming Tomb Raider game from Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics.
Nels Anderson, Klei Entertainment:
Stuff like this just feels embarrassing. It's either remarkably tone-deaf or tremendously calculated and cynical, and either way that's pretty disappointing. I wish it didn't take a great public outcry to get some organizations to be more conscientious with what their means of promotion say.
I have no problem with gore or violence, or even something that's provocative, if it has some measure of purpose and context. Unfortunately, these things are almost always without either. It's literally meant to sell something, it has nothing to do with creative expression. And what it says about the beliefs of the developers (or at least some people in the chain) about who would be motivated to buy their game because of this just makes me kind of sad.
Nels Anderson is a game developer and designer. His last project was Klei Entertainment's Mark of the Ninja, on which he was lead designer.
Brian Moriarty, Worcester Polytech:
It happens that I am teaching a course called Social Issues in Interactive Media and Games this term. Last week, I was deciding which topics to discuss in the next day's class, when the Dead Island Riptide controversy flashed across the web. Talk about a gift! All I had to do is drop Deep Silver's hi-res promotional image of a dismembered bikini-clad torso into my PowerPoint, sit back and watch the fireworks.
Or so I thought.
The big moment came. After a bit of build-up, I flashed the gruesome torso onto the screen. First, I asked the three females in the lecture hall what they thought of it. Then I asked the remaining twenty-two males. The ones who responded said approximately the same thing: "Yeah, that's offensive, but…".
There was a brief discussion of whether it would make any difference if the breasts were realistically smaller. A few praised the canniness of the marketing. One woman pointed out that the bottom of the bikini would never really stay on like that. Nobody seemed interested in buying one, especially when I estimated what £100 was in American dollars.
The general reaction could be characterized by one word: "Whatever".
I told them about a couple of similar controversies in my youth. One was a 1966 album cover released by Capitol which showed the Beatles draped with bloody strips of raw meat and baby doll parts. Another was in 1972, when Warner Bros. wrapped each copy of Alice Cooper's School's Out LP in a pair of girl's panties.
So I asked my students, does this zombie-kitsch Dead Island torso objectify and degrade women or not? Does it contribute to the popular image of video games as violent, sexist and depraved? Do game companies bear any responsibilities to society beyond their mandate to make money? Would you work for a company that resorted to marketing gimmicks like this?
They looked down at me, silent, fidgeting in their stadium seats.
Maybe I shouldn't have showed the torso. Maybe I should have stuck to my lesson plan and played through Jason Rohrer's Passage instead, explicating the elegance of its procedural rhetoric, and holding it up as an example of how games, unlike any other medium, have the potential to instantiate beauty and truth in a process.
Or whatever.
Brian Moriarty is a video game developer, academic, and creator of the 1990 Lucasfilm Games graphic adventure, Loom. He is currently the Professor of Practice in Game Design at Worcester Polytech.
Sam Machkovech, writer:
As offended as I am by a faceless, amply-breasted torso used to peddle a video game, I'm perhaps more offended by the game in question being Dead Island Riptide. In 2011, I doubled over in nausea as I watched games writers stumble over themselves to laud the first game's trailer--a pre-rendered clip that, in no way, resembled its eventual game. Since when did this stuff fool us? Aren't we past the PlayStation 1 era?
Yet the hype rolled, even though Deep Silver failed to live up to its trailer, which revealed a troubling truth about the usefulness of smoke, mirrors, and hubbub in modern gaming PR. A lot of writers complained about the lengths Deep Silver went to before announcing its sequel's torso trinket last week, yet it's obvious why the thing got announced: because those same writers waste no time promoting teasers, one-at-a-time character reveals, and offensive practices. Deep Silver has a responsibility as an entertainment company to not overstep the line between tasteless and degrading, but enthusiast outlets should consider their responsibilities too: to establish a better filter and shape the conversation in such a way that pre-order DLC and figurines don't always dominate the headlines, whether they’re offensive or not.
Sam Machkovech has served as a games columnist for The Atlantic and The Daily. He currently contributes gaming articles to Polygon, Ars Technica, American Airlines, and Unwinnable.
Ian Bogost, Georgia Institute of Technology:
Somehow, the video games industry has managed to convince itself and its enthusiasts that its product is distinct from its marketing. This attitude cuts both ways. When a product deemed worthwhile suffers from 'bad' marketing, it's the marketing that seems to get the blame. This is true whether it be a beloved title perceived to have been 'watered down' by plainclothes cover art (Bioshock Infinite), or a revolting and offensive figurine foolishly conceived and manufactured for a special edition pack-in (Dead Island Riptide).
Those of us who are engaged enough in the industry to be reading someone like me voice an opinion about it, we often take these marketing offenses to be either violences wrought against the purity of the game itself, or else demonstrations of the grotesqueness of Marketing, which becomes an amorphous, ghoulish abstraction.
But this attitude makes a surprising mistake. We live in a world in which, by and large, marketing and products are almost identical. The marketing, in some respects, is the product: it embodies all the feelings and sensations a company hopes a consumer might want to satisfy by buying its wares. For example, the marketing for a rugged 4x4 SUV might show a strapping young couple conveying themselves off-road to find a perfect, secluded spot for a romantic afternoon of kayaking. In reality, of course, the vehicle will probably be sold to an overweight, middle-aged parent who will drive it around town running errands. But the idea, the dream of adventure and outdoorsmanship: that's real. That's not just something the marketers manipulated out of air.
Perhaps there is a disconnect between design, marketing, and fandom in video games because nobody involved really wants to be much of anything in particular. A video game, we continue to insist, is just entertainment. It's just a game. It's nothing political, or social, it doesn't have anything to say. "Keep your politics out of my games," say players. "We're just here to make good games," say the developers. "People will vote with their wallets," they insist. "A game is good if it's fun to play, period." But then, simultaneously, we believe video games can do no harm. They don't cause or encourage violence, or misogyny, or anything at all apparently, except the numb sensation of basking in front of them.
No wonder gamers can't understand why the rest of the world thinks Bioshock Infinite looks like just another meaningless shooter, or why Dead Island Riptide now looks like a depraved rape joke. The fat dude in the 4x4 he never takes off-road may look like a stooge, but at least he's a stooge who had an idle aspiration.
I know we all hate marketing these days. We live in a world overrun by advertising. We can't escape it. But yet, marketing is also a public, collective conversation. It's a way for us to participate in common ideals. Many of those ideals are stupid, and some of them are actively detrimental to our prosperity. But others are weirder and more ambiguous.
It's telling that some of the most successful games of recent memory don't really 'market' at all. Digital downloads don't have boxes, and games like Minecraft and Angry Birds don't have transit ads or billboards, even if they do have vinyl figurines and pajamas. It's tempting to conclude that we're better off with such approaches, that these titles are more pure and less manipulative, allowing their true nature as designed experiences to take the place of ill-formed misrepresentations wrought by guileless, open-mouthed advertisers. But those titles are also empty in a different way: often, they don't seem to want to be much more than whatever they are to whomever finds them. All uses are good uses, after all. Nothing to see here, it's just a game.
Even if marketing really does amount to the crass, commercial attempt to create desire, shouldn't the desire it seeks to create be something that might be worth desiring? And for that matter, shouldn't we creators and players want our games to want something of us, at least to pretend to push us into a different way of thinking or living? Otherwise, I'm not sure what's worse, the marketer who invents a desire to bestow upon an inanimate object, or the game maker or game player who doesn't believe that such a desire is even possible.
Ian Bogost is a video game designer and critic. He is currently the Ivan Allen College Distinguished Chair in Media Studies and Professor of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
By
Laura Parker, Associate Editor
Laura Parker is the Associate Editor of GameSpot Australia. She loves adventure games, sparkly stuff, Trivial Pursuit, cake, Master Chief, earthworms, and rhetorical questions. She once stole a sandwich from Peter Molyneux.
682 comments
1 Like
I think it's great that an inanimate statue that was marketed based off the theme of a videogame and took inspiration from the idea of roman sculpture is enough to break the hearts of a select majority of people. It's really telling of how much of a generation would crumble under a "survival of the fittest" collapse of society and I like the idea of having less competition to deal with.
You might label it as crude. It is. You might label it as gross. True. The thing is macabre to be sure, but objectifying women? Only really as much as you want it to, being in that it IS the torso of a female woman. But it is also art in the way that if that is, in fact, your opinion, then it is YOUR opinion, and it doesn't make it any more factual if other people agree with your opinion.
The way I see it, it's appropriate to the idea that
it's a roman sculpture take on a zombie mythos that takes place on a
LUXURIOUS BEACH RESORT NEAR AUSTRALIAN TERRITORY. Chicks on luxury beach
resorts wear a lot of bikinis, not pants suits. Even further, if, for
some wierd reason, they were giving away a female zombified torso in
daisy duke jean shorts and a southern cross bra, I'd be like "....
wut...?" It wouldn't make sense, and it would just be crass and gaudy
for the sake of being crass and gaudy.
Point is, it's a game, with a game tie-in appropriate to the content of the game. The only real crime I see here is that it would have cost way too much and that the combined view voice of a bunch of whiny easily offended people spoke for all of us in forcing them to pull the idea from the market before the consumer had the opportunity to decide for itself whether it wanted this or not. The direction of currency is the most powerful ballot. The voice of soap boxing and fragile souled dweebs shouldn't be.
2 Like
Waiiiiiittttt.... you're NOT offended by this? That offends me! You should be offended by my offense! And so on and so forth until the earth collapses on itself.
You, sir, make an excellent point. Because the fact is, there is NOTHING IN THIS WORLD THAT IS OFFENSIVE TO "MEN" OR "WOMEN"! It's not possible. Users like Ailith somewhere below (the poor thing) would have everyone believe that men and women share collective thoughts, and that everyone should live on a Cube like The Borg, unable to think for oneself and instead relying on a sentient thought process shared en masse.
It's crazy. And this type of mindless media doesn't get people thinking, it further divides the groups.
Sometimes a blind eye is a great thing. I really wish I thought of that before posting once about this article. But since I'm here already, I'ma play this one out for a while. It's getting interesting.
2 Like
If people are offended by the torso then I can imagine the game itself gonna piss a lot of people off.
Just for safety, I'm gonna forward most of these comments to DHS for monitoring... pretty sure the next twelve-year old shooter is in here :\
"In 2011, I doubled over in nausea as I watched games writers stumble over themselves to laud the first game's trailer--a pre-rendered clip that, in no way, resembled its eventual game. Since when did this stuff fool us? Aren't we past the PlayStation 1 era?"
-Sam Machkovech
LOLOLOLOL!!!! So true. The age of cut scenes are long gone. Just use actual gameplay for advertisement or just go the fuck home!
4 Like
"No wonder gamers can't understand why the rest of the world thinks Bioshock Infinite looks like just another meaningless shooter [...]"
Actually, gamers do understand. It's because of ignorance. There haven't been many games with great story and character development that the casuals have played. Instead, they're playing games like Mario, Call of Duty, Madden, Fifa, Angry Birds, Wii Sports, Just Dance, Farmville, etc.
Ian Bogost blames games like Dead Island Riptide and/or products like the statue. Well, if he wants to play the blame game, I'm in.
I don't watch TV much, so I don't know if there have been any ads airing for Bioshock Infinite. Not that it's to be expected, since the game won't be out for a while. I looked up 'Bioshock Infinite Commercial' on YouTube and I saw a bunch of videos labeled 'Beast of America Trailer'. Checked it out, and if I didn't know any better, I too would say it's just a meaningless shooter. So, you'll have excuse the rest of the world for not knowing that the game has much more to offer. It's not like the non-gamers are visiting websites dedicated to gaming to learn more. The game may not be ready yet, but I also remember the original Bioshock ads and trailers being similar. Part of the blame goes to the advertising and marketing.
This is a generalization, but... we avid gamers are an anti-social bunch. We spend a lot of time typing on the internet and playing games. When we talk about games outside our bubbles, it's usually with people who are also into games and/or our loved ones. Of course, gaming is not really a subject that can open a dialogue among people who know nothing about games, but that doesn't stop the other people from talking about certain topics around people who are ignorant to those topics. You'll also notice that the more socially active people are playing the games that I mentioned in my first paragraph. Score one for those people. I once read a thread where gamers said they didn't discuss video games because it's not 'socially acceptable' to talk about them. I'm anti-social, but almost every friend, family member, and co-worker knows I'm a gamer. Not a single one of them ridicules me for it. I've also enlightened several of them on the more artistic games. Apparently, some gamers refuse to come out of the closet because of fear of being shamed. Part of the blame goes to the gamers.
How is it that in the movie industry they can put out tons of action flicks, slashers, teen comedies, this is my crap pop star life, etc., but still have a reputation of releasing high quality movies with great acting and writing? It's because the game industry STILL hasn't grabbed the attention of the masses with games like the Bioshock series. It's not just because there exists games like Dead Island Riptide. Part of the blame goes to the game industry as a whole.
If every game in existence had as much depth in story like the average point-and-click adventure game, and there didn't exist games like Dead Island, then it'd be a different situation. But, I wouldn't want to sacrifice all the 'meaningless' action games to get there. There's room enough for games like those and products like the statue. Not every game or product has to be thought provoking, nor politically correct.
2 Like
Zombie-bait. My first thought was, oh look, zombies eat people, there's a cut up person. I don't like looking at it so I won't buy it, but whatever. It's a zombie game.
Then I read all the comments, "OH LOOK AT THE BREASTS! WOMEN ARE SO OBJECTIFIED!" I kind of thought it was just a body. I didn't think about zombies being misogynistic, I instead thought, "oh, zombies eat people and there's a person." I thought this article would be about the gore and blood of the statue which is really tasteless, but instead I find an article about women? This country has its priorities so wrong, it's outrageous. In fact, the only sexist stance to take is to point out the gender as opposed to the humanist perspective which is to say that there is just a person. Nowadays, any time you have criticism directed at a woman, you're taken as having criticism for the entire gender, whereas I'm treating each person like an individual, which is what I thought the entire movement was about. I'd be just as disgusted by the violence were it a male torso.
I find the violence offensive but am not looking for money from the company because I saw this, nor am I looking to protest until they change. Unlike most, I actually have respect for the rationalist views of Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine and will not try to restrict speech. Instead I'll move on. By the way, want to see a woman objectified? Go to Pakistan or Iran and look at the women's faces. Yes, the ones that are unrecognizable from acid being thrown on their faces. Don't see too much protesting in America on behalf of those women, eh? Instead the Code Pink movement is busy protesting on behalf of some secretary in Nevada making a penny less per hour than her male counterpart due to a clerical error. Great job guys, really working hard on that equality issue.
3 Like
I find that most of the time when people say they are offended, it's on someone else's behalf, not their own. If the gaming community can agree that a plastic figure can somehow be pro-violence against women, then we don't have a leg to stand on (ha) when we say games don't insight violence, which they don't.
This is a non-issue. Everyone stop clapping for things like this and the fairy will die.
3 Like
A bloody torso for a zombie game?
Makes sense to me. If it wasn't so expensive, I would pick one up.
When did gamer's start being sissies that get offended with something so trivial? If you are one of those people who get offended so easily go find another hobby please, and stop screwing with ours. There are far more "offensive" things that large game developers shove down our throats year after year in the form of shitty games.
@snakebite6x6x6 i agree with you here in a lot of ways. tackiness will invade every form of art and media at some point- it's not going away any time soon. to me, this is more of a "bad timing" issue. still, i wouldn't buy the damn thing. it's ugly. but i don't find it offensive, just tasteless.
3 Like
Ugh, I stopped reading each one after I saw the word "offensive", what the hell is wrong with this world where we have to have academics sit around and tell us why folks should censor their work because it might "offend" someone...I've said it a million times, if you don't like it, DON'T LOOK AT IT! Why...oh why, can't it just be that simple? No one's saying you have to like it, and no one's saying you have to look at it, we have become a society of wusses.
2 Like
OH NO! boobs....get over yourselves even giving a shit about something like this, theres been way more offensive things on tv ect...i cant beleive people care so much about it when your sucking the things right off the getgo. i could understand if it was sold to KIDS under 18 or the nipples were showing but there not. we wouldnt exist as a species without sex. and every one is so mad at how men are all about naked girls its hilarious. would you rather us look at all women with disgust and fuck eachother in the ass instead? lol
1 Like
@BleetW00t Again, it's not just about the boobs folks. Did you miss the part that it's decapitated female torso with no arms?
3 Like
@Ailith @BleetW00t It's actually responses like this that get us thinking, "Then it's ok if it's a male torso?" Yo do realize how one sided this arguement really is? So it makes it ok if it's violence towards men, but it's offensive and objectifying if it's about a woman? Where in this is the equality that feminists look for so much? Sure you have the right to be offended by it, but they also have the right to make something like this. And it's your right to say that you won't buy it. Not because it has "tits" means we will jump all over it as men. We don't, and I'm sure most of us agree that we wouldn't buy it, because indeed, while I like figurines and collectible items like my Nathan Drake statue from Uncharted 3, having a bloodied torso on display, wether it be a female or male, just doesn't appeal to me.
But I'm sure as hell, there's people that are into it. Aren't we all familiar with the whole "If you can think it, chances are it exists already"? That's the whole point of this, everyone going up against this is just throwing the sex card around, but when confronted with the fact that if it was a male torso, all of a sudden there wouldn't be a problem. Why? Why such one sided view? You want equality? Then it would either have to be as offensive if it was any of the two genders. Or, it would have to be ok if it was either. People are already ok with it if it was male, lets not lie about it. No problem would arise from it if it was. Then let's truly fight for equality and make it so that it's fine if it's female too.
Many of the comments I'm reading here, with very few clear exceptions, truly grasp what I think is our mentality. We don't see boobs, we see a human torso, mutilated. That is all, we are looking passed the gender. Sure it's tacky, sure we wouldn't put it on display ANYWHERE, but does that mean that they should be censored for putting it out there? To limit artistic expression just because a group is offended by it? Should I think that the statue of David objectifies men in the sight of women or homosexual men? Should I be offended by it? Maybe, but there's no law against this. And there can't be because of how subjective being offended really is. And as long as something is not deemed ilegal, you can do it if you want to do it and nobody has a right to prevent you from doing it because you "might" get offended.
4 Like
People need to quit living in the 1950's. The fact there was even controversy over this is stupid. It isnt like there is any real nudity, but it is mildly suggestive at most. We live in a suggestive society where things being suggestive is wrong. That doesnt even make sense!
1 Like
@AbsoluteSorrow Finding this offensive or gaudy at best has nothing to do with "living in the 1950's". The sexualization of a decapitated and armless torso is indeed a problem, but the bigger problem is how could a room full of people responsible for advertising this game have come to the conclusion that this was a good idea? I mean really, who really wants that sitting on their desk? What purpose does it serve to the game? How is it at all relevant other than "yeah! Boobs and blood!" it's offensive to women because it's yet another way to just objectify their bodies, and it's especially problematic here because it does so in an especially violent way, and it should be offensive to men as well because they're following the same idea that all male gamers are incoherent slobs who will give you as much money as you want if you shove a pair of tits in their face. It's just dumb.
@Ailith @AbsoluteSorrow I want it on my desk. So what, you can conclude I'm a bad person? that's a very fast judgement.
1 Like
@Ailith @AbsoluteSorrow I think your missing the point. This shouldn't offend anybody because it has breasts, it should offend people because its a mutilated person. But since its within context of the game, and you will be seeing probably 1000 of these while playing, then people who are offended by this should also be offended by the game and the whole horror genre altogether. I wish people would look past the sexual gender and just see it for what it is, a mutilated human being.
And if we are going to go the gender route, then think about it this way, back in the mid 20th century women found it liberating to reveal there bodies to the world, because we lived in a society that is afraid of sex and the human form and insisted on hiding it (much like our middle eastern counter parts). Would you rather live in a society where you were forced to hide what god gave you, or have the "choice" to show it to people who appreciate the beauty of the human body.
While I've really enjoyed playing Dead Island recently and can see the link to what you do in the game, my overwhelming feeling about this is that I would be embarrassed to have it on display - doesn't matter whether it was male or female - I just don't see the appeal in having a decapitated limbless zombie torso on my desk / shelf.
5 Like
I like the game, think this piece goes with it and a couple others for adverising. I am not offended as a female. Those that claim to speak for the rest of us. You are wrong! Our society is so corrupt its not even funny. I don't buy collectors editions I feel they are a waste of money. If this product came out later yes I would buy. To the rest of you stop being so politically correct. Enjoy what you like and and if not don't buy it. Move on!
The game industry are turning into as big of a joke as the tabloid gossip media. They waist time creating all this BS fake hype or controversial crap that doesn't have anything to do with developing a good game. Why not use this money and effort towards creating a game that doesn't have a short lived replay value or unfinished with a bunch of DLCs. What they are telling me with these type of stunts is that they don't have faith in their product and they think nobody is going to buy it if they don't show me a tacky tit and ass toy for me to wack off from. I just want them to show me a great game with great replay value.
6 Like
i dont get what all the fuss is about... if it would have been a head or a cut off leg it wouldnt have been such a big deal, but oh dear, it has breasts, this is wrong! no i am not a 14 year old boy, i am 28 yrs old, have a wife and a daughter... i think there are a lot of more serious issues to be pissed about than a marketing gag that they have to apologize for just so they wont piss off some oversensitive would be players... if you dont like it dont buy it! i wont buy this collectors edition, but not because i find it inappropriate but because i have no interest in it. why is sex such a big issue especially in the US? thats why i stay in europe...
@RO-nIn187 "no i am not a 14 year old boy" And there in lies one of the big problems with this. The fact that they made this and assumed it was an awesome idea just proves that video game marketers do indeed think you have the mentality of a 14 year old boy and will shell out cash when they throw tits in your face.
1 Like
Does it taste as bad as I think it does? Because I can only imagine regurgitating the amount of garbage that must have been force fed to you over the years...
Your arguments would have all of us men living in caves, grunting and picking lice off of each other.
Pathetic backwards thinking scares me. Thanks for further solidifying my fear for the future of the human race.
1 Like
@Ailith @RO-nIn187 Its within context of the game, what should she be wearing.....a parka. If you go look up some horror movie memorabilia, you will find a lot worse things than this.
2 Like
Marketing isn't just advertising and product image, it's determining who your customers are and what they want. Apparently too many game marketers think their customers are all teenage boys with immature attitudes about violence, sex and social interaction. The backlash against this stupid statue should show them they're wrong.
1 Like
Another person who thinks acting old is growing up. Trust me, you'll know when you've grown up. It's when you grow a pair and can form an opinion by yourself (without being offended in the process).
This comment has been deleted
1 Like
Can someone please argue to me Ian Bogost's final point that advertising is something to be desired? I dont see where he is coming from, advertising is just a huge annoyance in my opinion. But I might be missing the point.
@BasicLogic Advertising is nice when it makes you aware that something cool is on its way. For instance it could be nice to know that your favorite shop is moving closer to your home or that a new Tarantino movie is hitting the cinemas or game trailers on E3.
It is annoying when it gets in the way and hinders you. Such as popup commercials on the web or a spammed mailbox or when it nags and nags and nags about stuff you are already aware of but have no interest in.
This is just a general response. I don't remember what he was talking about.
3 Like
This can all be fixed in two easy steps:
1) Video game players - don't buy it
2) Video game journalists - stop talking about it
There, now it will go away and Deep Silver will be out all the money they spent developing it, crafting it, constructing it en masse and packaging it. But as long as you keep talking about it you're giving them free advertisement and increasing the odds that one more basement dwelling involuntary virgin will see it and buy it thereby validating Deep Silver's decision to produce it and increasing the chances that they'll do it again.
8 Like
It deeply offends me that no one is willing to stand up for our rights.. It's our right to say hey that's gross.. and it's our right to not get it. However, it was their right artistically and as a company to put it out there. The moment it becomes ok to censor another persons vision just because it bothers a group of people.. is the moment we lose all freedom. What if I said the statue of David offends me? I find it a bit disturbing.. while others find it beautiful and a work of art. Fair play, now I too find this a bit gross.. but who the hell am I to tell them they can't practice their own ideas of art/marketing. This is wrong and unfair. You have the right to say 'ew' and look away.. not buy it. Do not oppress others to satisfy your own standards.
4 Like
Look beat me up and call me a sexist but clearly the only people that cared about this are women, do you honestly think there is a heterosexual male that looked at that torso and thought "omg how inappropriate?"
Angry flat chested women that have to go out with their cute friends so that guys will appear to be talking to them are the only ones that are making a stink about something as ludicrous as this marketing piece.
@spenta You're turned on by that thing because it has big breasts? You need help. Confirmed by your second statement, which is something you usually hear from guys who either can't get a date or are massive douches. Cheers.
Do you honestly think that all heterosexual males are as shallow and immature as you? You don't have to be a women to see that there is something inherently lecherous about it. "Zombie bait edition" really? Even zombies objectify women? You don't see ANYTHING wrong with that? Or at least have empathy with the girls who don't like the thought of only being prized for their tits? Beside what kind of dude gets his kicks out of some fake disembodied female torso? Probobly someone who needs to pretend he has a girlfriend.
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@spenta I'm male and kinda first thought it was a bit off but no crasser than pretty much every action movie evr shown. I find it looks a bit too ugly to really be cool as an orniment but thats probably just me.(Photograhpy studentent with a fondness for black and pretty things, god my masculinity is dying as I type.)
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Dead Island: Riptide
-
X360, PC, PS3
- Publisher:
- Deep Silver
- Category:
- Action
- Release:
- Apr 23, 2013
- ESRB:
- M
