Yet another massive hypocrisy!

[bigdog44]

Was reading online that EA Sports, makers of the Medal Of Honor franchise and so many more violent "gun" themed games is removing links to gun manufacturers sites. They have always made it simple to link from game to learn more about weapons in "their" game!! It is part of the authenticity of the game.

They now state in a PC Magazine article-
"We felt it was inappropriate and took the links down," an EA spokesman told the BBC. The company did not immediately respond to PCMag's request for comment."


I guess they feel real guns are just to scary. What the hell kind of craziness is that? They make millions if not billions on war and gun games and now they feel real guns aren't in their best interest? Only their guns and story line are ok.

Maybe they should create flowery, happy things and see if the billions of dollars still come in.

What are your thoughts on this kind of move?

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[KoriBustard]

These "gun games" are intended to be for fantasy and fun. But we should not equate guns from these "shoot 'em up" games" as anything we want to see in society, there has to be a separation. My guns are not toys. While I enjoy firearms for skeet and target shooting and I own guns for hunting and personal protection, they are not toys. I'm sure to get some "flames" for this but I have a real problem when you take video games (for fantasy and role playing) and directly equate them to real world gun ownership. I'm all for the game industry to make a profit and produce games that people enjoy but to imply that guns (as depicted in these videos) are socially acceptable is irresponsible. Would I want to legislate against it? Probably not. But these companies need to understand the impact it has on young, impressionable people.

[daffyduc]

I grew up playing first person shooter games. I never related the activities in the game to real life. There is a drastic difference between games and life. Unfortunately some people cannot make that distinction.

I have no problem with companies pulling sponsorship. I am sure there is a lawyer in there somewhere pulling the strings.

[eipo]

I say its a good move. Some kids/people can not separate fantasy and reality. A violent tool in a video game needs to stay as much a part of the fantasy as the game itself.

[ANGLICO]

Delema.............. No? Foot meat mouth! Wow.

Can't quite kill the magic money that feeds them, but trying to be polically correct no less................. ....... Em!

[dukalmighty]

I hate to say it but when I was younger My friends and I had BB guns and we never once shot each other.....intentionally,there was a lesson or 2 learned from ricochets

[CanuckQue]

I'd only really want the links there if the game accurately modeled the weapon anyway. These games often allow an epic bump in effectiveness between different gun types, instead of treating them like the real world, where they each have pros and cons

[sonnycrocket]

i have been playing FPS since the mid 90s and I never went out spraying lead at people
are we that weak,we need to blame everyone else for our own shortcomings?
I guess we do,parents might need lessons on how to be parents ?
Our jails released murderers back into the population ?


blame games,blame tv,blame movies but at the end of the day
it takes a madman to harm the masses and no ban on guns can
stop evil

[HDusmc]

From a legal aspect, I can't blame them for pulling the links...that being said, I've been playing FPS for a long time, and as was stated before, I too have never went on a killing spree. Unfortunately in today's society it seems that people would much rather try to control our guns, rather then learn to control their kids. I'm getting really tired of listening to all the excuses in the news...its a video games fault, its the movie industrys fault, its music, its the guns fault...as much as these things have social influence, its not their fault. The fault is with the scumbag that committed a crime, and if that person is of questionable mental health or is the victim of a disorder that may take SOME blame away from them, then partially the fault lies with the parents. People utterly refuse to take responsibility for their actions anymore, and personally, its getting real old real quick. Sorry for the rant...

[archer51]

I have no problem with them pulling links from their games. What I have a problem with is Mom and Dad letting Jr. sit in front of the TV playing those game 8/10/12 hours a day. Shut the thing off and make Jr. get off of his fat butt and use his brain. Send him outside to get exercise, and use his imagination.

[RKM]

If a person thinks that because they can shoot guns and kill people in video games, and that makes it ok in reality, then that's a problem with the person. Again, blaming video games for violence is just as bad as blaming guns. Think of all the kids and young adults who play these games that are normal, functioning human beings. I'm not a video game player. Never really have been. But when I do, it's usually racing games.

[CanuckQue]

Fun fact: if there was a shooting spree every week in the US, our kids are still (statistically) more likely to suffer early debilitation from diabetes than from a gun.

[noway2]

My immediate response is one word, Doom. The FPS game from the early 90s that was a technical revolution in software design, started the whole genre of first person shooter games, and launched the software company ID, since acquired by Bethesda Softworks which has also developed several technological leaps in areas of CGI and artificial intelligence algorithms. Other games like Unreal initiated revolutions in graphic processing technology including parallel processing, OpenGL, and the whole realm of video processing using DSP technology. Think for a moment about how much money and time goes into making just one of these games. It requires a host of actors to perform the physical animation, voice actors (usually well known people), programmers, graphic designers, quality control, testing, etc, in essence a whole movie production set plus a fleet of programmers. The whole development takes years and creates how many relatively high paying jobs is anyone's guess with a net economic benefit in the hundreds of millions, if not billions when you include the secondary markets. On top of all this, consider how many kids went to school and obtained STEM degrees because they wanted to know how to develop these games.

The word hypocrisy doesn't even begin to do justice.

[Lotus222]

This is ridiculous. I always hated the CoD franchise, but taking the weapons links down because guns are "real" is absurd. The media hates video games about as much as guns, so this isn't surprising by any means. The whole "kids can't separate games from reality" argument is also nonsense - and I would love to see any evidence that actually supports that claim. Do violent TV shows and movies also cause delinquent behavior? What about loony tunes? If any of this was true, Road runner and Wile E. Coyote must have caused countless deaths by now.

Yep, hypocrisy at it's finest.

[CanuckQue]

I certainly injured my siblings due to the WWF, but that might be an exception to what we are discussing