We didn't report on Electronic Arts' staged protest of Dante's Inferno at E3 because it was an obviously fake marketing stunt (Although I was fooled). But people's reactions, different story.


In case you didn't read the free ads put out by the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times, EA hired a bunch of people to wave signs, hand out pamphlets and pretend-protest that EA was gonna burn in hell for making a game about it. Since that stereotypes people who wave signs, hand out pamphlets and damn people to hell, someone went out of their way to be offended on their behalf.

"It's been clear for a while now that the entertainment inudstry views Christians on the whole as priggish, thin-skinned fun-killers," writes InsideCatholic.com's Margaret Cabaniss. She's right. I have no idea where they got that impression. She points out that some of the faithful aren't prudes and do in fact game - her own site has discussed modern gaming favorably. ("For a lot of Catholics, the Middle Ages is the place to be. And for that, you cannot beat Medieval 2: Total War.") And they're rewarded with that by a fake protest that stereotypes unreasonable people.


She wasn't the only one pissed. Ranteth Catholic Video Gamers:

Ok, look Electronic Arts, as much as the hardcore gaming community is full of the risible self-parodies known as the "freethinking" - the Richard Dawkins-loving, fundamentalist atheist, "I'm-so-much-smarter-than-you-are-because-I-don't-believe-in-God" types, I doubt that even they would actually be more likely to buy a game because they *think* that their ideological foes (the equally risible Fundamentalist Creationist, anti-Catholic, evangelical "Christians") happen to hate it. Gamers of all varieties will buy this product if its, well, actually a good game. So instead of engaging in a shamelessly anti-Christian stunt to promote your poor excuse of a product, maybe you ought to work on making this game, you know, something better than a blatant God of War rip-off and make it, ya know, something worthwhile?

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Excuse my "freethinking" but we're talking about a game that's already made. So your admonishment to pour the effort spent hating Christians back into making the game is moot. How about this instead: Not every jackassed thing done by a game company deserves, ya know, your personal offense and an indignant response?

Faith-Based Bloggers Slam EA For Staging Fake Religious Protest at E3 [GamePolitics]