Activision Responds to American Indian Boycott

JorgeDeLaCancha writes "As previously reported, the American Indian Development has begun a boycott of Activisions game GUN. Activision has quickly responded. From the article: '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.'"

Comments

People are too sensitive these days.

[Eightyford]

People are too sensitive these days. That said, I think boycotting makes sense in this case. It's a hell of a lot better than trying to ban the game. If you don't like the game or it's apparent message then don't buy it. I don't see what the big deal is here.

Re:People are too sensitive these days.

[rtb61]

So what they should do is trade mark their tribal names and follow yankee tradition and sue the crap out of anybody that uses them with out permission (they should also be able to protect the native costumes, art and rituals).

Re:People are too sensitive these days.

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone with American Indian blood, frankly, I'm offended by the term "Native American". All evidence points to humans evolving on the African continent somewhere, which means that there's no such thing as someone native to the Americas. My ancestors on that side may have migrated here before my European ancestors, but they aren't native. Aboriginal, perhaps, though even that is a bit of an abuse of the language.... It's about the best I can come up with at the moment, though.

And that's not the only example of a poorly chosen euphemism to describe a race here in the U.S. Are African Americans from Africa? Well, not all of them. There are plenty of people with dark colored skin who not only have never set foot on the African continent, but do not have any ancestors who did. Yet we wrongly lump them all into an equally incorrect category.

I'm not opposed to political correctness so much as opposed to acts of sheer idiocy committed in its name. Everyone needs to get over themselves. The history of early American colonization isn't going to cease to have happened simply because someone boycotts a game any more than WWII will cease to be part of history simply because the Germans try to bury it.

Having not played the game, I'm not going to say that it isn't racially insensitive. I don't know, and in all likelihood, neither do 99% of the people boycotting it. That's the funniest part about boycotts. Remember how the southern religious right boycotted NYPD blue because it was so horrible with tons of bad language and violence and so on? It came out and everybody watched it and said, "They were pitching a fit over this?" I doubt this is any different.

If nothing else, at least we should all be thankful that it isn't another GTA.

Speaking as an American Indian

[HeavensBlade23]

I don't really give a crap how we're portrayed in video games. I really doubt this boycott is going to make much a difference anyway. You need economic consequences for a boycott to work and American Indians simply aren't a large enough segment of the game buying public to make any difference whatsoever.

*Coughs*

[BHennessy]

You could have a 'Gas the Jews' game, not to provoke racism or hate crimes, but to reflect the harshness of gassing large numbers of people.

How do you think Activision would go with that one?

Summary: Someone is always offended

[Anonymous Coward]

News Flash! Someone is always offended by some feature in some game at some time.

Next we start complaining about movies about the American Civil War depicting uneducated black slaves, because it wasn't pretty and we would rather forget that part of history ....

This is a question of "the chilling effect". Someone is always offended. The only reason Gamergod, and later other pages, were carrying this news item, written by a hyper sensitive and potentially paranoid woman is because they know it's controversial, will be syndicated and will give them ad clicks. Not that the boycott would do any damage, Indians are not even a blimp on the radar when it comes to game sales anyway.

Having played GUN, definitly a mediocre game, I can say that the Indians are getting the best portrayal of all factions in the game. There are countless white villains, bandits that are depicted as devils, murderers, killers and rapists. The indians, in the grand scope of things, are portrayed as noble and the main character realizes that his initial attack on the indians was wrong and he helps them out.

This author sees a problem where there is no problem. The game is by no means picking on the indians or portraying them worse than any other group in the game, it rather seems that the author is upset about the way the story writer chose the individuals in his story to act ... which is a matter of creative freedom and the story writer chose to go for a stereotypical western setting as it was perceived back in the days. Now, because someone is offended, they are calling for a boycott of the game because they don't like how things were back there and they don't want to be remembered by it.

Everyone who has played GUN can attest its mediocre, it features sensless violence and very mediocre graphics. However it is not racist or discriminating against indians. The author seems to wish that it was and uses a completely constructed connection to an old Atari game to make it seem like Activision/Neversoft did this on purpose to discriminate against indians.

Next time some red haired woman will come along and sue blizzard for allowing players to cast fire spells on red haired female human mages because, you know, some witches were burned a couple of hundred years ago. OMFG!

Or how about we stop playing Castle Wolfenstein online because some germans might be offended by us blasting Nazis online?

Or how about we ban GTA:SA because you play a black gang member beating up hookers? Some hooker / black gang member / black non gang member might be offended?

Or maybe we should just stop making games that include any kind of reference to the real world, and while we are at it we also stop any movie that features any kind of minority at all?

I heard Harry Potter offended some puritans in the South for witchcraft, we better make sure to boycott those games, books and movies too.

Seriously, we should just create some category "people offended by something" and post all these kind of news in there. Would be long, nobody would care, and all would be good.

Re:In other news..

[dshaw858]

Jews are boycotting The Bible and any books about Nazi Germany, because it portrays their oppression at the hands of others.

No, there's a huge difference. It would be if Jews are boycotting a game in which you play a German soldier or officer that orders and follows out the killing of millions of Jews.

American Indians want people to learn about the atrocities committed against them. They don't want people turning it into a game and acting out the oppression themselves.

Disclaimer: I'm not an native American, and I don't know their opinions. This is just what I'd assume.

- dshaw