Capcom Says No to Another Resident Evil 5 Controversy

[Logan Westbrook]

Capcom Says No to Another Resident Evil 5 Controversy

After claims of racism dogged Resident Evil 5, Capcom says it is taking steps to ensure that nothing similar ever happens again.

Capcom is adding an extra step to its game creation process after the criticism levelled at Resident Evil 5: Run things past the PR department to make sure it's not going to offend anyone. Capcom's senior PR manager Melody Pfeiffer believes that getting her department involved in the creation process sooner will prevent similar problems in the future.

Pfeiffer said that the RE5 controversy had made the company acutely aware of how important it was to have someone separate from the design team offering their point of view on a game. She added that a lot of content was going to be made in the West from now on, so it would make a lot more sense to, and be more appropriate for, a western audience. In the case of assets still being made in Japan, she said that her department was working closely with the Japanese teams, and that they were more open to suggestions than ever before.

Whether you agreed or disagreed with the accusations of racism, it's not hard to see why Capcom would be keen to avoid a repeat performance. You could make the argument that the PR department's influence would stifle creativity, but it's important to remember that it's still the PR department for a videogame company, so it's probably fairly used to zombies and violence by now.

Source: Gamasutra [http://gamasutra.com/view/news/30059/Capcom_Were_Never_Going_To_Have_Another_RE5_Controversy.php]



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[JaymesFogarty]

I still think the racism thing was ridiculous. No one was complaining when you were exclusively shooting European people. (Perhaps the humanitarians?)

 

[Aura Guardian]

Remember folks. It's fine for a white cop(ish) person to kill Spaniards in Spain. But if a White cop kills Africans in Africa, its wrong.

 

[ayashi]

I don't know. The initial controversy didn't bother me that much and I wasn't really sure where I stood on it. But I was kind of irritated when they released the Gold Edition (including the DLC with Jill) and suddenly Sheva doesn't even make it on the cover anymore and is replaced by Jill.

Jill is hardly in the actual game and is only playable in DLC and side stuff yet she makes it on the cover instead of Sheva? :/ I think Sheva might be on a screenshot on the back of the cover, yet she's the other main character of the main game.

 

[WeedyPirate]

I still think the racism thing was ridiculous. No one was complaining when you were exclusively shooting European people. (Perhaps the humanitarians?)

this, this so hard.

people are ridiculous >(

 

[Broken Blade]

Oh good. Well, good luck finding something that won't potentially offend someone, Capcom. You're about as likely to find Noah's Ark on the surface of the moon.

The whole thing was ridiculous anyway.

 

[Quiet Stranger]

this is fucking retarded

 

[are.you.the.god.its.me.vader]

As a speaker of the Zombie Awareness Society.

I find the Resident Evil games incredibly hurtful and offensive to zombies!

They deserve respect!

 

[Jared]

Well, I think its smart for everyone to do that, but with happened in RE5 with the racism thing...that was such BS

 

[Grospoliner]

Capcom should release a press statement emblazoned in 30 foot bold letters stating "FUCK YOU" to do the douche-hats who called it racist. Then light them on fire.

 

[Scobie]

DELETED

 

[Burgertime]

Anyone who was offended or felt that RE5 was in any way racist needs to take a step back and seriously reconsider things.
They're ensuring steps. In other words, they're bending to the mindset of people who live on taking a simple "Hello" into a full out violation of someone's rights. It's like that incident with the Hallmark greeting card that said "Black holes", yet because someone decided to sit around listing to it long enough to start adding a W to holes and replacing the L with an R, they got the card pulled for being racist. We have "equal rights" in this country, but your rights go down the tubes if you're a white straight atheist male. All other groups have laws put in place to protect them, and anything in a made up story that has to do with another race obviously is too much for some people to handle.

Too many companies hid behind walls to protect their image, and when they do come out from around that wall, it's either to re-instate a rule or to bend over. For once, I want a company to address a complaint with no real basis and flat out tell people to shove it. There was NO racism in RE5, and they should of put their foot down on this fact.
It's people complaining about race issues that are just going to segregate communities and put back what some groups fought so hard to remove.

 

[Amnestic]

Capcom is adding an extra step to its game creation process after the criticism levelled at Resident Evil 5: Run things past the PR department to make sure it's not going to offend anyone.

Well I guess we're never seeing another Capcom game ever again.

 

[Breaker deGodot]

You know the easiest way to escape controversy, Capcom? Lay the fucking series to rest.

 

[BlueHighwind]

They could just not be stupid. Have they tried that?

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Run everything by them?

Shit. We're going to have a game where you shoot multicolor amorphous blobs.