Your White House Petition is Bad and You Should Feel Bad

[MikeWehner]

Your White House Petition is Bad and You Should Feel Bad

Some random gamer asks President Obama to reconsider his stance on Devil May Cry.

We all enjoyed the humorous White House petition for wants 3D Doritos [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121500-White-House-Rejects-Death-Star-Petition] so badly that they felt it was worthy of the President's attention, but asking the most powerful man in the country to pull a game from store shelves simply because you don't like it? That's a whole new level of obnoxious. A new We The People petition is asking just that, and hoping that the U.S. government will step in to yank DmC: Devil May Cry from retailers nationwide.

If you've managed to pry your palm away from your face long enough to read the rest of this, I commend you. The petition reads as follows:

"Dear Mr. Obama: As a consumer to the Video Game Industry there is one Video Game that has caused a lot of controversy over the past few month's.

The name of the game is DmC: Devil May Cry made by Ninja Theory and Capcom. A majority of gamer's are aggravated that this game has changed so much from it's past predecessors and the game actually insults the consumers in-game.

We, as consumers did not want nor need this reboot and we believe it violates our rights to have a choice between the original's or the reboot. This game is violating our rights as a consumer and we believe it should be pulled off shelves from game stores due to it's insulting nature and the fact that it violates our rights.

Please Mr. Obama, look into your heart and make the decision that will please us Gamers."

Now, ignoring that the grammar of the request suggests it was typed by a 5th grader, let's all take a moment to appreciate the absurdity of the request. Is it a joke? I honestly can't tell. It's worded in such a way that the person who wrote it - one "R.J." from Franklin, Vermont - really seems to believe that the quality of the game is somehow a violation of human rights.

At best, it's a poorly worded joke that fell flat, but there's the possibility that a certain segment of the gaming populous believes not only that the petition will reach the required 100,000 signatures to warrant an official response, but also that the reboot of a video game franchise directly impacts their quality of life. Whatever the case, this is officially a new low.

Update: The petition has been pulled from the website. Huzzah!

Via: Gameranx [http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/12172/article/entitled-dmc-fans-want-president-obama-to-pull-game-from-shelves/]

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[Something Amyss]

Vermont?

VERMONT?

Damn it, why do you have to do this to me, Vermonters? It's bad enough I have to put up with being labeled a secessionist, now I'm going to be from the crazy gamer state.

 

[Blunderboy]

Really America? This is what you do with your hard won freedom?

 

[Legion]

Stupid people, why pick Devil May Cry when there are much better targets like Mass Eff-

On a more serious note, people really do need a reality check at times. Even if it is a joke, to waste peoples time for something so pathetic is completely arrogant, assuming they know who did it perhaps a warning not to waste the governments time might be in order.

 

[VanQ]

One would generally think that when writing to the President himself, one would use proper punctuation and grammar. Then again, I have heard that the schools of the USA are in a bit of a slump right now because of a certain union.

But in all seriousness, this kind of person needs to learn to just piss right off and vote with their wallet. I'd bet my grandmother he'll be buying this on release day and finish the game in a single, marathon sitting before crawling to the nearest internet forum to complain about it.

 

[Jhooud]

Really America? This is what you do with your hard won freedom?

Well that and watch Honey Boo Boo.

Depressed now. Need to look at funny pictures of cats.

 

[SerithVC]

yay for the self entitled morons who think they can tel the president what to do. i mean what kinda of poiled self entitles little git would do something this stupid. if anything comes from this that effects the gaming industry, it's going to be that they start banning games all together. like the moron who got the swimming mask/goggles that cover the nose temporarily banned because they weren't watching their kid and their kid drowned while wearing them. Essential this will lead to 'oh someone is complaining about thi game, time to pull it' which will lead to the death of the gaming industry.

the soluton is simple, if you don't like a game, just don't play it. I don't like WoW so i just dont play it, i don't like the new DMC so i just don't play it. I don't like call of duty, so i don't play it.

 

[N3squ1ck]

Well, I laughed a little when I saw that popping up on Twitter before. Not much more though

 

[Gordon Freemonty]

I don't get the hate for DmC. Its getting 4/4.5 reviews.

I hate the gamer community sometimes.

(Except you lovely escapist folks, pls dont kill me pls pls)

 

[Slash2x]

Not gonna happen dumbass. Something about freedom of speech prevents fucktards like you from making this kind of crap happen. Freedom of speech applies to everyone.

........................... unfortunately it is also the reason you can say that kind of stupid shit and not go to jail. Freedom for all, even the idiots.

 

[Atary77]

This is the reason the world thinks that video games are for kids, because of idiots like this who act childish! I've played the game myself and ya know what? I like the game and enjoy the combat and action. I confess I'm not a fan of Dante's new look, honestly I think it's about as silly as when they changed Spider-Man's costume back during Marvel's Civil War (just Google Iron Spider-Man if you don't know what I'm talking about).

But when they changed Spidey's outfit I didn't cry like a baby to the government to step in, I just didn't buy those comics! I gave DmC a chance because it got positive reviews from critics I favor and I'm not disappointed with the game as a whole. However I'd be lying if I said I don't mind Dante's redesign, and you can blame Capcom for that one. Seriously it was Capcom's idea to change the look of Dante not Ninja Theory.

Bottom line, if you want the world to treat gamers like adults then act like one!

 

[Beryl77]

And this is why gamers who complain about something are often not taken serious. Most have legitimate reasons to complain but there are always those who make everyone else look like idiots and people of course only pay attention to those weird ones and then think everyone else is just as weird.

 

[Blunderboy]

Really America? This is what you do with your hard won freedom?

Well that and watch Honey Boo Boo.

Depressed now. Need to look at funny pictures of cats.

Here take two of these a day and call me in a week if you don't get better.

 

[Gizmo1990]

I loved DMC 1,3 and even 4 so I was disapointed with the news of a reboot, especially once I saw the trailer, but while Ninja Theory was down right insulting at times I just decided to give the game a miss. I did not get angry about it. Why do people feel the need to stop others enjoying it? It doing well might cause Capcom to not make a sequal to the originals but for the love of Thor it is only a game!

 

[Therumancer]

Hmmm, well the big question I have to ask is "Does this game actually insult consumers"? It's a poorly written petition but from the way it reads to me there is a claim that this game basically says "hey your an idiot for buying this" or "your an idiot if you preferred the previous version" or whatever someplace inside the game. To be honest if that's true there might be a sort of quality of life issue involved there. Basically if someone did that it would open the door for everyone to do similar things, and then you might see a situation where you pretty much have to deal with being insulted by products or go without. This would mean those producing popular products could do things like include unskipable insult-fests and demeaning content in the place of DVD advertisements before you could experience a product. With something like say "Star Wars" people would probably endure it if it became mandatory for them to listen to George Lucas insult them and do offensive things before each viewing of the movie, but the question is whether you should have to endure that.

It's an interesting speech related issue at it's core if I understand this correctly. Sure you technically have the right to not buy a product because someone insults you with it. Many things would fail if they did this, but there is a certain elite catagory of products, especially when it comes to IPs, where people would endure abuse if they had to. I could potentially see a trend where an elite club of "our product is so good we can troll our consumers and still have it sell" developers appears.

That said, I'd much rather see people put less time into trolling The President with bogus petitions, and more time into trying to force a lack of confidence vote if they are really that peeved with him. Since he's down to 51% and barely in office it will be interesting to see if perhaps he'll get to finish the term.

 

[2xDouble]

This, to coin the phrase, is why we can't have nice things.

 

[Shinsei-J]

Snip-

My exact sentiment.
It seems only the (vocal) gaming community would do something like this and it make me sad for the rest of us.
Now we'll get lumped in with some idiots complaining about some idiotic design choice in some game to someone who has crap all to do with anything. It's just dumb.
This is why we can't have nice things!

 

[Orks da best]

If it is a joke, its a bad one and the person should feel bad.
If the person is serious, Can we burn him? before his unreasonable hatred spread? Oh wait to late it already has (mass effect 3 ending.)