Deep Silver Apologizes for Mutilated Dead Island Torso

[Alandoril]

Oh... LOL. Rather than work up a new post I'll just quote one I just finished making in Discussion on the same subject before I read this.

"... it just reinforces my opinion that too many game developers are so lacking in basic social skills and sensibilities they should never be let out of their coding cubicles, because it's just embarassing for the rest of us when they are."

Really, some of these studios need to hire a fully functioning sane person to give an opinion on things like this before it ever gets this far.

But if they did that they couldn't maintain their insular hiring policies.

 

[Monsterfurby]

Yeah, it's a bad idea.

But the hate on "Marketing People" in general is somewhat misguided. From personal experience, I can tell you that most likely the majority of marketing people - indeed marketing people at Deep Silver - will probably have seen this coming with all the consequences it entails, and some WILL have pointed out that it's a bad idea.

But that's not how companies are run. The games publishing industry especially tends to be set up in a way where authority and understanding of the product are mutually exclusive. That is: the people who make decisions don't know or care about games, while those who have to carry them out and take the fall for these decisions are in most cases quite passionate about what they are doing. Sure, there's a degree of cynicism, but in the end they want to make great games.

So honestly, don't claim that "marketing people are out of touch" if you can't substantify that claim. You might be generalizing.

Cheers,
Marketing Person.

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

If it was a hacked-up torso of a man we would've seen maybe 1/10th of the current "outrage" over this.

Unless developers' jobs are on the line, I don't understand why they are so quick to apologize. Is it to make the offended people quickly shut the fuck up? Or is it because game developers are socially incapable larvae who seriously need to grow a backbone when it comes to dealing with pressure like this?

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

I think it would work out better if they could left the head. That would lend it some(i know it sounds kinda ridiculous when we speak about zombies) personality.
And they should get rid of that skimpy bikini - somehow that statue would look actually less sexist without it.
...That's it! Venus de Milo zombified!

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

Imagine it's a dude's disembodied, mutilated, junk. With hips, maybe, but it's clearly showcasing the junk. Let's say it has an erection. Overtly erotic.

Now imagine a girl saying "That's cute and I want one." Imagine the sort of girl who spends money on a gore-spattered wang and then puts it on display.

I would just like to say, I would absolutely ask her out, first chance I got.

The rest of your post I do agree with.

Just being a nitpicky bellend over here, but it is a Union Flag. It is only the Union Jack when it flies at sea.

Maybe the corpse was found floating in the water?

 

[AstaresPanda]

So let me get this straight. A zombie game, set in a tropical island, and perhaps this poor female (from the UK im guessing) torso was a poor victim of a zombie attack. I think some of you need to get over yourselves and get off you soap box. THIS is not an issue of female rights its not even in bad taste as its a zombie games, its kinda the theme, if it were a male torso would there be this much outrage ? So please tell me you freedom fighters of women. Wot is the issue ? Really ?

You dont see guys getting all bent out of shape over the stupid out right sexual objectifying of men in the Diet Coke adverts do you? So why is that right and this is wrong. It cant be one rule for women and another rule for men.

EXAMPLE. Mens club very old mens club in London had to let women in, coz it was sexist against women having it be a mens only club. Now forgive me if im wrong but, dont they have womens only bars nights? womens only gym days ? Women these days are so action packed with double standards that its not even funny. After all that women had to fight for back in the day to gain equal rights only to have a bunch of stupid soap box carrying morons attacking anything they deem SEXIST or wrong. Using it to suit there own needs/wants/agenda's

Please someone that has an issue with this explain to me the problem. Coz there really is not one here at all?

 

[Phisi]

*snip*

I would have to say no because what makes it interesting would be lost to me as my knowledge of famous limbless male statues is lacking. Here we are getting all angry at over a mutilated female torso but we all want to go to the Louvre one day and see the Venus de Milo. We persist in belief of its beauty but this is disgusting and degrading and I have to admit if I didn't see it as a parody I would probably think the same thing. It is important when it comes to artwork to realise that what feelings you have and interpret from a work are not always those the artist intended and I am not going to pass judgement on deep silver here because I don't know what they were thinking when they made it, I only know what I was when I saw it. And that was laughter at how silly the world is.

 

[Phasmal]

I think it's pretty stupid and gross, would not buy.
Also, the tits look terrible!

Still, they probably just did this to get attention for the game.

 

[alm96]

Only in Europe, I guess? Also I'm sure somewhere, somehow, someone is using this sexually.

 

[IckleMissMayhem]

And what seems to be the issue? ...If you are 7 years old, or a 92 year old granny, you have no business buying this,

Actually, a 92 year old has every right to buy the game, if they so choose.

I wonder how much of the alleged raging (this is the first I've heard of it) is coming from the unable-to-either-understand-ratings or unable-to-say-no-to-their-bratty-offspring type parents so often encountered in gaming stores nowadays...

 

[AstaresPanda]

What IckleMissMayhem said. Just lazy half assed parenting is a big factor in this kinda thing nowawayds also, when ever this happens "think of the children" is one of the things being used.

Dont like it, dont buy it, change the channel, close the book etc etc.

 

[D Moness]

And yes, some zombies were in bikinis and cargo shorts and other vacation gear, but they still looked like decaying corpses. This is the healthiest looking zombie ever...well, except for being, you know, headless.

And 2 ribs that you can visibly see on the torso's right side. This took me about a day to notice btw(looks at first glance as part of the bikini).

I agree that it isn't as white as most zombies are seen. However i really do not see the problem with it. I have seen worse stuf on vhs covers of horror movies. Also where is the outrage when the movie piranha 3DD was released (and yes that title was a boobs joke(most terrible trailer i have ever seen)).

The outrage is because the gamer community is so easily riled up. For the weirdest reason they will pick up their proverbial torches and pitchforks and people wonder why the gaming community isn't being taken serious. It isn't because things like that get released it is the way we act when it happens.

If this was part of a dvd set almost nobody would say something about it (maybe fox news but that would be it).

 

[havoc33]

The outrage is because the gamer community is so easily riled up. For the weirdest reason they will pick up their proverbial torches and pitchforks and people wonder why the gaming community isn't being taken serious. It isn't because things like that get released it is the way we act when it happens.

Exactly. I've said this as well in the other threads. It would seem to me that the gaming community as a whole needs to chill out. Outrage this, outrage that.. We're making a total fool out of ourselves.

 

[ex951753]

To the people going "This was a bad idea to begin with, who came up with the idea?", get off your moral high horse and move on. Just because you failed to see the appeal to this doesn't mean everyone else in the world agrees with you.

 

[Harker067]

Thank you for picking out one example you find the weakest and ignoring all the others.

You're welcome. Thanks for ignoring almost my entire post and quoting out of context while trying to relate it to something irrelevant to the specific post. Yeah, the sarcastic way you did it was also very conducive to the discussion. I really feel like responding in a dignified manner when you're being such a great debater.

Also, I said they're different, not that they're mutually exclusive. There's a difference.

But since you crave attention, I'll give you a bit of validation.

Your second example is, in my opinion, sexist because of the context. Even that one caters to women though.
And the only reason I think it's sexist is because it holds ridiculous standards to how a woman should look, and only because it specifically says it on the ad, not because of the picture.

In conclusion, sexualization can be used in a sexist way.

However, it's not an intentionally sexist statement meant to hurt anyone, belittle anyone or intimidate anyone, even though it plays on a target audience. This is what we call being innocent, but misguided, or more appropriately, cheeky fuckers who think they're funny.

Intent isn't magic.You can do something hurtful just as much by innaction as you can with intent. If we have a movie where, the black character dies first, or the hero meets a black person that explains how to defeat the villian neither of these things is racist. What is racist is the number of times these plot points get used. Same idea with parts of women being used to advertise things. The act itself isn't so much the problem as the frequency it is used in our advertising/marketting of which this statuette is a part of.

Instead of say a main character (even though they've all been unlikeable IMO) or one of the enemies we have a statuette that's a mix of violent and sexual imagery including the use of a fragment of a woman in a generally dehumanizing (and you know sexist) way. There's say no sense that this was part of a human that had a life that is now gone, there is no sense of the loss, or tragedy it presents. Nope its just sexy bikini torso covered in signs of violence. I guess to give it some credit this is a chunk of what the game itself plays off of. The violence of a zombie apocalypse with the titillation of a beach resort. Probably can't expect likable characters, or any of the emotionally impactful elements that say the trailer for the first game showed which never materialized in the final product.

So I guess I have to actually disagree with whoever said this is out of tone for the game. This is probably truth in advertising for the level of depth and maturity we can expect in the game. Not that everything has to be deep or mature but that doesn't somehow exempt it from criticism.

The bust doesn't even do that, to anyone, so it's even less of an example, than what you linked.
Chances are, they lose money on the CE, but the publicity that people are giving them, will probably increase sales.
The solution here, is not to stop sexualization, it's to heighten peoples standards so they stop giving obvious stunts so much attention.

Or the solution could be explaining to marketing departments why people dislike their idea so that they can make a better marketing plan. Your essentially saying the plan was lets piss of a bunch of people interested in the game and hope their reaction swings more people to buy our product. That sounds like a pretty bad plan compared to lets get people interested in our game excited about it so they spread the word to others.

I honestly believe that most people on these forums who are bothered by these "sexist commercials" most likely haven't even been with a woman and need to whiteknight in a futile attempt to get some cheap sympathy points. Once you're through puberty and all those awkward phases you realize pretty soon that while female bodies are great, it's not like finding El Dorado.

Is there a similar idea for racism? If I point out something is racist is the first assumption that I don't really know any (members of demographic X) and I'm just trying to win points with them? It couldn't possibly be that this is something I in fact think for its own sake no it has to be some ulterior motive to get women interested in me.

I doubt even my most hardcore feminazi friends would take any offense of ANY of your crappy examples. It's not that I picked the weakest, it's that your whole post is a joke and you failed to realize it.

If you'd bother posting like a decent person, maybe I wouldn't have picked your post apart.

I'm sure those friends love being compared to Nazis. One of them can explain to you whats wrong there. Now I'll admit not my most effortful post but in my defense it was 1am and I'd spent most of the evening breaking down 3 videos and discussing their flaws so you got a short changed, sorry. Hopefully this makes up for it.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

I think it's pretty stupid and gross, would not buy.
Also, the tits look terrible!

Still, they probably just did this to get attention for the game.

Mission successful on the attention grab, then. Sex sells and it's an undeniable fact of life; Deep Silver just capitalized on it.

As for the tits, I must agree. Only real ones perk my interest.

OT: I would like to pull a Susan Arendt, but in a more specific direction: How many women are going to buy this? Like Susan, I'm curious to know this answer.

When purchasing games, I take into account what the publisher and developer history has been towards its customers. Anyone familiar with the "coding incident" surrounding their previous game will know the reason that I won't purchase any of their games. This latest bit is just more of the same stupidity that I've come to expect from this company.

 

[mad825]

It's sad, it's stupid but ffs just move-on with you miserable lives.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

Probably one of those "this seemed like a good idea at the time" things. I don't see much wrong with it, but it isn't something I'd want sitting on my desk or anything.