If this is off topic, I apologize, but has anyone else noticed how sexist and homophobic the new Anarchy Online advertising is? skyscraper banners of women in bathing suits saying, "I got Implants!" Or the comic stip one in which someone playing an elf get's called, "gaaaaay."
It's pretty obvious who this game is being marketed to now. 15 year old boys.
heheheeheh meeeeeeeeooooow
Sex SELLS. Nuff Said.skyscraper banners of women in bathing suits saying, "I got Implants!"
Guess you don't read PVP Online then huh?. Scott Kurtz, author and artist of HIGHLY successful online gaming strip creates about 90% of all the advertisements that go up on his webcomic site. The characters in that particular advertisement are two characters in his strip. His webcomic gets roughly 50,000 unique visitors a day. I think its extremely smart that FunCom targeted a site known for its highly popular gaming comic strips.Or the comic stip one in which someone playing an elf get's called, "gaaaaay."
Check it out. If you have time, go read the entire archive from start to finish. It'll take you about a week, but some of the strips will make you laugh so hard, you'll fall out of your chair.
http://www.pvponline.com
(insert foot into mouth)
I couldn't care less.
I wish AO well with it's new audience of young horny homophobes.
hehehe
Being ignorant should be painful
It is painful...but only for the non-ignorant.
I have only seen two of these where can I see them?!
LOL. Excellent quip!!Originally posted by NightShade
It is painful...but only for the non-ignorant.
well I gave the url of one place you can see them above. The other place is www.gamespydaily.com
I've gotta agree with Starglide on this one. A friend of mine who was in AO for the first 4 months of its existence (and beta) who is homosexual really got upset and depressed by all the homophobic language used on the various channels, including the one in the guild he unfortunately joined. To have the company reinforce that kind of abuse is pretty pathetic!Originally posted by Starglide
I couldn't care less.
I wish AO well with it's new audience of young horny homophobes.
Scorus
The ads are great.Don't be such a heterophobe!
Last edited by Paldorr; Jan 28th, 2002 at 15:29:42.
"Life is too short to drink bad ale."
Scorus, you get homophobic language due to the immature teenage boys who play this game. You will in fact get this in ANY MMOG.
Scott Kurtz' (author of PVP Online) tailors his ads with characters from his strip. That way fans of the site will be able to identify with the sponsors (in this case FunCom) more easily and will more than likely click on the ad than if it were just some random banner that everyday people ignore.
The character who is saying "gaaaay" is Francis, who in the strip is an immature 16 year old boy who plays Quake and UT all day. He embodies 90% of the idiots you meet online and ingame. Hence the stereotypical homophobic comment.
And if your friend was upset about the gay comment, I can imagine what he goes through everyday in real life is worse than the comments he received in a virtual world. Not everyone you meet in real life or virtually is going to be nice or homo-sensitive, get used to it.
As for the "I've got implants baby" ad... the majority of all gamers are male somewhere in the ages of 14-35 and most likely heterosexual. Any idiot who knows anything about advertising know that you have to tailor ads to appeal to the majority and advertise on sites/magazines where your target group is most likely to frequent. In this case, an online news site and a webcomic about Gaming. Sorry if they offended you, but not every ad will appeal to everyone. Its a marketing ploy, not homophobia.
If you want more insight go read www.pvponline.com
Careful, you might actually think its funny.
- Ignorance should be painful
meow meow meow.....unmeow...meow...unmeow
Then by using this ad Funcom is trying to appeal to the stereotypical homophobe. The thrust of the ad is that you are gay if you play fantasy games instead of AO.Originally posted by Sohjiro
The character who is saying "gaaaay" is Francis, who in the strip is an immature 16 year old boy who plays Quake and UT all day. He embodies 90% of the idiots you meet online and ingame. Hence the stereotypical homophobic comment.
'Get used to it' doesn't equate to don't try and change things. The acceptance of the homosexual community has made incredible advances over the last 30 years with openly gay people, clubs and even television and movie characters. I recognize that many of the players in these games are very young and leading very sheltered lives, when they get into college and then the real world they will meet real homosexual people and many of them will begin to understand and hopefully correct their own prejudices.And if your friend was upset about the gay comment, I can imagine what he goes through everyday in real life is worse than the comments he received in a virtual world. Not everyone you meet in real life or virtually is going to be nice or homo-sensitive, get used to it.
But none of that excuses a company from using homophobic advertising. Perhaps the cartoonist is making fun of homophobia with that character, but the ad itself will be viewed by a lot of people who don't know that background.
The more I see from Funcom, the more it seems they are just taking gamers with no experience in things like customer service and advertising and hoping they can do the job. I love the idea of the employees of a company intimately understanding the industry, but experience in their particular job has to come first.
Scorus
Say what you will they are great ads - and very nice implants
ANd now......girls on trampolines.....
"Life is too short to drink bad ale."
Ugh. Yes thats what I'm trying to say the entire time. The artist uses this type of advertising on HIS site. No one elses. And if you actually READ the strip like I suggested you would understand that its all a joke that only frequent fans/readers of the webcomic would understand. Stop arguing. Just STOP. Go read PVP online. When you're done reading the entire archive, come back here and try to argue some more. Until then your points have no validity since you are not familiar with PVP Online, its characters, or the humor the author tries to portray. FunCom did not create the ad. Scott Kurtz did. If it gets PVP Online's readers to click on it and sign up for the game, I don't think FunCom would care.But none of that excuses a company from using homophobic advertising. Perhaps the cartoonist is making fun of homophobia with that character, but the ad itself will be viewed by a lot of people who don't know that background.
By the way, it was ONE banner. Not a slew of online ads aimed to damn homosexuals everywhere. Jesus, lighten up.
No no. Don't hit reply until you read the strip. When you do, feel free to come back here and make an ass of yourself.
Disclaimer: I Sohjiro apologize to any homosexuals that I inadvertantly offended with my harsh logic. Thank you.
Also, I apologize to any Christians I offended with my "Jesus, lighten up" comment. Heaven forbid I use the lord's name in vain.
- Ignorance should be painful
have u sex with a leet?))Originally posted by Starglide
If this is off topic, I apologize, but has anyone else noticed how sexist and homophobic the new Anarchy Online advertising is? skyscraper banners of women in bathing suits saying, "I got Implants!" Or the comic stip one in which someone playing an elf get's called, "gaaaaay."
It's pretty obvious who this game is being marketed to now. 15 year old boys.
Hi,
Most game companies target their markets to teenage boys, no surprise there. Need I say, Return to Castle Wolfenstein? Whats the deal with the big breated Nazi Ninjas, did we *really* need to see that in order to buy the game? That kind of thing does not interest me, but the fact is I did enjoy the game, because it was well put together and fun to play.
As someone else in this thread perfectly put it, the sexist, racist, bigoted and homophobic types that this kind of advertising seems to attract is prevelant in all the major games [UT/Q3/Tribes 2] its the nature of the beast. It's not the fault of the advertising itself (i.e. its not a causal factor) its the players themselves not the medium. But I think everyone here understands that.
But it should be noted that inherently, ~10% of the playing population is gay, including teenagers. Don't know how it is in other countries but homophobia at the teenage level are very high in schools [though it varies highly], would be nice to go into a game to escape such grief inflicted in the classroom, yet it slaps you in the face again anyways in game. Most of this is caused by American children who are not taught respect for others, certainly not Funcom's fault. And what about women, what is their percentage in game? I bet it's higher than most think and it's got to be higher than 10%. Unless your a Lesbian the advertising Funcom is using will not attract women, in fact just the opposite. Most firms like Forrester Research herald women as the future big billion dollar windfall for games (ala The Sims) and you can bet that includes (and perhaps especially) MMORPGs!
Your probably never going to see a gay or female oriented MMORPG because first of all it does not make sense from a business perspective, it costs too much to make a game or run an MMORPG for a relatively small niche market and besides, the fact is really most of that demographic enjoys the same kind of gameplay everyone else does! The sole difference is the games we play caters to one narrow path; Straight White Males and so far no game that I've seen [FPS/MMORPG] offers any diversity
in that regard.
From the original advertising I always was under the impression that AO was to be a bit more of a "mature" game with that kind of audience [Not older neccessarily, just more mature] each certainly does not preclude sexism and racism, et. al.) but the "hard core" FPS type crowd would likely not like AO. I suspect Funcom deserves some credit for bringing a diverse play base (whether they wanted it or not), not matter how you slice it there's alot of science fiction fans out there waiting for something like AO. I think for the most part I can safely say it's why most if not all of us are here right now.
Now a question to you all; What if a game like AO introduced elements that would cater to that diverse base [god forbid there was something introduced for gay players and women], would that drive away the straight white male players? I suspect this is what companies like Funcom fears and I'm not sure those fears are justified. It's a matter perhaps of NOT "getting it thrown in your face" so to speak.
As for the chat channels, well what can you do. Any player that is being abusive, racist or what have you is a clear violation of Funcom's terms and conditions and they should be /petitioned against. Now as going into the nuiances of "oh thats gay" etc, well what can you do. Again I think it's mostly an American thing, a habit parents and teachers seem to care not to make any effort to break. Being gay is going to be equated as something bad for a long time to come as long as people just dont care (or in many cases, quietly applaude it).
I am a bit surprised the somewhat negatively toned "TAG" article about the meeting between Ross and Radiman did not raise a few forum posts as being slightly anti-gay, probably unintended but it's how it came across and made no sense being mentioned in the context of the article. But one thing I noticed, the kids sure picked up on it right away, I heard that quote over and over again for a week after. It's that kind of small thing that makes you wonder who they are catering to and what kind of message they are trying to send.
So bottom line is for that kind of thing, if a player says something I dont want to hear I can /ignore them and go about playing the game I love.
My message to Funcom would be to rethink their target market strategy and concentrate on giving the game some meat that ALL the players have been calling for around the world. I still believe this game could enjoy a significant increase in player base but it needs internal work, not targeting to the hormone enraged youth to accomplish the task.
Regards,
Avatarius
Last edited by Avatarius; Jan 28th, 2002 at 22:01:26.
Perfect example:
That blonde chick with the staff and the large breasts on the cover of ALL the Everquest boxes. God they've done her to death.
- Ignorance should be painful
Sohjiro Founder and Advisor of Synergy Factor
Gimp Adventurer Extraordnaire.
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But in the end, they're still nothing more than video games My wife's experiment and journey into the addictiveness of Anarchy Online.
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