EA Cuts Ties With Gun Manufacturers

What are you even trying to say? This post makes little to no sense.

Nobody really cared before nor do they after..... what exactly is the 'news' here?

Likeness/design are well protected in the firearm industry and has been enforced by law with increasing regularity. I doubt they care about most smaller games using their IP, but someone large like Activision and EA making money off their property would likely cause a lawsuit.

Good, I guess? Does it really change anything? I've got to think that the money they were getting from game licensing was pretty small.

I seem to be missing the point of this story. Is it just that EA don't want to pay to use real guns / gun brands anymore? Or was there more to these 'official ties'?

@joey said:

I think they should do what Elevator Action Returns did and just intentionally misspell the names of guns:

Or any weapon from GoldenEye 007

Finally gun manufacturers won't have the negative PR of being associated with EA.

They are doing this because they typically have to pay for license fees, but since nearly all guns have a royalty-free military model, they can just use those.

Saving money, the EA way. That's all this is.

Did Patrick get the headline wrong? Shouldn't it say EA games won't include real guns?

I thought EA was gonna replace all the guns in their games with PEZ dispensers.

@robo: If you think this decision was made in a vacuum, your head must be in one. With "the national conversation about guns" playing out on TV and in DC plenty of NRA lobbyists have been trying to blame video games. By giving money to gun companies publishers are funding the very people attacking their business interests in Congress and in the court of public opinion. It's like if your house is on fire and you're buying gasoline to pour on it.

Just in case someone hasn't read the excellent Simon Parkin Eurogamer article:

Shooters: How Video Games Fund Arm Manufacturers

@sleepydoughnut: No because they're still going to try to include real guns and their manufacturers, under the reasoning of free speech, but now they just won't be paying rights to use them. If they weren't to feature real guns anymore, the article could be called "EA to not use real guns anymore" but all this is is the cutting off of whatever business relationship was there that let them use irl guns.

Nothing gained nothing lost. When a game uses real branded guns I have always wanted their behavior and "stats" base closely on the real life counterpart or relative to other guns in the game. But they are usually balanced or made to serve a certain role because of gameplay and balance reasons.

Authenticity is a fleeting dream since no one is more authentic than kid rock.

I can always continue to use my AJ-45 assault blaster-thingy.

@kevitivity: yeah if they did they would make another bad company. oh well.............

@doctorchimp said:

You'll just have to content yourself with the associated Linkin Park cut.

No, it says in the article their games will still include "branded" guns, but with no legal connection between companies.

So if flaunting trademark rights is now "freedom of speech" then I guess Remington can make Medal of Honor & Battlefield 4 edition rifles without EA's sayso? I mean, it's only fair, right?

I'd rather see guns try to be crazy than attempt to emulate reality. I'm lookin' at you, Saints Row IV, do me proud.

Assault weapons were not used in the Sandy shootings contrary to what our leaders tell you. Never the less, this will have zero impact in either direction.

@bunnymud: Uh, I'm pretty sure the guy used a semi-auto rifle. Just because it's not fully automatic, doesn't make it less of an assault weapon.

Patrick should probably have mentioned that the vast majority of the guns in EA's games are military weapons with government designations, and as a result not covered by any kind of copyright law.

Yeah, good luck with that as well EA.

Would the US military even be able to sue companies like EA if they wanted to? I have very little legal knowledge but it seems to me that since those guns were developed using tax payer money the rights would some how belong to the general public, similar to how something like a government built dam is public property.

@patrickklepek I think it would be useful to mention that EA had official endorsements with weapons-manufacturers for previous games. Without that background info, the actual change that is occurring is unclear.

Soooo angry about EA and guns!!!

Can I still look through a holographic sight manufactured by the fine folks at EOTech™? Or am I stuck with the overrated hacks at Magpul?

Is it really so hard/wrong for games to just make up their own guns? even realistic ones? I never understood why anyone gave a crap about weapons in games looking like the real thing. Better to be more creative.

Because Rainbow Six put us on a path of having realistic weapons way back in 1998.

Source: http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Rainbow_Six

Violence happens for no reason other than we are compelled to violence as a result of instinctual, irrational urges from our subconscious mind. Violence has happened for tens of thousands of years. People have killed other people for as long as there has been people around to kill each other. Blaming anything other than evolutionary processes for violence is a fools errand, born from an irrational desire to understand and be in control of everything.

I wouldn't say this is EA sticking it to the NRA as much as EA saving its own skin.

Either way, I think the world is better without EA getting payouts from weapons manufacturers.

@fiercedeity: True, but ARMA's the exception, not the rule.

ARMA may be for gun nuts, but I'd argue that CoD and Battlefield players don't really care about realistic gun models and firing simulations.

Just about every gun that is made nowadays is semi-automatic, aside from bolt-action rifles and revolvers. Semi-automatic just means you can fire it more than once before having to reload.

It was a waste of money in the first place, part of the whole "authenticity" MoH was trying to cram down everyone's throat. Now that the franchise has self-destructed, it's time to wipe the slate clean and pretend it never happened.

I think this is great of them. It was always a really questionable business deal, and it comes with the added benefit of sending a clear message to the general public that a large publisher isn't afraid to take some responsibility for itself when the time is right.

@darkstorn: As a former CoD player and current Battlefield player I will tell you that I get a lot of satisfaction from using real guns in those video games.

I have a gun collection and it is really nice to use one that I own in a video game. I don't mind if it is there under it's military name though.

As someone who shoots real guns, the whole "real guns in video games" thing was always kind of stupid. I don't think this really matters much besides not being to use the names of real guns... I don't think this really matters at all to be honest.

So, by EA's logic I could use EA characters or at least footage from their games freely in commercial projects?

I don't get the reasoning behind this. By not using the actual weapons they're doing two things, firstly they're being cheap cunts that don't want to dish out some royalty money from their billion dollar empire and secondly it just seems like they're accepting blame for what happened in December. It's just going to ruin authenticity from the modern shooters that they're going to put out when they have something that looks like an M4, shoots like an M4, but it's called a "Commando".

More importantly is the blame game issue, and I flat out fucking refuse to be lumped into the same category as Adam Lanza because I play the odd violent game. Freedom of Speech, at this point, is an elaborate illusion. You can't so much as wipe your own ass without offending somebody. Guess what, most gamers haven't killed 20 children, but up to 60% of serial killers or mass murderers have kept some written record of their plans to commit their atrocities. Should we ban the written word then? No. Gaming should be put into that same category, but it seems that companies like EA would rather roll over and die taking everybody else along with them.

This shouldn't be applauded or looked at with envy, this should be torn apart at the fucking seams for the absolute insurmountable level of hypocrisy that it contains. You do not get to just jump off the fucking boat after making a fortune.

You know enjoying using guns you personally own in a videogame to shoot people in the face may come off as a tad unsettling.

I'm no gun nut, not by any means whatsoever. I don't have a gun, nor do I ever plan to get one, but I always thought it was pretty cool for shooters to have real guns if it's supposed to depict a real-life scenario, or something very realistic that COD and Battlefield try to portray. I always appreciated the authenticity.

@greggd: Assault weapon is just a meaningless buzz word. It is a fuzzy and rather pointless category that falsely implies something is too dangerous to be sold to civliians A Ruger ranch mini-14 does the same thing that an AR-15 does. The AR-15 is called an assault weapon an the Ruger ranch mini-14 is called a varmint rifle. 'Assault weapon' was developed because to the ignorant, it SOUNDS like Assault Rifle which is a military designation for a select fire weapon. The confusion was intentional.

EA is retarded, cant see them getting away with this, there just going to burn there bridges with gun manufactures and then they will take a beating next time they want to license something.

Maybe it's just me, but I find it weird when anyone uses the word "departed" and doesn't mean it as a synonym for deceased.

There is literally nothing to be gained by having the names of real guns in your video game.

Yet TV shows and Films don't have to do this, they can feature buildings, products and cars in their films without having to pay for them, in some cases companies pay the film/tv show to feature their products.

Why is it different for games?

There is as much to be gained as having the names of real countries, or companies.