takkun169

@bunnymud: The most twisted part of having these guns in games is who is paying whom. If a publisher is looking to get a bit of money for product placement, the contact Coke or Nike or whoever, depending on the type of game. Then said company pays the publisher so for that product to feature somewhere hopefully prominently, inside the game. Ta-da, everyone is happy (well, except for us who are being advertised to because, lets be honest... it rarely fits well).

The people who commented for that article, all said that they essentially see their product being included in these games as advertising to young prospective buyers. So why are the publishers paying the gun manufacturers to advertise their products? Shouldn't it be the other way around? If I were some one who ran a company that had to pay to have my product included in a game, I would be super fucking pissed. But this may be the best way to get these licensed guns out of games. Start making the gun manufacturers actually have to pay for their advertising. First off, they would be beholden to certain rules as far as what ways they can advertise (alcohol and tobacco companies sponsor racing teams but cannot be included in games because they cannot advertise their products to children). Secondly they may not be so ready to actually have to pay out for that sort of thing.

Game publishers need to open their eyes to the fact that they are paying to advertise some one else's products.

@EnduranceFun: They should FUCK OFF. Not a single one of them said anything of real value.

@TheDudeOfGaming: Women can't do it by themselves simply because they are not the ones who need to change. What these women are doing is trying to instigate the change by bringing attention to it. The thing about discrimination is that it doesn't have to come from a place of hatred, it often stems from ignorance. I'd be willing to bet that 80% of the offenders don't even realize that they are in fact being discriminatory, and that denial is a HUGE part of the problem.

@Alorithin: Then you probably shouldn't be here.

I really have to say that I am surprised and disgusted by the amount of hate that this article is getting. If you feel like this is something that you don't want to read, or that it doesn't belong on Giant Bomb, then you are precisely the person who should be reading it and it is exactly where it needs to be. It takes an extreme amount of courage to put one self out on a limb, and own up to it, the way that these ladies have, and to brush it off like it's not an issue even worth addressing or talking about, shows how far we, as a community and society at large, need to go.

@Bizzama: Unfortunately, too many times it is the publishers who make the call for male protagonists. I read an article in, I think it was Edge Magazine, about it and a few developers had sounded off on the issue saying that their games were originally designed with female protagonists and the publishers (I'm sure we could all guess which ones) came in and told them to change it because games with women leads don't sell. It's a pretty ugly state of affairs in this industry and I really hope that the more attention being brought to it through efforts like this have a positive impact.

@gesi1223: Dumbass, what do you think this is?

@jasondesante: Then brush up on your grammar.

The question that this entire situation brings up is "What is Microsoft's certification process for?" The certification process takes weeks and they didn't catch the problem, so what was that time spent on? If they say your first patch is free and then they certify it even though it has an issue with it, that seems like it was Microsoft's fuck up, or they let it through so that they could get paid on top of their cut of what the game makes. It's a shame because the game is fantastic but as usual Microsoft is out for self, and not sensible or flexible with the rules and guidelines they put in place.

I absolutely LOVE that they gave their own comparison shot.

"We'll show you a picture of different thing and you'll see how different they are."