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UPDATE: Italian-American Group Wants To Stop Release Of Mafia II
UPDATE:
UNICO's Andre DiMino is taking credit for low turnout at Mafia II's launch party, saying "I have no doubt our efforts resulted in the Mafia II Launch Party, at the 92nd Street Y's Tribeca Center, being a dismal failure."
According to the UNICO press release, the party was sparsely attended and no Take Two executives were present. DiMino says "I believe the combined result of our activities was that, without acknowledging our efforts, both Take Two and the 92nd Street Y became very hesitant to heavily promote ethnic bashing in this very public way. The lack of media coverage for the launch party is another indicator that they pulled back on promoting this event."
ORIGINAL STORY:
Citing "inappropriate and insulting perpetuation of the pervasive and denigrating stereotype of organized crime being the exclusive domain of Italians and Italian Americans," Italian-American advocacy group UNICO National wants to stop the release Mafia II.
"Why would [Take-Two] foist a game on their target audience of young people wherein they will indoctrinate a new generation into directly associating Italians and Italian Americans with violent, murderous, organized crime, to the exclusion of all the other 'mafias' run by other ethnic and racial groups? We are demanding they halt the release of the game and cleanse it if all references to Italians and Italian Americans," said UNICO's Andre DiMino.
Surely they can't expect their complaints to stop the release of a high-profile video game that's due out in less than a week. Take Two's chairman Strauss Zelnick doesn't seem too concerned, responding with "Mafia 2 tells a compelling story about organized crime in America - a subject that for decades has been featured in movies, television shows and novels. Neither UNICO nor any other organization purporting to represent Italian-Americans has seen or played Mafia 2."
Personally, I preferred the actual Yakuza's take on Yakuza 3, which boiled down to them just making fun of the game.
Source: 1up
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