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EA Enjoys Fox News Controversy
A little over a month ago Fox News ran a story that suggested Bulletstorm is the worst game ever made. It isn’t, according to our review at least. Countless video game enthusiasts even stood in defense by torpedoing the Amazon book page of one of the interviewed experts. Despite the gaming community's backlash, EA is going on the record and saying this type of controversy should be sought after.
"We love Fox News. They're bold... I'm serious," said Frank Gibeau, president of EA games.
If that seems like an odd reaction to all the hullaboo, Gibeau explains. "Look, when you're building new IPs and you're building games and you're looking at an entertainment audience, they see a lot of messages. Controversy isn't a bad thing. I personally believe you should court controversy. You should do it in a way that matches the creative integrity of the game. You shouldn't do it in a gratuitous way, but if it matches the creativity of the game... I loved it when Fox News did the lesbian aliens on Mass Effect. I love when they covered the Taliban; I loved it when they covered the Bulletstorm stuff. In each one of those cases, it was true to the game and we were trying to do something creatively."
"The fact that their point of view is different than ours and represented an audience out there is fine by me," he explains. "I felt we could stand up and defend what we did and be aggressive about it and be proud of it."
Gibeau discusses that despite not agreeing with Fox News’s stance, he understands that they’re trying to “get eyeballs on their channels.”
EA’s positive response to the controversy generated by Fox News shouldn’t come as a complete surprise. The company ran commercials with moms staring in dismay at the grotesque scenes of Dead Space 2, after all.
Source: Industry Gamers [via 1up]
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